The answer is obvious. Elite mistakes and problems have always been with us and always will. Why has the distrust become so acute now? Social media clearly plays a role, as do the attempts by some on the right to discredit any sort of expertise. But the author argues that the real reason lies elsewhere.
His basic hypothesis is that experts have done such a good job in making things work that people have lost sight of their accomplishments and only see their failures.
[O]ne of the (many) things our elites have done is to create an intricate web of mechanisms to prevent most people from experiencing adverse consequences from their choices. . . . . This is what’s behind the “discrediting” of the elites: Not an actual discrediting. Just a belief that people can disregard the elites without anything too bad happening to them. They can put the orange man in the White House, or not wear a respirator, or let Russia plunder Europe, or skip vaccinations—and somehow it’ll all work out. Because consequences are a long way off.
This sounds a lot like the intellectual equivalent of Colonel Jessup's rant. "I have neither the time or the inclination to explain myself to a man who walks and sleeps under the blanket of the security my expertise provides and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd rather you just said thank you." And, in fact, a lot of experts really do sound sort of like that. It no doubt plays a role in many people's distrust of experts.
But something else is at work as well. As the author comments, "If you’re an expert who got one thing wrong, it damns you. If you’re a total lunatic crank who gets one thing right, it makes makes you bulletproof." And not only that, but true experts are considered to be part of the "elite" while crank lunatics, whatever their background, are not.
Anthony Faucci was a pharmacist's son who went to Catholic school and Cornell Medical School and worked for a government salary. He is part of the "elite." Elon Musk is the heir to an emerald mine, graduate of boarding schools and an Ivy League college, and the world's richest man, but there is nothing "elite" about him. And RFK, Jr. is a member of the US's largest political dynasty, the son of a Senator and US Attorney General, nephew of a Senator and nephew of a President, Harvard graduate, and environmental lawyer who rubbed shoulders with the country's leading movers and shakers. Apparently he is not part of the elite either.
Something similar has been said of Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson's father was an ambassador and the head of the Voice of America. His step-mother was a senator's niece and an heiress of Swanson Foods. Tucker went to a Swiss boarding school and even asked Hunter Biden to give his son a reference. But, Tucker assured people, he was not part of the elite because he was right-wing and therefore shared ordinary Americans' values.
I suppose one can argue that Fauci is part of the "elite" because he is a specialist and therefore an expert, whereas Musk, Kennedy, and Carlson are not experts (at least not in the fields where they like to comment) and therefore not truly "elite."*
But I think something rather more obvious is going on here. Fauci had an annoying habit of telling people things they didn't want to hear. (That COVID had to be taken seriously). Musk, Kennedy, and Carlson, by contrast, were telling people what they wanted to hear (that COVID was no big deal and was probably a plot to control your lives). And, after all, this is apt to be a pattern. Experts in a field tell people the results of their expert investigation -- which is not infallible, subject to revision as more information becomes known, and frequently does not match up with what people want to hear.
Lunatic cranks, by contrast, tell people exactly what they want to hear and never change their minds about it. Is it any wonder that the lunatic cranks are often better received?
*Presumably even Musk's fans would admit that he is an expert in the tech field, so he must be elite at least in the world of tech.
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