It's delightful that they picked Neil deGrasse Tyson as the representative of the nerds--he's eloquent, calm, and knows how to cut through all the rubbish around some claim or question--but I think it does Tyson a disservice to claim that the National Review was focusing on him because of his race. Was anyone else as prominent advocate for science in 2014--when he was just releasing the new Cosmos series? For that matter, is anyone more prominent now?

To me, Tyson's place as the leading representative of "smarter than thou" seems completely deserved on merit. Who could they have picked instead?

He is smarter than the people at The National Review. Way smarter. And they hate it. (Since then, it's been hilarious to watch him talk to Ben Shapiro.)

And Tyson tells everyone else how to be smarter, too. Which undermines the whole right-wing embrace of repeating something to establish its "truth".

So, I dunno. The right has gone after Fauci to an incredible degree, for instance. I'm not sure I see anything much with Tyson other than he was (and still arguably is) the best and most eloquent spokesperson for a rational evidence-based method and the importance of gaining enough expertise to tackle complex concepts.