I never talk to liberals. Every so often I need to remind myself why.

I never talk to liberals.

That may be a bit of an exaggeration. I do talk to liberals. I know extended family members who are liberals. I go to the store, and I am sure some of the people I talk with are liberals.

I genuinely forget that there are people who still believe in ‘the wage gap.’ It’s insane.

But I don’t talk politics with liberals. I don’t work with liberals. I don’t suffer under a deranged HR regime whose raison d’être is making sure no employee even considers thinking some politically subversive thought that may, God forbid, go against prevailing liberal orthodoxy.

A quiet place

I live in a nice little town on Lake Michigan and it’s about 50% liberal, but they aren’t really so crazy or kooky. They are fine. People in this area of the state are pretty polite, so these liberals are just other people on the street. They aren’t in my face. I don’t live my life under a liberal framework, muzzling my every thought so I don’t offend the people around me.

I’ve been on the right almost my entire adult life. I don’t have a secret political identity that I need to guard so that I am not socially ostracized or left without a job. My kids are homeschooled, so we aren’t forced to interface with the general population or current brainwashing program of a public school. I’m just not really around liberals that much. I spend my days basking enjoyably in the conservative discourse. It’s very nice.

I live and work in the conservative world. All the debates I am involved with are intra-conservative ones. All the intellectual work I do in my mind is under the presumption of a conservative worldview. All the critique I feel or find myself discussing with others is critique of our own side. They are questions we are working out together so that we can be stronger. Intellectual teamwork. The liberals are just “the other side” or “those people over there,” and I don’t really devote any of my time considering what they are doing.

Picking my battles

I have to say my isolation from liberals has a positive impact on my mental health. It’s not only because I don’t have to deal with navigating the ever-changing labyrinth that is the progressive code of right and wrong. It’s because all my professional and personal efforts go toward helping strengthen our side. I don’t waste any intellectual firepower engaging with lost causes. It’s enriching to know your work builds.

While it’s very nice and I would never trade my position with anyone, I am certainly not champing at the bit to swim in the waters of modern liberalism. I am aware that I have some emotional blind spots due to my professional isolation from liberals.

Reality checks

Sometimes I forget just how insane things are over there. I genuinely forget that there are people who still believe in “the wage gap.” It’s insane. Every once in a while I will wade into the waters or hear a story, and it smacks me in the face.

“Wait, are you kidding me? These people really believe this? They really do?”

“Oh yeah, they do.”

I forget just how widespread the insane delusions are over there. I lose sight of just how deep the far-left creep has penetrated.

Of course I know it intellectually, but I don’t feel it. I can tell that sometimes in the back of my mind, I am referring to my conservative Democrat parents of 2003 and thinking they are somehow representative of anyone over there in the current era. But I know it’s delusional. In reality, my conservative parents of 2003 are more like staunch social conservatives of 2025.

This is what happens when you are far away from something. When you are isolated, you forget how things really are. It’s related to the same impulse we have to forget the bad memories but remember the good ones. I know that I suffer from this forgetfulness due to my glorious distance from the hysterical liberal framework.

Belly of the beast

I realize that my distance from liberals has softened my emotional response to them somewhere in my mind. I often find myself thinking about them — the opposition — in purely intellectual terms. I think of them earning a C- in class rather than a big, fat F. Or maybe they are like some distant tribe in the Amazon rainforest with strange and disturbing ways that aren’t compatible with our civilization. I enjoy the comfort of intellectual distance.

But then I inevitably have a wretched face-to-face encounter with 2025 liberalism, and my calm, zen-like attitude evaporates. I feel a surge of emotions; suddenly I’m disgusted, irritated, and angry. This is what people deal with every single day at work and every single day on the street. No wonder people are so angry all the time. I would be too.

I don’t even know how perpetually angry I would be if I had to deal with degenerating 2025 liberalism all the time.

It’s really interesting how distance obfuscates truth. How my isolation from liberals is great for my general outlook yet also threatens to delude me into a softer emotional response. I’m not eager to surround myself with liberals, trying to convince people who have no desire to be convinced. I’m going to stay right here in the heart of the right, working to make our side stronger. But maybe every once in a while I need to venture out into the belly of the beast just to remind myself how bad things really are and how miserable it must be to be a liberal in 2025.

“There but for the grace of God go I.”