Express all the humorous strawmen you like. How do you think these things happen? In the 20th century, the only bad social engineering event I can think of that could even remotely be considered the outgrowth of a broad movement of the masses is sort of Nazi-ism. Everything else was led by somebody with an idea from academia. "The masses" don't originate many ideas, and in the era of the all-powerful State (which the 20th century is firmly in), "the masses" don't run around committing genocide, or doing any of the things they may have done in previous social systems, because all that power is now reserved to the State.
And the State and academia have always been attached at the hip, as they are today. How else would it be? Do you think it's some sort of bizarre coincidence that the dominant ideology of academia today and the dominant ideology of the State are exactly the same? Of course they are... they're causally connected. (Where do the "technocrats" in technocracy come from? Certainly not the farm!)
As for this being "conspiracy" theory... no, it's just an understanding of how the world actually works. It may happen to explain this opinion of mine, but that's only because as a ground fact of the current world it explains lots of things. Academics wield power through the State. It's clear as daylight... it would be some sort of bizarre theory that they don't. What would that even look like?