Earlier this year, Fareed Zakaria warned his fellow "liberals" against partaking in Trump Derangement Syndrome, or a "hatred of President Trump so intense that it impairs people’s judgment." Given that many journalists deny the existence of TDS, Zakaria's words were remarkable.
This week, he's done it again. He's pointing out - and telling liberals to correct - something 99.9 percent of them would agree doesn't exist.
On his show Sunday, Zakaria referred to multiple recent instances of conservative speech being censored on college campuses, and told liberals that they, not conservatives, are the intolerant ones - that they are not "liberal."
"The world liberal in this context has nothing to do with today's partisan language, but refers instead to the Latin root, pertaining to liberty. And at the heart of liberty in the Western world has been freedom of speech. From the beginning, people understood that this meant protecting and listening to speech with which you disagreed."
Precisely. As many on the right have argued for years, today's "liberals" bear no resemblance to the traditional definition.
Adding fuel to the fire, he poked at another area where liberals feel superior - intellectualism. They call themselves the party of science and claim to be guided by reason. Zakaria says of their "anti-intellectualism":
"It's an attitude of self-righteousness that says we are so pure, we're so morally superior, we cannot bear to hear an idea with which we disagree," he said."Liberals think they are tolerant but often they aren't," he added.
No one, he continued, "has a monopoly on right or virtue."
Zakaria concluded with the observation that the only way one can learn is by being open to listening to people with opposing views and coming together in conversation.
Don't expect many liberals to take his words to heart.
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