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Notes -
I made it abundantly obvious in my post that I was referring to the Christianization of Western and Northern Europe, and not the initial conversion of Rome and its immediate surroundings. All of the examples I provided were clearly about the regions outside of direct Roman rule, so you bringing up Rome is either an intentional dodge - because you’re not conversant in the history of the regions and era that I’m talking about, or because you don’t have a counterargument against my interpretation of the events in question - or (once again) a failure of reading comprehension on your end.
As for everything else here, you’re correct that we have incredibly orthogonal worldviews. I’m primarily interested in questions about whether or not Red and Blue are analytical categories that can be applied to people across a wide geographical and temporal field of comparison - was Oliver Cromwell a Blue? Was Charlemagne? Whereas you are very intent on keeping the conversation about these categories firmly rooted in the specific cultural and political context of the modern United States. As a result of this fundamental difference in analytical frameworks, you’re probably correct that you and I are indeed doomed to always talk past each other.
Ultimately I would love for someone in my faction - probably not me personally, since you very obviously find my specific style very grating - to convince you that we’re not your enemy, but rather an ally of convenience, with whom you’re going to have to coexist both before and after the eventual victory of our coalition. We’re Blues, but we’re not leftists, and that means we’re not your real enemy. I truly do believe that, and I haven’t given up hope that one of us will eventually break through to people of your inclination.
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