The Politicization of Expertise
Experts must address the public’s crisis of confidence.
More than six decades ago, political scientist E. E. Schattschneider argued that “democracy is like nearly everything else we do; it is a form of collaboration of ignorant people and experts.”
Schattschneider was not suggesting that there are two classes of people—deplorables and the enlightened—but instead, he was making a much more complicated argument. It turns out that all of us are ignorant about most things. Take me as an example: I have considerable expertise in various areas of science and technology policy, but I have little knowledge about the history of Taiwan or how air traffic control works.
All of us are mostly ignorant most of the time, and Schattschneider explained that has consequences for democracy and governance: “There is no escape from the problem of ignorance, because nobody knows enough to run the government.” That means there are no philosopher kings or omniscient dictators out there. Governing well requires collaboration among people with different types of expertise and different political views.
It is essential to recognize that expertise is not the same thing as having a credential—like a college degree, a PhD, or an MD.
To succeed, democracy needs all of us. We do not have to agree on everything, but we do have to work together. To paraphrase Walter Lippmann, writing more than a century ago, politics is not about getting people to think alike, but enabling people who think differently to act alike.
It is essential to recognize that expertise is not the same thing as having a credential—like a college degree, a PhD, or an MD. For instance, a parent who dropped out of high school has plenty enough expertise to know if the price of eggs is too high for their household budget, and a migrant farm worker has developed unique skills for harvesting a field. Expertise comes in many forms beyond educational attainment.
Without the collaboration of many millions of people with different types of specialized expertise, society could not function. The pathological politicization of expertise is therefore problematic not simply as a matter of politics but because we need to reconcile expertise with democratic politics for society to function and its citizens to thrive.
In recent years, credential expertise—like many things—has become pathologically politicized. Part of this can be attributed to an overall decrease in public confidence in institutions. But a big part of this also has resulted from degreed and credentialed experts choosing to become overt partisans and promoting a political agenda far removed from the expressed values of most Americans.
Of course, partisan academics and scientists are only part of the picture—a lot of fuel has been added to the political conflagration over expertise by the mainstream media and Republicans more than happy to use experts as boogeymen for political gain. In my work, I focus on the institutions that credentialed experts inhabit—such as universities, companies, research labs, and science organizations. Experts can’t control the media or politicians, but we do control the institutions that we lead.
In recent decades, these organizations have chosen to become more overtly partisan and political. A seemingly predictable result has been that the public has come to view science and academia as more partisan and political, with consequences for confidence and trust in credentialed experts and the institutions they inhabit.
Consider trust in science performed by colleges and universities by reported ideological inclination, as shown in the figure below, published in 2024 by AEI’s Center for Technology, Science, and Energy.
Extreme liberals have the most trust in colleges and universities, and extreme conservatives have the least. Between the two extremes exists a clear decreasing relationship across the ideological spectrum. In stark contrast, the same survey revealed no relationship between ideology and public trust in drug or tech companies. But science performed by the federal government does show a similar relationship as shown for colleges and universities above.
Dropping public confidence in science and technology is not just about ideology, as trust has fallen within most groups, except for highly educated, affluent, and liberal whites. The same AEI survey of public trust in science and technology reported,
From January 2019 to May 2023, the percentage of Hispanic Americans expressing a great deal or some confidence in scientists dropped from 82 percent to 61 percent. The pattern is similar for black Americans—from 85 percent to 69 percent over that same period. Generally, non-white Democrats are half as likely as white Democrats to express a great deal of confidence in scientists.
There is also a sharp educational divide. The AEI poll indicated educational attainment was as important for confidence in scientists as party affiliation was, as shown in the figure below.
Among those who report very little confidence in colleges and universities, concern about “political agendas” tops the list, according to a 2024 Gallup Poll.
The politicization of expertise can occur anywhere on the political spectrum. The first weeks of the Trump administration have seen Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team take a sledgehammer to many federal institutions, including by firing credentialed experts who work public health, aviation safety, and supporting agriculture. If deleterious real-world outcomes result—related to, for instance, public safety or inflation—the public backlash will be fast and furious. The MAGA demonization of expertise may have helped Donald Trump to win a second term in office, but it likely will not be as effective politically or practically as a governing method.
