"We're supposed to be for each other! We're supposed to be for each other! No! No! No!"

Game of Dodgeball in Antifastan, Seattle. The game ended in confusion and frustration as players were told to continue playing even after getting hit by a ball to prevent hurt feelings. pic.twitter.com/bMzXhnurYD

— John Henry Cash (@fake_news_u_r) June 13, 2020

"There is little or no liberal space in this revolutionary movement for genuine, respectful disagreement, regardless of one’s identity, or even open-minded exploration."

"In fact, there is an increasingly ferocious campaign to quell dissent, to chill debate, to purge those who ask questions, and to ruin people for their refusal to swallow this reductionist ideology whole. The orthodoxy goes further than suppressing contrary arguments and shaming any human being who makes them. It insists, in fact, that anything counter to this view is itself a form of violence against the oppressed. The reason some New York Times staffers defenestrated op-ed page editor James Bennet was that he was, they claimed, endangering the lives of black staffers by running a piece by Senator Tom Cotton, who called for federal troops to end looting, violence, and chaos, if the local authorities could not. This framing equated words on a page with a threat to physical life — the precise argument many students at elite colleges have been using to protect themselves from views that might upset them.... In this manic, Manichean world you’re not even given the space to say nothing. 'White Silence = Violence' is a slogan chanted and displayed in every one of these marches. It’s very reminiscent of totalitarian states where you have to compete to broadcast your fealty to the cause. In these past two weeks, if you didn’t put up on Instagram or Facebook some kind of slogan or symbol displaying your wokeness, you were instantly suspect. The cultishness of this can be seen in the way people are actually cutting off contact with their own families if they don’t awaken and see the truth and repeat its formulae.... If you argue that you believe that much of this ideology is postmodern gobbledygook, you are guilty of 'white fragility.' If you say you are not fragile, and merely disagree, this is proof you are fragile. It is the same circular argument that was once used to burn witches. And it has the same religious undertones...."

From "Is There Still Room for Debate?" by Andrew Sullivan (New York Magazine).

"Rose Byrne’s Gloria Steinem comes off as a vacillating, shallow, vain egomaniac; Tracey Ullman’s Betty Friedan strongly suggests that her feminist anger..."

"... came out of crushed romantic dreams; Bella Abzug is only slightly more appealing — but largely because her pragmatism seems so sane in comparison with the antics of her fellows.... And what the series gets so right about left-wing identitarianism is how riddled it often is with jealousy, personal rivalry, and internal spats... The intersection, if you’ll forgive my using that word, of glamour and elite left-wing politics is pretty damning of both. The feminists completely underestimated Schlafly, because their vain self-regard could not believe that any serious pushback against the ERA could be rooted in real arguments about the difference between the sexes rather than their interchangeability.... Schlafly’s version of feminism is, in fact, less a reactionary one than a truly prescient one. She was the first feminist (though she would reject that label) to depict traditional home and family life as something not to be despised, as long as women had the choice to abandon it.... This is the first time I’ve seen a conservative woman portrayed as human, complicated, vulnerable, and also extraordinarily courageous."

Andrew Sullivan praises the Hulu movie-biography of Phyllis Schlafly (in NY Magazine).

Here's the trailer (with Cate Blanchett in the starring role):

"Four years ago, Bernie Sanders put up a surprisingly strong fight against Hillary Clinton on the strength of his support among white working-class voters..."

"... who proceeded to desert Clinton in November... [T]he left quickly [concluded that]... the Democrats had failed to offer the kind of progressive radical alternative Sanders stood for, voters instead opted for Trump’s reactionary attack on globalism. In order to win them back and defeat Trump, Democrats needed to reorganize themselves as a radical populist party.... The second Sanders campaign has shown conclusively how badly the left misunderstood the electorate.... White working-class and rural voters have swung heavily against him.... The factor that actually explains 2016, as some of us chagrined liberals insisted at the time, was Hillary Clinton’s idiosyncratic personal unpopularity. It turned out large portions of the public, even of the Democratic electorate, simply detested her.... Clinton hatred allowed Sanders to draw more than 40 percent of the primary vote, and Clinton hatred allowed Donald Trump to narrowly win...."

From "Bernie’s Whole Campaign Was Based On a Misreading of the 2016 Election" by Jonathan Chait (NY Magazine).

"I have this odd admiration for Evangelical voters. The pretty much sold out their ideals concerning personal morality..."

"... and supported Trump all the way. In return they received Supreme Courts justices they like, a rollback of LGBT rights, a wide expansion of government support for religion, etc.. It was a deal with the devil but for now it is paying big dividends for them. Most of the progressives I know would be horrified by such a 'sellout.' Over at The Nation all sorts of progressives are saying they will sit out the election rather than vote for Biden. Their personal moral purity counts more than winning. It is the same thing that cost Clinton in 2016. It is my biggest worry about 2020."

That's the highest-rated comment (by far) on a NYT column by David Leonhardt, "The Simple Reason the Left Won’t Stop Losing/Progressives need to care more about winning."