My challenge to @DamonLinker, and to a lesser extent @dmarusic and @shadihamid re the latest episode: you may not like the rhetoric of Vermeule et al, but set that aside. What if the overall impact of them is, basically, right moderating free market dogmas, willingness to govern?

On everything but social issues it seems to me that they are all less extreme than conservatives today. It gives the lie to the whole “dark turn” theory of what’s happening.

And even on social questions, for goodness sake we’re talking about a co-author of Cass Sunstein, willingness to nudge for socially conservative ends is hardly a theocratic worldview