1/ A couple of years ago some on the left were going on and on about how free tuition was deffo a tactic that would help beat Trump. Also, various takes on why a renewed focus on land grant missions would help universities connect with the heartland, etc etc
2/ These suggestions make sense if you think the problem is just people not seeing benefits from public investments. But we are actually in an epistemic civil war, right across the West, between those who think expertise should be valued and those who think it shouldn't.
3/ Just take the UK, for instance. Using traditional ideological analysis there is no obvious reason why attitudes on Brexit and COVID should line up. And yet they did, pretty tightly, between people who respect experts and those who don't.
4/ Since universities are the place where expertise is created, this makes them targets in the epistemic war. This is confusing for universities because they think of themselves as neutral, non-partisan, etc, but they are now confronted with an enemy that disagrees.
5/ And it's not really obvious how they can respond to this kind of attack without giving their enemies more grist for the mill. But what other options do they have?
