Scott, Eugene. “Analysis | Republicans' Disdain for Intellectualism Was on Display in Wednesday's Hearing.” The Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/06/republicans-disdain-intellectualism-was-display-wednesdays-hearing/.

Just a quick hit documenting the place of academic institutions and expertise in the politicized culture war. Scott recaps Republican congressmen’s specifically anti-academic comments during the testimony of several legal scholars in an impeachment hearing, and connects them to the phenomenon that “attitudes toward higher education — and perhaps specifically intellectualism because of a growing disregard for expertise — have been trending negative among conservatives for a while.” Scott collects a little more data: Pew reports that 58% of Republican and Republican-leaning independents surveyed considered higher education bad for America, and that number represents a swift rise from 45% at the time of the last survey two years ago. Scott does a little analytical work with George Will’s thoughts on populism, then Trump, who both dismisses higher education and fetishizes his own Wharton degree, and brings it home with Kellyanne Conway telling Trump voters that “that woman” (an academic witness) “looks down her nose on[sic] you.”