The Fall of the Experts: Why Their Grip Is Slipping

The “expert class” used to be the gold standard, but their shine’s wearing off. Jonathan Turley, riffing on Justice Clarence Thomas’ warnings, unpacks why folks are done with elites. In United States v. Skrmetti, a 2025 Supreme Court case, a 6-3 decision upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, ruling it didn’t violate the Equal Protection Clause, spotlighting the clash between state authority and expert-driven agendas that push teaching kids as young as five about sex and fluid gender identities, like it’s a Disney movie plot. Let’s break it down.

1. Justice Thomas Calls Out Technocracy
Justice Clarence Thomas is sounding the alarm on “technocracy”—when experts with big credentials get to run the show on laws and policies. In United States v. Skrmetti, he’s like, “Who made these folks the boss?” He’s worried that letting experts dominate drowns out the voice of regular people in a democracy. It’s like letting an IT expert plan your wedding because they’re “the expert.” Thomas wants democracy, not an expert seminar on Windows 11.

2. Elites Are Skewing the Debate
Thomas also flags “elite sentiment,” where experts get so cozy in their echo chambers that they warp how we discuss big issues. In Skrmetti, he points out that experts can push their own agendas over facts, like a teacher ranting about their favorite theory instead of sticking to the textbook. This bias makes it tough for everyday folks to have a fair say in what’s best for the country.
A fresh example? The elite class’s disgust with President Trump’s blunt talk, like when he said U.S. strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. Experts clutched their pearls over the word, saying it’s inaccurate since intel suggests the sites were “severely damaged,” not totally destroyed. Yet, the outcome’s the same: Iran’s nuclear program is offline for years, maybe decades, as they’d need to build new facilities from scratch. The elites’ focus on Trump’s verbiage—calling it reckless—drowns out the real result, skewing the public’s view of a major win.

3. Experts and Their Dodgy Evidence
Here’s where it gets real, or should I say fake? Turley says experts often lean on shaky evidence or straight-up ideology. Take climate alarmism—experts push catastrophic global meltdown narratives based on manipulated temperature data they’ve admitted to fudging and computer models that can’t even predict next week’s weather, let alone decades out. Michael Mann, once celebrated for his hockey stick graph predicting catastrophic warming, fell from grace as courts and critics exposed his flawed data and conduct, eroding his credibility. Or look at the mRNA COVID shots, a first-of-its-kind jab rushed out despite no prior human use. We now know they knew about risks like heart attacks, strokes, and even death, yet folks like Dr. Fauci, who once called himself the “god of science,” sold it as a must-have. When ideology trumps truth, trust takes a hit.

4. The Expert Class Is Losing Credibility
Speaking of trust, Turley says the expert class has tanked its own rep by chasing groupthink over neutrality. They’re like refs in a game who only call fouls on one side. Polls show people are done blindly trusting scientists, academics, or policy wonks. Experts went from trusted guides to just another opinion in the noise. Biden's Treasury Secretary waved off spiking inflation as "transitory" only to later admit she was wrong.

5. Higher Ed’s Part in the Problem
Finally, Turley blames universities for training scholars who ditch principles like open debate for narrative-pushing. It’s like teaching chefs to make Instagram-worthy dishes that taste terrible. Higher education was supposed to foster critical thinking, but Turley says it’s churning out conformists, speeding the expert class’s downfall.

Climate alarmist Al Gore pushed catastrophic narratives in An Inconvenient Truth, claiming New York City would be under water by now and the Arctic ice-free by 2014, based on fudged temperature data and models that can’t predict next week’s weather. Now Gore is just a washed-up small tent preacher sharing his green gospel to wealthy investors.

So, what’s the deal? Experts soared high on promises of wisdom but crashed by prioritizing agendas over truth. Thomas is waving a warning flag, and maybe it’s time we rethink who calls the shots. Democracy’s about us, not just the folks with the fanciest titles.

The American Dream is hard work. It takes time and effort. Politics is nasty, so why should I bother. But have we given up our democratic agency to an expert class only to discover they really don’t care much for us?

The real threat to democracy is a citizenry who ignores their responsibility to fight for good government. President George Washington put it this way.

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
— George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789.