As always, Colby, I appreciate your perspective, and your piece is well-written. But as someone who grew up in what has become MAGA country, raised by and around people who will almost certainly be voting Republican this fall, I can't help be think that one of the biggest reasons I found that culture so stifling is because it embraced its own variant of what you call "safetyism."

"an ideology that’s come to the fore in recent decades “that places self-perceived safety, especially the feeling of being protected from disagreeable ideas and information, above all others.""

How better to describe book bans or requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom?

You say "what’s more important, tackling climate change or redefining women as “birthing people”?"

I agree, but the people you're defending would regard any attempt at seriously "tackling climate change" as a form of paternalism.

You say "the things they’re upset about, the things that are driving their voting preference, have almost nothing whatsoever to do with Black people or gay people. Many of them have seldom or never met, or at least, deeply interacted with representatives of either."

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe they've come to define "wokeness" and to conceive of the current state of the economy or immigration or any number of other issues, not on the basis of real world interactions with people who come from a different background, but on the basis of caricatures they see on Fox News or in mostly conservative-leaning online spaces?

I agree with you that the Dems need to focus more on the kinds of economic issues (and some social issues like abortion) that play well in places like my home state of Missouri, where voters routinely choose progressive ballot initiatives and then turn around and vote for regressive politicians. That's the opening they need to be playing for. But it's also fair to ask why this mismatch exists? Why the fixation on the symbolism of whatever MAGA represents, instead of a sober analysis of concrete policy?