> struck my as the establishment trying to downplay the importance of this book

> the elites are freaking out

It's a good thing we have things like science and open discourse then. Then we can stop "freaking out" over peoples ulterior motives and consider their arguments and the evidence they present supporting their arguments. We can even be open about our motives and ideology driving this, because it's the evidence that counts.

If you discount evidence leveraged against the conclusions of the book because you mistrust the motivation behind giving the evidence, the corollary is that you accept the conclusion of the book, not on the back of the evidence but because you agree with the (supposed) motivation behind reaching those conclusions.