In order for all of this to work cleanly, you need the everyman taken care of and actually willing to participate and have hope for the future. Until then you'll just get a slew of likely underhanded populists, because they at least pretended to care.
That's why you need smart people who care planning things. Miss out on either of those and you're going to fail. And right how we have people "planning" things who are neither smart nor caring.
Because scientific industries form a part of the US economy and hire a great many average Americans! And when you employ a good number of people there are a bunch of connected industries you spend money with, who in turn employ a lot of average Americans.