What seems to be happening is that many intellectuals use dispassionate logic and reason to come up with good ideas, then refuse to use emotion in pitching these ideas. The ideas then get drowned out by the likes of Fox News and MSNBC peddling much less poorly thought out ideas.
For an example of what a devolution into appeals to emotion and base notions looks like, turn on Fox News or MSNBC during the evening and witness the demagogues screaming straight at your amygdala and hippocampus. The current cycle degradation of discourse has opened the door to "fake news" and other very real problems. In this case, the bogeyman is real.