One thing to watch as 2025 unfolds is whether drug and tech companies suffer the same fate of pathological politicization among the public observed with universities, as leaders from these sectors explicitly associate themselves with MAGA Republicans. A recent Gallup Poll shows some signs this is happening—in early February, 73 percent of Republicans polled expressed a favorable view of Elon Musk, with 85 percent of Democrats polled viewing him unfavorably. Once again, we learn that anyone or anything is readily politicized.
The underlying dynamics of the politicization of expertise have been well documented. A 2023 study by Sam Zacher of Yale University concludes, “Affluent Americans used to vote for Republican politicians. Now they vote for Democrats.” And Ruy Teixeira of AEI published an article titled, “White College Educated Democrats Are Overwhelmingly Liberal, Nonwhite Working Class Democrats Are Overwhelmingly Moderate or Conservative.” College professors and scientists are also overwhelmingly white college-educated Democrats.
As Teixeira often says, “It’s not rocket science” to understand why many have become disaffected by partisan experts. The credentialed, expert class has aligned itself with the policy positions of progressive Democrats, which are out of step with the views of most Americans outside this small slice of the population. It can be no surprise then that those who share the political views of experts have the most confidence in them, and those who do not express much less confidence. In the lingo of soccer, experts have scored an “own goal.”
The politicization of expertise is just one aspect of the contemporary political dynamics of Republicans and Democrats among the public. A New York Times poll last month indicated that most Americans prioritize issues such as the economy and immigration, which they believe to be priorities of Republicans, but not Democrats—who they see as prioritizing progressive issues such as abortion, LGBT policy, and climate change. It can be no coincidence that the views most Americans associate with Democrats are also those championed by the most overtly partisan professors and scientists.
Academia and science have seen profound changes. For instance, more than 50 years ago, academia was populated by faculty across the political spectrum. According to one 1968 study, faculty in physical sciences and fine arts were just about evenly split among Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated. Even the behavioral scientists reported being more than 20 percent Republican. By 2011, according to a study by Northeastern University’s Matthew Nisbet, members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science—the nation’s largest science organization—self-reported ideological and partisan views aligned with the most liberal Democrats and far from those of the general public. Only 6 percent reported being registered Republicans. Academia has only become more unbalanced in the years since.
What can be done to depolarize public confidence in experts and institutions that require expertise to function, thereby facilitating a healthy democratic collaboration between “ignorant people” and “experts”?
It can come as no surprise that as the expert class has come to overwhelmingly support progressive Democratic politics and openly oppose conservatives (and even centrist Democrats), those expressing the most confidence in experts are progressive Democrats, and those who have lost confidence include everyone else.
What can be done to depolarize public confidence in experts and institutions that require expertise to function, thereby facilitating a healthy democratic collaboration between “ignorant people” and “experts”?
I have three suggestions.
First, leaders in the credentialed expert community—college presidents, presidents of scientific organizations, and public intellectuals—need to be much more vocal in expressing that academic and scientific institutions serve all of the public, not just those who happen to share the values and orientation held by most academics and scientists. Leaders need also to push back vigorously against those in academia and science institutions who seek to use those institutions to wage political war with their fellow citizens.
Second, politicians and the media should stop using science and scientists as convenient political wedge issues for partisan gain. A good example is the debate over COVID-19 origins, which was immediately politicized in partisan terms, creating obstacles to an expert-led investigation of the world’s worst pandemic in a century. Remarkably, we still do not know the origin with certainty, although the picture is slowly becoming clearer.
Third, credentialed experts need to make peace with democracy. Neither science nor academia is a political party or part of a political party. In many ways, expertise is a public good—the incredible successes of democracy in America have resulted in no small part due to our history of following Schattschneider’s maxim. So we must have a pragmatic division of responsibilities that integrates unique expertise and unavoidable ignorance in service of our common interests.
Scientists and the institutions they lead probably cannot do much to arrest the overall decline in public support for institutions, but it is well within our scope and responsibility to address the current partisan, educational, religious, economic, and racial divides in how credentialed experts, academics, and science are trusted among the broader public.
In 2025, addressing the crisis of confidence in public trust in science should be the credential-expert community’s top priority. It is that important.