If the threat of your neighbors, everyone in Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon and in Taiwan and Ukraine being killed while worsening the climate crisis and plunging over 300 million into fascism isn’t “exciting” to voters, then those voters are sociopaths.

Exploitation of professors’ enthusiasm is the fuel that runs the academic system worldwide. I’m not exaggerating. Look up publish or perish, postdoc working conditions, grant theft by uni admins, and stagnant wages.

I think it’s less about insulting them, and more a out no longer treating them with the utmost respect. We (and by we I don’t just mean lefties) should have called them weird when they called themselves the the tea party, but we handled absolutely insane rhetoric by trying to meet it from a place of thoughtful and respectful academic discussion. It was always the wrong strategy.

That said it could very easily backfire. Going to far would look really childish. I think weird really hits home with how most reasonable people feel about these guys.

You have some impressive storytelling skill. Have you considered writing a book?