New Year’s Letter: The X Factor
In an essay published the day before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris laid out his case for supporting Kamala Harris by making a negative case against Donald J. Trump. About halfway through the piece, he deployed an effective rhetorical device meant to highlight the sheer breadth and depth of disqualifying elements found in Trump’s character and behavior. Noting that nearly everyone who advised Trump on national security in his first administration has since publicly said that Trump is unfit to serve as commander-in-chief, he writes: “These people include Jim Mattis (Secretary of Defense), Mark Milley (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and H.R. McMaster (National Security Adviser)—and those are just the M’s.” (Fans of the late contrarian Christopher Hitchens will recall Hitchens’ clever use of this same device in a discussion with conservative talk show host Dennis Prager: “Just to stay within the letter ‘B,’ I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad …”) Although Harris’s strategically selected synecdoche—crafted to imply a universe of disqualifying elements that the reader might extrapolate to be some 26 times greater in size—raised legitimate questions and concerns about Trump, this anyone-but-Trump argument promoted across much of mainstream media clearly wasn’t enough to sway the election.
While the full causes and consequences of Trump’s victory will likely not be fully understood for years, just as the actual level of present hyperbole about a second Trump administration can only be known in retrospect, one needn’t appeal to racism, sexism, or any other -ism label to explain the result, despite what many will insist. To begin, the latchkey-kid mentality of Generation X, the desire to fortify boundaries between XX and XY, the staunch support of followers of X, the broad Latino rejection of the suffix “x,” the changing face of xenophobia and rise of antisemitism on the progressive left, the abrupt x-ing out of Biden, the growing power of Trump’s X factor appeal, and, of course, the (re)birth of X.com and the activist role of X Æ A-12 Musk’s dad all played highly consequential roles—and those are just the Xs. Indeed, the 2024 presidential election might well be remembered as the X election for one additional reason: it served as a giant cross mark—a “yuge” red X stamped atop not just the incumbent administration but also the broader cultural movement engineered by a wide array of the country’s most notable nonprofit and for-profit institutions, including those in media, science, sport, medicine, education, entertainment, business, and technology. More specifically, the final vote can be read as a stark repudiation of the illiberal ideological shifts that occurred within the Democratic Party and any number of vital institutions over the past decade—or, in Roman terms, X annos.
As we at Presser reflect back on 2024—our first year in operation—it is clear in retrospect that this electoral outcome would have been a winning bet judging by the way readers voted with their clicks. As a space designed for good-faith dialogue, debate, and discussion based on traditional liberal principles, we have published a range of opinions, ideas, and arguments that challenge taboos and question dogma—and will continue to do so. But looking back through the shadow of the election, it’s notable that the essays that figuratively drew a large question mark if not a giant X over the illiberal shift that has taken place across much of the left politically, socially, and culturally received not only the most views but also the most reader minutes. Consider our top five most widely read and shared essays in 2024, which we’re re-running in this New Year issue for those who might have missed them: (5) “Universities Must Recommit to Excellence and Reject Political Loyalty Oaths,” by Abhishek Saha, which critiques mandatory DEI/EDI statements in academia; (4) “A Detransitioner’s Story in Three Parts: The Boob Job,” by Isaac Arbol Reed, which shares the story of a young man’s transition and detransition and the medical harm he experienced; (3) “The Truth about Fatal Police Shootings Might Surprise You (Especially If You’re a Liberal),” by Matt Thornton, which examines the widely believed claim that police are deliberately using deadly force against innocent people because of their skin color; (2) “The Truth about Dissident Dialogues,” by Emma Muniz, which discusses the author’s experience at the inaugural Dissident Dialogues and describes the ways in which the event was grossly misrepresented by the sneering media; and (1) “The Left Has an Authoritarian Problem (but Doesn’t Know It),” by Luke Conway, which explains how it’s not just right-wing extremists who long for an authority figure to crush their enemies, silence opponents, and restore order and argues—it’s also those who preach “be kind” and celebrate their “inclusivity” who have become authoritarian bullies.
Judging only by this very specific reader-preference metric, the message is clear: if the Democratic Party wants to regain an electoral advantage in 2026, 2028, and beyond, it—along with our most important truth-seeking institutions on which we all rely—must reject the authoritarian ideological impulse and return to championing and promoting traditional liberal principles and values. Put another way, the Democrats need a new filter—one shaped in the letter S—that allows only those policies and programs that are sensible and sane, that do not sacrifice our individual and collective safety, security, or speech, and that do not silence or suppress sound science. (And yes, this S-shaped filter will inevitably let in some sh*t that will need to be cleaned up, but this is the nature of a liberal democratic order.) Beyond considerations of political expediency, Democrats must do so because it is the right thing to do—both for the country and the world—especially with the illiberal authoritarianism and actual reactionary -isms growing across the aisle and pond.
As we move into 2025, we continue to know that any given essay we publish will inevitably be found objectionable by someone, somewhere, and we hope—at times—that includes you. Hearing ideas with which you disagree from people you might not like is the nature of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and freedom of expression. Without these things, there can be no individual liberty and no universal rights. You might think this is a bad approach and believe you’ve discovered some other path to utopia, but all those paths are buried under bone and rubble and circle back only to even greater despair and destruction. Liberalism remains by far the best (or, if you prefer, least worst) political and economic system yet discovered. (If you happen to think otherwise, let’s hear your argument! We’re open to the possibility we might be wrong.) The world is a complex and confusing place, and we must be able to have reasoned discussions, to judge evidence for and against entrenched beliefs, and to question old and new dogma without fear or penalty if we ever want to discover what’s true about it—and to identify and correct any of our errors and actually solve pressing problems.
We hope you will join us in this pursuit, whether you love or hate what you find here.
Kurt Volkan is editor and publisher of Presser. He lives in North Carolina.