@DC5FAN @absurdlyobfuscated @ChristiJunior @Rasterman @beardalaxy big part of it is the symbolism and motifs of it all.
The easy part is already done: making white folks in flyover states seem stupid. Tons of movies and school lessons have achieved that.
With the image in their heads of stupid redneck trump voters, they get to ingest the "antidote" to that, which is university life in the city. All the motifs are the complete opposite here. It's diverse, no working out in the sun, big lecture halls, critical of religion, etc. Here in this "clean" place they can become redeemed people. With this in mind they buy all the larps like you say. If your genius professor who knows advanced calculus like the back of his hand is also a liberal, then that gives the ideology more credibility. And that's just another example of those motifs at play.
What they fail to take into account is the money/power aspect of it all. They think they're underdogs and rebels but they got all their views from elite institutions. It should be obvious to any sensible person but the symbolic messaging that they're "smart" drowns those facts out. I once argued with a retarded redditor who said liberals are clearly smarter than conservatives because liberal cities have the highest GDPs. Smart to a midwit, but obviously it's far more complicated than that.