Ask a Liberal!
Looking for conservatives who want to hear directly from a genuine left-wing American about what we actually believe.
In an era of extreme political polarization, media bubbles, and misinformation, I’d like to reach across the political chasm and have real exchanges with real people in order to understand each other better.
Therefore, I’m starting a new experiment on Substack today - Ask a Liberal!
(I’m launching this on my “Collectively Effervescent” Substack site, but will merge it over to the new "Ask a Liberal!" page - so consider subscribing to that page as well since that is where the questions and answers will be published).
If you are a MAGA conservative and have thoughtful, substantive, and earnest questions to ask a genuine person on the left, I will do my best to offer a thoughtful, substantive, and earnest response. I won’t try to insult or embarrass you. I won’t try to change your mind. I’ll just try to explain myself as clearly and succinctly as possible so you understand what and why I believe what I do as a liberal American.
I have a modest goal of opening a respectful line of communication in the hopes of convincing some conservatives that those on the left are not the America-hating monsters or domestic terrorists that Trump describes. We may have different interests, values, and experiences than many conservatives, but we love this country equally and believe in the promise of the American democratic experiment.
How will this work?
Well, I’m just figuring that out. But if you are a conservative who is reading this and would like to submit a question about what I believe as a liberal, please either post a comment in this post or you can message me directly for more anonymity. When I get questions I’ll try to answer one per week. But first I need questions from actual conservatives who are curious to understand liberals - so let’s spread the word!
I encourage you to subscribe, and there will an option to pay for a subscription, but content will always be free.
Who am I and what are my “liberal” credentials?
I am a middle-class White heterosexual married man with one adult child. I was born in Northern Minnesota and raised in California. I went to suburban public schools. I graduated with a B.A. in sociology from U.C. Santa Cruz and got an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from U.C. Berkeley. I work as a professor of sociology in the California Bay Area. I teach college classes on the sociology of education, inequality in American society, criminology, and the sociology of film.
I live in a liberal college town. I listen to NPR and read the Washington Post. I watched and liked the Bad Bunny halftime show. I listen to jazz, classical, and alternative rock from the 80s and 90s. I’m developing a taste for hip hop. I was raised Catholic and am now an atheist with respect for the Bible. I have a superficial fondness for Buddhism.
I am a registered Democrat who has never voted Republican. Still, I am often frustrated with the Democratic Party. Depending on the issue, I’m somewhere between a liberal and a democratic socialist. I would vote for Gavin Newsom, but prefer folks like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). I am familiar with and admire the insight and elegance of Marx’s theory, but don’t consider myself a Marxist. I took a political ideology assessment that describes me as more left than right, more libertarian than authoritarian. But not very extreme:
Please share in conservative circles and let’s get some questions coming in!