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.