Plainly we need experts in our very complex world, but we also need those experts to be properly checked and subordinated by others who retain a view of the larger picture. Otherwise it can result in disaster. Experts don’t know when to stop. Their natural trajectory is to go expertizing everything within reach. If they are charged with maintaining clean waterways, they’ll exert authority over every puddle and seek to license beavers.

And nowhere is this battle between ruling experts and a restive public more fierce than in the struggle over K-12 schools. McAuliffe in one short sentence made clear which side he is on. Youngkin likewise. This issue is certainly not the only divergence of the two candidates in the Virginia gubernatorial race, but it may well prove decisive. McAuliffe styles himself as running against Trump or Trumpism. Youngkin mocks him for that, but McAuliffe isn’t all that wrong. Trump voters are at the core of the electorate that is fed up with the self-aggrandizing elite that rules in the name of superior expertise.

And increasingly they are joined by other Americans who doubt that school curricula should fall entirely under the control of credentialed people who believe they know more and know better than parents and the general public. A fair percentage of parents are sufficiently disenchanted with their schools that they’ve elected to homeschool their children. McAuliffe is plainly writing them off.