On the thinking of liberal Democrats
Commenter “Yawrate” writes:
I think it’s important to make a distinction between Dem leftists and Dem liberals. The leftists are destructive and driven by a need for power and they gin up support from many aggrieved leftist useful idiots that are perfectly willing to burn, loot and murder. We are not going to be changing their minds.
But the Dem liberals are the key and the mystery. They are reasonable people. I know many of them. But they can’t vote any other way but Democrat. They just won’t change their minds even after seeing the destruction of modern society and the havoc wrought by the leftists. That is the mystery. What value do they see in the modern Democrat party? And many of them are fairly conservative. But we can’t give up on them because they are the key to conservative electoral success.
Maybe they’re all like Garrison Keillor. They support Dems because they want to perceived as “nice”.
Actually, I think it’s necessary to make a distinction between Democrat leftist activists, less-committed leftists, and Democrat liberals. The leftist activists tend to be as Yawrate described. But even some of them are driven, as are many of the less-committed leftists, by idealism as well as the conviction that this time leftism will be done correctly. Or, even if it won’t be perfect and lead to Utopia, it will lead to something better than what we have now – and, even more importantly, something better than what the evil, bigoted, religiously fanatic, woman-hating, science-hating right would have in store if the right ever got into power again.
You may think it preposterous that anyone could still believe all of that, but I can assure you that a significant number do. If you’ve been marinated in this thinking from birth or from your college years, and you are surrounded by those who think more or less that way as well, and the papers and websites you read and visit say the same and stir up more and more fear, and you don’t know too many people on the right, and you see Donald Trump and think he’s icky – why, then, it’s not hard to think that way. It’s much much harder to abandon that sort of thinking.
As for what for want of a better word I’ll call “liberals,” most of the ones I know – and I know plenty – don’t like the details of politics very much. That wouldn’t be such a pernicious thing if in fact the press, even the liberal press, was interested in presenting fairly objective news. But it’s not. So if you’re the sort of person who just reads the headlines, or listens to a cable news station now and then while double-tasking, you can easily go for your entire life without learning the details that would make a difference.
To a certain extent, for much of my life I used to fit that description in the previous paragraph. Politics and politicians were so distasteful to me, and I was so busy with other things, that a lot of fairly big stories were simply a couple of sentences floating around somewhere in my consciousness. Now and then if something particularly moved me I’d pay special attention, but most things were more at the periphery of my awareness. Also, of course, for the most part the nation was going along pretty well compared to now. So I could afford – at least I thought I could afford – the luxury of not paying such close attention.
All that changed over twenty years ago, but that’s a story I’ve already told. For me, though, once I paid close attention, I got a lot of surprises. Some of those surprises were even about the past, about things I thought I knew but really didn’t know all that well. But the biggest surprise was that I didn’t so much become a conservative as discover that I had always been a conservative without really understanding what that word “conservative” meant. I had understand only what non-conservatives said it meant.
As “Yawrate” writes, some modern-day Democrat liberals who always vote Democrat – as I had, until the year 2004 – are actually pretty conservative. I find that is true among many of my Democrat friends, as well. However, they don’t see it that way, and what I think is even more important is that their vision of what “conservative” is and what it means is shaped by the leftist MSM. Or perhaps they once knew a person on the right who really was a bigoted, loudmouthed SOB. And in their minds this person then came to stand for most or all conservatives.
I agree with “Yawrate” that “we can’t give up on them because they are the key.” But although I’ve tried, I don’t know how to reach them – partly because most of them refuse to talk about politics anyway, so the opportunity isn’t even there.
[NOTE: I also suggest you follow the links in this comment of mine if you want to read more of my thoughts on this subject.]
The emptiness of the typical Leftist mind, painted here by Neo, suggests the Truth of Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi, like “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (aka “Starship Troopers” film, released in the 1990s).
The Truth it argues is that only those willing to risk their lives through military service have the commitment needed to be a governing Citizen. And only such service gains this earned reward.
That which is merely given is not worth much, such as citizenship by mere birth – as we are used to, today.But if one REALLY risks obes life in defense, then one gains deeper connection to ensuring survival and continuity of rhe polity.
We are indeed lacking that probity now.
