Every political party (group) has some flawed tendencies, and the opposite party (group) is probably right about some of them.

I didn't get it at first, but I started to understand the Republican complaint about Democrats' "smugness." I realized I was seeing these instances of people needlessly being jerks and ridiculing people, for example, who didn't buy into the concept of evolution. For me, the person being a jerk is a person being a jerk. For a convervative, that's a smug liberal, and I'm one of the same. Maybe my jerkitude isn't so extremely dismissive or demeaning or frankly dehumanizing. When I disagree with people, I try to make a point that I'm not dismissing them as people. I'm attacking the idea or its supports, not them, not people. But when I dismiss ideas I consider false, I also can come across as smug. Or dismissive of the people themselves, even if that's not what I'm doing. Impressions are funny things.