As a lifelong liberal and social/market researcher who has tracked public opinion for more than 40 years, I'm distressed by how little liberal activists seem to have learned from recent election results. All signs indicate that their strategy going forward is to "do the same thing that failed — only do it harder."
That strategy will only further alienate Americans who have moved away from the political center; it could lead to the re-election of President Trump.
If, however, liberals were to adjust their strategy and their tactics, they could restore a more reasonable set of elected leaders to this country. To succeed, liberals must give those who have moved to the right in recent years reasons to return to the center.
I happen to have taken several leisurely drives across Middle America in the summer of 2016 (from Washington state to Minnesota, and from Minnesota to Texas and back). Along the way, I had the opportunity to talk with many fine people who hold somewhat conservative values, and who felt they were being pushed to the political right by an overly aggressive liberal agenda. Many of them, I am confident, voted for Trump last fall even though they disliked him and found it a distasteful prospect.
Recent coverage in the Star Tribune of the rift between Gov. Mark Dayton and outstate Minnesotans further exemplifies this alienation of laboring class and rural voters ("Dayton's views falling out of favor outstate," April 2).
Liberals started aggravating Americans like these with the extreme political-correctness movement ushered in during the 1970s. As the desire to spare anyone from "feeling bad" has moved forward, colleges and universities, the historic bastions of open-minded thinking, started sacrificing free speech, barring controversial speakers from campuses, and punishing students and faculty for so-called "micro-aggressions," in which something said by one person hurts the feelings of another person.
The so-called "bias response teams" deployed at the University of Minnesota exemplify this willingness to limit free speech (" 'Bias response team' or speech police?" April 2).
This assault on the First Amendment was, and continues to be, pivotal in pushing many voters to the right.