I am so pissed that I have to pay attention to politics. The curse of interesting times, and if I ever find the SOB responsible I’ll send him to Hell.
T J::
I don’t know why you say “empty.” I have not described emptiness. I have described people not paying a ton of attention to politics. I assure you the minds of the people I know are hardly empty, nor was mine when I was a Democrat.
As for what for want of a better word I’ll call “liberals,” most of the ones I know – and I know plenty – don’t like the details of politics very much.
I am reminded of a recent conversation with a childhood friend. Very nice, very kind, very liberal from birth. She also had a very successful career in business, which helps explain why she was able to retire on the Cape. 🙂
I was recounting politically-oriented stories from our hometown’s past. Such as the 6th grade classmate of my brother who wrote Lady Bird Johnson about her highway beautification program. He got sent to the principal’s office to have a telephone conversation with Lady Bird.That woman was no slouch at politics, which helps explain why LBJ often asked her advice.
I strayed from our hometown to recount a story from my uncle. For several decades he commuted from his house in the NYC suburbs to his NYC job. One day in front of Grand Central Station, he observed LBJ and Robert Kennedy in a limo. LBJ was wagging his finger in RFK’s face.
I told my childhood friend that the animosity between LBJ and RFK was old news, but it was interesting to get further confirmation of it. My childhood friend replied that she had never known of the animosity between the two. LBJ and RFK were front page items during our high school years. But she hadn’t been that interested in the details. (MY interest in the details helps explain why I slowly changed from Democrat to Independent to Republican.)
@T J:The Truth it argues is that only those willing to risk their lives through military service
In “Starship Troopers” military service was NOT required. It was a common way to gain citizenship, and the way the protagonist chose, but not the only way. There always was some kind of difficult service required, but not exclusively military.
“The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” is a different novel from “Starship Troopers”; it was about a penal colony.
After seeing Neo’s comment, I will add that my childhood friend is interested enough in politics to be able to recite the Demo narratives de jour, but never bothers to go beyond them.
You nailed my “empty” term. Not paying attention. Vacuous – uninformed are synonyms here. Not up to the seriousness required to vote intelligently.
Such people ought not to bother with voting. And when we had political normalcy, say, before 9/11, they didn’t.
Now we face this problem together with professional school indoctrinator’s products…and here we are.
And on course for an urban/rural civil war like Columbia had in the late 1940s.
I personally am convinced that for every “type” seen on the left/liberal spectrum there is a corresponding “type” on the right/conservative. I am also convinced that there are not different kinds of human minds that sort by Republican/Democrat. I am convinced that “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us it oscillates with the years.”
I think we’d make much more progress if we focused on behavior and incentives rather than thinking. People tend to adjust their thinking to align their circumstances, after all. There are very few people, anywhere on the political spectrum, who reason out their behavior from principles and act consistently. And I personally am not much concerned with why people do something that affects me negatively, than with the fact of their doing it at all. People can be incented to do the right thing for the wrong reason; it can be argued our Constitution was originally intended to do that very thing:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State.
Maybe they’re all like Garrison Keillor.
Just so. Which means they’re not nice at all. If you get my drift . . .
This is an accurate description of quite a lot of left liberals. Choosing one of the preeminent “loudmouthed SOBs” in the country as the standard-bearer of the Republican Party doesn’t help.
The loudmouthed SOB becomes the brand, further hardening the cocoon in which the left liberal resides.
College has quite a bit to do with this as well. I can’t tell you how many of high school classmates were quite conservative in high school, but then went off to college and became good little progressive drones. We’re talking about speech and debate kids, so yes we talked about politics and yes they had opinions in high school.
I don’t think it is always that they choose to be (d) liberal. That are choosing to NOT be (r). I have a number of positions in my life simply defined as “my dad wouldn’t do this”. I try, really I do, to limit it to things I have other good reasons to hold that view (though I just can’t ever support the Denver Broncos).
Neo,
I tried to look for your “change story” back to the beginning post (2/21/05?). When I got there and tried to “continue reading”, I got an error message, “not found on this server”, or some such. Does anyone know what, if anything, I can do? (Different browser?) I am obviously unclear on the concept.
