It's cultural more than anything. Most professors are actually not Americans, and Democrats have done a good job of painting Republicans are racist to anyone who hasn't lived in America. But a lot of professors actually have pretty conservative values when you dig, they just are brainwashed into thinking Republicans are religious zealots who hate non-whites. It's too bad because their blindness is leading the country down an unproductive path.

There was some research showing that being smart doesn't make you more receptive to evidence, it just means you're more creative at dismissing evidence and cherry picking evidence that supports your own world view.

I will defend my colleagues, slightly. As bad as mainstream economics may seem, most of them do not think the standard Democrat economic platform makes any sense. They are Democrats for two main reasons: 1) they're socially liberal and 2) they're technocrats.