Excerpt:
I didn't associate Massachusetts beaches with burqinis—or with Muslims, for that matter. But my family and I were on vacation, and there was a woman in the water wearing the full-body swimsuit. Next to me on the beach, two friends were talking somewhat loudly. The woman said, "That's what they were trying to do in France"—ban burqinis. Her friend responded nonchalantly, as if he couldn't imagine anyone else thinking otherwise: "Yeah, that's so culturally insensitive." He quickly connected this to President Trump, saying that we were becoming a "meaner" country, presumably like France.
I smiled. This was why I liked, and even loved, the modern liberal instinct, however naïve and unsophisticated: It was bad to be mean to people with different beliefs. We don't necessarily know why, or perhaps we can't articulate the political theory behind it, but we feel it, especially now that the man some of us dislike so vehemently seems to us to dislike Muslims himself.