"There Is a Growing Cost to Pretending We've Arrived at a Settled Consensus About Their Answers, or to Denying That They Are Even Real Questions"

"It is an inconvenient truth that there are many people who see the political landscape differently than we do, placing X at the center of their vision when we are sure they should be focusing on Y. It makes sense to try and convince such people that their vision is distorted, but we cross into a different territory entirely by insisting that X is actually a mirage. What you're talking about doesn't exist—and, even if it does, it's so insignificant that your desire to focus on it merely betrays your hidden agenda or bias. In other contexts, this mode of argument has been derided as gaslighting, or denialism, yet it has become increasingly common in liberal and leftist writing."

Anastasia Berg and Jon Baskin at The Point warn against short-circuiting debate.