1. There's a certain tic amongst the conservative commentariat (including even the Never Trump variety) that I want to explore in this thread--the habit of writing against some overwrought caricature of a monolithic and incipiently tyrannical "left." 
2. To some extent, we might see this as a hold-over from the Reagan era, the golden age of American conservatism, when a diverse range of conservatives agreed to overlook their differences and join in a coalition organized around the existential fight against "Godless Communism."
3. Perhaps there's something in the political DNA of today's generation of conservative commentators (almost all of whom came of age in the Reagan era) that drives them to imagine their politics as always in relation to some imagined, totalitarian boogeyman to their left.
4. I don't think it's a coincidence that most contemporary conservative commentators cut their teeth as conservative rebels at "liberal" universities in the 80s and 90s--Max Boot, Jonah Goldberg, Andrew Sullivan, David Brooks, Dinesh D'Souza, Laura Ingraham, etc.
5. There are many points on which those people would disagree--but what they all shared (& continue to share from what I can tell) is an identity as rebels willing to tell some rude truths about "the dangers of the left" that liberals supposedly can't handle or are unaware of.
6. Yet, as someone who identifies as a person of "the left," the one consistent theme I find in most of their writings is that I simply do not recognize myself (or virtually any other "leftist" I know) in the "liberalism" they're arguing against. It's 98% tilting at PC windmills.
7. The armchair sociologist in me wonders if in the midst of the rambunctious extremities that marked elite college politics in the Reagan/Bush era (like any era), these folks singled out the most outlandish examples of "leftism" they encountered & defined themselves against it.
8. And today it's the caricatured abstraction of "the leftist media" or "liberal elites" that serves as "the other" they define themselves against. The problem with such synecdotal thinking is that it seriously mischaracterizes the politics of their supposed opponents.
9. It enables them to continue the epic struggle against the metaphysical threat "the left" supposedly poses to civilization, but renders them less capable of engaging in dialog with those they presume to disagree with. It's what they accuse the "PC left" of doing to them.
10. To develop this point about how "the right" often gets "the left" grievously (and willfully?) wrong , I'll just pick on this recent piece from Andrew Sullivan which has been much praised by the conservative commentariat.
11. According to Sullivan, modern day liberals (like the people who write explainers for @voxdotcom!) are empty inside...what they believe in is an amoral vision of "progress" that fetishizes procedures over substance.
12. Yet in the next paragraph we learn that secular liberals, who supposedly don't believe in anything, are deeply "illiberal" people who embrace cult-like belief systems that can end up destroying liberal proceduralism in the name of imposing a singular version of truth. 🤷♂️
13. The confusion continues w/ a discussion of the Great Awakening. While that great religious movement that inspired the Abolitionists is to be applauded, we're supposed to now fear it's latest incarnation. Because beliefs are...bad? And wait, I thought liberals had NO beliefs?
14. And it wouldn't be a Never Trump conservative column without some good old fashioned bothsiderism. "Yes, there is a MAGA cult that is dangerous to our politics, but don't forget the SJW cult too!!!" As if racism and anti-racism were just two sides of the same fascist coin.
15. Here's my beef with these folks. Back in the 80's and 90's these College Republicans scoffed at progressives who called right-wing conservatives "fascists." They thought such name calling was anti-intellectual and offensive, a refusal to take conservative ideas seriously.
16. Yet so much of conservative political discourse positions itself against a grossly oversimplified and hyperbolically caricatured version of "the left" that brings to mind the rhetoric of 1950s McCarthyism or the 1920s Red Scare. 20 year old SJW's are the new bolsheviks.
17. I guess "they say" that we're always fighting the last war...but seriously, the Cold War's been over for almost 30 years now. Can we please just loosen our grip on the 80 year old "all progressives are closet Stalinists" reflex?
18. As someone who teaches humanities to many 20 year olds at a "liberal" university, I'm here to tell you that, like 20 yr olds in many times & places, a few occasionally think and say things that might sound extreme to a 50 yr old, but they do not augur the end of civilization.
19. Nor, as this great essay points out, are the modern humanities engaged in some nefarious, culturally-marxist plot to brainwash students and undermine everything true and beautiful. chronicle.com/article/Lies-A…
20. I remember many a center-right friend telling me in the 90s and 00s to "take a chill pill" and not equate the most extreme fulminations of Dinesh D'Souza or Pat Buchanan or Rick Santorum with "conservatism" or the @gop as a whole.
21. So I would urge Sullivan and other conservatives to take their own advice and "take a chill pill" in regard to the synecdotal "SJW campus totalitarians are legion and reveal the massive threat the left poses to American society" narrative.
22. If folks like Sullivan and Brooks took such a "chill pill" about "the totalitarian left," what they might discover is that there's a diverse, capacious "liberal tradition" of which they, the *frightening* people at @voxdotcom, and campus "leftists" are all a part.
23. There would be many arguments to be had and disagreements that would linger...but at least we could move past a rhetorical configuration in which Never Trump conservatives (the conservatives who should know better) echo Fox News's idiotic talking points about "the left."
24. Here's an earlier thread where I try to make sense of Sullivan's relationship to American "liberalism" and "conservatism." Basically, many Never Trump conservatives want liberalism's vision of a fair society, without the movements that fought for it.
25. And here's a fantastic thread documenting how conservatives have usually been greeted at college campuses recently. The answer? With a couple of polite questions and maybe a few protestors outside.
26. I can add my own data points to that thread. Both David Brooks and Andrew Sullivan have spoken at my university and visited my class on the History of American Conservatism. Their lectures were well attended and there was no disruption.
