The conservative author tries to persuade his tribe to better love its enemies.

Erick is a radio host and writer. He was an old-school blogger at RedState, serving as editor-in-chief, and he later became a political contributor for CNN and Fox News. Today he hosts the “Erick Erickson Show” on WSB Radio in Atlanta and runs a popular substack of the same name. He’s back on the Dishcast to discuss his new book, You Shall Be as Gods: Pagans, Progressives, and the Rise of the Woke Gnostic Left — though it also criticizes the “gnostic right”.

You can listen right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on the post-Christian right, and the anti-Christian Trump — pop over to our YouTube page.

Other topics: the drop in churchgoing and the rise of the nones over the past few decades; how Covid broke the church-going habit even further; how plagues reshape societies in other ways; Augustine; how churches are sending missionaries abroad rather than to the US; conspiracy theories; the purported “secret knowledge” of the first Gnostics; how the Bible canon was shaped; Bart Ehrman; Erick in the inerrancy-of-the-Bible camp; his wife’s cancer; the issue of cremation; sacraments as physical acts; the Resurrection; how Jesus sought out and loved the abnormal; gnosticism on the political left; transgenderism; Scientism; climate change as apocalyptic; Greta Thunberg; how Reagan and Thatcher addressed the ozone layer; Thatcher being the first to talk climate change at the UN; the comorbidities of many kids seeking transition; the Cass Review; the language police; Michael Anton’s “Flight 93 Election”; the border crisis under Biden; his student loan forgiveness; resurgent anti-Semitism on the left and the right; protesting at the homes of politicians; the overreach of the Alvin Bragg case; the queer criticism of gay marriage; why “emotional labor” is the lifeblood of a democracy; the Ten Commandments vs critical queer and gender theory in schools; the blasphemy of crosses on January 6; the MSM’s failure to simply explain the opposing side; and how America in the 2020s is becoming a version of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Stephen Fry on his remarkable life, Eric Kaufmann on reversing woke extremism; Anne Applebaum on autocrats, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, and Van Jones on race in America. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

On last week’s episode with Tim Shipman on the UK elections (which were held yesterday), a listener writes:

I’m so sorry about your mother and hope you’re with your family now. I trust you’ll feel free to disregard any questions from readers and listener if you need to. But if you’re able to answer, I’d be curious to know what you think about Nigel Farage.

Tim Shipman said that Farage doesn’t occasion the same fears about neo-fascism in the UK as Trump does in the US. I don’t follow UK politics closely enough to know whether Farage has the same authoritarian bent, the same disdain for the separation of powers, and the same demand for personal over constitutional loyalty that Trump does, though he doesn’t seem to.

But Farage does pal around with some appalling people, like Trump and Orbán. I don’t know how much to read into that. Is that just what you have to do if you’re a populist right-winger, even if you don’t threaten liberalism the way Trump and Orbán do? Or is it a case of birds of an illiberal feather flocking together?

Shipman’s comment that Farage has muttered about Ukraine having provoked Russia to attack — a Kremlin talking point — was totally unsurprising. Scratch the shiny surface off a populist right-winger, and something ugly is underneath. It’s noteworthy that Farage walked those mutterings back quickly, because he realized they wouldn’t fly in pro-Ukraine Britain, but they seem to suggest that his instincts are not altogether friendly to liberalism. Or maybe I’m attaching too much significance to this. Your thoughts?

The bottom line on yesterday’s vote is that Farage’s party did incredibly well and is now the third largest party by percentage of the vote in the UK. The winner-takes-all system meant that Reform’s showing took enough Tory votes away to give well over a hundred seats to Labour, primarily. That’s due to the Tories’ total and utterly befuddling betrayal on immigration. Which is due to Boris.

I don’t like Farage but he represents something real; he is well liked among the lower echelons of the British class system; immigration has been his crusade and he is probably as responsible for Brexit as Boris Johnson. He’s not Trump. I also think he has a point in criticizing the West’s approach to post-Soviet Russia, although it clearly cost him some votes. The Tories will now have to decide what to do with him, because, for the first time, he’s won a seat in the Commons and may well emerge as a de facto opposition leader. The Right’s civil war will take on new energy now.

