I see this argumentation as a symptom of a loss of trust of a large swath of the population in the political powers that be, and in the experts they cited.
And it's not because they read it on some (insert derogatory term here) blog or news source. It's because they've seen the flip-flops and "rules for thee but not for me", and on top of that the denials of aforementioned behavior - as compared to what they've seen and experienced, often firsthand.
Trust lost is almost never regained, and especially not by coercion (financial or otherwise).
And this makes my professional life a lot harder. My biggest client advises the Federal Highway Administration on national traffic standards, and so their expert advice may now go unheeded by association.