Why Is Andrew Doyle So Afraid of Conversation?
As I’ve mentioned on here a few times, I used to be friends with this guy, Andrew Doyle:
Andrew’s now a big-shot TV presenter in the UK, but he was one of my undergraduate teachers at Wadham College, Oxford around 2003-04. He was a graduate student writing a dissertation on Richard Barnfield and Shakespeare, and I was an undergraduate drinking and making incomprehensible performance pieces. We had a cute vibe, I think—we were both interested in theater, and his intuitive understanding of the gay bits of the Sonnets (which, if I recall correctly, we discussed over wine in my college dorm room) was refreshingly free from the fustian sexlessness that my undergraduate education sometimes seemed designed to reproduce. He had some earnestly gauche ideas about Foucault (“it’s like a cult, Jos!”) which I found attractive, and I used to tease him for not being out to his parents. I have only the fondest memories of our friendship, and I had, yes, a sort of half-articulated crush on him, which I think he knew and quietly enjoyed. But perhaps he didn’t.
We went our separate ways after college—me into the profession he’d left, and he into comedy. He did some work with Scott Capurro, which I enjoyed, and then some exasperated topical character comedy with “Jonathan Pie,” which was no less funny than any other scripted ad lib shtick. In 2019, I became aware that Andrew was the creative force behind a Twitter account entitled “Titania McGrath,” which was a parody account purporting to publish the tweets of an impossibly self-righteous young social justice warrior. The jokes were, in my view at least, pretty corny—though some people will always laugh at “did you just assume my gender!!!”—if it is laughter—which I doubt—but it was clear that Titania McGrath articulating the emerging consensus ideology of the far right: that the world was policed by fragile snowflakes like Titania, afraid of thought and each other, constantly demanding validation in ever more extravagant ways—pronouns, “identities,” and all. Whatever the intention of the Titania McGrath account, it had clearly brought him a large new readership among online alt-right types, and he had a huge online following, both on the Titania account and on his own.
What follows below is a transcript of a conversation Andrew and I had over Facebook Messenger in 2019, republished with Andrew’s explicit permission. I would rather not make this public, all else being equal, because it’s slightly embarrassing to both of us, I suspect. But I think it has become necessary, because a few days ago, Andrew characterized it in the following terms.
Now, as I believe will be perfectly self-evident from the conversation published below, this is a bizarre mischaracterization. “Nasty,” I suppose, is a matter of opinion, but there are straightforwardly no accusations or insults, and as for “debating in good faith”—how to put this nicely?—I walloped the poor guy. He had no response on the substance whatsoever. So, while I would much rather have consigned this to the past, mostly out of the kind of embarrassment when feels when having humiliated someone one used to respect, I’m now put in the position of printing a private conversation that I’d rather have let lie.
A conversation with Andrew on Twitter the other night revealed that he considers the term “fascist” to have been the accusation. The insults, I’m not sure. Maybe “fascist” also.
I have no doubt that the word “fascist” can be used insultingly. But to claim that it is always an insult is not only wrong, but dangerous. If, that is, Andrew plans to silence anyone who refers to any political ideology as fascist—well, perhaps the host of Free Speech Nation needs a new gig. As you’ll see, my use of the term was reserved for Ann Coulter—Andrew is rather “fashy,” the type of exasperated liberal whose contempt for the wrong kind of leftist leads to institutional alliances with fascists like Coulter. Andrew, rather ridiculously, denies that Coulter is a fascist, but as you’ll see, this is very much the substance of the conversation. The attempt to weasel out of it by claiming to have been insulted is a Titania McGrath move.
In short, Andrew lied about our conversation on Twitter; I’m not going to sue him, obviously, and I wish that something else had been possible. I’ve transcribed it for ease of reading, but it’s unedited except for a little “[not]” added to correct a typo in the original. I’ve also redacted one part on the grounds of student privacy, and corrected a minor error of fact I made in our exchange. I’ll probably post the screencaps later, but now I have to prep for class.
