But if we let people decide for themselves, they might decide wrong! And our position is clearly and obviously right! But people are stupid and will listen to lies, so we have to remove the possibility of them being exposed to those lies!

/s, in case it wasn't obvious...

People are more certain of their own position than is warranted. This is true in politics (as C. S. Lewis said, in practice no policy can be more than probably correct). It was true with Covid ("trust the science" when not enough science had been done yet; people talked as if the correct course was obvious and certain, and they were often wrong in hindsight). And it will be true again, and again, and again.

And from that false certainty, people regard contrary opinions/interpretations of the data as not just false, but morally wrong. And then they regard people believing the "obviously wrong" position as a sign that people are stupid and not to be trusted with the facts. (Unlike themselves, of course, who clearly can be trusted with the facts, because they reached the right answers!)

And people don't see the dichotomy between "people are stupid and evil, and can't be trusted with the truth" and "we (who are also people!) can decide what is true, and can be trusted to only tell them the truth". When you point a finger at someone, four finger point back at you...