January 29, 2021
In a heated political climate, it’s always tempting to paint your opponents as extremists. It’s the American way! We don’t engage in nuanced debates about the merits of arguments we disagree with. We re-cast others as despots, fascists, Communists and above all “Nazis,” and argue with
those fake people. This makes for pretty entertaining conversations, with two people debating a fictional final boss that only exists in their minds. Unfortunately, it also means nothing is really being debated. It’s just a performance.
We’ve seen this a lot in the last few weeks. Two high-profile Southern Baptists have now referred to Vice-President Kamala Harris as a “Jezebel” (interesting how you never hear men referred to as an “Ahab.” Wonder why?) On the left, evidence that Russian operatives waged online misinformation campaigns has been inflated into fantastical speculation about Putin as a Machiavellian puppet master with the entirety of the Repub