President Trump speaks with reporters at the White House in October. (Reuters photo: Carlos Barria)

Ideological monocultures are blind to their own bias.

Every now and then, you read a statement that makes you realize just how vast the gulf is between the Right and the Left in this country.

Earlier this morning, I read two.

Here’s the first, from Vox’s Ezra Klein:


.@drvox has written eloquently of America’s “epistemic crisis,” which is driven by the GOP’s rejection of transpartisan institutions like academia, journalism, etc. https://t.co/vXf9xRWxnu This is how it happens. — Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) December 12, 2017

There are blindingly obvious methods of dealing with this crisis of confidence. Most important among them: Diversify. Stop selling Americans the false bill of goods of modern campus and newsroom “tolerance” — where people from a variety of races, genders, and sexual orientations all think alike. It’s not that hard, honestly. If elite universities and media outlets truly wanted to become referees, they’d be raiding the ranks of conservative think tanks and press outlets right now — engaging in exactly the kind of “aggressive recruitment” they use to increase ethnic and gender diversity.



I’ve been the only conservative in the room more times than I can count — whether I was a student in law school, an associate in a Manhattan law firm, or a faculty member in an Ivy League law school — and I’ve always been surprised by the extent to which these institutions were blind to their own bias. They don’t even know what they don’t know. Their web of progressive relationships influence everything from who they decide is an expert to which stories they think are interesting. And there’s simply no way out of it — no way but to introduce contrary voices. If the elite wants to be great again, its progressive ideological monopoly has to end.

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Journalism, R.I.P.