Six years ago, after the election of Donald Trump supposedly unleashed the furies of populism, the nation’s sharpest minds came up with a solution: let experts run things.

The people were simply too ignorant and too unruly to make decisions. Populism, in their minds, was the leading threat to democracy. But if we gathered together the nation’s best and brightest, from the best schools and with impeccable résumés, they could look at the data, crunch the numbers, and tell us the right way forward. Politics could be taken out of the realm of politics.

The COVID-19 pandemic seemed to only validate this line of thinking. As the virus tore through the US population, the credentialed classes devised a spate of public health measures — masking, distancing, isolation — to limit its spread and devastation while we waited for a vaccine. For one brief, shining moment, it seemed like we might be ready to obey the experts after all — until the rage of the frothing masses took over once again, unraveling these carefully laid plans.