Mr. or Ms. Know-It-All

Shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who'd voted for him but viewed it less as a vote for Donald and more as a vote against Hillary. This guy really had a hate on for Hillary Clinton for reasons that struck me as having little to do with anything she'd done or might do in government. He kept comparing her to "that girl in high school who kept acting like she knew more than anyone else." At one point we had (approximately) the following exchange…

ME: Wouldn't you like to have a President who knows more than anyone else?

HIM: Not if they keep acting like they do.

It didn't make a lot of sense to me back then. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me now, especially since the guy he voted for was the guy who went around saying things like "Only I can fix it" and "nobody knows more about technology than me." Here's a list of some of the times Trump said he knew more than anyone else about something.

I think this particular friend had a problem with the concept of a woman acting like she was smarter than he was but not with a man claiming it. But a lot of people don't like anyone saying that. They're kind of "in denial" that a doctor might know more about medicine, a lawyer might know more about law, etc. They like The Internet because no matter what stupid thing you believe, you can always find an alleged expert who will agree with you.

99.99% of doctors might agree that hitting yourself repeatedly on the head with a ball peen hammer will not make you live longer but somewhere on the World Wide Web, there's gotta be someone who claims to be an expert and who advocates his "Ball Peen Hammer Longevity Treatment" — and if there isn't, there will be. Even if you don't completely buy into it, it gives you the power to say, "All the science isn't in yet" or "Experts disagree on this." Today, more than ever, we have people who believe they are indeed entitled to their own facts.