Quartz Media - I finally stepped out of my progressive bubble—and now I understand why people hate “the liberal elite” (Re: recent Italian election to redefine local municipality powers and weaken the national senate)

Couple bits I wanted to point out in particular. Credit to Ms. Annalisa Merelli, the author of the piece.

On Facebook, my heavily “blue feed” shared news and commentary that unanimously condemned the victory of the “no” camp. Many of these articles claimed the vote was yet another example of democracy failing progress: The misguided, misinformed people who had voted “no” were helping to stunt Italy’s growth or, worse, had fallen for the xenophobic promises and empty slogans of politicians like Grillo and Salvini.

I thought this was interesting, although I don't particularly have anything to say about it.

But—after gathering as much information as I could on the reform and its likely consequences—I concluded that, amongst other issues, the proposed changes to the constitution would end up making a future populist government’s life unnecessarily easy and even more dangerous.

Laws that benefit the current party in power can also benefit the other party when (rarely "if) they gain power back. As I've said before, to quote Milton Friedman, "...when it comes to public policy...6 months is a long time to look ahead."

But they—the yes voters, whose opinions and commentary filled my social media platforms—didn’t seem to have the same respect for my reasoning. As an opinionated citizen with consistently liberal views, I am used to being attacked and insulted by conservatives for my choices and opinions. But the liberal critiques I read weren’t so much attacking my decision as they were questioning my intelligence and my ability to understand the issue.

For the first time in my life, I was on the outside of the so-called liberal bubble, looking in. And what I saw was not pretty. I watched as many of my highly educated friends and contacts addressed those who disagreed with them with contempt and arrogance, and an offensive air of intellectual superiority.

I think this will sound familiar to many Americans, although it's a bit different here . If you happen to be a conservative who supported Trump, you get calls questioning whether you are sexist, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and so on. This video by Mr. Jonathan Pie right after the US election makes several valid points along this line of thinking.

It was surprising and frustrating to find myself lumped in with political parties and ideologies I do not support...(This is, broadly speaking, not just a liberal problem.)

More truth. While I would prefer conservatives to liberals in power in general, if I had to pick between the two, it's not like it's that much better for most people on the right compared to those on the left.

The majority of these arguments did not explain why my choice was wrong. And after reading piece after piece of snarky, bitter commentary, I too lost the desire to engage with my yes-voting peers.

This is just part of life. You can't insult people and expect them to still care about you, what you have to say, or anything about you. You have to treat others with respect if you want to get anywhere with anyone.

The experience certainly made me wonder how many times I, too, may have been guilty of this kind of “libersplaining.” It’s easy to feel smug when you are living in an echo chamber. But now I truly understand how damaging that echo chamber can be: not only does it not win arguments, let alone votes, but it drives away those who might otherwise have been willing to change their minds.

I hate that word she uses, "libersplaining". It's called being a jackass, you don't need to invent a new word every time a minor detail changes about exactly how you're being a jackass. But otherwise, she's correct here. We're all in danger of that, all the time. No one reading this is any different and neither am I. It's very easy to get wrapped up in an aura of self-righteousness, knowing that you are doing what's right and good, so why bother examining all the obviously cherry-picked and otherwise false evidence the other guys drudge up? Anyone can fall into this trap, and it's dangerously easy to do so. Anyone that takes the time to at least examine and question their own beliefs is probably worth at least listening to, since they'll be receptive to what you have to say - just make sure you're kind enough to return the favor.

EDIT: Just say this article was posted Jan 10th of this year, so "recent" is relative.

Society at large is pandered to by the powers that be, regardless of political leaning; arguments are framed for all preconceived notions so no one need think. That's why moderate political campaigns use marketing and advertising techniques instead of concrete goals and actions. The tendency toward social conformity is expertly exploited to create identity politics.