Libertarianism is almost never having a moment, which is unfortunate for the law and politics of the United States but very handy for reminding libertarians that ours is not a normal political perspective in this country. Yes, there are some deep libertarian impulses in the American id, and yes, polling sometimes shows a remarkable cross-partisan convergence on one libertarian position or another. But generally, any self-aware libertarian must know that most of our compatriots don't think like we do, nor will they absent the persuasion of good arguments and bad governance.
But for those comfortably located within the modern American left or right, who enjoy the major partisan alignment that usually entails, this self-awareness and the reliance on persuasion it encourages might be more difficult to maintain. It certainly seems to be lacking in two buzzy media stories of the past week: the open letter by New York Times contributors complaining about the paper's coverage of trans topics and the revelations about Fox News hosts found in court documents from a defamation suit. These are cases of opposite but mutually deleterious ways of abandoning persuasion in dealing with ideologically uncooperative swathes of the American public.
