David E. Bernstein: "Why The American Establishment Has Lost Credibility"

[Now with more link!]
Its double-standards on racism, for one thing. Its double-standards with respect to truth and science, for another:

What about the fact that Trump shows little interest in truth, and his supporters are too quick to dismiss expert and scientific opinion, that they try to bend the truth to their political agenda? As Gail Heriot has recounted on this blog, a psychology professor at Brown (and you can't get more establishment than the Ivy League) published a peer-reviewed article suggesting that at least some teens who claim transgender identity do so as a matter of social contagion rather than because they were "born that way." After complaints from transgender activists, Brown apologized for issuing a press release touting the study, and the journal that published the study announced it would review it further. Establishment voices that are usually raised very quickly at any hint of the politicization of science from right-wing political sources were notably silent. But can you imagine the reaction if the study had been one favorable to, say, same-sex marriage, and the same thing had happened after conservative evangelical Christian activists complained?