“though I just can’t ever support the Denver Broncos”
OMG!! As a Denver native and a Bronco fan since they were one if the original AFL teams, I resemble that remark! 🙂 Seriously though, they have sucked since Manning, so I really don’t blame you.
What you have described is the problem of an unlimited government that is not guided by voting. It is guided by the Will to Power. IE, voting is crap in that situation. Limit government power, enhance self-governance and you will see a different voting pattern.
“though I just can’t ever support the Denver Broncos”
“OMG!! As a Denver native and a Bronco fan since they were one if the original AFL teams, I resemble that remark! ? Seriously though, they have sucked since Manning, so I really don’t blame you.”
And then the Bowlins sold the team to Walmart.*
(Daughter went to school grades 2-12 with the Bowlin girl who was probably supposed to take over the team. That means that we saw a lot of the family through those years.)
As to reaching the liberals… the approach we took with StandUpGirl.com, on the abortion issue, has worked out very well in reaching across the social divide. Leftist activists were immune to our outreach, but the first person stories, avoidance of politics, the scientific information, the lack of shocking images, all created a package that has engaged 10’s of millions of liberal young women over the past 20 years, for over 15 minute long visits.
Those on the left whose singular motivation is power are Stalinists. The idealists are Trotskyites. And we all know what happened to Trotsky.
Some percentage of the uninvolved liberals will walk away as the natural consequences of leftist policies become personal. But many, perhaps most uninvolved liberals will look around bewilderingly when the reality of what they have enabled becomes inescapable. Their confusion will be the natural result of their lifelong, willful refusal to face reality.
Bauxite, re: “Choosing one of the preeminent “loudmouthed SOBs” in the country as the standard-bearer of the Republican Party doesn’t help.”
Trump is certainly a loudmouthed braggart. He was ‘chosen’ because he was the only candidate on the right willing to take on the establishment both left and right.
As for being an “SOB”… What in office did he do that objectively justifies that label? In your opinion is Biden an SOB?
PS; someone enacting policies you may even strongly disagree with does not make that person an SOB. Or in your view, does voting republican automatically make someone an SOB? If that is the case and by that standard, we would be forced to conclude that you are evil and there’s only one way to deal with evil.
VV:
I’m not sure what the problem is that you describe, because when I try to do it, it works fine. Perhaps it’s your browser? I’m using Chrome. Another way to deal with reading the post is that, when you go to the category and find the post in the list, click on the post’s title instead of “continue.” Let me know if it’s working.
Hey Chuck
The perfect opinion of a person that wants the politicians to do his thinking for him. You think the system is remote control? On automatic? We are precisely here because woefully few people think about politics. Or even consider what they believe.
Richard Cook; TJ:
Most people will never care enough about politics to spend hours and hours of their free time reading about its details, and I for one don’t blame them. Life is short, and many people work hard all day and don’t want to spend recreational time doing that. Nor do they think it’s all that important to know every detail. They rely on newspapers, friends, and what they think they already know.
This is just human nature, and you cannot change it. That’s why newspapers telling the truth is so important. That’s why having more people with integrity running the country would be really really nice but is really really hard, because power corrupts and politics has always been a pretty low and dirty game.
intellectually I think I understand the left, although emotionally I recoil against their positions, I lived in a very blue berg in south florida, for a considerable of time, thats why I used a hanlle for most of the time I have been posting these 20 years!
Garrison Keillor is detestable. And ugly as sin. But mostly detestable.
I would suggest again that the trans in women’s spaces and the trans agenda among kids is an Achilles heel for Democrats, if a clear, distinct line is drawn and held.
Garrison Keillor is detestable. And ugly as sin. But mostly detestable.
Ray Van Dune;
Helluva writer though. Probably a nice guy too … if you aren’t deplorable.
You may think it preposterous that anyone could still believe all of that, but I can assure you that a significant number do. If you’ve been marinated in this thinking from birth or from your college years, and you are surrounded by those who think more or less that way as well…
neo:
That’s me. Moi. Thanks.
But some of us change. I wager more people are shifting right these days than left.
Garrison Keillor isn’t even in the same spiral arm of the Milky Way, as nice.
huxley:
That was me, too. And of course, I changed – or rather, I started paying more attention.
However, I only know of one person who has changed position recently – and by “recently,” I mean about 10 years ago. Among those I know, the hatred of Trump has only intensified.