Dear Andrew,
I hope you’re well, and not so appalled by the outrageously cocky message I sent you above that you cut me off entirely. I just learned this morning that you’re the writer and creator of the Titania McGrath twitter account and stand-up act. I was really disheartened and saddened by this revelation. While I share some of the concerns that the project raises (and have written publicly on free speech and academic freedom issues numerous times, including a peer reviewed article coming out in /Differences/ this Winter), the approach appears to me to be misguided and counterproductive. It is possible that you no longer hold the left politics that you avow in an interview with John Fleming that I read this morning, but in hopes you do, I’m wondering if you’d be able to help me understand your choices in this matter, and discuss them with me privately over email. I completely understand if you don’t want to respond. I probably wouldn’t, in your position - but then, I suppose I might, for a former student. Still, if you want to, my email address is grace.lavery@berkeley.edu. I just got tenure, by the way - what a strange world.
Best wishes,
Grace Lavery
Did I not reply? Fuck. That's not like me. It wouldn't have been deliberate.
Congrats on tenure. That means they can't ever get rid of you, right? That's my understanding of the system, at least.
As for your question about Titania, I'm still very much on the left. Probably one of the few here that still are. I don't agree that it's counterproductive. My feeling is that in a time of such political tribalism, it's important to satirise the extremes on all sides so that we can restore reasonable debate. I can see how dangerous identity politics is, and how the woke movement and the far right feed off and nurture each other. Not that they are moral equivalents - the worst thing about the woke movement is that they are for the most part well intentioned, but nonetheless seek to unpick all the great achievements of the civil rights movements.
If you're interested, I wrote an account of why I invented the character here:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/12/why-i-invented-titania-mcgrath/
The character isn't for everyone. Neither was Jonathan Pie. So I'm happy for people to hate it. But I've made the effort at least to be explicit about my intentions.
In any case, hope you're well!
Andrew
Thanks so much for writing back - and thanks for your warm words. It’s good to hear from you, and gives me hope to hear that you hold a commitment to civil rights. As someone who has begun a gender transition during the Trump administration, I’m very convinced (more than many trans people, even) of the importance of establishing legal protections and frameworks for trans people. As you’ll no doubt know, a number of academics have let their skepticism about humanism erode any faith in civil rights, or any rights claims, at all.
And thanks for sending your Spiked piece - I think I understand a little better now. I do have a follow-up, if you’re game. I’ve seen Titania McGrath retweeted and boosted many times by Ann Coulter. Isn’t that a more literal example of the far right “feeding off and nurturing” left discourse, than the student politics your account is satirizing?
Hope well,
G.
Well if it were only student politics I could relax a bit. Unfortunately the woke movement has major impact on government, law, police, education and culture more generally. It’s an illiberal movement with authoritarian instincts. The minority of students who buy into it are funny and relatively innocuous - it’s those with actual clout who concern me.
As for Coulter, she’s free to enjoy satire as much as anyone else. Principles are bigger than people. She’s wrong on most things, but right to be suspicious of the super woke. I don’t agree or disagree with people based on who they are, just what they say. No one, left or right, gets to own the free speech argument.
I know very little about protections for trans people in the US, but I support equal rights for everyone (goes without saying). If such rights aren’t in place I’d be troubled. But I am likewise troubled by those who would seek to police speech and discussion around the trans issue. It’s only a minority of activists, but they can be vicious and have major power (particularly in Canada).
Hi Andrew,
I’m [not] sure if we’re debating now, but I’m happy to, and grateful again for your engagement. Since in one sense I have you at a disadvantage - your work is very famous, but you don’t necessarily know mine - it might be useful to even the playing field. Here’s a piece I wrote for the Los Angeles Review of Books about trans politics and free speech: https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/grad-school-conversion-therapy/ . The person I criticized in my piece responded with his partner: Los Angeles Review of BooksConversion Therapy v. Re-education Camp: An Open Letter to Grace Lavery – BLARB And then, after a group letter signed by most of the luminaries in my field took my side of the question, the two retracted their statement: https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/lessons-learned/ I think this is maybe the best place for me to explain my public work (which of course has an embarrassingly small reach compared to yours!) because it was the first event that catalyzed my being attacked by anti-trans campaigners online - though, admittedly, the biggest wave (which included doxxing me and some of my colleagues) came after I had written something much more mildly critical of the gender critical philosophers’ manifesto. I detail some of those attacks here:
I’m quite thick skinned generally - or, at least, I’m temperamentally very *thin* skinned but I have had enough professional and personal success to make me feel safe - so most of this didn’t bother me. But it means I am well placed to confirm that “policing speech” is overwhelmingly something that happens *to* trans people, rather than *by* us. I also have no doubt who is “vicious” in this question.