Then there’s Keir Starmer’s Commons triumph: a simply massive majority which gives him the power to do whatever the hell he likes. If my reader is worried about elected dictatorship, the UK already has one for a government with this majority. The restraining factor is how low the percentage of the vote Labour won.

Starmer won fewer votes and a lower percentage of the vote than Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 and 2019. He got a paltry 34 percent of the vote. (The despised and exhausted Tories got 24 percent. Reform won 14 percent and the Liberal Democrats — a kind of woker Labour — got 13.) But with just a third of the vote, Labour won two-thirds of the seats. They focused their resources relentlessly on targeting districts they could win while leaving the national message less clear. It was a brilliantly executed maneuver.

Put all the left-wing parties together, you get 53 percent of the vote, or a bit more if you add lefty regional parties like the Scottish nationalists. The conservative Tories and Reform— combined, they were Boris’ coalition in 2019 — add up to 38 percent. Keir is going to have a potentially large number of MPs capable of making trouble, a very weak mandate for some very vague policy commitments, and some huge problems.

I don’t envy my old friend in the coming months and years; but congratulations on your triumph, mate.

On another recent episode of the Dishcast:

I really enjoyed the conversation with Elizabeth Corey, and I learned a lot about someone you have spoken of so frequently. Thank you for expanding my universe a bit! And who knew that Billy Joel was a student of Oakeshott??

“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints”:

From another new fan of Oakeshott:

Loved the Elizabeth Corey discussion. I just ordered Oakeshott’s The Voice of Liberal Learning — mainly for my college son, but for me too.

Just an update on my mom before we continue with emails and dissents. To say the least, it has been a truly terrible week. Dementia and pre-existing mental illness have come back with a vengeance as she dies — and my siblings and I have been enduring countless yelling, groaning, grimacing, and screaming so loud you can hear it from the parking lot. She’s on the maximum legal dose of oxycodone and midazolam — and yet she keeps screaming as if she is in pain (she just cannot be). This has gone on now for six days, and it is simply unendurable to see someone die in such extreme distress. It has revived so many memories of her acting out in our childhoods — the screaming fits, the anger, the breakdowns, the soul-piercing groans.

I had to take a day away today to preserve what’s left of my composure and capacity to keep going. If you pray, please pray for her to have some final peace, which seems to be eluding her, even as she is drugged up to the eyeballs. And pray for those of us who love her. It is tearing us apart.

On last week’s column on the disastrous debate for Biden, a reader dissents:

I read your post and promptly rolled my eyes. My God, have you lost the ability to not let your knee-jerk, emotional first response dictate how you feel? Yeah, the guy had a bad debate. He’s old, he’s human, and unlike most of us everyday folks, his bad days and off moments are captured on camera and analyzed ad nauseam. So? I still see someone who is smart enough to surround themselves with competent, capable people. I still see someone with enough grace and humility to acknowledge his bad performance, take it on the chin and keep it pushing. I still see a decent man — who is flawed, yes, but is someone I know is capable of empathy and kindness.

No. No. No. The idea that this man can serve as president for another four years is insane, as I said last week. It’s an insult to the American people. The fact that it has been hidden as much as it can be up till now should rightly fill us with rage.

The other scenario which is, to my mind, insane, is nominating Harris as the automatic heir or making her POTUS now so she campaigns as an incumbent president. The first problem: she has less-than-zero ability to campaign. She connects with no one but those in the woke cult; and actively repels everyone else. She was appointed from a pool of candidates that excluded all men — as Biden loves to do. He only considered black women for his SCOTUS pick. There is nothing more consistent in the Biden administration than aggressive and open systemic race and sex discrimination, and Harris is the result. For every campaign stop she makes, she will get people to vote for Trump. Which may be why the Democratic Party, in its staggering incompetence, may well nominate her.

