I do think though that studying something for a lifetime isn’t the same as expertise. People’s instincts on what domains allow for experience to equal expertise aren’t bad. I do think a lifetime studying explosives chemistry buys you more exclusive expertise claims than politics
It’s a question of what domains do vs do not allow common experiences to teach you much. People do accrue a lot of relevant experience about politics in daily life. The closest we come to explosives experience is setting off fireworks. So we give ourselves more points on former.
In general my default sympathies lie with lay people weighing in. There is a healthy disregard to bureaucratic boundaries, and reasonable impulse to apply analogies or adjacent life experiences.