I am impressed that a professor of polisci and stats could write a whole article about strawmanning and steelmanning without realizing how badly he misunderstands what those things mean.
He could be autistic. Autists will have problems, severe problems, with grasping the concept that someone else can have different views, and they will struggle with seeing the virtues of trying to understand those views. They will, indeed, perceive it as if they're being asked to 'bend over backwards'. I'm not sure how common high functioning autism is within academia. But I don't see it as entirely implausible that a high functioning autist could also be a professor.
