NYT: My Fellow Liberals Are Exaggerating the Dangers of Ron DeSantis

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63. Linker is definitely *not* a centrist. He had a falling out years ago with the far-right.

He would probably be considered one of the original "Reagan Democrats", though he's too young for that (he's a Gen Xer). Basically what happened is that he worked for years in the conservative Catholic think-tank milieu, in particular at a right-wing Catholic journal, First Things, which started going further and further radtrad. At some point, they really started crossing the line into something close to sedition and flirting with the alt-right, whining about "cultural degeneracy", etc. Linker decided that he'd had enough; his "J'accuse!" moment came in a widely publicized open letter to First Things.

The whole incident was covered in detail in Linker's book The Theocons.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/theocons-damon-linker/1100617844

Linker is a gifted writer, and unlike many conservatives, he actually does his homework when it comes to historical research and supporting his assertions. However, he would be regarded as a very conservative Democrat. The only part of "liberal" that would seem to apply to Linker is "neoliberal".