This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Last week, amidst my ravings about the transition of Jason Chaffetz from congressman to pointificator, I expressed my feeling that the best columnist/commentators were the conservatives who dared to criticize the Republicans for not being truly conservative (William F. Buckley) and the liberals who called out the Democrats for not being really liberal (Michael Kinsley).

— Advice to Jason Chaffetz, our newest nattering nabob — George Pyle | The Salt Lake Tribune

Well, lookee what I got in my inbox soon afterward:

— The problem isn't Trump, it's the neoliberal Democrats — Eric Ethington | For The Salt Lake Tribune

" ... For the past 40 years, the Democratic Party as a national organization has systematically abandoned its historic representation of the working class in favor of a wholesale embrace of the professional elite and neoliberal principles that squash workers' representation at all levels of political and workplace engagement, and enhance the power of the wealthy few to govern all aspects of our lives. ..."

— The problem is Utah's radical Republicans — Paul Mero | For The Salt Lake Tribune

" ... The crazy inside the Utah GOP is something more than just libertarians and rubes. The Utah GOP has been radicalized. You saw it during the immigration debate a few years ago. You saw it during the 2012 presidential election when ideologues turned their backs on Mitt Romney. They have booed our standard bearers. They have called Sen. Mike Lee a liberal because he supports family tax credits. And we just saw it raise its crazy head again as Chris Herrod received the GOP convention nomination for the 3rd Congressional District seat. ..."

Related:

— Hated by the Right. Mocked by the Left. Who Wants to Be 'Liberal' Anymore? — Nikil Saval | The New York Times Magazine

" ... Now the political left is expressing its hatred of liberals, too. For the committed leftist, the ''liberal'' is a weak-minded, market-friendly centrist, wonky and technocratic and condescending to the working class. The liberal is pious about diversity but ready to abandon any belief at the slightest drop in poll numbers — a person who is, as the folk singer Phil Ochs once said, ''10 degrees to the left of center in good times, 10 degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.'...''

— Why the Far Right Wants to Be the New 'Alternative' Culture — John Herrman — The New York Times Magazine

" ... At first glance, this seems incoherent. It's a libertarian resistance with an authoritarian program; a counterculture that yearns for tradition. But again, fresh eyes might help us avoid underestimating what is happening here. This ''alternative'' is not limited by consistent adherence to its own principles. This self-described underdog sees nothing problematic in its affinity for power. In fact, it believes, rightly, that to the right audience, contradiction is exciting. Nothing could be better for an insurgent political force than to be seen as a scrappy outsider. And nothing could be better for the aspiring mainstream — this time not corporate, or cultural, but political — than to adopt the permanent pose of the alternative."

— Unconscious Reactions Separate Liberals and Conservatives — Emily Laber-Warren — Scientific American

" ... According to the experts who study political leanings, liberals and conservatives do not just see things differently. They are different—in their personalities and even their unconscious reactions to the world around them. For example, in a study published in January, a team led by psychologist Michael Dodd and political scientist John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln found that when viewing a collage of photographs, conservatives' eyes unconsciously lingered 15 percent longer on repellent images, such as car wrecks and excrement—suggesting that conservatives are more attuned than liberals to assessing potential threats.

Meanwhile examining the contents of 76 college students' bedrooms, as one group did in a 2008 study, revealed that conservatives possessed more cleaning and organizational items, such as ironing boards and calendars, confirmation that they are orderly and self-disciplined. Liberals owned more books and travel-related memorabilia, which conforms with previous research suggesting that they are open and novelty-seeking. ..."