Please consider this argument: people vote the way they do because of their perceived material interests. That is to say, most political struggle is not about some issue which can be decided based on reason and logic, to which there is one objectively-correct answer. Rather, it’s about how the victory, or defeat, of one side or the other in a political struggle will affect the person making the decision.

Intellectuals are more educated, and more intelligent, than non-intellectuals. But this does not make them free of self-interest. Today’s intellectuals in the West are generally liberal internationalists. But this is by no means the case generally with intellectuals, who, historically, have often been virulent nationalists — the late Yugoslavia for examples of this. A significant section of the European intellectual class, especially in post-war France, were enthusiastic supporters of Joseph Stalin. So the implication that we should always defer to the beliefs of the smart educated people does not hold up.

Today’s intellectuals are no more prone to seek out disconfirming evidence for their views than anyone else. They are just as prone as religious fundamentalists to mix up questions of value, and questions of fact. Thus they believe as an article of faith that mass Third World immigration into the West is a Good Thing, not based on any factual analysis of the possible consequences, but based on their self-identification as moral ‘anti-racists’, welded to the fact that they generally don’t experience any negative consequences from it, such as competition for jobs and public services.

The people further down the economic ladder, who may have different experiences of unlimited immigration, don’t share this world-view. Rather, they have the world view of 98% of mankind, which is still tribalist. (This is not a good thing, but just a fact. It’s not irrational, either.)

A more liberal, less tribal, more internationalist world order is coming, because economic evolution is pushing us in this direction. Base will determine superstructure. But the road there will be convoluted and, sadly, bloody. We’re talking generations, if not centuries. People cannot jump over their own heads, and it is wrong to condemn them for this fact.