You know," then-candidate Donald Trump said during the 2016 campaign, "I’ve always wanted to say this: … The experts are terrible." Trump has often been caught at a loss over basic issues of public policy and has repeatedly bashed intellectuals who criticized his lack of substance. He famously exulted, "I love the poorly educated," demanded that President Obama prove his American citizenship, and cited the National Enquirer approvingly as a source in charging that the father of one of his opponents, Ted Cruz, was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Higher education is supposed to be a bulwark against these kinds of frontal assaults on established knowledge, empowering voters with the ability to know fact from fiction, and to fight fantasy with critical reasoning.
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