For the last couple of weeks I’ve had a Talking Heads lyric stuck in my head:
Our president’s crazy
Did you hear what he said
Business and pleasure
Lie right to your face
Divide it in sections
Well, David Byrne could have written that yesterday — but it was 1983. “Divide it in sections” indeed: this is what has happened to the United States. We are engaged in a cold civil war; education should be the way out, but the GOP long ago declared war on public schools. The ability (and willingness) to examine facts and arguments critically before accepting them, is a crucial skill in civic life. It is the civic equivalent of the scientific method — but the GOP has declared war on science, too.
There’s also this gem of a lyric two or three lines later; the conspiracy theorists really should take it to heart:
There are no big secrets
Don’t believe what you read
Problem is, they don’t believe what they read unless it originates in their addled, paranoid echo chamber.
Common Cents 
“A war on education” is heartbreaking and true. I was so incensed by the war on science that I neglected to notice the war on education until quite recently. But as you point out, science here is later and secondary.
It’s all of a piece. I notice that the “anti-elite” rhetoric usually comes from people who were educated at places like Harvard, Yale, Duke…. So it’s fine for them, just not for their constituents.