Walter Isaacson On Ben Franklin

(It’s the July 4th holiday. The full Dish — including my weekly column and the window contest — will return next Friday. Happy Independence Day!)

Walter is the Leonard Lauder Professor of American History and Values at Tulane. He’s the former CEO of the Aspen Institute, where he is now a Distinguished Fellow, and he’s been the chairman of CNN and the editor of Time magazine. He’s currently a host of the show “Amanpour and Company” on PBS and CNN, a contributor to CNBC, and the host of the podcast “Trailblazers, from Dell Technologies.” The author of many bestselling books, the one we’re discussing this week is Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.

As Walter says on the pod, my invitation to him to come talk about Franklin spurred him to propose writing a new, second brief book on Franklin’s meaning for America, especially his hatred of “arbitrary power.” For two clips of our convo — on why Franklin opposed a one-person presidency, and his brutal rift with his son William — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: raised in NOLA in a diverse neighborhood; his work during the recovery from Katrina; Michael Lewis and Nick Lemann as NOLA contemporaries; Harvard in the ‘70s; the benefits of being an outsider; Franklin as the 10th son of a Puritan immigrant in Boston; indentured to his brother as a printer’s apprentice; running away to Philly; his self-taught genius; his 13 Virtues; his many pseudonyms; Poor Richard’s Almanack; poking fun at the elite; his great scientific feats; giving away the patents for his inventions; becoming the most famous American abroad; leaving his wife in Philly; his philandering; struggling to hold the empire together as a diplomat in London; humiliated by elites in the Cockpit in Westminster; returning to Philly as a fierce revolutionary; seeing his son William stay loyal to the Crown as governor of NJ; embracing William’s abandoned son; securing an alliance with France and its crucial navy; the deism of the Founders; balancing faith and reason; power vs arbitrary power; Trump’s daily whims (e.g. tariffs); the separation of powers; judicial review; private property as a check against tyranny; the commons; Posse Comitatus; the Marines in L.A.; Congress ceding power to Trump; the elites’ failure over Iraq and Wall Street; and the dangers of cognitive sorting.

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: Edward Luce on America’s self-harm, Tara Zahra on the revolt against globalization after WWI, Thomas Mallon on the AIDS crisis, and Johann Hari turning the tables to interview me. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

The response from regular gay and lesbian readers to my piece in the NYT last Thursday and Sunday (in print) has been shockingly positive. From the professional queers? The usual ad hominems — but also an essay in the Advocate, a formerly gay, now transqueer, magazine. It’s essentially an overwrought confirmation of my description of the gender revolution.

The author, Marcie Bianco, has long had a theme of opposition to equality in the liberal sense. She’s a revolutionary. After various insults — my essay is “ahistorical, factually inaccurate, and illogical nonsense” — she tries to rebut a few actual points.

Here is her case against gay marriage: it '“hasn’t stopped queer folks from being abducted by ICE agents and deported.” Actually, of course, many gay men and lesbians are protected from deportation precisely because they are legally married to an American citizen, a right they didn't have before Obergefell. No, marriage equality didn’t solve climate change either, but it’s a massive advance for gay couples here and across the world.

Here is her response to another concern: “[Sullivan] is worried that trans girls on puberty blockers will never get to experience orgasm (as if orgasms are the only or ultimate forms of sexual pleasure).” So she’s fine with that, it appears. Perhaps worried that this wasn’t very persuasive, she accused me of pedophilia: “Like, excuse me, sir, why are you thinking about kids having orgasms? What in the actual patriarchal and revolting fuck am I reading?”

You’ve got to give her credit for that line.

On ending the biological distinction between men and women: “what is this ‘biological distinction’? It’s a slippery slope to claim that penises are just chromosomes by another name.” A slippery slope to where?

And that’s it. That’s the entire substantive rebuttal. The rest is queer and gender theory regurgitation, reminding the faithful of the creed, and decrying “Sullivan and his ilk of Mattachine Society-revering assimilationist gays.” Yes, this is her refutation of my view that the gay and lesbian rights movement has been taken over by a bunch of critical queer and gender theorists: “Long live the new queer regime!” Q.E.D.

But even here, in the wokest of woke mags, in the comments, there was dissent — plenty of it and quite blunt at times. Many commenters disagreed with Bianco when I looked at it a few days ago. Yesterday, however, all the comments disappeared. Not a sign of intellectual confidence, don’t you think?

A Dish reader responded to the Advocate piece:

“as if orgasms are the only or ultimate forms of sexual pleasure.” Good lord.

Aside from all the more obvious things that are wrong with this, it is also verbatim the kind of language postmodernists in academia were using 20 years ago to defend “subaltern” practices like clitoridectomy of girls in the Horn of Africa from the “problematic” condemnation of human rights organizations (including, of course, local activists and NGOs as well — those Malinchistas).

Another writes:

It’s the “everything is everything” brain virus that has utterly destroyed the contemporary progressive movement. Gay marriage has no value if it doesn’t solve every unrelated leftist preoccupation. Biden’s accomplishments mean absolutely nothing in the face of his support for Israel. Nothing is worth doing unless it solves everything, which is of course tantamount to saying that we shouldn’t do anything at all. Except tweet about revolution, I guess.

And another:

This is all so stupid. Being gay married allowed my wife to have health insurance (and we didn’t have to pay taxes on the employer contribution) in the years that we had three kids under five at home, including at the height of the pandemic, and I was working a bazillion hours a week at the hospital. Thank god for gay marriage. It helped our gay family immensely. But I’m just a normie lesbian trying to raise three kids with my wife.