Another reader urges perspective:

Your boy Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer’s while in office, and we made it through that okay. It is a matter of having good people around the president, which Reagan had, and which Biden has. And, if a president becomes incapable or dies, that is what vice presidents are for, and Harris would be a decent president. It would be better if Biden were younger and could communicate better, but I am much less concerned about him in office for four more years than another Trump term. It is too late in the process to change horses, so let’s stick with the horse we road in on and avoid losing our democracy.

No. No. No. Reagan’s Alzheimers only really began to kick in later in his second term; and he could still give an address or speech that was kick-ass. Biden is clearly a victim of creeping dementia already, and will likely not last a second term. And Harris a “decent president”? Succession by Biden’s death is the only way she could ever be president. And she is utterly without administrative experience or political talent. She couldn’t even make it through a single Democratic primary. Please. We need an open convention, a real debate, and a completely new nominee who could actually beat Trump.

Another dissent:

I think I am going to stop reading your columns now. It’s one thing to accuse Joe Biden of being too old for the presidency, but you accused Jill Biden of being abusive towards her husband for supporting his decision to debate, which borders on defamatory. There is nothing abusive about supporting your spouse’s career path. There is no evidence she has neglected or injured Joe in any way. In fact, she is probably more supportive of him than anyone else. She is one of the best First Ladies this country has ever had.

Since she must know better than anyone else how incapable her husband is of being president for four more years, and still persuaded him to run, I do hold her partly responsible for plunging us into a crisis because of something she deliberately hid from view. And putting that man into a zone where total humiliation was inevitable is either pure delusion or elder abuse. Sorry but not sorry. She should be grilled by TV interviewers and the Congress about her clear attempt to deceive the American public in a critical election campaign.

This next reader sees where I’m coming from:

Nothing to disagree with in your column; I’ve always thought rallying behind Biden was an obvious and painful contradiction with the supposed stakes of a second Trump presidency. But one thing that deserves more emphasis is the sort of contempt Biden’s presumptive nomination has always represented.

It’s not as though his condition is an issue invented by the debate. Any poll at any time in the last few years has shown Americans think Biden is too old, and the Democratic Party has refused to listen, and media largely fell in line with attacking the whole question of his fitness. This issue has been treated so smugly (as you point out regarding Scarborough) that I would think some people are insulted enough to stop paying attention to the official narrative at all.

I just cannot fathom how eight years since Trump’s ascendance have taught the media/prestige class/Democratic machine absolutely nothing. It truly appears that liberal apparatchiks want to elect Trump through the constant vilification and condescending treatment of huge swaths of the electorate, and Biden’s age is part of that.

You often point out that many people with ordinary reservations about high rates of immigration being tarred as cruel racists does not, in fact, resound very well. Neither does insisting that the naked emperor is, in fact, impeccably dressed. This smug self-assurance keeps getting slapped back by right-wing movements in Europe, and it certainly can continue to take slaps here. I’m a realist about the perspicacity of the average voter, but treating people as if they are blind, stupid, and so unimportant as to be brushed aside like a wired toddler is galling on a level that deserves to be punished.

Indeed. The sheer arrogance of a handful of people pushing this manifestly unfit president into a second election staggers me. These oldies — from RBG to HRC to JRB — so love their power they would rather wreck the country than do what’s right. Fuck ‘em. Hillary is responsible for Trump’s first term. Biden will be responsible for his second.

As for the mainstream media, it’s just more proof they are an appendage to the administration, doling out propaganda and lies, clinging to left-narratives even when all of them have imploded on meeting reality. I’ve really come to despise most of them. Another indictment of the MSM:

The mainstream media only recently began to cover the age issue, and only because it saw that the narrative of Biden‘s likely dementia is really hurting him in the polls.

