from a very different perspective

Current New York Review of Books includes a review of Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism by Paul A. Boghossian - an epistimological treatise.

I can't honestly claim to understand much of the review, or of the arguments of the "constructivists" and "relativists" the book itself critiques.

But... there is a passage from the review that seems relevant to modern American political discourse:

"It is much easier to refute a bad argument than to refute a truly dreadful argument. A bad argument has enough structure that you can point out its badness. But with a truly dreadful argument, you have to try to reconstruct it so that it is clear enough that you can state a refutation."

... and in the case of modern American political discourse, simply trying to reconstruct the truly dreadful arguments gives them legitimacy!