Earlier this week, Brookings fellow (and Arc contributor) Shadi Hamid tweeted something that was far too reasonable to escape controversy. “If you don’t have a single conservative (or even a vaguely right-leaning person) among your friends and friends of friends, you’re doing something wrong,” he wrote.
Yes, you read that right — Hamid had the audacity to recommend people make friends with those who have diametrically opposed beliefs. The nerve, right?
Though he focused on friendship, the import of Hamid’s thread had more to do with the principle undergirding the advice, which is that ideological diversity is good.
The most hysterically critical replies seemed to unwittingly confirm the importance of Hamid’s point. This is just a sampling. There were many others.
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