On not understanding the times
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| Justin Wolfers, super-genius liberal |
You know what? I was having a lovely weekend of self-care until I came across this:
The best cure for ideological bias is find someone on the other side and go to lunch with them. Sometimes we disagree about facts. Sometimes we disagree about values. Figuring out which is which is fun part. https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/my-libertarian-friends-were-right
— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers.bsky.social) October 4, 2026 at 7:02 AM
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Of course, he received huge pushback from the good burghers of Bluesky. So he posted this:
This post is generating a lot of heated reactions. Lemme edit and say that figuring out our differences is "the productive part," rather than "the fun part."
— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers.bsky.social) October 4, 2026 at 9:36 AM
And then, when that didn't land, this:
At the risk of doing social media wrong, lemme suggest folks engage with what I wrote, rather than the 280 character summary. There's plenty to disagree with in the actual piece I wrote, but it's of a different nature than some of the reactions I'm seeing to this thread.
— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers.bsky.social) October 4, 2026 at 9:42 AM
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Mr. Wolfers. The problem isn't that you're "doing social media wrong". It's that your entire premise is facile.
Am I, as a Latino, supposed to break bread with people who want to excise me from my own country, where I was born? Are Black folks supposed to shuck and jive at every racist insult? Should Jews stop being Jewish?
This far, and no further. That's where I am right now. I want no truck with the people you want me to understand.
What the likes of Wolfers want is for everyone to get along and not ask uncomfortable questions. Because they upset the likes of him. Then they'd have to address the rot in our society. And what fun is that when compared to cocktail parties?
I am a Latino who was prepped for what to do if ICE agents came into my majority-Latino library. This is not something I can just sweep away. This is not something I can just get over by "having lunch" with a voter who engendered this.
The white intellectual class wants to sweep away any unpleasantness and just dwell in a land where it doesn't exist. But for those of us in the real world? That doesn't wash. We are facing actual consequences not faced by those in Georgetown or the Upper West Side. We are on the front lines affected by the actions of those you want us to understand. So forgive me if I see this as balderdash. The people you want me to "understand" see us as subhuman. Forgive me if my milk of human kindness is at a low.
You want me to "understand" someone who may have gone to a Trump rally holding "Mass Deportation Now" signs. How am I supposed to see such a person as anything other than an outright threat against my community?
You said what you said, and you wrote what you wrote. And the fact that you cannot fathom the opprobrium with which you have been greeted says more about you than those castigating you. We are not the problem. You and those like you are, because you hold amity and accord over all other values. You may think yourselves "good liberals", and that's the problem. This milquetoast reaction to existential threats shows that you have learned nothing since the dawn of Trump. Hell, you've learned nothing since the whitelash to the Civil Rights Act. It's all some great game. It is not. It is deadly serious for those of us who don't have your privilege.
I hope you learn something from the pushback. I hope you learn that you cannot play footsie with evil. I doubt you will. But I am always open to the Universe surprising me.