#politicaldebate

#politicaldebate

On the morning of the Unite the Right rally, I lumbered down the staircase of a Catskills Airbnb rented for a bachelor party to learn that only hours before, a gang of white nationalists stormed the University of Virginia campus wielding Tiki torches and chanting, 'Jews will not replace us.'

Experts indicate that the creation of A.I. avatars is becoming easier, particularly for contractors and marketing companies that specialize in developing and dispatching these avatars in bulk.

In 1979 the revolution happened, and now Tehran looks like something from an earlier century. Sometimes I think that our whole world has become kind of like that-going backwards in time.

I am using the word pragmatism in a specific sense. I am not speaking about being pragmatic as a political tactic; deciding what issues should be given priority and what battles to choose, or a willingness to compromise, or a recognition that there are limits to what can be accomplished at any time. I am writing now about pragmatism in a meaning closer to its philosophical origin in the writings of William James-that truth is not found in abstract principles or beliefs,

Populism may well have been the defining word of the previous decade: a shorthand for the insurgent parties that came to prominence in the 2010s, challenging the dominance of the liberal centre. But no sooner had it become the main rubric for discussing both the far left and far right than commentators began to question its validity: worrying that it was too vague, or too pejorative, or fuelling the forces to which it referred.

The principle of intellectual charity is fundamental to constructive political conversations. This principle states that, in any discussion, we should accept the best version of an opponent's ideas, not a distorted version or a "straw man." Exaggeration and distortion of opposing opinions (always present, to some degree, in political debates) have become the standard form of political argument in contemporary America.

The readings in my last series led me to see the genuine hatred conservatives have for what they call variously liberal hegemony, liberal ideology, left-wing ideology, and other names. David Brooks, newly ensconced at Yale and The Atlantic, is just sure it was liberals who caused Trump's wins, with their snotty "knowledge", and "refined tastes". I mocked this nonsense, but apparently Brooks was serious about the super bad feelings his people have about such things.

He is not worthy of the presidency. He takes bribes blatantly. And now he's being a racist, blatantly. They were supposed to deport the dangerous criminals. They were not supposed to go after small children, storm schools, bring terror upon, you know, the little kids and the women and children, not just the immigrants in the school. All the children are scared.