Are liberals 'condescending'?

Liberals are far more likely than conservatives to act like their ideas are right, and everyone else's are flat wrong -- or so claims University of Virginia politics professor Gerard Alexander in The Washington Post. Liberal patronizing of conservative ideas and anxieties can be found everywhere, says Alexander, from liberal journalists' books and blogs to Hillary Clinton's 1998 declaration of a "vast right-wing conspiracy." Are liberals "condescending," as Alexander says, or just passionate about their beliefs?

Liberals are condescending -- for good reason: Gerard Alexander would have everyone believe that liberals are just being snooty, says Dan Kennedy in Britain's Guardian. But there's a reason for talking down to George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and other dim-bulb conservatives. They ARE wrong, and their "unthinking blunders in war" and domestic policy are dangerous.

"'Condescending liberals' of the US unite"

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Liberals are arrogant and out of touch: "The core difference between liberals and conservatives," says Jackie Gingrich Cushman in Politico, "is that liberals believe that the government is smarter than the American people," and conservatives don't. That's why liberals are so "condescending," and conservatives are willing to "listen to ideas from ordinary people."

"Arena digest: Are liberals condescending?"

How is thinking you are right condescending? "If believing that you are right and that people who disagree with you are wrong amounts to condescension," says Michael Kinsley in the Atlantic, "then we are all condescending." Of course liberals think they're right. "So do conservatives." Otherwise, it's "silly" for them to argue about anything.

"Condescending liberals"

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