Liberal rhetoric has focused relentlessly on the motives of conservatives in exploiting the treatment of Asian-Americans as a wedge against affirmative action, which is a fair enough point: conservatives are highlighting discrimination against Asian-Americans when they just as strongly oppose policies that disadvantage white people.

But the obsession with political motives also doubles as a window into the left’s own motives. Liberal activist groups have a well-articulated fear that the disproportionate burden affirmative action places on Asian Americans will drive them away from the Democratic party and undermine the policy both politically and legally.

One could imagine a different strategy, in which liberal groups forthrightly concede that affirmative action reduces opportunities for Asian-Americans at elite schools, but defend it anyway. Asian-American students, after all, benefit from exposure to students of diverse backgrounds. Instead they have calculated that Asian-American support for liberalism in general and affirmative action in particular can’t withstand an honest depiction of the policy’s effects.

Their belief is that they must present Asian-American with a stark choice: ignore the evidence of their eyes and ears, or join with the reactionaries. What they haven’t thought through, apparently, is the possibility that many Asian-Americans will be unable or unwilling to reject conclusions that are perfectly obvious to them.