This opinion makes me sad.

There truly are experts in areas we can't--or shouldn't--all try to duplicate ourselves. Civilization is advanced by specialization. We identify these experts with a reputation system so you might call them authorities.

Similarly, there truly are institutions that have decades or more of people, procedures and culture to benefit society and a track record of these benefits.

The malicious erosion, by propaganda and by rhetoric, of the public's trust in our authorities and institutions is one of the biggest crimes of this century.

It wasn't propaganda and rhetoric which eroded the public's trust. It was repeated attempts by authorities to argue based on their authority, instead of using their knowledge to actually make compelling arguments. When inevitably these experts and institutions got things wrong, they lost credibility because they staked their credibility.

We were never supposed to listen to experts because they were experts, experts were supposed to make good points people would listen to. It's shocking that we've grown so accustomed to crappy institutions that we've forgotten what a properly functioning institution even looks like.