"... the former Ambassador to the United Nations and a fellow at AEI (and subsequently National Security Advisor to President Trump). Bolton, my friend insisted, was a loathsome, hateful, racist, neo-conservative warmonger. The list went on and on until eventually she said that he looked like a walrus with a moustache. You could tell by his physiognomy, she explained, that he was a psychopath. 'But what about the policies?' I responded, trying to redirect the conversation away from personalities. The more she spoke, the more I recognised her broad disposition as something I had experienced earlier in my life. Her attitude was almost entirely tribal. Two things, in particular, stood out: an almost blind hatred of a particular group (Republicans); and secondly, the use of deeply personal attacks on individual researchers to justify that hatred."
From "Tribalism has come to the West/Hostile and polarised, today's America reminds me of my Somalian clan" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who worked at AEI at the time of that conversation).
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Timothy emails: "I last listened to Ali when she was a guest of Joe Rogan. Smart lady, IMO. I tend to take her side on things, although I'm wary of the chance that I'll slip into a bias and believe her when I shouldn't. FAIK, this is one such case. I notice her calling out her friend's prejudice toward Bolton, which looks pretty egregious to me. But am I taking someone's word for it when I shouldn't? I'll never know, unless her friend goes public with her side of the story. Then again, I've seen this sort of behavior firsthand - someone who tries to admonish me about siding with racists, for instance, and making a bigoted remark in the process. Goes back to a lament I often have: the worst argument for a political position? is often a bad argument defending it."
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