Garrison Keillor isn’t even in the same spiral arm of the Milky Way, as nice.
SCOTTtheBADGER:
Did you listen to “Prairie Home Companion” in the 70s/80s/90s?
neo:
I don’t believe you or I run into some of the changers I’m thinking of.
________________________
The Democrats’ Nonwhite Working-Class Problem Re-Emerges:
Those Margins Just Keep Dropping
The latest New York Times/Siena poll has made an impact and underscored the Democrats’ vulnerabilities on many fronts. The poll found Trump and Biden tied in a 2024 trial heat 43-43, with 16 percent saying they are undecided, would vote for another candidate or not vote at all. There are many striking demographic patterns in this result but one of the most striking has been little talked about: Biden’s weakness among nonwhite working-class (noncollege) voters. Biden leads Trump by a mere 16 points among this demographic. This compares to his lead over Trump of 48 points in 2020. And even that lead was a big drop-off from Obama’s 67-point advantage in 2012.
–Ruy Teixeira
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-nonwhite-working-class-1dc
________________________
I’ve come to love Ruy for his doomed efforts to talk Democrats off the Woke ledge.
You tell ’em, Ruy!
I find Krauthammer’s explanation of liberals to be far, far more accurate than Frederick’s. Frederick sounds a lot like Rodney King. And about as deep.
There is a fundamental difference between those who believe they are morally superior and entitled to rule and those whose humility is the reason they embrace the constitution and the founder’s vision of governance. This isn’t about incentives. It’s about morals.
Neo’s friends believe conservatives are evil just as Krauthammer explained.
Ruy Teixeira is an interesting character. He was a leftist analyst who forecast Obama’s election in 2008 would lead to an FDR-style era of Democrat dominance based on changing demographics.
He wasn’t entirely wrong — but it wasn’t that simple. Witness Trump’s upset in 2016.
He is a classic social democrat — an old-fashioned leftist who sees the world primarily in the rich/poor class division. He is not entirely wrong about that either.
So Woke politics — the alliance of the rich and radical left, which ignores class — makes Teixeira crazy.
So crazy in 2022 he became a Senior Fellow at the center-right American Enterprise Institute.
_____________________________
A Real Chilling Effect’: A Lefty Scholar is Dumping CAP for AEI
Ruy Teixeira predicted Obama’s rise. Now he’s scorning DC’s liberal think tanks for caring more about diversity than class.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/07/15/capital-city-ruy-teixeira-american-enterprise-institute-00045819
_____________________________
Blow me down! A surprising left-to-right changer.
Neo at 7:55… human nature?
I think JackWayne comes close.
August 4, 2023 at 6:37 pm said:
What you have described is the problem of an unlimited government that is not guided by voting. It is guided by the Will to Power. IE, voting is crap in that situation. [Agreed.Hence my personal rejection of voting now.]
[Jack finishes with:] Limit government power, enhance self-governance and you will see a different voting pattern.”
Unfortunately, these options are very limited in Hardcore D states.
Better to pursue these improvements in purple or even R dominant states. Prepare for secession. It will be necessary.
I HATE THAT THE FAR LEFT DRIVES ME TO HATE HUMANITY ITSELF. But that they do. And I might HATE them most for that.
Unlike the Christian, I see no virtue in cheek turning or giving people another break.
Instead, I expect evil to triumph. Because the Far Left really is EVIL.
(Only if I’m disappointed in the next 14 months will I reconsider my declared misanthropy.)
Huxley, indeed I did! But as soon as President Bush was elected in 2000, it turned into a very nasty program. Shortly afterward out came the revelations about how he treated people.
Neo,
Thanks, it was clicking on the post’s title that made the difference. I guess I don’t think of black-print titles as something to click on. I am used to seeing many links in color.
TJ:
Secession been tried once before. What’s the saying about history and those who won’t learn from it? Shouting won’t help.
Oh well, how many fibbers does it take to fill the interwebs?
@ Neo > “Most people will never care enough about politics to spend hours and hours of their free time reading about its details, and I for one don’t blame them. Life is short, and many people work hard all day and don’t want to spend recreational time doing that. Nor do they think it’s all that important to know every detail.”
