DAVID BERNSTEIN: When you live in an ideological police state, it’s not irrational to fear a change in power, so maybe college students aren’t exactly irrational to fear a Trump presidency, based on their experience. . . .

Many of these students have grown up with progressivism dominant all around them — in the White House, to be sure, but even more so in their elite private and suburban public schools, in their summer camps, in their religious institutions, and especially at their universities.

Moreover, they have noticed how dissenters from dominant political orthodoxy have been treated in these institutions — they are ridiculed, ostracized, sometimes harassed and occasionally punished for their political views. They have seen that progressives have organized to deprive dissenters of their jobs and their livelihoods. The more politically aware among them may have even noticed that the Obama administration has been distinctly unwilling to accommodate religious dissenters. For example, the Obama Justice Department has refused to rule out the possibility that the government would seek to deny tax exemptions for religious institutions that refuse to recognize same-sex marriage.

With the federal government about to be dominated by presumptively regressive and evil Republicans — a tribe that elite students are barely personally familiar with but have heard terrible things about — it’s not wholly irrational for progressive students to wonder: Is this going to affect my job prospects in the future? Will the institutions I care about be threatened with federal retaliation? Will a wave of conservative sentiment sweep over the nation, and as a result, will I face ridicule, ostracism and perhaps even punishment for my beliefs?

Well, perhaps this will turn them into free-speech enthusiasts.

UPDATE: From the comments: “Most of the freakouts have the same source: Progressives afraid that Trump will do to them what they wanted Hillary to do to conservatives.”