History teaches that all men have blind spots that are impervious to facts.  Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in the aftermath of 2016’s presidential election.   

President-Elect Trump’s every utterance, action, and choice is condemned as demagoguery, war mongering, or ethnically or sexually discriminatory by Democrats and their allies.

He has been criticized for saving American jobs (Carrier), for saving taxpayers money (Boeing), and for starting to rein in a bloated federal bureaucracy (Scott Pruitt to head the rogue EPA).  Clearly, he can do nothing right.

The two camps are divided as much by opposing worldviews as by opposing political views.

It is liberals, Ivy League-credentialed, sophisticated, tolerant, open-minded stewards of received wisdom and “settled” science, who are most impervious to facts and resistant to change.  Ironically, these putative descendants of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason function in a world distorted, like a funhouse mirror, by emotion at the expense of reason.

For example, a while back, I forwarded the link to a Wall Street Journal commentary that I thought a successful, intelligent, educated cleric friend might enjoy.  It comported with his political and religious beliefs, yet it offered a nuanced critique about how Democrats give lip service to religion until religion conflicts with their political agenda. 

That gesture of goodwill ended abruptly when he archly informed me that he refuses to read anything from the (editorially conservative) Journal.

With these respective worlds, so far apart, there is little room for critical thought or intelligent discourse.  Mr. Trump will never reach détente with his critics.  Thus, he has nothing to lose by doing precisely what he promised if elected.

Cooler heads in the liberal camp have suggested that Democrats stop pointing fingers.  They have suggested several ways for their allies to tack closer to reality: stop being insufferable know-it-alls, venture beyond the east coast-west coast liberal echo chambers and extend a hand to folks in flyover country, attempt to give opponents the benefit of the doubt.  

These suggestions are fine as far as they go.  The good news for Trump and Republicans is, they won’t go far.   

The preponderance of post-November 8 evidence suggests that liberals, the media, and the academy have doubled down in their contempt for Trump and his constituency and remain maddeningly convinced that they are never wrong.

All well and good.

Napoleon said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

Republicans should pray without ceasing that Democrats continue to be Democrats.