It is now the case that the media lies even more by omission than by commission. And they finally began covering it — not by acknowledging that there is clearly a lot of truth to voters’ concerns, but by attempting to gaslight all of us by saying the videos are “selectively edited.” In reality, 99 percent of them are nothing more than video clips of Biden’s speeches or public appearances. (Sure, they are short snippets, but no one is arguing that he mumbled through an entire 30-minute speech or froze/wandering aimlessly for the entirety of a 60-minute public appearance.)

I’ve come to believe that we’ve reached the unfortunate point where being a fully informed American requires one to not only read mainstream media sources, but to consume hysterical left-wing blogs and bonkers right-wing sources. It is only via the latter, for instance, that I’ve seen hundreds of these Biden video clips over the years.

Not only is this very time-consuming, but it requires me to filter through a lot of dark stuff on Elon Musk’s X. I mostly view the accounts of quality journalists and pundits, yet somehow my feed gets filled with stories of black-on-white violent crimes, snuff videos, women inviting me to view their crotch shots, and way too many clips of cats. The darker sources may report stories and data without a lot of good analysis and with demagoguery, but at least they report it. And I’m confident that I’m able to filter through the nonsense and get a good picture of the landscape by considering all angles. But I think we’re beginning to see the disastrous effects of so many people not being able to do that, or relying solely on these kinds of sources.

I do the same. I read all the main papers every day, then I go to Substack Notes or X to get the actual news they are keeping from us. And remember all the MSM hacks tried (and largely succeeded) to get Twitter to censor or suppress these sources of actual information, so we’d only be exposed to their lies and false woke narratives.

Another reader is fed up with both political parties:

Watching the debate the other night, I can see that neither side is willing to tell the truth about their candidate. Both sides keep their hands in their pockets while these two presidents run this country into the dirt. Meanwhile, the people like me — the working class people of faith — have no voice to change things. A perfect example of the frustration of my silent majority is watching both sides fight about Disney — if they are either too gay or not gay enough — while the working people that work at Disney can’t pay their bills. That is a political system that has failed the working class.

I have been a pastor, a career counselor, an academic adviser, a high school teacher, and an advocate for first-generation and low-income students, along with being a paper delivery man, a construction worker, a FedEx package handler, an Amazon driver, and a hospice chaplain, and whatever else I could do to try to take care of my family. Yet I have been laid off four times in my life, and I’m currently borrowing money to just pay the rent and buy groceries. Those of us at the bottom simply want to pay our bills, have some small piece of the American Dream, live with peace and integrity, and live by a standard outlined in the values of our faith in something bigger than ourselves.

Amen. Another reader speculates about a debate that the Biden team called for:

You wrote, “His own people chose to do this. That alone reveals a campaign so divorced from reality, so devoid of a rationale or a message, so strategically incompetent, it too has no chance of winning.”

I can’t help but wonder if the opposite is true. Couldn’t it be that someone saw this train wreck coming and couldn’t convince Biden to step aside, so they wisely decided to expose him before the convention while there is still time to nominate someone else? If they did the first debate in September, it’s game over. I’ve seen no better explanation for why this pre-convention debate was scheduled.

I’d be very much relieved if that were true. Maybe one day we’ll find out. But it’s usually just bad judgment, total isolation, and wishes trumping inconvenient facts. Let’s not leave Biden out of it either. He’s the grandpa who insists he can still drive and risks the lives and well-being of countless others. Someone has to take the keys away. Another reader is very worried:

The reason I want Biden to withdraw is not because he will lose (though, as you note, he probably will). It is because, based on what we all saw, I do not want him to win. I lack any confidence that he can respond as effectively as we, the world, needs the President of the US to be able to respond. The world is faster, much faster than his mental acuity allows. No sane world leader will follow him, engage with him, seek advice from him. They have not the time.

We are left with a choice of two candidates that should not win. I pray for us.

