Looks about right. A Chris Hayes clone.
Posted on 07/15/2025 5:00:30 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
A speechwriter for former President Barack Obama suggested in a guest essay on Sunday that it might be time to stop shunning conservatives over a disagreement with their politics.
David Litt wrote in The New York Times that he felt "a civic duty" to be rude to his brother-in-law, citing his support for Joe Rogan and disagreements over the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines.
"My frostiness wasn’t personal. It was strategic. Being unfriendly to people who turned down the vaccine felt like the right thing to do. How else could we motivate them to mend their ways?" Litt wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Looks about right. A Chris Hayes clone.
IMHO, In other words, Litt wanted something. Reading further in the article, I get the sense that Litt will go right back to the behavior towards his brother in law once his brother in law is deemed no longer useful.
Oh! Finding that we need someone we have turned our noses up at suddenly makes it ok to speak to them?
What self-serving crap.
I think it’s more likely that these people are finding out that those they shunned didn’t care and didn’t miss them.
Yep. They think they’re punishing us when they’re actually doing us a favour.
Had the author realized his family was correct about the vaccine?
Has he apologized?
> We never talk politics at family gatherings. <
Smart move. Politics is very much like religion. A person might change direction, but he must do so on his own. Words spoken over a dinner table can only cause hard feelings.
There are many old-time JFK Democrats in my extended family. Great people, but very mislead. Now and again I’ll try a gentle, indirect argument. But a full-on debate would only split a wonderful family apart.
So…
Democrat cousin: “Trump is out of control.”
Me: “Can anyone recommend a good room air conditioner?”
“Being unfriendly to people who turned down the vaccine felt like the right thing to do. “
Feelings aren’t thoughts, moron.
I have a brother who is (or was, at least) active in the “Resist” movement back in 2016. I know this because he accidentally included me on an email he sent out. (Both my brother and his wife’s extended family were all in on the Tim Kaine aspect of the Clinton candidacy)
We don’t discuss politics anymore after he began talking politics at a family gathering at my house, and in the invite I had politely asked that politics not be discussed. When I angrily, loudly, and publicly reminded him I had requested we not discuss politics, he and his wife left.
He later apologized (which I fully accepted) and since then, we do not discuss politics. He is my brother, so I will always attempt to maintain a compartmentalized relationship with him.
If I have a brother-in-law or sister-in-law whose politics I disagree with and they can’t keep their mouth shut, I won’t struggle to maintain a relationship with that person. I’ll just flat out ignore them or come right back at them.
My now deceased mother-in-law used to deliberately bait me, and I assume she didn’t think I would come right back at her, but I had no problem doing so. Over time, she stopped, and my wife later told me that she told her mother to cease and desist.
If I know someone’s politics do not align with mine, and there is an element of non-family personal relationship involved, out of courtesy, I will avoid discussing politics. This is how I managed my largely Leftist work environment.
I had a woman I worked with for many years, and she taught me the basics of much of what I needed to know to thrive professionally in my job. (She was straight up Information Technologies, and I was strictly a medical clinical person who had jumped to IT, and I had huge holes in my knowledge base.
She was a real “Liberal” too...about as far away from my views as could be, but we respected each other and even socialized.
You will notice I make a differentiation between “Liberals” and “Leftists”. Leftists almost always start out as Liberals, but Liberals are not always Leftists. Liberals are often reachable in many cases, where Leftists are almost always un-reclaimable.
Anyway, in our systems, we have to put fake patients into test systems to facilitate testing, and back in 2008, while we were testing, I saw that there was a test patient she entered for our joint tests named “Sarah Alaska” which tickled me...she was throwing me a bone there (a silly nod towards Sarah Palin) as a joke, and I appreciated it with a grin. So, one day, I am over in her office discussing various testing regimens we were involved in, and an older woman, a wiry lantern-jawed Irish woman with a thin rectangular face came stomping in.
