This is a fascinating addition to the article and definitely worthy of an article in its own right - and one I'd be woefully underqualified to write.

I think social media has vastly eroded the trust people in have in everything. People are struggling to find valid gatekeepers and post-structural thought from the 1960s onwards has allowed a gradual eroding of traditional gatekeepers.

Our feelings about things are often correct. Our intuition is an excellent system, but like most of our brain systems it is falliable. Often what we feel to be true is in fact true - this helps us navigate simple day to day problems with 'cognitive ease'. When we get to complex problems however, we must learn to apply critical thinking.

When 'everyone knows' something like Trump is a racist - we need to be very careful.... because the implication of this is that we will categorise ANYTHING negative as a likely behaviour for Trump. This can then be used as a trap to show up our own ignorance. 'You believed Trump wanted to invade the moon and put up the KKK flag' etc.

Sacha Baron-Cohen is excellent at using intutive thinking in his comedy. His Ali-G and Borat characters rely on people presuming he's far more stupid and ignorant than they are. He plays into the biases and mocks them whilst they're mocking him. The various shouts of 'snowflake' from both sides suggest that this technique of mockery works regularly on both sides.

I think my roundabout answer to your question is that in the absence of good epistemic gatekeepers, we must do our own due dilligence. Nothing about the way society is polarising suggests that this is happening - clowns to the left, jokers to the right etc.

Thanks for your comment - and please do write this article about epistemic gatekeepers(!)