Well, the elite Democrats are starting off 2026 the same way they ended 2025: as condescending, creepy hypocrites.
Under “condescending,” behold the wonder that is Larry Sabato. You may remember Sabato because he’s the University of Virginia politics professor who founded the Center for Politics, which is laughably described as “nonpartisan.”
But you probably don’t. Because who cares?
On the other hand, he is a near-perfect representative of our arrogant, educated, elite pundit class. He’s highly educated, and even though he has nothing but disdain for regular people, he touts his Center as “work[ing] to promote civic engagement and participation.” But I would argue that he’s no smarter than I am.
He has a lot political opinions, and is happy to yammer on about them. So do I. He has a BA, an MA and a PhD. So do I. He was Phi Beta Kappa. So was I. He was a Rhodes Scholar. I…wasn’t. He got his PhD from Oxford. I…didn’t. He has a earned a ton of money and a very high media profile by writing about politics. I…
Look, let’s not get hung up on these meaningless comparisons. Because everybody is different, and I have other, more impressive qualifications in my CV than he does. For example, was Larry Sabato a four-time runner-up for People magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Year? (Screw you, Patrick Dempsey, Chris Evans, Idris Alba and George Clooney!)
My wife is hotter, my kids are better, and my Wonder Dog outclasses his low-IQ little stripper dog like the ones that several of the Kardashians probably carry around in their purses.
Ok sure, I don’t know anything about his wife or kids, or if he even has a dog. But I said what I said, and I stand by it 100%.
Anyway, Larry Sabato couldn’t even get 48 hours into 2026 without proving that he is a condescending jerk. The proof came in his response to a statement by the new anchor of the CBS Evening News, someone named Tony Dokoupil.
On New Year’s Day, Dokoupil started his tenure with an on-air mea culpa, acknowledging that most Americans don’t trust the legacy media any more. “On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.”
To which all reasonably perceptive Americans said, “Duh!”
Even though CBS has a lot to atone for, and the only rational response to Dokoupil’s message is, “We’ll believe it when we see it,” we should still allow ourselves to be pleasantly surprised when CBS makes even a baby step in the direction of doing the right thing. Acknowledging reality and admitting fault is a good way for them to start a new year.
But Sir Lawrence of Sabato begs to differ. Because he immediately pushed his metaphorical glasses to the end of his nose and dialed the snoot factor up to 11 in a tweeted response to Dokoupil: “Absolutely! You wouldn’t want ‘academics and elites’ who have actually studied a subject to outweigh the off-the-cuff opinions of village idiots.”
[Sidebar: In this one response, Sabato showed himself to be the polar opposite of the late great William F. Buckley (peace be upon him), who famously said, “I’d rather be governed by 300 names drawn randomly from the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University.”]
Got that? If you disagree with Larry Sabato and his ilk, you’re a village idiot!
In case you’ve forgotten the lofty goal of Larry’s Center at UVA, I’ll repeat it: “working to promote civic engagement and participation.”
And obviously, the best way to accomplish that is to smear any dissenters as pitchfork-wielding mouth-breathers. “Listen up, morons! You’re all idiots, and your uninformed opinions are crap. So ‘engage with civics’ by bowing down to me as I lecture you on your wrongness, and then get out there and ‘participate,’ by voting exactly the way we experts tell you to!”
That level of clueless narcissism is hard to comprehend. Sabato’s job for decades has been to eat, drink and breathe politics. And yet, in the Year of Our Lord 2026, he can still unselfconsciously and unironically tout the opinions of “academics and elites who have actually studied a subject,” as if we’ve all just woken up from a deep, decades-long, magical sleep.
After all, medical elitists like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Scarf – I don’t remember her name and won’t waste the time to look it up, but you know who I’m talking about – “actually studied” communicable diseases for years.
Annnnddddd…they said covid came from delicious pangolins that untermenschen ChiComs gobbled like circus geeks devouring live chickens; and that masks would stop the spread; and that the vax would keep you from getting it; no, the vax and then 18 more boosters; and that six feet of distance would keep you safe; and that you could attend screaming mob protests of St. George Floyd’s death safely, but going to church would kill you.
And intelligence elites spent a lifetime actually studying intel and disinformation.
Annnnddddd… 51 of them swore that Hunter Biden’s laptop – which contained hours of video of Hunter Biden snorting crack off of the behinds of hookers of many nations, along with Hunter Biden’s emails proving that he was a bagman for ChiCom apparatchiks and Ukrainian oligarchs, and that he kicked up 10% of his illegal bribes to “the big man” – was actually a Russian fabrication. And that the non-existent Trump pee tape existed, and was proof that he was a Moscow-ian Candidate.
And our leftist policy experts assured us that the border couldn’t be closed without radical new legislation, and that illegals weren’t getting SNAP benefits or Medicaid, and that the Somali Learing Center was a world-class educational institution, well worth the $8 million per student cost.
And our leftist media experts assured us that Jen “Circle Back” Psaki and KJP were geniuses, and that the act of a male declaring himself a female magically turns all of his Y chromosomes to Xs. And that Joe Biden was mentally sharp, with the physical vigor of an Olympic triathlete gold medalist whose strongest events were stair climbing and long-jumping over sandbags.
But you don’t have to look to the army of lefty elite “experts” who have been relentlessly wrong or lying about everything all the time. You can just look at the King of Elite Academics: Larry Sabato.
In addition to all of his academic credentials, Sabato started a website to make political predictions, and he modestly named it, “Sabato’s Crystal Ball.”
Because of course he did.
Annnnddd… Sabato’s Crystal Ball has been about as accurate as a Magic Eight Ball.
Unexpectedly!
In 2016, Sabato predicted a Cankles McPantsuit blowout win against Trump by an electoral vote count of 322-216, almost the exact opposite of what happened. He also missed the House and Senate majorities.
He got 2020 “right,” when Joey Gaffes won in the Most Legitimate Election Ever™. (That was the one that hinged on 11 million Democrat voters who had never been seen before November of 2020, and who have never been seen since.)
But you’ll be shocked to know that he wrongly predicted that Que Mala would win the Electoral College (and the presidency) by 14 EC votes, when as we all know, she got wiped out by nearly 100 EC votes.
Because God exists, and He loves us.
So if I’m reading the record correctly, the Village Idiots went 2-1, while Sabato went 1-2, with a big asterisk in front of the 1.
Accordingly, if it’s all the same to you, Larry, you can keep your Crystal Ball, and I’ll rely on my Crystal Brain, along with my Magic Eight Ball.
Which I just asked three questions:
1. Is Larry Sabato half as smart as he thinks he is?
2. Can a randomly chosen village idiot out-think Larry Sabato?
3. Can Larry Sabato distinguish his fundament from a hole in the ground?
And I got, “My sources say no,” “You may rely on it,” and, “Reply hazy, try again,” respectively.
Would you look at that? The column’s already over, and I only got to “condescending elite Dems.”
So “creepy” and “hypocritical” Dems will be my topics next time.
Hamas (and Trantifa) delenda est!
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Martin Simpson 