Is this what it has come to now in what the pundits all call Our Polarized Society? Each side calling the other side a cult?
After looking at your YouTube link and your debate with Steve Hassan, I have a few thoughts.
First, calling the MAGA movement a cult is silly. As you point out, Jim, you are free to think for yourself, consider other viewpoints, etc. Anybody can leave a Trump rally without being ostracized. The only box on the cult checklist that would have to be checked is the one labeled Charismatic Leader. OK, maybe also the box labeled Loaded Language. I mean, "cultural Marxist woke...revolution" is straight out of the playbook for your side of the culture war handbook. This kind of rhetoric is name-calling, hyperbolic rote labeling. Really, how many Democrats are Marxists? All of them, according to Trump.
So am I putting myself on the "other side?" Only inasmuch as I have to in order to critique The Boys that Cried Woke.
I mean, I'm a member of more or less mainstream society, what you call a "cult-like society." (If an entire society can be anything like a cult, you're stretching the term more than a little.)
I have not read "The Queering of the American Child," but I'm familiar with the arguments in the book. I've spent most of my life in the public school system, and I have to say, it doesn't look anything like what the anti-woke crowd describes. Yes, teachers are, on average, left of center. (So are artists, social workers, doctors, nurses, and those who work in non-profits.) Administrators, not so much.
To accuse the educational establishment of acting at the behest of some conspiracy to turn kids trans? I don't think so.
As far as Trump goes, I'm with the majority--and the legacy media--insofar as character assessment goes. Greedy, misogynistic, selfish, etc. Not exactly a guy I would tag as a public servant. You call him a "reluctant hero." Hmmm. Well, he may be a hero to you, Jim, but I have a hard time seeing him as reluctant.
DLM and MAGA have nothing in common. GMJ is not DJT. I'll give you that. But I do wish that people who take sides in the culture war would put down their flamethrowers and have a conversation. I gather that's what you had in mind for this thread. Good!
