The Real Left Wing vs Right Wing Debate - Tablet Magazine

Two years ago, I wrote an essay in which I tried to explore the growing sense, made more glaring during the first year of the pandemic, that whole parts of American society were breaking down before our eyes. The central idea was that we must accept what is broken beyond repair in order to build our communities and institutions anew. Among the many people who wrote to me in the aftermath was a man around my age named Ryan, who introduced himself as a West Point graduate and combat veteran, biracial and from a multi-generational Black military family. “I’ve lived and traveled all over the world, but I cherish my family’s deep roots in a small town in rural Ohio,” he wrote. “It seems very dark some days, but your closing nails it: ‘It can almost feel easier to believe it can’t be done. But it can.’” As I did with many others who wrote me heartfelt notes, I reached out to Ryan and asked to meet over Zoom. It turned out we had more in common than either of us had guessed, and we began a co

Two years ago, I wrote an essay in which I tried to explore the growing sense, made more glaring during the first year of the pandemic, that whole parts of American society were breaking down before our eyes. The central idea was that we must accept what is broken beyond repair in order to build our communities and institutions anew. Among the many people who wrote to me in the aftermath was a man around my age named Ryan, who introduced himself as a West Point graduate and combat veteran, biracial and from a multi-generational Black military family. “I’ve lived and traveled all over the world