It's real and the problem is on both sides. An earlier example would be the cancellation of the super conducting supercollider in 1993. Not one scientist was able to evoke enough awe to convince the (largely religious conservative) senate committee to continue funding and the project was cancelled.

Regardless the utility of colliders, the result was that all the money that had been spent so far went to waste leaving miles of empty tunnels under Texas and all the scientists in the field ended up going to CERN instead of the US. All because no one in a room full of scientists was able to bring themselves to say something like "this machine will bring us closer to understanding creation than ever before".

It's like that parable of the blind men touching an elephant except they all went home and formed their own separate armed factions.