The problem today of misinformation and “alternative facts” is not one of technological advancement or mere political polarization. It’s a lack of trust.

Until our elite political, academic, and media institutions grasp this simple truth, their efforts to cure the problem of misinformation will be all for naught.

Consider, for example, the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit think tank, and its own noble efforts to address what it refers to as “truth decay.” “The line between fact and fiction in American public life is becoming blurred,” the group warned, adding that its researchers “are studying its causes, consequences, and how to counter it.” The causes, the group continued, include “increasing disagreement about objective facts that exists on scale not observed in previous periods.”

“For example,” RAND noted, “despite having more evidence than ever before about vaccines being safe and effective at preventing disease, vaccine skepticism in the United States is on the rise. This is just one example of how public attitudes can diverge from facts and data in debates and discourse.”

What is the cause of the decline? There are at least four specific drivers, according to RAND: “Cognitive biases," “changes to the information ecosystem, including the rise of social media and changes in the economics of news,” “demands on the educational system that slows its ability to adapt to changes in the information ecosystem,” and “political and social polarization.”

“Without a common set of facts, it will be challenging to make progress on any of the major issues facing the country: COVID-19, healthcare, immigration, climate change, poverty, and homelessness, and many others,” the group said. “Policymakers need shared facts and data to debate priorities and tradeoffs and to make effective policy decisions.”

It added, “At the individual level, the diminishing role of facts can erode public trust in institutions, feed deepening political and other types of polarization, weaken or displace the meaningful civil discourse required for a healthy democracy, and contribute to alienation and disengagement. Furthermore, a rejection of facts can have immediate consequences for individuals. In the case of COVID-19, for example, rejecting facts about the disease and how it spreads can lead to health complications and even death.”

This is very similar to what you’ll hear at most think tanks or elite institutions. It’s what we heard this year at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in the Swiss Alps: The problem today is that too many people are talking and that we have too many opportunities and platforms for communication.

This is a fundamentally flawed analysis.

First, the fact that the public now has, more than ever, the ability to be heard is not a curse. It’s a blessing!

Second, the problem of “truth decay” does not lie merely in technological advancements, an abundance of information, or even “demands on the educational system.” The problem lies mainly in the fact that our elite institutions, those places that are supposed to act as gatekeepers and arbiters of consensus, have lost the confidence of the public. Major institutions from nearly every corner of culture and society either have surrendered their credibility to political causes or suicided their credibility via political activism.

Everywhere down the line, from science journals to legal organizations, our elite institutions have surrendered themselves to political activity, all but requiring the public to view them not so much as arbiters of fact, but as biased operators, subservient to only one point of view or ideology.

Just look at the American Bar Association. This group has vetted men and women for the federal bench since the days of the Eisenhower administration, reviewing his or her experience and casework and determining whether they’ve demonstrated an ability to do the job. Can we look to even this group for impartial assessments?

Nope!

When former President Donald Trump nominated Steve Grasz to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the ABA ranked him as "unqualified" based on his opposition to late-term abortion and his criticism of the lousy jurisprudence underpinning the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade.

Then, there’s the incident involving the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ABA initially graded Kavanaugh as “well-qualified.” But after Kavanaugh was hit with spurious and paper-thin allegations of sexual misconduct, the ABA balked, announcing it would review his rating. The group’s president took the additional step of calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to delay its vote on Kavanaugh until after further investigations could be conducted. After Kavanaugh was confirmed on Oct. 6, 2018, the ABA abandoned its earlier plans to reevaluate his ratings.

The Kavanaugh clown show was reminiscent of the group’s mishandling of the late Judge Robert Bork.

In 1982, when Bork was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the ABA unanimously ranked him as “well qualified.” A mere five years later, after Bork was nominated in 1987 to the Supreme Court, four members of the ABA panel decided they had changed their minds and ranked him as “unqualified.” Why? Why should anyone trust the ABA’s judgment? Why wouldn’t the public ignore its praise and criticisms going forward?

Another telling example of the total political takeover over apolitical institutions lies with Scientific American, a scientific journal that endorsed then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president in 2020. In its 175-year history as a publication, the magazine had never endorsed a candidate for president — and rightfully so! But, in October 2020, Scientific American broke its own 175-year tradition to support the Democratic nominee for president.

“Although [Republican nominee Donald Trump] and his allies have tried to create obstacles that prevent people from casting ballots safely in November,” the magazine's endorsement read, “either by mail or in person, it is crucial that we surmount them and vote. It's time to move Trump out and elect Biden, who has a record of following the data and being guided by science.”

Then, of course, there’s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the murderer's row of public health goblins who, either through fear, sheer incompetence, or malicious intent, mismanaged the COVID-19 pandemic. The worst example, of course, came in the summer of 2020 when, after spending the previous months arguing in favor of church closures and people dying alone, public health officials declared it both important and necessary for everyone to crowd into the streets to promote "social justice."

So, yes, without a common set of facts, it will be challenging to make progress on issues including COVID-19. But who gets to be the arbiters of consensus? The people who said we couldn’t hold funerals for our loved ones, but also said we should protest in the streets for “social justice”?

In terms of “truth decay,” RAND is mostly correct when it identifies “cognitive biases” and “political and social polarization" as part of the problem. But if we’re going to get to the bottom of the problem and work towards a solution, we need to have a longer and more difficult conversation about the damage done by our elite institutions, so many of which have been captured and rotted from within by political activism.

Of course, we don’t have a common set of facts! How can we in a culture where the institutions tasked with playing referee have traded their credibility and trustworthiness for social clout? How can we in a culture where our most credentialed experts plainly lie to placate political and cultural pieties?

How many public health organizations argue now — with straight faces — that men can get pregnant and have periods? Of course, the modern, hyper-political era has seen a significant increase in falsehoods, misinformation, and "alternative facts.” When everyone has picked a side, and no one trusts anyone, everyone gets to have his own “truth.”

There are many reasons why we're so fractured today. There are many reasons why everyone appears to have his own set of “facts.” A primary reason is that the people charged with guarding and protecting consensus have failed us terribly. Until we can admit this as a culture and work toward correcting and repairing it, we will never have a "common set of facts."

Becket Adams is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and National Review. He is also the program director of the National Journalism Center.