The present paper reflects upon a post-postmodern criticism of scholarship from a historical perspective. Taking into account the move from hypersceptical auto-criticism of the postmodern period to a rather sceptical understanding of auto-criticism of scholarship in light of Trumpism, the paper advocates that scholarship cannot dispense of auto-criticism or relegate it to specialist fields like philosophy or sociology. In contrast, even a discipline like history has to critically reflect upon its own methodological approaches if it keeps to being scholarship and does not hand over agency to populists.