Gerard Alexander, an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia, recently wrote an article for the New York Times suggesting that when it comes to Trump, liberals are their own worst enemies. It has become a common joke for conservatives on Twitter to respond to liberal lunacy by saying “Do you want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump.”
That idea forms the essence of Professor Alexander’s column:
Liberals, You’re Not as Smart as You ThinkI know many liberals, and two of them really are my best friends. Liberals make good movies and television shows. Their idealism has been an inspiration for me and many others. Many liberals are very smart. But they are not as smart, or as persuasive, as they think.And a backlash against liberals — a backlash that most liberals don’t seem to realize they’re causing — is going to get President Trump re-elected.People often vote against things instead of voting for them: against ideas, candidates and parties. Democrats, like Republicans, appreciate this whenever they portray their opponents as negatively as possible. But members of political tribes seem to have trouble recognizing that they, too, can push people away and energize them to vote for the other side. Nowhere is this more on display today than in liberal control of the commanding heights of American culture…
Alexander offers many examples of how liberals are causing people to resent them, including the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, recent criticism of Kanye West, false accusations of racism, and the enforcement of concepts like microaggressions in academia.
He suggests that during the eight years of the Obama presidency, liberals convinced themselves that they were morally and intellectually superior to conservatives and that this too, is driving voters to Trump.
He concludes:
Liberals are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. When they use their positions in American culture to lecture, judge and disdain, they push more people into an opposing coalition that liberals are increasingly prone to think of as deplorable. That only validates their own worst prejudices about the other America.Those prejudices will be validated even more if Mr. Trump wins re-election in 2020, especially if he wins a popular majority. That’s not impossible: The president’s current approval ratings are at 42 percent, up from just a few months ago.
Professor Alexander appeared on the Tucker Carlson show last night to discuss the article. Tucker broadened the conversation to focus on the lack of political diversity on college campuses. Gerard remarks at one point that this “breeds among other things, an incredible intellectual complacency.”
Watch the segment below:
Featured image via YouTube.
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