To Ross Douthat: What you should have asked Matthew Continetti
Dear Ross, I found your conversation with Matthew Continetti somewhat disappointing. If as you say Continetti is a leading intellectual of the conservative right, it would have been more illuminating to hear him argue why, as a matter of public policy rather than politics, conservatives have it right, especially on two key issues you talked about: woke versus slept, and immigration. So here are some public policy ideas I wish you and Continetti had taken up. On Woke versus Slept We progressive liberals on the woke left believe that social and economic justice demands affirmative action. That’s based on our reading of 19 th century American history, in which millions of black and native American lives were shattered by the institution of slavery and ejection of native Americans from their land. We believe that if you break it you own it, and so as a society, we own the legacy of social and economic inequality that results when deeply unequal amounts of human a...