Clearly, some of us are not like most people.
Reading about the details of politics (especially in our bizarre epoch) IS my recreation.
The left dominates both public k thru university with indoctrination, and media is very left, including most of the internet giants. When you are in an echo chamber, it’s easy to be a good drone.
And the unholy alliance of public teacher unions skews elections and increases indoctrination.
Following up our discussion on Lawfare as practiced by the Left and why the Right should follow their example in principle but not practice, IOW by acting ethically within the law — a case in point.
When the left tries to block a conservative event by citing some alleged regulatory constraint while actually violating more relevant statutes as well as lying about the details: get the facts, point them out, and gently suggest you will see them in court.
https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2023/08/04/madison-huntsville-al-library-cancels-brave-books-see-you-at-the-library-event-citing-capacity-issues-then-reverses-course-n787895
I think the last group isn’t that directly or deeply involved in today’s politics. They may be Yellow Dog Democrats, people who don’t give much thought to politics but always vote Democrat, believing that Republicans aren’t for the little guy or are narrow-minded and short-sighted, or they may be yesteryear’s liberals who are still subscribers to the Atlantic or Harper’s and haven’t let their membership in Common Cause or NOW or the Sierra Club lapse. They may even be members of the town Democrat committee. Those higher up in the party and in those publications and organizations, whether they call themselves liberals or progressives, support the woke agenda. The followers, the third group you mentioned, go along with it in so far as they follow it or understand it, but they aren’t pushing it.
So yes, many in that last group do vote Democrat because they think it’s what “nice” people do. They are the people Garrison Keillor was talking about. Garrison himself, though, falls into one of the other categories, probably the second. He’s a middleman. Not a militant in the streets activist, but not one of the followers or tagalongs bringing up the rear. As I understand it, he’s had a column recently in a less progressive media outlet and may have mellowed a little.
Speaking of mellowing, I thought this was an interesting column (not by Keillor): The Lost Bardo of Bill Kristol.
He now seems to be someone who missed a chance to grow up and gain some wisdom, gravitas, and self-reflection..
No it’s not important to make any distinction at all betwixt dem liberals or dem radicials.
One can slice and dice demokrats any which way you choose, but it is a difference that is meaningless, insignificant, without consequence.
Why?
Because where it really matters is in the voting booth; where the “differences” amongst demonkrats collapse into just one action, one result.
And that is to vote demokrat.
For the umpteenth time; the greatest danger a representative democracy faces is the voters – willingly, freely, voluntarily – voting for a national suicide.
And demokrat voters, regardless of their liberal ideological temperature, join the lemmings marching over the cliff.
They all are contributing to the demise of our Constitutional Republic; what’s left of it anyway.
so om i’m serious now, now that the deep state is treating trump like putin is doing to navalny, what do we do?
The distinctions he is offering are factitious.
==
The actual distinction is between people who favor (and often work for) destructive and unjust things and the obtuse fools who pretend it isn’t happening.
this is a sample of my local fishwrap
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/08/04/desantis-rips-nba-players-for-criticizing-magics-50k-donation/
The late Clay Christensen, IMO one of the relatively few business academics whose books/articles contain ideas that are genuinely thought-provoking and useful, suggested that thinking about the ‘job’ for which a product is ‘hired’ can be a useful way to think about marketing opportunities and strategies.
I think the same framework might be useful in political discussion and marketing: Why do people have political opinions? What job(s) are they hiring these opinions for?
Discussed here:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/68576.html
Probably a nice guy too … if you aren’t deplorable.
==
He’s on his third marriage. His treatment of his 1st wife during the terminal phases of their marriage and of the l/t gf he had at the time he reconnected with the hs chum who was his 2d wife was…unedifying. A Prairie Home Companion wasn’t his work alone; Margaret Moos was crucial to the production. She was tossed aside like used tires.
Choosing one of the preeminent “loudmouthed SOBs” in the country as the standard-bearer of the Republican Party doesn’t help.
==
Yeah, we should have chosen another poseur like Mitt Romney or [fill in the name of the Prescott Bush scion of your choice].
ee cervantes:
Seriously, be careful what you wish for.
So Woke politics — the alliance of the rich and radical left, which ignores class — makes Teixeira crazy.
