I’ve been critical about Charlie Sykes in the past (see here). Mr. Sykes is a former conservative radio host who has come out, in a big way, against the Trump wing of the Republican party. My original criticism mainly stemmed from the fact that Mr. Sykes had fed the Trump wing of the party during his 23 years. And only after Trump’s election did he stop adding to the horribly putrid talk radio environment unique to the American right. It is good that he is now realizing his follies, but his follies have become catastrophic.

Despite my criticism, I continued to follow him on twitter and I occasionally read an article he wrote or an interview of him.

In following him, and since writing my original article, I must say, I have come to admire Mr. Sykes. I still don’t agree with his politics, but in contrast to his radio show self he has found humility, often questioning his original beliefs openly. I think questioning ones self and your political ideologies, regardless of your party affiliation, is a characteristic of any good American. We should all follow in Mr. Sykes’ lead.

Here’s an excerpt of a recent interview of him in Slate:

[Interviewer: Isaac Chotiner] Let me ask you then, because every psychological or political social science experiment you see shows how much partisanship drives how we think about things: Has your kind of awakening about Trump and the Republican Party changed the way you react either rationally or emotionally to other things? Like if you’re following a debate on ending Obamacare, which I’m sure you were never a big fan of, do you find yourself emotionally reacting to it in a different way than you would have five years ago, even though maybe your ideology about health care and the free market hasn’t actually changed?

[Mr. Sykes] Yes. Very much so. The shock of Trumpism has made me rethink what the conservative movement was about and who our allies were, and what our assumptions were. So yes, I do. And once you step out of the echo chamber, once you step out of the bubble, it’s kind of liberating. I actually find it’s incredibly liberating to break out of the chrysalis of having to defend the tribe.

I was a strong critic of Obamacare, but I’m able to step back and go, OK: Are we seriously going to blow this thing up when they were voting on it, without having any hearings, without having any discussions? Do you understand how this will affect people’s lives? I do find that if you step back, and if you’re no longer invested in tribal loyalty, you’ll have a very different perspective, both intellectually and emotionally.

[Interviewer: Isaac Chotiner] When you look at the title of your book, do you think that was a brain fart? How much of the stuff that you did, do you in hindsight see a signal?

[Mr. Sykes] Look, I definitely did not intend that to be a racial connotation, but I can understand how people might misinterpret it. That book, for example, at least half of it is about corporate welfare and Goldman Sachs, and that sort of thing. In retrospect, I can understand how if people were looking for that type of a signal, they might have interpreted it that way. That is part of the rethinking I am doing here.

The whole interview is very worth your time. The interviewer, Isaac Chotiner, asks some great questions.

-M