Which brings me to Coulter. Of course, being retweeted by a fascist is no proof that one is a fascist oneself. Do we agree that she is one? Perhaps not - but I’ll let you answer that before responding. To me it is a fairly self-evident moral truth. But that wasn’t my point: I was responding, rather, to your claim that the “woke left” “feeds off and nurtures” the far right, and vice versa. Now, if that were true, it would be no crime - since according to your own reasoning, nobody should responsible for the views of one’s retweeters. But I mentioned her because her retweeting and supporting your work seemed like a fairly literal example of feeding off/nurturing a putatively left wing position. So it strikes me as, on the evidence we have on the table so far, much easier to say that the “far right” (I’ll use your term, in case “fascist” feels too incendiary) feeds off and nurtures the anti-woke left, than the woke left.
The “student politics” note was misleading on my part - I should have been clearer. I understand that what you see as a powerful ideology affects policy, institutional cultures, etc. My point (which was rather trivial) was that the “anti-woke” left seems to derive its political worldview from the sort of institutionalized Marxist response to the new social movements of the post-1960s period, and especially the French Communist ambivalence towards the student protesters of 1968. I doubt you were thinking of this consciously, and perhaps I have the genealogy wrong. But I think a satire of a white, privileged ultra-leftist with no grasp of class consciousness or movement history - is part of a broader history for which the rich egghead student has generally served as a scapegoat. I’m not saying that movement is always or necessarily wrong in its topical analyses, just trying to describe the dramatis personae. As I say, a rather inconsequential point and I am happy to concede your response that the ideology you have named the “woke left” has branches and effects a long way away from student politics.
Far less inconsequential, to my mind, is the alignment of the “anti-woke left” with the far right on a range of economic issues (centrally migration and freedom of movement) on the grounds, seemingly, of their contempt for intersectional analysis. At which point I become more pessimistic about the hope for debate. I mostly think that the standard anti-trans line of the Guardian and the gender critical philosophers can be debunked quite easily, and most people will change their minds about this issue over time. I’m much less convinced that the reflexive nativism of the British left can be dislodged - it’s there in Ruskin, Morris, Hoggart, Thompson, even C. L. R. James in a weird way. That part of British socialism is rotten to the core, and it’s difficult to know what to do about the fact.
Anyway. I would love to hear your thoughts about any of this.
G.
I'm more than happy to debate - although by necessity my responses will be cursory at present due to time constraints. I'd love nothing more than to talk about these issues at length with you (preferably in person), but I've never been so busy. I'm hoping things calm down post Edinburgh festival...
I've read your piece with interest. It's always useful for me to hear these ideas expressed by different voices. I suspect we'll never agree on these things, because it seems to me that we are both the sort of people who think carefully about what we say rather than arriving at conclusions hastily. That said, I would consider it closed minded in the extreme not to be open to have one's views refined.
Oh, and I can't stand Foucault. So nothing much has changed there since I last saw you.
My chief concern is any kind of dogmatism. I feel you are too quick to make affirmations that will only serve to damage your position and harden those of your opponents. For instance, you claim that misgendering isn't covered by academic freedom. What of those who do not accept the imposition (rather than the evolution) of language? What of those who, like myself, feel that the explosion of multiple neopronouns is a bourgeois luxury and shouldn't be indulged? You are steering perilous close to intolerance if you negate the possibility of discussion here.
I think I've already made clear that I'm supportive of individual autonomy - and will rigorously support anyone's right to identify however they wish and to call themselves whatever they wish and to transition (obviously). What I can't support is the entitlement that comes with the assumption that others will automatically change their lexicon to accommodate such choices. For instance, I can request that others refer to my "husband", but I cannot insist it. And if a Christian fundamentalist refuses to recognise my relationship it is not for me to seek his compliance through legal means. I'd sooner live in a free society, and the cost of that is I'm not going to be happy with how everyone else chooses to express themselves.
(I'm not married, by the way. I use this as an example.)
I'm sorry to hear you were doxxed and attacked online. I'm sad to say it's something I've grown accustomed to, mostly from those who seem to enjoy raging against a figment of their imagination. I have no patience for those who can't engage in polite discourse, and simply block them these days. Those who send actual physical threats I tend to block and ignore. Those who cry "fascist" with no apparent understanding of what this means aren't going to be open to an adult conversation.