Another reader turns his weary eyes to Kamala Harris:

While I agree with you on Biden, I disagree with your last paragraph. The only viable alternative is Harris, hard as that is for me to stomach. It has to be her for the same reason she had to be VP: she’s the only candidate who will bring in most establishment Dems (former prosecutor with Silicon Valley ties) and the progressive wing (woman of color). I think you underestimate the fault lines that are running through the Democratic Party right now. To pass her over in favor of say, Newsome or Buttigieg would send the the progressive wing into a rage.

No, I don’t like it either. But it’s her or Biden. I held my nose, my eyes, my mouth and orifices I didn’t know existed to vote for Clinton. I can do it for Harris. And God have mercy on us all.

I can’t. But a truly catastrophic defeat with Harris might just get Democrats to revisit whether their passionate belief in illegal and unconstitutional systemic race and sex discrimination is such a good idea. Another reader poses a different path:

As you note, candidate Harris would have a very small chance of winning the election if she were the nominee. The problem is, if Harris is not the nominee, discontent among women, people of color, and die-hard Harris supporters (remember the KHive?) will similarly ensure defeat for the Democrats come November.

Here is a potential scheme for an open convention: Harris agrees not to throw her hat into the ring in Chicago (and also agrees to fully support the eventual nominee). In return, Biden (secretly) promises to Harris that a few days after Election Day, he will resign the presidency due to “health concerns.” This would guarantee Harris her place in history as the first female POTUS and allow for an open convention with a presumably strong candidate to face Trump.

No. That’s just more crazy DEI logic — driven by those who prefer identity politics to winning elections. The goal is to pick someone who can really take the fight to Trump. Their sex, race, identity are utterly irrelevant. Their talent should be central. If the Democrats hadn’t turned against the idea of merit in favor of DEI sexism and racism, they might actually have beaten Trump. Another idea:

Why not flip the ticket? Harris steps up to president, Biden down to VP.

I know, I know, the ego of someone who’s been president would make it unthinkable for them to ever step back down to be veep role, but for Biden it could be a way out with dignity — a way to avoid ending up as a retiree on the beach in Delaware watching the action from afar. “I hear the concerns about my age, but I’m not done serving my country … ”

For Harris, she can say she has the most trusted advisor there is, and in four years, she can pick a younger VP and train them for the role. For Democrats, it’s a way to address what we all saw in the debate but not send the entire election season into disarray. People who like Biden can still feel like he’ll be there in the WH being the steady hand, and people who think he’s too old can rally behind Harris as the next gen. Biden can still campaign and raise money like he is now, but now Harris gets to be on the main stage and bring her case against Trump to the country as a younger, more passionate voice (and debate him next time, though doubtful that Trump would show up if it’s Harris).

If Harris-Biden wins, in January the country still has a smooth continuity AND four years to search for the right #2 for 2028. Not to mention, this move prevents MAGA from claiming that any dirty tricks were played — it’s still the same ticket, just flipped. I think it could also be a simple slogan and rallying cry for those who are feeling dismayed at the moment — easily hashtaggable and all that: #fliptheticket. I think it could work.

I don’t. Another reader opts for scorched earth:

I would recommend that instead of doing the usual liberal-talking-head bedwetting and Twitter panicking, Biden supporters at this point should hold fast, get behind Biden, and take a page from the Republicans. Don’t worry about facts and figures, and take every opportunity to make this about a delusional lying felon, treasonous insurrectionist, and failed businessman. No need to try and recite facts about your performance and quote Beltway expertise and studies. You are there to win. Make it personal, act tough, and out-Trump Trump — and get rid of Biden’s re-election team, which seems mired in wonkiness and stats. Democrats always “believe” Americans are smart, reasonable, etc, but Republicans “know” most of them are dumb and irrational. That’s why the pussy-grabbing, rapist, ugly-women comments have never hurt him. The American people just want to vote for a winner.

I agree they can try that. But it hasn’t worked so far … ever.

On the Dish thread over IVF, a reader writes:

I’ve been a subscriber from Day One, and I take great pleasure from your writing. We probably disagree almost as often we agree. But I’ve probably not read anything of yours that moved me as much as your piece on IVF. Your empathy and clarity showed what it means to take seriously and humanly the consequence of the idea that we are conceived in possession of an eternal soul. And there can only be great sadness and a sense of injustice in contemplating its eternal estrangement from the fullness of life.

