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The Mueller Report and the Silence of the Experts
Academics and experts in political science failed to cut through the noise of partisan skeptics and true believers
The report from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller highlights many shortcomings in American democracy, but also reveals a deeper failure that informs our broader politics: the silence of the experts. Those well-positioned to comment on the investigation — academic Russia watchers, political science experts on elections, and non-partisan national security specialists — too often ceded the media coverage and mainstream debate to partisans.
Two voices dominated in the run-up to the Mueller report. True believers filled in the dots between each bit of tantalizing evidence to create a conspiracy of daunting proportions dating back to 1987. While the Mueller report delivered a devastating picture of Russian interference encouraged by team Trump, it also did not provide evidence for a good number of the claims put forward by the true believers.
True skeptics were on even weaker ground by downplaying the extent of Russian involvement in the Trump campaign. They should note that the second sentence of the Mueller report states clearly: “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and…