I think viciousness is not restricted to any particular group, ideological or otherwise. So yes, it does happen *to* trans people, but it is also undeniably perpetrated *by* trans people. Examples are myriad. Strategically speaking, it's beyond worthless. Nobody will ever be persuaded, and resentment is guaranteed. This is the only reason I caution you against dogmatism.
As for Ann Coulter. It isn't accurate to describe her as a fascist (and I fear that such mischaracterisations are playing into the hands of actual fascists for all sorts of reasons). There is an argument for "Far Right", but even there it's uncertain territory. I think her claims about white "replacement" are certainly in far right territory. Most of the rest of it is probably best covered by her own description as "ultra-conservative". Either way, it goes without saying that these are not views with which I am sympathetic.
I do not think it is, or should be, criminal, for the far right and far left to "feed off each other". I am simply talking about the cultural conditions that are being fostered. And if Coulter retweets me, it may be as simple as her finding my tweets funny. If she is doing so because she feels that the woke left need to have their pretensions punctured, then that's also fine by me. All I can do is be honest about my views. If others seek to misrepresent or appropriate them for their own means there's little I can do. The same could be said about anyone.
I don't see the woke movement as having the theoretical pedigree you suppose. It's derived from the kind of poststructuralist theorising that I've always considered bunkum, but it's a tabloid version of it. There isn't really any attempt to engage with the nuances. Like Mormonism to Christianity, I suppose. A cult that rejects the intricate theological debates for a shortcut creed.
Similarly with intersectionality, which has outlived it's usefulness precisely because Crenshaw's original analogy became a collectivist dogma. "White privilege", for instance, is fairly meaningless unless applied to a specific individual. Again, part of this is a strategic concern. The way in which the more identitarian segments of the Democratic Party (I'm thinking most obviously of the "Squad") deploy these terms is guaranteed to stir up resentment from those who are facing the reality of economic hardship and yet are being told how privileged they must be due to their genetic make up. Identity politics never wins elections. That's why Trump is clearly so delighted by AOC's antics. She's not a million miles away from him in so many ways, and she is helping to ensure his re-election.
I think you're probably right that those who are anti-trans rights will change their minds over time, but only if the discussion is allowed. We didn't secure gay rights by seeking the criminalisation of those who refused to use the terms we deemed acceptable. It was a combination of protest and persuasion. And we won.
At present, the LGBT movement is too steeped in identity politics to be successful in its aims. I'm of the view that the LGBT acronym (and its multiple variants) is now outdated and should be dropped. But that's probably for another time...
If I take a long time to respond I'm not being rude, it's simply that I've taken on too much. My own fault, of course.
Dear Andrew,
There is no need to worry about taking a few days - thank you so much for responding! I appreciate it greatly. It’s true that I think about my positions in detail before taking them, and so I agree with you about the importance of open-mindedness. I think one of the most important moments of the last few years for me as I’ve been trying to figure out how to respond to the rise of fascism in the United States (a term I’ll defend using in a moment) was the question of whether to sign the letter of Berkeley faculty protesting the Yiannopoulos visit. I did a lot of research around the specific legal, institutional, and intellectual-historical precedents and decided, in the end, to sign - against the advice of my colleagues, who felt it exposed me to too much risk for a pre-tenure scholar. I was the only assistant professor to do so campus-wide. [nb: I believed this to be true at the time, but it wasn’t—my colleague and friend Prof. Damon Young also signed as an pre-tenure prof. The two of us were a tiny minority of signatories.] I’m writing to you, of course, in hopes of persuading you to change your views, but I don’t hold out too much hope, because I believe indeed that you have sketched out your position quite carefully. As it goes, I have emailed with a number of people I disagree with on these issues but consider thoughtful - people like Kathleen Stock and Peter Singer - and it tends not to work. But at least it establishes a line of communication that might come in useful at some point in the future. As it goes, during the whole Yiannopoulos thing, [I have to redact a part of this under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.] I believe that respect is not always possible, but that effective teaching, depends on the capacity to tell frank truths.
