Populist rejection of expertise often reflects a response to perceived condescension rather than ignorance. People will forgo material benefits if accepting help feels like accepting humiliation, so elevating 'common sense' becomes a way to reclaim dignity from credentialed elites.
— This reframes the crisis of expertise as a status conflict, suggesting that restoring trust requires dignity‑preserving communication and institutions that don’t degrade lay publics.
Dan Williams
2026.01.05
78% relevant
One of the author’s highlighted essays (Status, Class, and The Crisis of Expertise) advances the argument that feelings of humiliation and elite condescension help explain anti‑expert sentiment, mapping closely to the existing idea linking ressentiment to populist rejection of institutions.
2026.01.05
85% relevant
The author suggests one reason academics' odd beliefs are consequential: when experts promote counterintuitive or absurd claims, they feed public humiliation and resentment. That connects directly to the existing idea that perceived condescension by elites fuels populist rejection of expertise.
2026.01.04
92% relevant
Yglesias makes the same causal point: distrust of experts often stems from perceived condescension and value distance (plumbers vs academics, business leaders vs public), which aligns directly with the argument that humiliation and status dynamics drive anti‑expert populism.
2026.01.04
78% relevant
The article notes distrust of 'experts' and the appeal of podcasters who reject credentialed authority; this maps to the idea that perceived elite condescension fuels anti‑expert political movements and explains why non‑expert personalities gain followings (Cofnas cites Sam Harris’s critique and Rogan’s political influence).
Chris Bray
2026.01.04
86% relevant
Both pieces diagnose elite condescension as a political and institutional problem that erodes trust; Bray’s 'elite cosplayers' who perform symbolic virtue and humiliate practical actors maps directly onto the idea that perceived condescension fuels popular rejection of credentialed experts and institutional legitimacy.
2025.12.30
86% relevant
The poll’s headline findings — e.g., 82% say elites are out of touch, 63% prioritize 'common sense' over expert analysis, and 61% say people (not experts) should make most political decisions — map directly onto the existing idea that perceived elite condescension and humiliation fuel anti‑expert populist attitudes; the article supplies fresh, large‑sample survey evidence and party breakdowns (Democrats more pro‑institutions than Republicans) that test and refine that claim.
Arnold Kling
2025.12.02
86% relevant
The post highlights how elite gatekeeping generates anger and resentment—matching the idea that perceived humiliation and condescension from experts fuel populist backlash. Magoon’s description of radical ideology as appealing to certainty and moral identity complements the humiliation→anti‑expert pathway: people reject experts when accepting help feels humiliating.
Mary Harrington
2025.12.02
92% relevant
The article’s core claim — that technocratic elites are incompetent and that their perceived condescension fuels resistance to projects like the Great Reset — directly maps onto this idea: it treats elite incompetence and perceived humiliation as drivers of popular backlash against experts and managerial reformers. It names concrete UK failures (lost asylum seekers, fiasco train service, leaked spreadsheet) as evidence that elites have lost moral authority.
2025.10.07
100% relevant
The piece’s Dostoevsky Snegiryov vignette and claim that populism 'gifts uneducated voters the power of knowledge' exemplify honor‑preserving refusal of elite help.