Run, do not walk, to your computer (oh, right, you’re already there)… and read this article.  It is brilliant.  It captures the essence of leftist attitudes perfectly.   The author, Gerard Alexander (associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia) describes “four major narratives” that leftists (no, I won’t use “liberal”, just as I steadfastly refuse to use “progressives” – both terms are simply euphemisms for “leftist” … but, I digress) use in their arguments:

1. “The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”
   

   a narrative made famous by Hillary Rodham Clinton but hardly limited to her. This vision maintains that conservatives win elections and policy debates not because they triumph in the open battle of ideas but because they deploy brilliant and sinister campaign tactics.

2. Conservatives are either manipulated or stupid:
   

   And speaking to a roomful of Democratic donors in 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama offered a similar (and infamous) analysis when he suggested that residents of Rust Belt towns “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations” about job losses. When his comments became public, Obama backed away from their tenor but insisted that “I said something that everybody knows is true.”

3. Conservatives are RACISTS!
   

   It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants.

4. Conservatives are emotion-driven, liberals are logic- and evidence-driven.
   

   Former vice president Al Gore made this case in his 2007 book, “The Assault on Reason,” in which he expressed fear that American politics was under siege from a coalition of religious fundamentalists, foreign policy extremists and industry groups opposed to “any reasoning process that threatens their economic goals.” This right-wing politics involves a gradual “abandonment of concern for reason or evidence” and relies on propaganda to maintain public support, he wrote.

Alexander captures perfectly how Barack Obama exemplifies liberal condescension:

These four liberal narratives not only justify the dismissal of conservative thinking as biased or irrelevant — they insist on it. By no means do all liberals adhere to them, but they are mainstream in left-of-center thinking. Indeed, when the president met with House Republicans in Baltimore recently, he assured them that he considers their ideas, but he then rejected their motives in virtually the same breath.

“There may be other ideas that you guys have,” Obama said. “I am happy to look at them, and I’m happy to embrace them. . . . But the question I think we’re going to have to ask ourselves is, as we move forward, are we going to be examining each of these issues based on what’s good for the country, what the evidence tells us, or are we going to be trying to position ourselves so that come November, we’re able to say, ‘The other party, it’s their fault’?”

This article illustrates why the GOP has no business responding to Obama’s overtures to meet with him and the Dems to discuss healthcare socialization. Republican/conservative ideas will be ignored and condescended, just as every other Republican idea and thought has been since Obama’s coronation.  Just say NO, Republican leadership.

READ the article. Now.