These People Did Not Become Terrible Overnight Because They Disagree With You On One Point: I am simply not going to disregard people I’ve read and listened to for years because we disagree on this one thing. That’s crazy talk. In fact, I’m going to read and listen to them more closely because echo chambers where you hear only what you want to hear tend to make you dumb. Look, the guys I disagree with have some good points – regardless of whether any of them think I have any good points. Ben Shapiro, Jim Geraghty, Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol are suddenly wrong about everything because I think they are wrong about one thing? That’s an actively stupid notion, and I refuse to embrace it.

We’re Not Purging Anyone: I sometimes hear how various mainstream cliques, clans, crews, and coalition components must be purged from the GOP upon Trump’s victory/defeat. Nope. Besides the practical problems of actually purging large chunks of the coalition, there’s the troubling insanity of thinking that subtraction equals addition. So one’s purging anyone. Now, you can choose to leave – America’s a big country with plenty of sulking space. But no one gets to ethically cleanse anyone else.

Be Nice: Channel Swayze in Roadhouse, and be nice even when your erstwhile allies are jerky. It’s hard. I can’t always be nice. But I’m going to try, because it’s less important that I get the transitory satisfaction of smacking someone around than making it possible for my opponent to be there with me in the fights to come. It doesn’t mean don’t disagree – it means be nice about it.