I thought last November I was going to write my one essay about the left in the 2010s, Kamala would win the election, and I would have four years to transition to other subjects besides politics. Obviously it didn’t quite turn out that way. One thing has kept leading to another, which means it’s now been nearly a year of reflecting on the recent past of the American left in various forms. To go back to the beginning, this was my first attempt to work through being a writer or public intellectual during the Trump era, one whose work was so closely identified with millennial socialism, along with some personal dimensions about how coming out the middle of all that blew up my sense of mission as a writer and a person.
The latest is this conversation with
and on Dan’s podcast, (which is great and you should subscribe to! He just interviewed , one of my favorites, about which more soon.) I lucked out and got on a free episode, which you can listen to here:
This came about after I wrote the piece below in response to Sam’s kiss-off to the left, and we talk about our respective arguments and differences. I remain as unconvinced as before that there is some deep philosophical difference between liberalism and the left that has any relevance to the present, but we nevertheless end of up much of the same place. I express, hopefully not too indulgently, some of my hopelessness about the media environment that conditions politics now and what that means for the prospect of anything besides muddling through.
This followed yet another dialogue, a three-part (written) discussion with
, which focused more specifically on the recent history of the left as opposed to the deeper philosophical and historical themes we touch on in the podcast. You can find that here:
Now I feel I have truly nothing more to say on the subject, and hopefully will have some time soon to finish some of the things I really want to write about.