July 13, 2025

IS THE NEW YORK TIMES A LIBERAL NEWSPAPER? OF COURSE IT IS: Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family? The column was written by David Litt, a former Obama speechwriter whose smugness is almost as overwhelming as his boss:

Not too long ago, I felt a civic duty to be rude to my wife’s younger brother.

I met Matt Kappler in 2012, and it was immediately clear we had nothing in common. He lifted weights to death metal; I jogged to Sondheim. I was one of President Barack Obama’s speechwriters and had an Ivy League degree; he was a huge Joe Rogan fan and went on to get his electrician’s license. My early memories of Matt are hazy — I was mostly trying to impress his parents. Still we got along, chatting amiably on holidays and at family events.

Then the pandemic hit, and our preferences began to feel like more than differences in taste. We were on opposite sides of a cultural civil war. The deepest divide was vaccination. I wasn’t shocked when Matt didn’t get the Covid shot. But I was baffled. Turning down a vaccine during a pandemic seemed like a rejection of science and self-preservation. It felt like he was tearing up the social contract that, until that point, I’d imagined we shared.

Had Matt been a friend rather than a family member, I probably would have cut off contact completely. As it was, on the rare and always outdoor occasions when we saw each other, I spoke in disapproving snippets.

“Work’s been good?”

“Mhrmm.”

My frostiness wasn’t personal. It was strategic. Being unfriendly to people who turned down the vaccine felt like the right thing to do. How else could we motivate them to mend their ways?

Still though, could be worse:

In any case, if all your lefty cousins suddenly come out of the woodwork this week, blame the Gray Lady:

Flashback: The Smug Style in American Liberalism.

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll