America is plagued by experts without expertise

Overall, the conversation, with its references to “a certain demographic” and “these people,” had a strangely disembodied and abstract air, as if describing the exotic inhabitants of a remote land. And in a way that was the case. Most of the discussants live and work in the Acela corridor, removed both geographically and materially from the lives of those on whom they were so confidently pronouncing. Tellingly, no one from the demographic in question was present to comment.

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The Morning Joe crew, in turn, is part of another demographic that has become prominent in the world of the media, the academy, think tanks, and consultants: experts without expertise. Its members expound on gun culture without knowing anyone who actually owns one; opine on evangelical America without knowing any evangelicals; assess the impact of free trade without having met anyone whose job has moved to Mexico. And their lack of expertise has become all the more glaring in the age of Trump.

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