I think the continued bafflement of liberals as to "how it could get this bad" is pretty easy to explain by looking at how it's almost always (relatively) privileged folks.

If you always believe that you are the most qualified person in the room, regardless of the subject, because you have never been told 'no' (which is common with privilege), then you're probably going to conclude that because *you* didn't see it coming, nobody else must have seen it coming either.