In 2023, I started believing in ‘horseshoe theory’ of politicsInteresting take by political commentator Jonah Goldberg, as syndicated through The Baltimore Sun:Of course, these trends predate 2023 by quite a bit. But what’s changed is how much more willing the political center is to let itself be defined by the logic and rhetoric of the extremes. The result is a kind of bipartisan consensus around the more European idea of fighting for control of the state, led by fairly mainstream politicians terrified of their party’s bases.Why the rhetoric of the fringes has become mainstream probably has a lot to do with the changing media landscape and weakness of parties. But what remains constant is the importance of rhetoric itself, which, as the late literary critic Wayne Booth said, is “the art of probing what men believe they ought to believe.” And the loudest voices are bending the arc of our politics towards illiberalism.