That's a fair point. However, part of the politics of the situation is that the right end of the spectrum appears bound and determined to discredit any academic

That's a fair point. However, part of the politics of the situation is that the right end of the spectrum appears bound and determined to discredit any academic or fact-based professions. They also seemed dead set on protecting oligarch and oligarch-lite players from criticism or critical examination. Academic fraud seems to be self-correcting as we have seen by the numerous reports of fraud and withdrawn papers; as a rule, the players express shame and remorse. Nonacademic fraud doesn't exhibit these characteristics and sometimes seems to be proud of the fraud.