I’m not so sure you’ve framed her thinking correctly. There are different kinds of liberals. Some are consciously hypocritical, wanting for themselves what they would deny to others. The professional union thugs of Madison, WI, come to mind. But my experience with most liberals is that the problem runs to a different level.
How can I put this?
I think it is that they are simply so well insulated from other people’s realities that they do not and cannot believe their political habits are hurting anyone else, and would be mortified at the suggestion. No, you see, it is they who are the true champions of the downtrodden. By voting against vouchers, they are protecting children from the evil chaos that exists outside the safe walls of state run education. They live in nice, safe neighborhoods because seeking safety for their children proves they are good, responsible parents and citizens, and of course they will buy into any program that promises to make things better elsewhere, willing to do their part in the natural societal evolution that will eventually make everything better for everyone everywhere, God bless them one and all.
Then something like this happens, and the justifying illusion of progress is shattered. Reality sets in, and they finally give grudging credence to at least some of the concerns of their conservative friends. They might even go out and buy a gun. But a worldview you’ve worn your whole life is hard to give up, even if it isn’t truthful. There is still beauty in the dream. Utopia is a wonderful place, if you can get there.
And in the end, that’s the difference between a conservative and a liberal. A conservative has awakened from those childhood fantasies and knows that utopia can’t be had this side of Heaven, so until then they’d better work hard, play fair, and carry a gun. A liberal is a liberal either because they haven’t awakened yet and are still stumbling about in their dream state, or they are wide awake and cynically and intentionally using their liberalism as a false front for raw power-mongering. Most liberals I know fall into the former category. I fear the “liberal” in the White House” falls into the latter.
I see the point you’re making, and I agree that not all liberals are consciously hypocritical.
However, from the point of view of the article, it’s almost as difficult to defend a person’s being so completely divorced from reality that she will congratulate herself for supporting policies that demonstrably do immense harm, until the day the harm flings itself through her rose-colored windows.
To not see what is really happening “out there,” to such an extent, takes a great deal of effort at self-delusion ... and being kind about that kind of neurotic behavior makes the writer sound very silly. That’s why readers are having trouble distinguishing Robin (who usually makes pretty good sense) from her subject.