From The Weekly Standard, What Explains the Vicious Left? by David Gelernter:

excerpts:

It’s not just a question of civility versus rudeness—which of course is no small thing in itself. The deeper problem is that the left seems to have lost its taste for democracy.

You see characteristic leftist arrogance among global warmers, who show their respect for their opponents by refusing to listen to them and implying that they are crackpots. On campus, leftists have spit at conservatives, screamed obscenities at moderate liberals, yammered on about phony “rape crises” while doing everything they could think of to promote universal debauchery, rigged local votes to silence opponents of the Kill Israel (aka “BDS”) movement.

The list goes on, the arrogance is staggering, the asymmetry all too obvious. Conservatives, bursting with facts and ideas (and anger and dismay), are eager to have it out with liberals and maybe even convince a few. Liberals are eager to make assertions and strike moral poses, but not to respond to rational argument or speak to the facts.

Hence the gross asymmetry of modern politics. For most conservatives, politics is just politics. For most liberals, politics is their faith, in default of any other; it is the basis of their moral life.

But for modern liberals it is only natural to be upset, defensive, dogmatic, and immovable when you are challenged on your political views. Few of us are prepared to defend our deepest spiritual beliefs. Most of us rarely think about them. Many of us have never had reason to believe them; we simply believe what our parents did. That is perfectly fair and suitable—except when rational, worldly politics is forced to confront politics-as-religion head-to-head.

Some people are arrogant by nature. Obama, Hillary, and Trump are textbook examples. They were born that way. But Obama got help along the way from left-wing religion—whereas Hillary and Trump probably rank among the few human beings who love themselves so much, they don’t need any kind of religion. Trump, of course, is no more a right-winger than Hillary is a true leftist: They each ad lib their fundamental beliefs as required.

 

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