Well put and very thoughtful.

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.

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.

Seriously, be careful what you wish for.

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

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/08/04/desantis-rips-nba-players-for-criticizing-magics-50k-donation/