You are regurgitating almost pure grievance against people who just want to study the universe.

Every researcher in every field all the time wants more data, better studies, more evidence. That is basically what science is.

This attitude about "those damn smug scientists who think they know everything" emerges from authoritarian nationalists selling resentment politics, and it has led to widespread violence against scientists in the past. Its prevalence in Germany is one part of why the US got the bomb first, and its prevalence in the Soviet and Chinese systems is part of why were not able to keep up with us economically (until recently).

This political project actively intends to defend enterprises like JWST (sometimes even after building and launching the damn thing!), and current budgets have dozens of existing projects being shut down for good.

I assume you mean "defund."

Another thing people are unaware of is that the majority of scientists are experimentalists, not theoreticians. Why would we want to be experimental scientists at all?