Ezra Klein told Mark Leibovitch in 2022:
And something about the back-and-forth of stepping out for Trump a bit, then getting this blowback, then stepping out a bit more and getting this blowback. And soon your friends are totally different, your enemies are totally different, who likes you is different. And I’ve watched this in politicians before as a psychological dynamic. And I’ve actually seen it in pundits too. As a psychological dynamic, this is often a pathway to a very different politics in three years. You can look at a Glenn Greenwald…
Aaron Renn writes Nov. 14, 2022:
Imagine David French back in 2019. He’s minding his own business, standing in line for his caffe latte at Starbucks. His phone beeps and it’s a Google Alert, or perhaps a friend texting him to say “check this out.” The subject is an article in First Things, the leading conservative religious journal in the country, called “Against David French-ism,” written by fellow conservative Sohrab Ahmari. Then thousands of people pile on saying how much they agree with Sohrab Ahmari about French and his approach being what’s wrong with the world.
Do you really think you’d respond any differently than he did? We’d probably all respond basically the same. Nothing is more natural than to want to defend your honor when attacked, especially if you are a man…
Add to this mix an additional ingredient, where a group of people start sending us messages and tweets of support, taking our side and saying what a great guy we were. Wouldn’t that incline us to want to align ourselves with the people who had our back? Undoubtedly it would, even if we hadn’t historically been that friendly with them.
This is especially the case for people who were “cancelled.” They often fall into more extreme or radical politics simply because those are the only people who will still accept them. So keep in mind that if we throw a friend under the cancel mob bus, we may not like the people who don’t abandon them.
