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Adult conversions are interesting, in both religion and politics. It’s been many years, but I used to read extensively in the “Up From Communism” and “The God that Failed” line of histories and memoirs. On a side track, it’s interesting to read on the bitter ideological warfare between the communist and the non-communist left.

One of the key questions is always what triggered a person’s defection from the left. Sometimes it can be a shattering personal experience. Or the power of example. Or a slow intellectual disillusionment. Slow disillusion isn’t as dramatic but it is very common, as intellectually engaged people are driven inch by inch to realize that to live on the left means to accept systematic lying. Some sell out and don’t break with the party line, even though they now realize that the party line is a lie. But some become disgusted, get their backs up, and publicly dissent.

Bill Mahar has all the earmarks of someone who is on the first steps of the long march out of the darkness. How far down the road he will get is yet to be seen. It is interesting that he seems to be interacting a lot more, and a lot more respectfully, with outspoken conservatives. I would really like to see him in an exchange, preferably a long discussion, with people like David Horowitz or Ron Radosh. Or Jonathan Haidt. Or Bari Weiss.

It is late in the game, but Mahar is shifting his ground. There are no guarantees, but we can hope it continues. He is at least no longer willing to parrot stupid lies because the hacks demand conformity. And he is increasingly willing to challenge some of the lies. That’s a start.

If he was an academic at a woke university, he would already be a marked man. I’d like to see a guest suggest that to him. If I met him, I would ask (among other things) if he’s ever read “Witness.”