A leading scientist slammed Democrats for being just as “delusional” about President Donald Trump as his MAGA supporters are.
Epidemiologist Gabrielle A. Perry spoke with newsletter editor John Stoehr about the Trump administration and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She explained in the latest edition of “The Editorial Board” that Democrats’ claims that Trump is actually “losing” are false.
“It’s delusional. They are as delusional as his supporters are, especially when it comes to the scientific impact of this. Anyone who is truly familiar with cults understands what is happening. You can defeat a man but it is much harder to defeat an idea,” Perry said.
“The president appeals to the baser instincts of a society that has already long been bred to be individualistic. And hyper-individualism is malleable. It is able to see anything happen to someone else and simply be grateful that it is not (yet) you. This man will die one day. But his ideologies will live on, because there has been no meaningful pushback. Even with the courts. If there had been, he would not even be president,” she added.
She went on to explain that the administration is using the constitution to advance “tyranny.”
“The beautiful thing about the constitution is that it is a living breathing document, but it is as useful as toilet paper in the face of tyranny,“ she said. ”The new administration is using that document to rain down tyranny on American citizens, which should make people question the validity of the system we have and the way it operates."
She also sounded the alarm on the spread of misinformation in healthcare as a result of Kennedy’s role in the HHS Department.
“Combine a lack of healthcare professionals, an overloaded healthcare system, and rampant pseudoscientific beliefs, it creates a perfect storm for the collapse of this system,” Perry said.
Perry suggested that the administration could be using the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic to grow more “powerful,” and suggested that the U.S. will not be able to contain the ongoing measles outbreaks.
“This has been studied. The Nazis used the fear and trepidation in the wake of the Spanish flu to rise to power by sowing fear, anti-immigrant sentiments, and more societally,” she said. “And when it comes to science, four years is a lifetime."
“To not have true eyes on the mutations happening, to have an administration being willing to lie to the American people, to have a public willing to set the world on fire as long as the people they have been taught to hate suffer more? Give measles four years to proliferate wildly with no meaningful Epidemic Intelligence Service or public health pushback, we’ll never outrun it,” she said.
Kennedy’s role as head of HHS has been widely scrutinized over his anti-vaccine stances and controversial opinions on diseases and healthcare. He has faced new criticism after he ousted a key panel that oversees the U.S. immunization guidelines.
Kennedy last week announced he would “retire” the entire panel that guides U.S. vaccine policy. He also quietly removed Dr. Melinda Wharton — the veteran Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who coordinated the committee’s meetings.
Two days later, he named eight new people to the influential panel. The list included a scientist who criticized COVID-19 vaccines, a leading critic of pandemic-era lockdowns and someone who worked with a group widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stories by Lauren Sforza
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.