I see a video snippet of Mike Pence saying “We don’t want CDC guidance to be a reason for not opening schools.” First reaction is WTF not?
The second reaction is that there are two big issues at play here. One is “anti-elitism,” which is a point of view of which there are no experts to trust, everyone should just “go with their gut” or “use common sense.” In most Republican circles “elites” are Democrats or liberals to be ignored out right.
The second issue is relationship between federal and local governments. It’s clear that the Republicans in charge right now think there is no legitimate role for the federal government beyond defense. In their eyes the federal government has no responsibility for solving “big problems” of the nation. In some ways their view of government is more Articles of Confederation than U.S. Constitution. (I find it ironic that a Conservative group calls themselves The Federalist Society but acts more anti-federalist.)
Stated differently, current Republicans take Reagan’s phrase “The Federal government is not the solution, the federal government is the problem” very literally, and apparently lost on them is the irony that the words were spoken by a man seeking the position of being the top person of that federal government.