I don’t disagree with a lot of what you wrote, other than the end:
All this means I really only feel like it’s valid to judge JK as if she were the somewhat bigoted person she originally was, rather than today’s turbo-Nazi version of her.
I disagree, we can judge her on the choices she made that brought her to this point. She chose to engage with negative criticism with hostility and surrounded herself with people who validated the beliefs and behaviors that culminated in where we are today.
She could have chosen to remove herself from those situations instead of jumping in with both feet, but there would have been a social/ego cost to it, so she continued letting herself be radicalized into the hateful thing she has become.
And I judge her as someone having almost walked a similar path. I was on the alt-right pipeline over a decade ago when they were getting their feet underneath themselves, and I had a combination of self-awareness/shame that helped me come to my senses.
I don’t disagree with a lot of what you wrote, other than the end:
I disagree, we can judge her on the choices she made that brought her to this point. She chose to engage with negative criticism with hostility and surrounded herself with people who validated the beliefs and behaviors that culminated in where we are today.
She could have chosen to remove herself from those situations instead of jumping in with both feet, but there would have been a social/ego cost to it, so she continued letting herself be radicalized into the hateful thing she has become.
And I judge her as someone having almost walked a similar path. I was on the alt-right pipeline over a decade ago when they were getting their feet underneath themselves, and I had a combination of self-awareness/shame that helped me come to my senses.