Tom Klingenstein is right in his latest speech. I might quibble over small details, but what matters is that Klingenstein is indubitably correct about many big things: above all, that the Right can’t reverse the tide of wokeism until it begins to “minimize the influence of libertarianism.” As he says, Libertarian-influenced Republicans tell the wokesters: “‘You can live your way, just allow us to live our way.’” To which the woke respond: “‘You must live our way or we will punish you.’”
If there is one lesson we must draw from the experience of the past few decades, and especially of the past few years, it is precisely this one. There has never been, and there will never be, a “neutral” American public square. It is a fantasy that we could ever or should ever make cacophonous debate and disagreement our only true ideals, leaving each to penetrate “the mystery of human life” on his own, or to figure out whether there are two genders or 107. One claim or other will coercively predominate.
