“To engage with them at all is to walk the low road”. Coke I have been with you since 2010 when I was fresh out of high school. This brings a tear to my eye. We don’t move forward or have our own ideas challenged without engagement. You haven’t lost a reader, I will never allow myself to be in an echo chamber like you are creating for yourself. I started disliking what you have to say for a couple years now, but recognize the value in hearing what someone I disagree with has to say.
You’ve missed my point entirely. I detest an echo chamber. I need to be challenged by people with opposing viewpoints. I long for the dialectic, and I am desperate for worthy adversaries.
You don’t need to tell me that we don’t move forward without engagement. I’m with you 100% on that point. The problem is that the Trump-loving religious/alt-right has degraded into an infantile, reactionary horde of the cruel, the ignorant, and the stupid. When I say to engage with them is to walk the low road, I mean it.
Trump and all his little Trumpkins simply aren’t capable of joining the rest of us on the high road, and by the rest of us, I don’t just mean liberals or Democrats or those who think like me. I mean anyone with the capacity for rational discourse. I mean people who can rub a few words together and form an original thought. I mean folks who aren’t actual fucking neo-Nazis.
There was a time in this country when the political right was represented by some genuinely brilliant bastards. They were privileged pricks with their heads up their asses, but they were articulate and well-schooled, they were worldly, and they could defend their political views with thoughtful debate using legitimate lines of reasoning.
Take William F Buckley Jr. for instance. That dude was one of the most gaping assholes of the 20th century, but he was smart as a fucking whip. His positions were loathsome, but he knew what he was talking about, and his arguments were exquisite. Say what you will about Buckley’s opinions, but the man didn’t just walk the high road; he fucking paved it. Is there anyone in Trump’s camp articulating the conservative world view at the level of someone like William F. Buckley Jr.? Fuck no. Even Buckley himself thought Trump was a monster.
Take Henry Kissinger as another example. He’s one of the most evil motherfuckers to have ever walked the earth, worse even than Dick Cheney, but he was dangerously intelligent and he knew his shit. He was the very definition of a worthy adversary on issues of conservative diplomacy, and when it came to public discourse, he always walked the high road. Is there anyone amongst Trump’s nominees who has half the brains of Henry Kissinger? Fuck no. They’re all Kissinger-sized scoundrels, to be sure, but with the added indignity of being a bunch of lackeys, lickspittle, and know-nothing corporate goons.
Over the years, there have been a number of right-wing thinkers with whom I have vehemently disagreed, but I still followed their work, because I knew they were making the very best case for the other side — magnificent assholes like Thomas Sowell, George Will, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum, and occasionally even David Brooks — but their voices have been drowned out by idiots of such magnitude that I can barely stand to keep listening.
The death of the eloquent conservative voice began during the era of Reagan and finally reached what I thought might be rock bottom during the era of George W. Bush, but things have gotten cartoonishly worse since the rise of Donald Trump. It’s gotten so embarrassingly bad that even Glenn Beck has taken a step back to wipe the shit off his shoes. I’m sorry, but when the likes of Tomi Lahren and Alex Jones are considered legitimate news sources worthy of citation, you can’t deny that there’s nothing left but low road, and you can fuck right off if you think I’m going to walk it.
I refuse to engage the opposition at so low a level, and I refuse to normalize Trump’s administration by dignifying its mouthpieces with any kind of legitimacy. They are simply not worthy of my validation. They are not worthy of yours. If you can’t see that, maybe wipe that tear from your eye and start paying attention.