I think I should clarify how the phrase “academic freedom” is generally used - in respect, as it goes, by everything except for the anti-trans activists in the UK. That term is used in *opposition* to “free speech,” and refers to a freedom to conduct and publish research free of external constraints. So, when I say that deadnaming/misgendering are not covered by academic freedom, I’m just stating a basic, uncontroversial truth that’s been repeatedly asserted and clarified by everyone who works on the issue - including the AAUP, to whom Reed appealed in his attack on me. And of course nobody should stop the gender critical feminists, or anyone else, from pursuing and publishing their research. And there is absolutely nothing unusual about colleges and universities determining what kinds of address are appropriate between staff and students. The establishment of such codes of conduct (which often do, and always should, include guidelines on addressing and referring to trans students) is, if one were being picky, a compromise not to academic freedom but to the more individualistic right to free speech. That right, of course, is also routinely and rightly compromised by, for example, regulations against sexual harassment. In general, the deadnaming/misgendering thing is just a bit of a non-starter for the anti-trans brigade. They have plenty of valuable and interesting questions to pose about the nature of sexual identity - and they should be encouraged to ask them while respecting their students. I did a tweet thread about this a while ago, which is perhaps making a slight difference at the margins of this issue:
I share some of your feelings about some of the ways Kids Today use neopronouns (ironically, that’s a neonoun on me). I just don’t have grounds to choose people’s pronouns for them, when I act on behalf of a public institution like a university. That is, fundamentally, the problem with your gay marriage analogy too - or rather, it’s where the very strength of your analogy undermines your point. Of course I cannot force anyone to share my understanding of sex or gender - and, as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, we might also have a collective interest in allowing plurality and diversity of opinion to prevail on the issue. What matters is that institutions such as the government, the university, public welfare, criminal justice, etc., treat trans people consistently. That is, it doesn’t matter if your homophobic neighbor thinks that your marriage is a false abomination, or that I am suffering from demonic possession, as long as your husband can get into a hospital where you are being treated and I am not sent to a male prison. With these things allowed, I certainly won’t make any moves, legal or otherwise, against the Christian fundamentalist next door.
Re. “fascist”: the author of “Adios America,” and exponent of the notion of “replacement,” orients her account of the state around notions of race and ethnicity. I would think that “white ethnonationalist” only a slightly euphemistic term for her, and the president she championed.
I suspect the issue, though, is that people want to reserve the term “fascist” for European presentations of white nationalism. Which is, historically, confused and preposterous: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler Though since you’ve not offered a definition of fascist, I’ll supply one: a militant partisan of a white ethnostate, in which civil rights would be distributed along racial lines, that would be achieved through the collaboration of capitalist industry and the proliferation of populist militias. Coulter easily fits this standard. But I worry that I’ve made myself unclear. Is there anything I’ve said to suggest I think that Coulter retweeting you should be illegal? I don’t think it should be at all, and (for what it is worth) I argued against dis-inviting Coulter to Berkeley, because, although she is a fascist, unlike Yiannopoulos she has not made a habit of targeting individual students for harassment and persecution. I write to you on this topic not as any kind of threat, but because I would want to know, from someone I respect, if my own work were being put to propagandistic purpose in the service of such a cause.
Meanwhile, I think the post-structuralist theorizing *is* the pedigree I was describing - it was the kids of 1968 who wrote and disseminated essays on Debord, Deleuze, and the others. Foucault, not so much, I think? But I’d be interested to hear more about your objection to him - I remember that from college, when you said that Foucault will be memorialized within “the history of cults.” Funnily enough, I’m writing about cults at the moment - and Foucault! - so maybe you’re right. But I’d love to hear that argument sketched out a little more, now that I’ve actually read Foucault more seriously.
To the smaller points: I don’t agree with you about the electoral success or otherwise of what you call “identity politics” - it seems to me that the last three presidential elections were contested and won specifically on the grounds of racial identity-claims. As to the political efficacy of AOC, whom I confess I love in a sort of thoughtless way, I’ll leave that to Nancy Pelosi (whose job I’m very glad not to have). I will say, first, that getting angry at AOC because of the effect she has on Trump seems like a strange way to allocate one’s anger; and, second, that Trump does not seem to me “delighted” by her, or by anyone else. Indeed, one of the things that makes him such a terrifying, almost subhuman force for malevolence and cruelty in the world, is that he seems to be absolutely incapable of pleasure. Even his lurid recitations of sexual violence sound surreally dutiful and cowed - he is a rapist with no swagger, a figure of pure, world-ending male masochism.
On which rather melodramatic note—
G.
Give me time on this, Grace. I am literally up to my neck in deadlines... Not ignoring you. You'll get a response in a few days...
A few weeks passed.
