The Left in the U.S. used to prize the ideals of tolerance, openness, and, above all, freedom of speech. These ideals were supposedly its bread and butter. Indeed, to be a liberal was synonymous with being openminded and accepting of others. It was those mean-spirited conservatives who were characterized as caring more about their own business portfolios than the plight of others. It was Republicans who were satirized as the narrow-minded, black-and-white, my-way-or-the-highway types. Popular culture depicted conservatives as the Ebenezer Scrooges of America: grumpy, cantankerous, and selfish.

Of course, this mainstream media portrayal of conservatives was never accurate, but it became such a ubiquitous stereotype within liberal circles that it became widely accepted as fact among many leftist elites.

This childish and dismissive view of conservatives was demonstrated by the likes of Barack Obama back in 2008, when he infamously referred to working-class conservatives as “bitter” folks who “cling to guns or religion.” Years later, Hillary Clinton would take that sentiment even further when she called Donald Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables.” And now there’s Joe Biden labeling “MAGA Republicans” as “semi-fascist.”

The point is that self-proclaimed “tolerant” leftists have either never really been truly tolerant or have quickly dropped the ideal in favor of tyranny. Of course, they love to claim supposedly altruistic virtues for doing this, saying that “racism,” “bigotry,” and “hate speech” should never be tolerated. And then they quickly and all too flippantly point their crooked fingers of blame at conservatives and Republicans.

Recently, late-night “comedian” Jimmy Kimmel reveled in his leftist woke virtuousness when he acknowledged that he has lost “half of my fans — maybe more than that.” During a podcast interview, Kimmel recalled, “There was at one time, maybe, I don’t know, like right around the beginning of this whole, like, Trump thing,” when people suggested that he not trash tens of millions of viewers. “But I just said: ‘Listen, I get it. I don’t disagree. I mean, you’re right.’” But forget that idea.

He then claimed that at one time half of his fans were Republicans, but he decided that he wasn’t going to attempt to walk a more politically neutral line, as had been the long practice of late-night talk show hosts like Johny Carson and Jay Leno. No, evidently Kimmel had bought into that absurdly negative stereotype of conservatives painted by liberals over the years to the point where he saw them as the enemy. Kimmel told management: “I’m just not going to do it like that. They knew I was serious. I just I couldn’t live with myself.” And so he got mean and nasty instead of funny, attacking not just Trump but effectively those who support him.

In Kimmel’s woke-warped mind, Trump was so dangerous that if he lost half his audience repeatedly trashing him as the Bad Orange Man, then so be it. He insisted he was the heroic virtuous one; never mind the fact that he was smearing and dividing the country as he spewed ugly, half-baked, and villainous caricatures of Trump and his supporters.

Of course, when it comes to Joe Biden and the Democrats, Kimmel only sees virtue: “Joe Biden — look, whatever you think about him … he’s a decent human being. He’s a nice old man who quite plainly cared about people through his whole life. He’s certainly not evil. If you believe that, you’ve got some real problems.” Well, if you believe that Trump is more evil than Biden, you haven’t been paying attention.

But that’s the problem with elitist leftists — they believe their own political opinions to not only be right but to in fact be expressions of their virtue, and therefore anyone who would dare disagree is not only viewed as wrong or ignorant, they are in fact seen as being evil.