Another keeps the debate going:

To a dissent you responded, “The point about freezing and de-frosting, as it were, is one I hadn’t considered. It’s a good one.” But this argument rests entirely on our current scientific capabilities. If our ability to freeze and thaw viable embryos makes them something less than fully human, then scientific advances that allow us to do the same with fetuses and postpartum people must have the same effect. Let’s instead define humanity based on what it is, not on our capabilities to manipulate it.

We just posted a collection of personal stories from readers who underwent IVF — check them out.

Another reader writes:

I was saddened to learn of your mother’s likely immanent passing. My mother passed in March 2008, when the “snowstorm of the century” in Akron kept me from being at her side in the hospital. I am glad to know that (I hope) you will be with your mother. I will pray for her and her children.

Another:

I’m simply a reader and listener, but I wanted to share with you that I am praying for you and your family during your mother’s final days. I recently lost my father to Alzheimer’s. I was surprised to learn that I was not emotionally prepared, despite my best efforts and pragmatic disposition. I pray that you and your family are comforted and encouraged by Christ’s promise during this moment of loss.

Another note of support:

I found the responses to your column on IVF to be very compelling. But nothing is as compelling as life itself — known life, indisputable life, a life well-lived. Being on the cusp of losing my own mother (92, hospice, purple feet and oxygen levels bouncing between 65-95%), all I can say regarding your own mom is go — go fast and get there; be there for her and your siblings. I wish you, literally, God’s-speed.

Opinions and columns even during these terribly conflicted times can wait. First things first — but you already knew that.

God bless, Andrew. And God bless your mother.

I’ve been with her all week. Another reader:

Godspeed, Andrew. I went through hospice with two grandmothers, both parents, and my partner. Then I guided my best friend through it with her mom. And I volunteer for hospice work because I think they do important work and admire them immensely.

I held my father’s hand and my partner’s at the moment of their deaths. With a little bit of grace and a little bit of courage, we can put aside our fears. Because what is happening is as natural and as human as being born. Go hold her hand — tell her it’s ok to let go, and not to worry about you without her.

One more reader:

Just now, reading your note on the Dish brought tears to my eyes and a flood of recollections about my own mother’s death. Please indulge me as I recall the day the hospice people called and said my mother had only a few days left.

I contacted my siblings, who ironically started trying to time flights in for the funeral, but not for a “death watch,” as my brother called it. I drove the three-hour distance to the nursing home to be with her. The facility was gracious enough to offer me a room so that I could be immediately available, and when they knocked on my door at 4 a.m., I knew the hour of her death had come.

I went to sit with her as her breathing become more labored. The attendant said that Mom had about 45 minutes left, and that “hearing is the last sense to go” in case I had anything to tell her.

Then the attendant left the room. My mother was peaceful, with no pain, as I had insisted when she went on hospice. I leaned close and told her that I loved her. No response, but just the labored breathing as her soul began its exit from her body.  The only thing that made sense to me, as I sat next to her, was to say the rosary, which I did silently. When she breathed her last breath, I felt such a rush of intense joy for her, and I felt so honored to have been there.

In no way do I want to sound condescending toward my bothers and sister, all of whom had fallen away from the deep Catholicism that Mom imbued in us, but I do feel their post-Catholic, professedly stunted spiritual lives had not served them well. May your mother rest in peace, and may the angels greet her in Paradise.

My mum cannot speak, but we think she can hear. I have held her, stroked her head, held her hand, and recited the “Hail Mary” and “Hail, Holy Queen” prayers. But no peace yet. Any more painkillers and anxiety relief would kill her, and yet she’s still screaming and groaning into the void. I just pray she can be relieved of this awful suffering soon. My siblings are at the edge of what they can take. I am too.

Please, Lord, bring her home.

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