Few things are more insufferable than snobbery. Whether it involves food or drink, entertainment choices, or education, a snob can ruin the fun for everybody, especially when he lords his superiority over you with condescension.
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We recently saw this from an open letter in the Financial Times from a group of political scientists opposing President Donald Trump’s actions against Harvard. All of the people who signed their names to the letter have won something called the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science — and they won’t let you forget it.
I’m not sure what the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science is. The announcement of the latest winner is so full of jargon that the award sounds meaningless:
Herbert P. Kitschelt is the winner of the 2025 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science. 🏆
He is awarded the prize for ” having increased knowledge of the functioning of democratic party systems with exquisite theoretical acuity and impressive empirical breadth and depth.” pic.twitter.com/VePLCthK8T
— Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science (@SkyttePrize) April 23, 2025
These elite prizewinners make their intentions clear in the first two paragraphs:
It is from a position of scholarly responsibility that we, as winners of the Johan Skytte Prize in political science — an award recognising the most significant contributions to the field — speak out.
We are deeply concerned about recent actions taken by the Trump administration that undermine the independence and academic freedom of research universities, colleges, and scholarly institutions.
The political scientists quote Harvard President Alan Garber, who said, “No government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and what areas of study and research they can pursue.”
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Of course, if Harvard is making such a big deal about its status as a private university, why is it so sore about losing federal funding? If it’s so important and independent, can’t it raise those funds from donations?
Related: Harvard Is Hurting Its International Student-Athletes With Its FAFO Behavior
Anyway, the signatories to the letter claim that their objections transcend politics:
As award-winning political scientists who do not know each others’ political affiliations, we collectively fear that the current actions of the US government are a threat to the rule of law and civil peace, and we condemn the tools being used to achieve the administration’s goals. Specifically, we condemn the US government’s use of extortion to coerce independent institutions to act in accordance with the administration’s preferences; its illegal detention and deportation of hundreds of our international students and our international faculty colleagues; its deliberate fostering of bitterness among students and faculty on hundreds of university campuses in America; its punishing of researchers unrelated to the charges against their universities; its fear-mongering against those with whom the president disagrees; its short-sighted and senseless cuts to basic research that benefits the US and the world; and its encroachments on academic freedom and the core mission of American universities and colleges.
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Where were these people when Democrat administrations cracked down on conservative thought, Christian education, and homeschooling? Where’s the outrage when it comes to the “deliberate fostering of bitterness” toward any view that doesn’t fall in line with the far left?
For all their posturing about wanting to stay above the political fray, these academics are quick to point out that Trump’s actions against Harvard could lead to “anti-democratic candidates” winning elections.
“We, the authors of this letter, have been awarded the annual Johan Skytte Prize at Uppsala University for outstanding contributions to political science,” they lecture. “As political scientists we have learnt how easily voters can be swayed to support anti-democratic candidates; but it is democratic and civic institutions, ones that Trump seeks to dismantle, that often save us from ourselves.”
Did they mention that they won the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science? They’re so humble and unassuming about it all, aren’t they?
It’s a typical example of elite, expert snobbery. They’re prizewinners. They know better than you do how important it is to uphold Harvard’s progressive and antisemitic values.
On his podcast on Thursday, Dr. Albert Mohler pointed out how condescending the winners of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science come across:
I am going to say that this common letter is an incredible example, the kind of academic condescension in which you have, most importantly, these academics claiming that as political scientists, they are in a position to define reality and the rest of us are in no position to do so. And then they come back and, again, they underlined their expertise by the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science. Evidently, the readers of the Financial Times are supposed to say, well, winners of the Johan Skytte prize must know what they’re talking about. We’ll rearrange our societies in accordance with their dictates.
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It’s also rich for these people to come out swinging against Trump when generations of academics have quashed or chilled conservative thought. Academic freedom only goes one way, and if you don’t like it, academics will look down their noses at you because you don’t know what they think they do.
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