Several dissents over my NYT piece (“How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized and Lost Its Way”) arrived in the in-tray, including:

In your argument against gender ideology, I couldn’t find a mention of Trump’s recent order to fire all trans people from the military (where is the blanket employment protection you cite?) — or the blatant misgendering of, and denial of bathrooms to, my congressperson Sarah McBride (whom you mention) by her colleagues.

Yes, the trans-kids movement went too far, too fast, as far as medical interventions, but believe me, there are trans kids out there who have a tough row to hoe without being denied bathrooms or sports participation, not to mention pronouns. When you make an argument, you sometimes seem blind to realities and nuances that complicate your thesis. Trans people are not deliberately trying to take your rights; they just want them too. And theirs’ is a smaller minority than yours.

I made my view on treating trans people with respect using the pronouns of the sex they identify with in the essay itself. The military ban is a little more complicated. It’s not a civil right; there are all sorts of exceptions for a variety of reasons, and there may be some roles that the medical regime of some trans people make difficult. But yes, I oppose Trump’s ban; and said so at the time.

Another dissent:

How could you write an entire piece like that and exclude bisexual people from your every single reference?? I think you used the word once, but not even in the context of our being a legitimate part of this movement you reference again and again and again. Every single time, it’s “gay, lesbian, and transgender.”

What’s wrong with you? You are such a smart human. I’m a member of the LBGT community who over the years has so often appreciated and related to “contrarian” voices within the movement such as your own; who appreciates so many facets of conservatism (whose flippin’ grandfather ran for VP on the ticket with Barry Goldwater back in 1964); who has, frankly, defended you so many times over the years in the company of less nuanced and, frankly, less intelligent gay folks.

Dude, how could you (but probably much importantly, why would you) be so wantonly cruel to us — real, actual, bisexual human people who are caused such enormous and searing pain when subjected to the psychic and existential violence of erasure; you literally just refused to say our name.

In so far as bisexuals have in the past been discriminated against, it is by virtue of their behaving as homosexuals, not as heterosexuals. So I’ve always seen the fight for full bisexual rights as essentially indistinguishable from the fight for gay rights — which we have now won. And the piece was not about bisexuals as such. As for the “psychic and existential violence of erasure,” I can understand the frustration (although I think that’s way over the top), but I’m not about token expressions of inclusion when irrelevant to the question at hand.

This next dissenter quotes me:

I gotta pick a nit: “Their existing rights should be defended and expanded to public accommodations” and “fighting a losing battle to allow ... biological men to be in women’s intimate spaces ... is dumb” are mutually contradictory. Except for those in private homes, “women’s intimate spaces” are “public accommodations” under the law. Any space open to the general public (even if an admissions fee must be paid, or if there is some form of screening) counts as a “public accommodation” — e.g., changing rooms and showers at any gym that sells memberships.

So you still have not come to grips with the bathroom issue that kicked all of this off back in 2016. My position is simple: I do not want men in women’s intimate spaces, especially those that are “public accommodations” — period. And I do not want women in men’s intimate spaces — period. I am quite confident that this is a majority position of the American people.

It’s also my position. And it is perfectly possible to extend protection from discrimination in public accommodations — excepting those accommodations where women’s and men’s intimate privacy rights are involved.

Another reader writes:

I can’t thank you enough for your words in the Times. You wrote what I have been feeling but had trouble expressing, especially since there is no real forum for civil discussion on this topic (as you know). I will disseminate this necessary piece to as many in my circle who might gain insight from your eloquent words. Keep it up.

Another:

That was a terrific and very straightforward summation of the sane person’s response to the TransWoke Revolucioné — and, even better, a tangible sign that the NYT is creeping back from its ideological capture. This shit is simply nuts. People can’t defend it with a straight face, so they resort to deflection, minimization, or simply smearing their opponents. It recalls the old joke: what’s the definition of a sexist, racist, homophobic bigot? Someone who just won an argument with a progressive.

Keep up the great work. It’s starting to pay off. The wheel is turning back to pragmatic moderation and away from the avant-garde identity tourists.

From a doctor:

I congratulate you on finally identifying the hijacking of the gay rights movement by the gender-identity crazy left. I’m a proud and longtime gay leftie, the first out gay man to lead the national medical students’ organization within the Association of American Medical Colleges in 1976, so I have a modicum of cred. I’m also a physician, and I share your reservations about “gender-affirming care” for minors.

In spite of what its advocates say, kids are not small adults. Their brains are still myelinating, still growing and developing neural pathways, and the cognitive functions that go with that growth are not fully developed. If a nine-year-old can’t decide what flavor ice cream he or she wants, how is it responsible or ethical to let them make an irreversible life choice about gender?

From a parent:

I wrote to you last November about our gender dysphoric child who is currently 9. He’s had signs of gender dysphoria since age 3, and it’s a true struggle to decipher what is best for our child.

On one hand, as a liberal, I reflexively recoil at the efforts of my red state (Missouri) to interfere with decisions that must be made by myself as a parent for my child with the advice of doctors. I am instinctively angry at Jamie Reed and others like her for building an alliance with the worst types of Republicans on this issue. I do not trust that they have the best interests of children like ours in mind.

On the other hand, you articulate the problem quite well in your NYT essay, just as you have for us Dish readers for years. Because my gender dysphoric child is male, I resonated with the way you explained it: