I can pinpoint when I gave up on this. It was 2016. In that year I made many frustrated attempts to communicate with an ideology whose contradictions I no longe

I can pinpoint when I gave up on this. It was 2016. In that year I made many frustrated attempts to communicate with an ideology whose contradictions I no longer felt I understood. It was made uncomfortably and repeatedly clear to me that communication, compromise, dialog, and indeed principles were no longer on the menu - that concession of any sort was regarded as a sucker's game, and the only consistent terminal value amongst the lot of them was "liberal tears". They didn't care if I understood. They just wanted me to be unhappy. I realized then that the civil war - a culture war - had already begun.