Elites Avoid Unscripted Scrutiny

Powerful conveners and institutional leaders increasingly submit to tightly controlled public interactions and withdraw from candid exchanges when questions go off script. These withdrawals are small events but signal a mismatch between elites' rhetorical calls for 'truth and trust' and their willingness to accept public interrogation. — If elites decline unscripted scrutiny while urging institutional trust, it deepens public cynicism and changes how accountability and legitimacy are debated.