So crazy in 2022 he became a Senior Fellow at the center-right American Enterprise Institute.
Give me a moment here, if you would.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Loury and McWhorter’s conversations on YouTube lately, and I just started reading McWhorter’s Woke Racism, where he posits that wokeism is -not “is like” but is – a religion. McWhorter is an avowed Democrat and liberal; Loury has gone back and forth but seems to have settled on conservative. Both agree that wokeism is – or should be – anathema to Black Americans. 1. They’re fascinating and I urge everyone to take a listen.
2. With regard to McWhorter’s argument that wokeism is a religion – so far in the book he seems to be saying that because it is a religion, it’s not amenable to logical or rational discourse; how many fundamentalist Christians, he asks as an example, are going to be moved to become atheists (as an Episcopalian myself, I would add, “or even Lutherans”) through logical argument? So, he says, you can’t argue your way into their brains. You can’t shout your way in, either. He says that, like any good member of a(n evangelistic and fundamentalist) faith, they’re convinced that they have THE answer and it’s incumbent on them to bring everyone else to the light.
He’s not trying to be snarky. He’s saying, “Don’t beat your head against a wall. These are normal, nice people – most of them – but they’re also very devout. They won’t be moved. So – how can we just live with them?”
I have yet to read his answer to that last question, but I offer the previous stuff in response to calls to “understand” (check; it has all the hallmarks of a religion) and “reason with” (impossible, for most,for the same reason) members of the left.
3. With regard to Frederick’s very generous attitude about left vs. right and how we can possibly move forward – you say you think there are analogs for every form of left-leaner on the right, and I am willing to say that’s possible, even probable. But.
Where, on the left, do you find think tanks, let alone very prominent ones like AEI, who regularly seek out and employ not just card-carrying but actually bona fide members of the “other team”? Texiera isn’t the only one. As far as I know, that only happens on the right, and it makes me feel more confident that I’m not just in thrall to a political religion.
We certainly have our strident voices, and we certainly have those who denigrate “RINOs” like Brooks and Noonan and the rest and won’t give any credence to anything they say. But – so, take the “conservative” or Republican commentators on news shows on MSNBC and The View and so forth. How many of those have a C.V. like Texiera’s, or McWhorter’s, or Koonin’s? Think back to Hannity and Colmes – does CNN have anything like that, a head to head program where the network’s supposed “opponent” is invited to give his best arguments, rather than having a token soft Republican amidst a panel of not just Democrats but leftists?
I mean, maybe it does – I don’t go there, leaving that to my husband, who is made of sterner stuff. But I’m not hearing of such things.
I am trying to be as objective as I can be about my own political leanings: can I tolerate people in the other side? Yes, I have a lot of friends on the left. Do I feel comfortable coming out to them? No, not all of them. A few know I’m conservative; I don’t know if any of those few know that I voted for Trump, because I haven’t told any of them. Is my reticence because of them, or because of me? I can say that in the majority of cases, it’s because I’ve heard what they say about my kind when they think they’re in friendly territory (and they are; I think I’m pretty much alone in being conservative in the particular circles I’m thinking of). Do I talk that way about the other side? I admit that I do, but only when I am in known-to-be friendly territory; I never assume a person’s politics.
I do try to familiarize myself with the tenets of the left and their philosophical underpinnings, but honestly it’s not all that useful to know that critical theory is neo-Marxian and Marxism is gnostic; it doesn’t win me any arguments because I’m not willing to risk our livelihood by engaging in any, and it doesn’t make me feel more sympathetic to their beliefs.
you say you think there are analogs for every form of left-leaner on the right, and I am willing to say that’s possible, even probable. But.
Jamie:
Perhaps you could provide a quote from me on that…
I definitely don’t say there is a moral or logical equivalence between the right and the left. Otherwise I wouldn’t have switched sides.
I do think conservatives are fooling themselves that they aren’t driven by the same human virtues and vices as the left.
But for now the American left has become an angry, dangerous cult and the right mostly has not.
If we wish to discuss issues with the left, IMO we have to wait until their mania passes.
I’m an ex-lefist. I used to sing from that hymn book, but I can’t talk to leftists now and I consider it dangerous to try.
Jamie:
Well put and very thoughtful.