A Never Trumper walks into a dinner with Jordan Peterson

The company you keep is important.

About a year ago, someone with whom I connected at a party offered to put me on the invite list of what sounded like an exclusive supper club of Fancy People called The Forum. 

The Forum, he told me, was started by a high-powered British couple to bring together people of influence and character with the aim of renewing and elevating a struggling culture. As I am admittedly of very limited influence and often find my own character disappointing, I was flattered. And, I cynically smelled a good networking venue as I embark on a full-time writing career.

Still, I thought it best to make sure I hadn't just signed up for some kind of high-class cult like Scientology or pickleball. I asked a well-heeled friend what she thought. "I've been to some of their events," she said. "They were nice, although I don't know...something seemed a little off. But you should definitely go. You might make some important connections."

I next googled the hosts, Philippa and David Stroud. Philippa is a Baroness, thank-you-very-much, and a Conservative member of the British House of Lords. David is the founding pastor of a network of evangelical churches in London. Conservative-evangelical is definitely no longer my scene in an American context, but everything is better with a British accent. As a moderate-still-Christian-ish-something, I could probably deal. 

The Forum's website said it aimed to bring together leaders from all walks of society. It listed the following as its values: "Creativity (We give our energy to creating something better rather than on criticizing what already exists); Excellence (We value quality and give our best in every setting); Intentionality (We respond to need with creative and credible solutions.); Relationship (We value collaboration, friendship and mutual respect.); Character (We want to promote courage, generosity, justice, integrity, and compassion.); Hope (We believe positive change is possible and that opportunity is in our hands.); Service (We think it is worth giving of ourselves to create something better.)"

Although I do adore criticizing things, this sounded great to me. Who could argue with any of this.  

I got an email inviting me to a series of dinners with speakers like Arthur Brooks (a Friend of Oprah!) and David Brooks of the New York Times and other impressive people not named Brooks. This was gonna be fantastic, I thought. I'm going to be in a small room with David F-ing Brooks! I could tell him about my book and then he would write a column about it and then I would be formally inducted into Intellectual High Society, where I would stand around at cocktail parties using the word “perspicacious” correctly and calling Foucault’s interpretation of utilitarianism “simply ghastly.”¹

I went to a few dinners, and they lived up to the hype. I met some really interesting people, such as a filmmaker working on something relevant to my work. The speakers, both headliners and more grassroots sort of folks, were inspiring. There was a gentleman who ran a firm that sought to connect refugees around the world with investors. There were a few educational reformers, dedicated to improving the opportunities and performance of the less privileged. There were artists of some renown. David Stroud opened each gathering with an eloquent and uplifting talk--in a British accent of course--usually rooted in British history and literature (swoon), about how societies transform, how reform succeeds, how problems are solved through community and connection. 

The events were not religious per se, but it soon became clear that pretty much everyone there was evangelical, or evangelical-adjacent, part of what seems a trend in both elite conservative circles and among the MAGA base (and all the spaces in between) of identifying culturally with white evangelicalism if not through actual belief (and to be clear, I’m sure there’s some sincere believers in the mix). David Brooks, Russell Brand, Jordan Peterson, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to name but a few, have all claimed to have converted to some kind of Christianity (Russell Brand's kind sells amulets and spontaneously baptizes people in their underwear).

For me, one who has very deliberately exited the evangelical tradition after several decades and writes critically about it, I could feel my stomach start to tighten as I realized I was completely surrounded. But I chastised myself, as I often do, for being judgmental and bigoted, for painting people with broad brushes and assuming the worst about them. I reminded myself, as I often do, that there are very many lovely evangelicals who do wonderful things in the world. Certainly everyone I met at these gatherings seemed lovely.  

Still, I had a definite sense that I probably didn't belong there. And not only because David Brooks looked like he was starring in a hostage video the whole time I was talking to him about my book (he may have written a book called How to Know A Person, but he showed no interest in knowing this person. Not his fault, I was admittedly engaged in brazen self-promotion. Hey, mama's gotta pay for college).

But then I got another invitation, supposedly from Philippa but more likely from some staffer. It was an exclusive, non-transferrable invite to attend the London gathering of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (an internet search that easily located a registration button cast doubt on the "exclusive" part). "The ARC conference is not connected with Forum, but many of our guests do attend and even speak at it, so David and I thought you might like to receive an invitation," the email read. 

Well, I do adore London (so many British people!), so I read on. And that's when I was told the delicious casserole I was eating was made of elephant toenails and belly-button fungus.

It listed as members of the advisory board and participants Speaker Mike Johnson--Trump enabler, election denier, and Christian Nationalist--and Jordan Peterson (an ARC founding member), whose name seemed familiar but who I couldn't quite place.  

