The nation, according to the American Enterprise Institute, “is experiencing a crisis of expertise.”
The think tank’s latest poll reveals that our countrymen “express remarkably little confidence in many major public institutions that serve crucial functions in civil society,” with only 40 percent “having a great deal or some confidence in the federal government,” less than a third expressing “confidence in national news media,” and 56 percent “being at least somewhat confident that college and university professors act in ways that serve the public’s best interest.” In addition, “many members of the public have become increasingly distrustful of scientific and medical expertise over the past four years.”
Well, duh.
Back in the ‘90s, George Carlin claimed that the Land of the Free’s “leading industry” was “the manufacture, packaging, distribution, and marketing of bullshit,” and warned that if “honesty were suddenly introduced into American life, everything would collapse.”
Funny, and somewhat true, back then. Depressing, and almost entirely true, today. AEI’s survey results — which clearly perturb the neocon policy shop’s Swamp dwellers — indicate that Americans may be reaching their limit with how much bovine excrement elites can shovel their way.
Let’s conduct a brief survey of what “major public institutions” have claimed this century. The aftermath of the 9/11 atrocity is a good place to start. In December, four years will have passed since The Washington Post published what it called “The Afghanistan Papers.” The newspaper’s exploration of how “U.S. officials failed to tell the public the truth about the war” was chilling, and a stark rebuttal to the happy talk three presidential administrations had peddled for 18 years. Now GIs are no longer in country, the Taliban is back in control, and 65 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Republicans believe the conflict “was not worth fighting.” The Iraq quagmire — remember the nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction,” and the prediction that Americans would be welcomed as “liberators” — was costlier and deadlier than the Afghan misadventure.
Staying within “national security,” isn’t Ukraine’s certain defeat of Russia a tad tardy? As 2022 drew to a close, a “senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council” found reasons for “cautious optimism,” since “a number of domestic and international trends … pointed to the possibility of a future Ukrainian victory.” In May, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expected “major gains in the coming days and weeks.” A month and a half later, America’s commander-in-chief boasted that “Putin has already lost the war.” Oops.
On the domestic side, during the Lockdown Era, no economic flimflam peddled to the hoi polloi was more off-base than “don’t worry about inflation.” People who describe themselves as “journalists” often aided the guile. CNBC, in July 2020: “Here’s why economists don’t expect trillions of dollars in economic stimulus to create inflation.” As Michael Maharrey noted, at the time of publication, “the Federal Reserve had expanded its balance sheet from $4 trillion to roughly $7 trillion,” so “correspondent” Elizabeth Schulze was “basically telling you that economists didn’t expect creating inflation to create inflation.” Once the inevitable occurred, plenty of “experts” averred that inflation was merely “transitory.” Wrong again.
The “energy transition,” no meaningful differences between the sexes, black Americas being “hunted in the streets,” face diapers and “social distancing” — in the third decade of the 21st century, the men and women who write laws, set the topics and terms of public discourse, steward science/technology, and run corporate behemoths have a credibility problem that rivals the Five O’Clock Follies.
It’s tempting to search for a sole culprit to explain the ruling class’s separation from reality. Many outsiders prone to paranoia conjure up elaborate, shadowy plots hatched by demonic “globalists.” But as spiked’s Brendan O’Neill trenchantly contended, conspiracy theories are “the comfort blanket the clueless wrap themselves in.” The American establishment’s dissociative disorder stems from a rancid mélange of ideology, greed, arrogance, fragility, and insularity, not Klaus Schwab’s mind-control machine. Defeating the VIPs of Manhattan, McLean, and Malibu won’t require sneaking into the Bohemian Grove. It will take thorough, well-articulated messaging that explains how and why the clique that’s supposed to have all the answers repeatedly bungles the nation’s greatest challenges.
Fortunately, as AEI’s polling makes clear, Americans are receptive to such an appeal. A significant number are aware, even if not consciously, that practitioners of “expertise” abandoned dispassionate disinterest some time ago. Today, those who “run the country” care exclusively about money, power, status, and virtue-signaling.
Carlin was not wrong — America’s had a bullshit problem since the founding. But manure comes in handy when it’s time to grow something new.
It’s pretty strange how almost all the conspiracy theories of recent times have actually been found to be true. The House Republicans now have a 10 year plan to balance our budget and remove all our debt! What is your bet on whether or not the Democrats will go along with it?! That would be zero!! The Democrats want to destroy America and bring in a new Hamas Government! They’ve already polluted the minds of a majority of young college students!! There are times when I’m just happy to be too old to even care anymore!! Americans are STUPID!!
I've got an idea. Let's place more trust in local institutions like the Albuquerque Journal who stopped running the Doonesbury cartoon because it is too "controversial" or the NM state legislature which last had a Republican majority in both houses in 1930.