A belief that all attacks are personal and that one’s opponents invariably represent an evil with which there can be no compromise is not politics at all. It leads, as religious extremism often does, to the desire to suppress the free expression and thought of others.
Fanatical intolerance also fuels the desire to destroy institutions protecting the heretics. This is why Klein’s website promotes “The case for abolishing the Supreme Court,” and attacks the Senate and the Electoral College. Moreover, elevating group identity over the individual leads to the left’s current disregard for the presumption of innocence and other basic tenets of due process. It leads to the illiberalism Sullivan describes.
Sullivan is arguing for a small-l liberal politics built on Lockean pluralism. The left’s currently fashionable alternative is a totalitarian identitarianism wrapped in scientism––a combination recalling some of the worst chapters of the 20th century. It is a mildly depressing debate, but one necessary to win.
Andrew Sullivan And Classic Liberalism, Voxplained For Ezra Klein
That Aptly Describes the Progressives Posting here ...
When Andrew Sullivan Almost Seems Sane, You Know We’re Crazy
Older readers may recall Sullivan championed “Trig Trutherism.” This was the theory that 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was not the mother of her then-newborn son Trig and that her pregnancy was faked for political reasons. Sullivan persisted in this delusion for years, no matter how many times it was debunked (notably by Salon), before he tried in 2012 to pretend he had never made the claim.
This was Sullivan’s most-publicized conspiracy theory, but it was far from the first he embraced. There was the time he posted a video from… Alex Jones claiming that Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, in which he shot Harry Whittington, was less than an accident. (Sullivan didn’t back down when challenged, either.)
When U.S. and U.K. authorities foiled a spectacular terror plot to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean in 2006, Sullivan wondered whether President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had acted in part because pro-war Sen. Joe Lieberman lost a primary to progressive Ned Lamont. Just asking questions, you understand.
Fanatical intolerance also fuels the desire to destroy institutions protecting the heretics. This is why Klein’s website promotes “The case for abolishing the Supreme Court,” and attacks the Senate and the Electoral College. Moreover, elevating group identity over the individual leads to the left’s current disregard for the presumption of innocence and other basic tenets of due process. It leads to the illiberalism Sullivan describes.
Sullivan is arguing for a small-l liberal politics built on Lockean pluralism. The left’s currently fashionable alternative is a totalitarian identitarianism wrapped in scientism––a combination recalling some of the worst chapters of the 20th century. It is a mildly depressing debate, but one necessary to win.
Andrew Sullivan And Classic Liberalism, Voxplained For Ezra Klein
That Aptly Describes the Progressives Posting here ...
When Andrew Sullivan Almost Seems Sane, You Know We’re Crazy
Older readers may recall Sullivan championed “Trig Trutherism.” This was the theory that 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was not the mother of her then-newborn son Trig and that her pregnancy was faked for political reasons. Sullivan persisted in this delusion for years, no matter how many times it was debunked (notably by Salon), before he tried in 2012 to pretend he had never made the claim.
This was Sullivan’s most-publicized conspiracy theory, but it was far from the first he embraced. There was the time he posted a video from… Alex Jones claiming that Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, in which he shot Harry Whittington, was less than an accident. (Sullivan didn’t back down when challenged, either.)
When U.S. and U.K. authorities foiled a spectacular terror plot to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean in 2006, Sullivan wondered whether President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had acted in part because pro-war Sen. Joe Lieberman lost a primary to progressive Ned Lamont. Just asking questions, you understand.
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