The history and future of liberalism (and its antithesis, illiberalism) has been on my mind a lot the past few months. Here's @SamAdlerBell's insightful overview of the significant stakes of this conversation. theoutline.com/post/7687/what…

@SamAdlerBell Where Sam's piece does a great job of capturing where folks on both the left and right are in regard to this question of liberalism vs. illiberalism, here's a piece by David Brooks which captures the right side well, but totally whifs on where the left is. nytimes.com/2019/07/15/opi…

@SamAdlerBell The conservative tradition out of which Brooks comes has come to look more and more profoundly illiberal at its core the more historians have dug into its history.

Homophobia, segregationist racism, conspiracy theories, anti-ERA sexism; all of those illiberal threads in US political culture were the heart & soul of the conservative mvmt from the 60s on, the resentful id driving the "free market/family values/colorblind conservative" bus.

To his credit, Brooks acknowledges Trump's (and the GOP's) growing illiberalism...but, as usual, he does the bothsides move to paint "the left" as equally unhinged and dangerous. This reveals a profound misunderstanding of where most folks on "the left" are these days.

What Brooks misses here (and which Sam rightly notes) is that most of liberalism's achievements which we today celebrate were hard won victories secured by people who, at the time, were called "dangerous radical illiberal socialists who hate America."

These supposedly illiberal people who won these liberal victories were folks in Act Up, or the CIO, or in the SCLC, or NOW, or Abolitionists. Almost all of these groups were bitterly opposed by the bothsides moderates of their day, just as "the squad" is today.

Where Brooks calls upon us to love our opponents (as if gay people were supposed to love Westboro Baptist or Anita Bryant, or black people were supposed to love Bull Connor); Sam and his podcast partner @MatthewSitman invite us to UNDERSTAND our opponents. podcasts.apple.com/ml/podcast/kno…

@MatthewSitman I've long noted the asymmetry in our political culture where those on the left often have a deep & sophisticated understanding of conservatism, while almost every conservative pundit writes about "the left" with as much sophistication as Paul Harvey talking about "the Rooskies."

@MatthewSitman While Brooks fires off his lazy, ill-informed takes on liberalism & illiberalism from his well-compensated perch at the NYTimes, Matt and Sam are producing far better content FOR FREE. They deserve to be compensated for the work they do. You can help here. patreon.com/knowyourenemy/…