Trump’s worst toadies hold degrees from Harvard and Yale. Did they learn anything? | Robert Reich

Politicians educated at some of the US's most elite universities are spreading conspiracy theories that they surely know are untrue. What happened to service and stewardship'?

The original justification for elite higher education in the United States was to train the future leaders of American democracy. As Charles W Eliot, who became president of Harvard in 1869, noted, Harvard existed to inculcate the ideals of service and stewardship".

Since then, Harvard has produced eight US presidents; Yale, five. (Stanford can boast Herbert Hoover, if it feels compelled to do so.)

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com