[whipaway]

This is an intersection of so many things: politics (outsourcing your judgment to your enemy and effectively just doing the opposite of them), brain-structure propensity for fear, esteem for authorities and experts (fundamentally the tendency towards authoritarianism, whether it's based in expertise or other things), class tendencies that value visible signals of virtue, intelligence and taste, etc.

[JPKab]

Extremely well stated and reasoned.