I agree with everything you're saying, but one of the key social decisions I think that scientists need to make in this regard is to maintain deliberate neutrality on controversial political issues which aren't directly related to their field of expertise. Distrust towards science can't be prevented or mitigated in an environment where journals endorse presidential candidates.
The real problem is not journals endorsing presidential candidates, it’s the other way around. It’s the political class funding various think tanks and institutions to steer research the way they want to influence public opinion (which has been done for more than a century). And let’s not forget that the majority of the scientific advancements we had in the 20th century were made by military research!
And if you look at historically famous scientists of the past 400 years, many of them had interest in politics and were quite politically active. That doesn’t prevent them from doing objectively good research, but it definitely guides what kind of research they are doing.
