Disagree? No, you’re just an ignoramus.

The Left’s totalitarian ideology doesn’t lend much credence to diversity of thought, viewpoint, or opinion. While leftists on college campuses are gunning for diversity of skin color and ethnicity, they decry opposing views as physically harmful. Both students and faculty retreat to the cocoon of so-called ‘safe spaces’ to shield themselves from the scourge of dissent. What’s more, those with minority opinions can’t just disagree with the Left. They clearly must be liars or deniers.

From the lack of free speech on college campuses to the media condemning ‘fake news’, there is no room for opposition to the leftist narrative. Those who oppose gun-control are indicted as ignorant, bigoted, and bitter gun-clingers. Anyone who questions ‘progressive solutions’ to the ‘catastrophe’ of climate change is labeled a denier of science. Those who contest the morality of a social welfare state are called racist liars. In fact, any individual who dares object to the Left’s narratives is not simply incorrect. They don’t just disagree. They are purposely rejecting reality or maliciously engaged in deception.

Holding a minority viewpoint has never been easy, but it’s also never been more difficult. In the days of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan, open and free argumentation and expression was viewed as a moral good by both sides of the aisle. The college liberals of the 1960s protested for free speech, not against it. The idea was that if all the viewpoints were on the table the best ones would win out. Today’s political world is nowhere close to that of the 50s and 80s. Today’s Democratic Party bears no semblance to that of Jefferson, Kennedy, and Carter—or even Clinton for that matter. In the modern era, the Left doesn’t debate. Rather, it castigates those who abstain from full-fledged allegiance to the hammer and sickle, tossing dissidents out on their heels for minor policy differences. Just ask Joe Lieberman.

Why do the so-called ‘progressives’ stoop to this thuggish level? Frankly, the Left lost the policy debate long ago. Poll after poll shows that on most substantive issues America agrees with Republicans. Case in point, Missouri recently passed amendment six, allowing the legislature to pass voter ID requirements. According to polling done several months before the election, a vast majority of voters approved of the general concept of having to identify oneself at the polls, but when it came to actual voting, the margins were much thinner. This was likely because of the Left’s conjecture about voter ID’s secret racist intent. The Left can’t win on a policy level, so the have no play other than to cast any and all opposing voices as not simply friendly adversaries but as secret conniving Ku Klux Klanners looking to bring back the poll tax.

In addition to blaming evil intentions and gainsaying for the views of their disputants, the Left applies the catch all of pure stupidity to explain their foibles. The elitist liberal intelligentsia on the coasts cast red-state voters as dumb rednecks for electing Donald Trump. To them, ‘non-college educated white’ is just another way of saying ignorant simpleton. If only those rubes had spent some time in the liberal indoctrination stations, they wouldn’t be so uneducated as to pass up pulling the lever for crooked Hillary. It’s this kind of snobbish attitude that the left uses to feel good about losing, and it’s what will make them continue to lose.

The attribution of a sinister motive or downright stupidity to every conservative policy is the new play. Disagreement is a thing of the past—you’re either left or you’re wrong! Conservatives have long believed that we’re all entitled to our opinions but not our own facts. Of course, according to the Left, any opinion but the leftist one is afactual, evil, or just idiotic.