@Fizpez, yep. An anecdote which may be related: most of my older family members worked as physicists in the Soviet Union (my grandfather works in Moscow at the same job still, while me and some others emigrated to Canada and are either retired or work in non-science fields such as software design because there isn't much demand for physicists here). Science was one of the things that the USSR made big investments in - Stalin started it off by decreeing that scientists were to be paid an enormous salary (that salary was never once increased after that, so it slowly became less and less profitable to be a scientist, but it was still enough to live on in the 1980s). Anyway, the story I've been told by my grandmother is that when scientists were allowed to go to international conferences and such, and meet the people on the other side of the Iron Curtain whose articles they'd been reading, they were often surprised to see that the researchers whose works they held in highest esteem were, in their own academies, often poor and unappreciated. Low on the totem pole. Which, apparently, wasn't the case in the Soviet system, where talented scientists tended to get promoted even if they had a severe lack of managerial ability and people skills - the two often went together. Which did cause its own problems.

Anyway, the Soviet system collapsed and the US is still standing. The traditional anti-intellectualism of US culture seems to be reasserting itself now that there's no real-world need to be smart. The immigrants are the ones doing most of the thinking, while the locals tend to be good at talking and BSing and less good at doing actual work.

The situation might change if the Chinese investments in science start bearing fruit and the US begins to again feel too vulnerable to allow itself the luxury of being intellectually lazy. But for the past while, the main rival of US society has been (portrayed to be) Islamic fundamentalism, an even more intellectually lazy society. And isn't that the problem? The mighty US is perceived to be threatened by a society whose main differentiating feature is its unwavering, uncompromising faith and belief in one's own idea of the truth. If that's what seems to be beating America, there's a natural tendency to think "hmm, maybe this uncompromising faith stuff is what we need to get back on top again".

Not that it has anything to do with those rich MBA folks. But I bet there'd be more public support for science if the country's main rival was a major scientific power.