All of these people are demagogues as defined by HL Mencken in my tagline below. Demagogue defines the Democrat party — the so-called leaders all preach doctrines they know to be untrue (and having failed in the past) to men and women they know to be idiots — their Democrat base.
I certainly think there are many Democrats in this category; but the most terrifying ones are the “true believers” who are idiots themselves.
I have come to believe that “stupidity” is not defined by IQ, but by worldview; the fool - regardless of how “smart” he is or how many degrees he has - believes that which is patently untrue. Because of his/her prior commitment to a perverse and false worldview, he cannot possibly understand the world as it really is.
Justice Brandeis said, “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.”
Liberal intellectuals are those who have deeply studied the works of propagandists and ideologues, and as a result have a patently false and distorted understanding of the real world.