My problem isn’t with progressivism or conservatism but the fact that, at the moment, Americans are being deprived of the high-rung version of both by low-rung groups wearing blue and red uniforms. Plenty of people will disagree with my horizontal assessments, which is totally fine, but also beside the point. Whether the Lower Left or Lower Right is doing more damage is dwarfed by the much bigger phenomenon: that across the political spectrum, high-rungness seems to be losing its grip on our society’s thinking, its norms, its behavior. Across the whole country—and across many parts of today’s
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