WASHINGTON ¨C In 2013, a college student assigned to research a deadly substance sought help via Twitter: ¡°I can¡¯t find the chemical and physical properties of sarin gas someone please help me.¡± An expert at a security consulting firm tried to be helpful, telling her that sarin is not gas. She replied, ¡°yes the [expletive] it is a gas you ignorant [expletive]. sarin is a liquid & can evaporate ... shut the [expletive] up.¡±

Tom Nichols, professor at the U.S. Naval War College and the Harvard Extension School, writing in The Chronicle Review, says such a ¡°storm of outraged ego¡± is an increasingly common phenomenon among students who, having been taught to regard themselves as peers of their teachers, ¡°take correction as an insult.¡± Nichols relates this to myriad intellectual viruses thriving in academia. Carried by under-educated graduates, these viruses infect the nation¡¯s civic culture.

Soon the results include the presidential megaphone being used to amplify facially preposterous assertions, e.g., that upward of 5 million illegal votes were cast in 2016. A presidential minion thinks this assertion is justified because it is the president¡¯s ¡°long-standing belief.¡±