One crushing rejoinder to Brandon would be to point out that the political labels J.S. Mill was familiar with have changed greatly in meaning. A conservative in the 1840s, for example, would have favored continuation of England’s traditional policy of keeping high tariffs on imported grain — the “corn” laws. Liberals were the advocates of free trade. While you can certainly find liberal free traders and conservative protectionists today, it is mostly the liberals (in the current political lexicon) who stick with the short-sighted, special-interest favoring policy of protectionism. On a wide range of issues, today to be “liberal” is to be a reactionary opponent of freedom and change, the exact opposite of its 19th century meaning.
Back in 2002, Duke professor Lawrence Evans took up the Brandon line, contending that there is a good reason why there are few Republicans or conservatives on college faculties, namely that “universities want people of some depth, subtlety and intelligence. People like that usually vote for the Democrats.” Sorry Evans, but there’s nothing very deep, subtle, or intelligent in supporting candidates who almost invariably favor the further expansion of the government. In fact, the belief that coercion (the essence of everything the government does) will manage to improve society is a mark of intellectual shallowness.
