A comment yesterday from abwman gave me pause.

Scott, I don’t know you other than through this blog, but I’m worried about some of your recent missives. Over the years I’ve read your views as concerns about misguided efforts of political and social extremists (on both sides of the spectrum) to break the mold of American liberalism.

My sense has always been that this was founded in a fundamental optimism that a less extreme majority could reason their way to social and economic improvements that don’t undermine the principles that have allowed the U.S. to make course corrections over time that, on balance, enhance the lives of the vast majority of folks. Your recent posts have dark overtones that seem imbued with a more pessimistic view of where we stand now, and what lies in the future.

There are good reasons for those concerns. But I can only say I hope this is a temporary detour, because the need for voices like yours, advancing the virtues of 20th century liberalism as the most compelling way for American society to move forward, are needed now more than ever in my lifetime.

Has SJ, and by SJ I mean me, gone dark? He’s right that the thrust of posts at SJ that have long been critical of myriad faults in our system has been to correct them, improve upon them, change them for the purpose of returning society to enlightened liberalism. In my own mind, I was the epitome of a naive optimist, an idealist who believes that with a lot of thought and effort, we can do better. We can always do better. Is that still true?

In the past, I’ve been very critical of social justice, of woke culture that wrapped itself in the trappings of righteousness as it sought to impose its own flavor of fascism on society. Then I was very critical of Trump and his MAGA faithful, for his ham-handed and generally incompetent efforts to reshape society in the image of simplistic vulgarity, the antithesis of social justice without any consideration of the structural damage this narcissistic ignoramus was doing to American society. In both, I sought to bring us back from the edges, away from either damaging extreme. I still believed it could be done.

Can it still be done? The Democrats have no message, so obsess over the messenger. They can’t let go of the influence of their radical fringe, and refuse to accept the premise that the left progressive wing cannot co-exist with the middle liberal majority. They offer no solutions and have no stance other than “we’re not Trump.”

And Trump, this time surrounded by far more knowledgeable, competent and dangerous minds, has wreaked havoc on government and law with an effectiveness no one imagined possible from this buffoon. But the things he’s already broken, from the indiscriminate DOGE cuts to government that needed reform and got mindlessly emasculated instead, to the breach of relationships with allies that took generations to hone, to the economy that left the world with no stable market, to the rejection of our constitutional system between lies, contemptuousness and, ultimately, raw power.

Will the guns back Trump or the Constitution when it can no longer be hidden behind the sham that it’s not Trump violating the Constitution, but radical left judges who keep ruling against him. Should Trump lose Congress in the midterms, as seems likely, will he continue to pretend that we’re still the United States or be forced to reveal that he’s going to do whatever he wants and nobody can stop him because the guys with guns are on his side?

Is there any will to do better anymore, or have people either picked a bad side, whether left or right, or given up hope? What comes after Trump? Biden was elected to return us to normality, and look how that turned out. Is there any cohort willing to fight for enlightened liberalism anymore? And even if there is, can the damage Trump wrought be fixed or have all norms fallen to the side and we’re not left with “might makes right” and “the ends justify the means,” the only remaining question is whether the foot on our neck belongs to the right or left?

*Tuesday Talk rules apply.