She said loudly to the woman I was working with (not addressing me) “What is all this about this test person “Sarah Alaska”? I have to look at it every day, and I hate seeing it!” (She obviously got the reference)
I looked at her and said “Well, I kind of like seeing it, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of it.”
She gaped wide eyed at me, her mouth opened and closed like a landed fish, and she sputtered out in unfeigned horror: “You...you...you’re...you’re ONE of THEM!
I grinned with an evil grin, and said “Yes, I am!”
So this woman who taught me all these things went out to dinner with me one night when we were involved in testing late into the evening, and while we were dining she said: “I know you feel differently about many things than I do...I don’t understand way. You seem intelligent (which was a high compliment coming from her, as I thought she was one of the brightest people professionally I had ever known) and I am curious as to why you feel this way about this subject. Can you explain it to me?”
So I said: “If you are willing to actually listen, not interrupt or cut me off (which I knew she wouldn’t) I can expand on it.”
And I did.
After I explained my views on economic freedom and personal freedom, how those two things were inextricably intertwined and could not be separated, and how the 2nd Amendment gave us the right to defend ourselves personally and those liberties among others, she just sat there and said: “Well, you sound like you have given it a lot of thought, and I have difficulty disagreeing with you.”
I haven’t talked to her for many years now, but she was a logical, data-driven person, and I knew I connected with her on a logical and data driven basis. But I never connected on the emotional aspect of these things, and even though she couldn’t find it in herself to rebut my beliefs, I don’t believe she was ever able to change emotionally by embracing the logic. She just didn’t have it in her to do that.
It is that experience that has cemented the longstanding belief I have held that Liberalism is emotionally-based, and in even the intellectually strongest people, they may be unable or unwilling to allow logic and reason to overcome the emotional aspect of things in certain areas.
I regarded her as a “Liberal”, so in her case, I accept this may be true.
In the case of full-blown Leftists, it is something else altogether, an amalgam of arrogance, hatred, racism, sexism, ignorance, stupidity, greed (for power and control) all wrapped in a protective cloak of emotion that will not allow them to even question their beliefs.
And that is one of the main differences between “Us” (Conservatives) and “Them” (Liberals and Leftists): We engage in near constant introspection and examination of our beliefs, looking for the flaws in the foundations of our principles and the cracks in the edifices built on those foundations.
We have to, because we are told 24x7 by the Government, the Media, Entertainment, and Education, that we, as Conservatives, are not only flawed but Evil. So, we constantly examine and deconstruct our beliefs so we can ensure we are morally on the right track.
Leftists, except in rare cases, not only do not feel compelled to do this because they are validated 24x7 by the Government, the Media, Entertainment, and Education, but because they feel safety in the collective crowd of Leftists they occupy the same bubble with.
Right? Biden’s vaccine mandate was an act of social coercion and oppression. We vaccine resistors were treated like lepers. We were right to refuse to drink the kool aid. The shot did more harm than good. The brother-in-law should never forgive him.
Yes...see my post just above.
Lefties always feel the need to take away personal freedom and FORCE others to behave like them and adhere to their directives.
Litt said his brother-in-law’s generosity while they surfed together made him rethink his behavior, and that his surfing guidance had made Litt more courageous.”
- = .
1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
2 The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness. Pv 15:1-2
“Personally, the Conservatives in my family prefer those people to shun us.”
Agreed.
almost like a modified MGTOW-
Gonna call it CONGTOW.
I remind my Commie neighbor that my personal library has no books of fiction.
However, if some self-righteous lib starts in, as they often do, the gloves come off.
Right, he only decided to put up with his brother when he needed something from him.
I shunned my liberal brother-in-law because he was a rabid liberal College Professor. Not because I was trying to ‘teach’ him something. I just didn’t like to be around his obnoxious attitude. Covid killed him, so I guess his biggest fears came to fruition.
You shunned him, what better way to confirm to him he was correct?
Not hanging out with leftist morons is another benefit to being right.
My Wife always says that “we must agree to disagree”.
It sounds so simple...
When this guy is older and no family around, he will realize what he did.
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