I noticed you'd written something today extolling the value of impossible conversations, and thought it might be a good idea to try to refresh ours. I'd wondering if you'd mind if I published it? or perhaps if we continued some part of it in public?
to be clear - I'm not proposing to publish as is, but to tidy up my own responses and give you a chance to do the same
Sorry Grace, I've been mad busy. Was meaning to get back to you then the festival took over.
That's an interesting idea. But yes, I'd need to tidy it all up. It was written in a rushed way on the hoof. I don't like to publish things I haven't redrafted. I'm sure you're the same.
I think there are grounds to hope for a broader conversation there, yes. I have been in conversation with Jesse Singal and Kathleen Stock recently - and have declined their offers to co-author public conversation on the grounds that I’m too busy (which I honestly am). I would want to make sure that I wasn’t preempting work I have coming out elsewhere. In the meantime, of course, if you’re concerned about the phantom stereotypes, I wonder whether the Titania McGrath account might have outlived its utility? Going into a meeting - more soon. xo
I'm afraid when it comes to Titania, she's closer to the reality than many would like to admit...
By the way, I think smearing me on Twitter as someone who “doesn’t like trans people” isn’t conducive to adult discussion either.
Well, I added “much”! But I’m sorry that it seems like a smear to you. I thought you had said you were an LGB-er. Are you not?
Certainly will take the tweet down or print a correction if I’m wrong about this!
Perhaps you would like me to say that the Titania McGrath character frequently says things that indicates her author thinks that people who identify with a gender that does not comport with that assigned at birth, are contemptible?
What’s an LGBer? I don’t buy into an form of Identity politics. I judge people on individual merit. Not one for tribes. The idea that I wouldn’t like an entire demographic is totally alien to me. I’d have assumed you knew that.
That’s a misinterpretation of the tweet. Why would I feel contempt for how someone wishes to identity? When have I ever said that? I think there’s a lot of fun to be had in the excesses and absurdities if identity culture, but contempt suggests ill will.
That tweet is clearly mocking the haughtiness of a Puritan who is angered by an obvious joke. A common target for satirists.
I’m not annoyed, by the way. I just think it’s near impossible to engage seriously if someone misrepresents one’s views. And I get that a lot.
I’m glad you’re not annoyed. I have, I think, two responses. The first is that you have, on your own account, in the last week, publicly opposed mandatory trans-competency training in the workplace, claimed that trans-affirming readings of Enid Blyton are “based on a deeply conservative view of gender,” and amplified the general moral panic that doctors are over-diagnosing gender dysphoria. As Titania McGrath, you have mocked the movement for trans civil rights relentlessly (which you here call “Puritan”). I don’t doubt you are capable of being civil to an individual trans person - you are certainly capable of being civil to me! - but I don’t think that is the only or best standard for “not liking trans people that much.” (An LGB-er, incidentally, was my own term for someone who believes that trans people do no belong within the LGBT community. You have amplified that movement’s most prominent defenders on both accounts.)
The second is: does it not strike you as a little counterproductive to plead for serious and meaningful debate with one of your public personas, and play the troll with your other one? I understand you think that Titania McGrath is funny, but to those who are interested in improving public discourse on some of these issues, it makes you look a little disingenuous.
G.
You might also enjoy this tweet I just received - great satire!
Posted on a scholarly thread.
I stand by all of those points and I also do not dislike trans people. My likes or dislikes are based on individual merit.
My views aren’t based on prejudice, but on careful consideration.
Discussions can’t happen if people just assume bad motives.
A satirical approach to such issues is always open to misinterpretation, I grant you.
But that’s why I’m careful to outline my views explicitly elsewhere.
Well, that all straightens that out then! Thank you for clarifying. I learn that we have profoundly different understandings of what it means to like a constituency of people, what a view is, what “consideration” means, now interpretation works, and the merit of posting fashy blandishments for the amusement of one’s fellows. I cannot fault the completeness of the wall you have built around yourself, but thankfully, I am not obliged to admire it or to engage with it. So I shall leave you with Ann Coulter, Jesse Singal, Kathleen Stock, and Katie Herzog, and wish you all of the most vigorous conversations you could desire. I regret we had so little to say to each other.
Added 12th November: Andrew would like me to note that after sending this message on Facebook Messenger, I unfriended him. He then blocked me on Twitter. I do not know what this will be seen to prove, but “never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake,” as the guy says.