Everyone understands that the more you yell at someone for lacking empathy or humanity, the less empathetic they are likely to become, right?

What if I told you that a comedian and podcaster named Adam Friedland sat down for an interview with stridently pro-Israel New York Congressman Richie Torres, and the title of the episode was “Be Human”? Given just that information, would you have any difficulty predicting how the conversation went?

You might be surprised by one detail, which is that instead of loudly and angrily denouncing Torres as some kind of morally deformed homunculus animated by AIPAC dollars (as many did), Friedland merely implied as much by tearing up and pleading with Torres to remember his humanity. This was deemed significant because Friedland, who rose to prominence on an unprintable-name-having show which features extended rambling tangents about pedophilia and Holocaust denial jokes, apparently dropped his ironic clown mask and let his own humanity shine through, in stark contrast to Torres’ lack thereof.

In the wake of Trump’s re-election and the call going out for the Democrats and other left-affiliated concerns to actually bring voters back into the tent instead of preaching to........

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