It's my impression that at this point in time, eroding trust in a targeted way is very easy, and there's plenty of people doing it, out of partisanship, greed,

It's my impression that at this point in time, eroding trust in a targeted way is very easy, and there's plenty of people doing it, out of partisanship, greed, or even plain stupidity. The collective "we" have allowed trust in genuine experts to be low and brittle. So, it makes sense for experts to put little value in trying to preserve it, when trying to balance the value of other courses of action. It sucks, but in their shoes I would do the same.