“We’re all trying to find the guy who did this,” quipped the protagonist dressed as a hot dog in a 2019 comedy sketch, feigning ignorance about who had wrecked a vehicle shaped like a hot dog.

In the sketch, which later became a widely shared meme, the onlookers weren’t fooled by his act. In a similar vein, scientists and the general public might now wisely adopt a skeptical stance, especially in light of the Pew Research Center’s latest annual survey on public confidence in science conducted in November.

The Pew survey revealed that 76 percent of participants expressed either “a great deal or fair amount of confidence” in scientists acting in the public’s best interest. This represents a slight increase from last year, yet it’s still a drop from pre-pandemic levels, indicating that about one in ten Americans have lost confidence in scientists since 2019.

Supporting Science Journalism

If you appreciate this piece, consider backing our top-notch journalism by subscribing. Your subscription helps secure the future of influential stories that shape our understanding of the world and its phenomena.

Why the decline? Pew’s report and numerous articles covering these results overlooked an apparent factor: a persistent propaganda effort initiated by Donald Trump’s allies over the past four years. This campaign aimed to deflect blame from his administration’s flawed response to the COVID pandemic—which has claimed at least 1.2 million American lives—to scientists.

Even our fictional hot dog character would be taken aback by the blatant nature of this scapegoating. It was clearly designed to shield Trump from electoral repercussions. The campaign began with a bold op-ed in USA TODAY by Trump’s economic adviser, Peter Navarro (who was later imprisoned on unrelated charges), inaccurately pinning the blame on then–National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci for numerous missteps in handling the pandemic. This was followed by a barrage of absurdities from Trump’s administration, culminating last June in surreal Congressional hearings where Republican members stopped just short of donning hot dog costumes to grill Fauci, who had played a pivotal role in developing life-saving COVID vaccines.

Yet, the Pew survey indicates that this disinformation campaign resonated with some Republican voters. The falloff in trust among this group is almost entirely responsible for the overall decline, dropping from 85 percent in April 2020 to 66 percent now. This is in stark contrast to those not regularly exposed to revisionist narratives in conservative media, which downplayed the need for masks, social distancing, and vaccinations as essential tools against the virus. Not surprisingly, excess death rates among Republican voters were 1.5 times higher than those among Democrats once vaccines became available.

Rather than acknowledge the role of this disinformation, Pew’s statement attributed the survey findings to perceptions that scientists are poor communicators, as believed by 52 percent of respondents, and the 47 percent who felt that research scientists see themselves as superior to others.

This rationalization mirrors the metaphorical “kick me” sign that scientific institutions seem to have attached to themselves, a sentiment that has brewed distrust since at least 1985, when the UK’s Royal Society issued a report warning of public “hostility, even indifference, to science and technology.” It concluded that scientists must improve their communication with the public.

This advice aligns with responses from scientific leaders to the Pew Survey results. Marcia McNutt of the National Academies of Sciences told the Washington Post, “This gives us an opportunity to reexamine what we need to do to restore trust in science.” A similar sentiment was echoed in a December report by the National Academies on scientific misinformation, which advised scientists and health professionals in public roles to be mindful of how their messages might be misconstrued if taken out of context—or deliberately twisted for political ends.

It’s no secret what’s happening: Just as oil industry-backed legislators have maligned climate scientists for decades to avoid accountability for global warming, a similar dynamic has eroded trust in science. A 2016 study in the American Sociological Review found that the gradual decline in public trust in science from 1974 to 2010 was almost exclusively among conservatives, who often favor limited government. This political stance conflicts with science’s advisory role in regulatory matters, as seen when the FDA resisted Trump’s push for quick approval of unproven COVID treatments. The pandemic’s challenges only intensified this long-standing resentment, fueled by attacks on Fauci and other scientists.

“Surveys are good at measuring attitudes and tracking changes over time, but they’re less adept at identifying the causes behind these changes,” noted Alec Tyson, the survey’s lead author, when asked why Pew didn’t make this link explicit. “While it’s outside our current scope, we are interested in academic efforts to explore how partisan rhetoric and the broader information environment shape public opinion.”

Avoiding the issue doesn’t change the reality that the distrust in science originates from political manipulation. Perhaps the most telling sign of the propaganda’s success is that some Republican politicians have become believers in their own anti-science rhetoric. As Trump prepares for another term, his profoundly unqualified nominees for critical health positions—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a notorious anti-vaccine advocate, and Jay Bhattacharya, who proposed a dangerous COVID management strategy—are alarming indications of the ongoing influence of such disinformation.

“It’s obviously this guy, right,” the police declare at the end of the hot-dog-guy sketch, as they begin their chase. Identifying the source of today’s science distrust should be equally straightforward.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.