Before I get started, let me clarify something. Groupthink, mob behavior, panic, etc. have a powerful capacity to make smart people dumb. This is the moral of every witch-hunt story and is about as well documented as any phenomena in human history. As Tommy Lee Jones says in Men in Black, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals, and you know it.”
I mention this up front to acknowledge that many of the people I am appalled by are, individually, smart and decent professionals. But, as a group, they are making fools of themselves and their profession, and making the country's problems worse.
I've spent much of the last couple of years decrying the increasing partisan tribalism of our politics. I've earned some strange new respect from liberals (and at times regrettable new enmity from some conservatives) because I've been willing to call out my team. A case in point: I don't like President Trump's “enemy of the people” rhetoric about the “fake news.”
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