Google informed me Peterson is an iconoclastic (to put it politely) Canadian psychologist whose overall views seem to be rather eclectic, to include some I would regard as traditionally conservative but which also encompass climate change denial among other more far-flung opinions. 

But there are plenty of vigorously flapping red flags, especially of late. He has hung out with Viktor Orban in the past, and more recently, he appeared onstage with RFK, Jr. and the aforementioned, credibly accused sexual assailant Russell Brand and has endorsed Donald Trump's reelection. He also spent time in Russia receiving unorthodox medical treatments for addiction, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified in a parliamentary probe this month that Peterson may be funded by Kremlin-linked media (Peterson denies this and says he is considering suing Trudeau for defamation). 

Also on ARC's advisory board are Mike Lee, who was one of Trump’s key Hill abettors in the plot to overturn the 2020 election, and Vivek Ramaswamy, an all-around whack-a-doodle who has trafficked in multiple conspiracy theories. Dan Crenshaw is slightly better on the merits, but has decided to put all merit aside and endorse Donald Trump anyway. Responsible Citizens, my ass. 

I emailed all these findings to the friend who had recommended I attend the dinners and who is a resolute Never Trumper. She had no idea of these connections and was alarmed. The Vivek Ramaswamy thing really sent her over the edge. "I'm out!" she replied.

I went to one last Forum dinner, the one with David Brooks, because, again, my books ain't gonna sell themselves. And guess who was there? Jordan Peterson himself. As well as other members of the ARC board, warmly welcomed by Philippa in her opening remarks. 

Having now been in a not-large room with someone who appears to be a full-blown MAGA and insanity-influencer--and frankly, having failed spectacularly to impress David Brooks in any way--I resolved it was the end of the line for me on this possible pathway to intellectual acclaim.  

I'm left with so many questions and just, well, creepy goosebumps. What exactly is going on in these conservative, particularly evangelical intellectual circles? Was David Brooks, who just "came out" as a reluctant Democrat, aware that his presence at this gathering made him basically MAGA-adjacent? Were these "good evangelicals," most of whom indicated to me in conversation that they are not supporting Trump, really OK joining endeavors with election deniers? 

And, from my more imaginative conspiratorial brain--was this entire thing a bait-and-switch, gateway-drug-ruse to pull in the money and participation of decent, normal people in order to launder pernicious (and definitely not perspicacious²) insanity? To gain converts? Like how Tom Cruise makes you think Scientology will allow you to star in action movies at age 60 and then you join only to find yourself working as slave labor on a ship in the Caribbean. 

Or--a more charitable reading--are the Strouds hoping to save the souls of and rehabilitate conservatives who have gone round the bend? To coax them back onto more healthy, constructive paths?

If the latter is true, it's incredibly naive. I think the last decade has clearly taught us that sewage dripped in clean water doesn't sanitize sh*t. Nonetheless, among "good evangelicals" in particular, I still see so much naivete if not avoidance. There's still some dream that divisions with fellow Christians can be bridged, Christianity and Trumpism can coexist, and evangelicalism as a culture can be saved, that on balance it's still a positive force in society, that indeed it knows what is best for society, that its moral authority stands strong.  

I constantly hear from more ordinary anti-Trump evangelicals a general lament about the state of American society, our “toxic politics” (the implication being that both sides are equally to blame), all the "lostness" out there, the increasing alienation of most Americans from “good Christian values,” the infection of the church by the values of "the world." There's little reflection on how evangelicalism itself--including its core theologies, particularly related to scriptural interpretation--has made its devotees susceptible to the kind of corruption and delusion Trump has unleashed. 

They seem to lack the moral clarity this moment demands, a moment like many we have seen in history, when we are given a test that we fail at our peril. And it’s dismaying to see so many “respectable” people tip-toe along the cliff’s edge, hoping to preserve connections, relationships, alliances, “Christian unity,” imagined reputations as “independent thinkers” and fanciful notions of intellectual and spiritual purity.

I’ve taken some hard tests in my life. But this is definitely not one of them.

I sent the Forum a polite but definitive email declining their invitation to the ARC conference, as well as all future Forum events, and laying out the reasons why:

"As standing up for democracy is one of my core values, I'm afraid my conscience will not allow me to attend any more Forum events…I believe it is a time for choosing, and I wish to make my choice very clear."  

I got a response back expressing regret at my exit and offering no further explanation regarding my concerns.

1. To be clear, in case you are worried, there is no mention of Foucault in my book. At all.

2. See what I did there.