And I won't insult your intelligence by engaging in false equivalency. The situation is the result of an intensive multi-decade multi-billion dollar propaganda campaign on the right to demonize and dehumanize liberals. The result, four decades on, is that conservative "ideology" has devolved into nothing more than the commandment "hate liberals!".
(I hope I'm not going to have to make the case about that, because the totality of it is sickening, from Rush Limbaugh and his hate-mongering ilk to Newt Gingrich's infamous memo upon becoming Speaker, instructing Republicans on the proper language to use to maximally smear liberals and alienate American society from liberalism. And those are just two of the "highlights").
I'm being very serious. There's no more dramatic illustration of the way the smear campaign has cheapened conservative thought than our reversal of positions on science.
Remember the time, so long ago, when you'd characterize liberals as anti-science impractical moonbeams? Fast forward to now, and here's the right's official position on science (evolution specifically, in this clip) as laid down by no less an authority than the Republican chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee:
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"Lies straight from the pit of hell". And most on the right would characterize climate science that way too.
Ya know Rob, sometimes it feels like liberals are in a divorce with a crazy ex who's saying "here, take the house! take the kids! take the money, and everything else good! And I'll take the debts and everything crap!". I mean, thanks for giving us science in the split and all, but I honestly think America would be better off if conservatives would stop rejecting science.
And there's the rub, one of them anyway: How can I peacefully coexist with a group of people who are bitterly hostile to the thing I consider the most precious of humanity's achievements? How can I not think of rightwingers, of Trump's hordes in particular, as barbarians at the gate?
How can there ever be peace between us?