One thing that is maybe missing in this discussion is that this is not a new phenomenon. Greek antiquity had a period of intellectual enlightenment when science became popular enough to rival religion (see eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura ) then long medieval and dark periods where this was no longer the case. Then a renaissance, many aspects of which were also non lasting.

The important thing to realize, especially in democracies is that non intellectuals usually have the most political power and it's the job of the smart to convince them to give support to smart things.

This requires bringing common people to science's side instead of making fun of them. Although I enjoyed this movie and the newer one tackling the same themes as comic relief of really sad real world parallel situations, in some ways these movie makes the problem worst.

There could be ways to turn a lot of people around to support good causes and to prevent them from falling pray to dangerous manipulators. There are tons of common folks who's views are constantly shifting based on primal emotions and there is no reason they couldn't be shifted towards following science and truth if those who represented those concepts showed more respect. With elections often very close, just a few percentage points could make a huge difference.

The people caricatured are often easy to manipulate, not very smart and are often aware they are not very smart. They are often looking for leaders to guide and shepherd them. They won't however follow intellectuals who punch down on people who don't have academic aptitude. Showing contempt for these people makes them ripe to instead be plucked by villainous politicians, fueling the power of evil.

Not everyone has the aptitude for academic thinking and they deserve no less respect. The fact that they confront the world as best as they can despite this handicap is worthy of praise. The common person is inherently vulnerable compared to the smart elite.

It's not about educating. Scientific arguments don't get you very far with people that can't grasp them.

These are people that only grasp the basics of morality and often only if they get help and reminders from moral guides and belief groups every sunday. Churches are their crutch, their wheelchair. Solving the sociological issues might require more participation and support of faith groups, helping improve them and shaping them. I cannot imagine anything that would work better to send shivers down anti-science politicians than if the pro-science would start gaining more influence inside faith groups.

This might require sometimes lowering the bar on standards of morality, empathy and rationality when dealing with these people. Advanced morality about things like race and gender is complex and not within everyone's reach. Advanced empathy involves multilevel recursive counterfactual meta-cognitive logic ( https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K4eDzqS2rbcBDsCLZ/unrolling-... ) and sometimes academic understanding of past history. Though it seems natural to some humans, it's so complex that even the most advanced AIs cannot even begin to do it. Asking some of these people to understand these things is asking people in wheelchairs to run and run away they will.

In the US common folks having power is even enshrined in the constitution which starts with "We the people", "the people", having a long history of being a polite way to refer to the less intellectually abled. Only recently did "populism" turn into a dirty word (see https://taibbi.substack.com/p/kansas-should-go-f-itself?r=79... ).

The way to manage this is to live with respect alongside non-intellectuals and help shepherd them towards the good so they aren't captured by villains.