2023 Abdiel Award Winners

Praising Those Apostates Who Call Out Their Side's Blasphemy

The Abdiel Awards were something I started a few years back on Twitter. I would always offer them on January 1st (or 2nd if I was just too tired to do it on New Years Day) and they are meant to give respect to a certain kind of person. But first, you may be asking, “Who or what is an ‘Abdiel’?”

Abdiel is an angel in Paradise Lost. At first, he leaves heaven with Satan to kind of go along with the crowd of rebellious angels and hear Satan out. But as Satan spouts off about his war with God and Heaven, Abdiel has a change of heart and finds his faith and loyalty. He then berates Satan for his treason. Abdiel called out Satan’s blasphemy among all the angels, but no other angel seconded it, and he was met with silence.

Following Satan’s rebuttal and playing up to the crowd of rebellious angels, Abdiel cursed them all and returned to Heaven. The passage in Paradise Lost provides the best example and description.

So the Abdiel Awards commemorate this sentiment in public life; those who refuse to go along with their own party and support, and instead choose to call them out and do the right thing. It’s exceptionally hard to do; it’s so much easier to go with the flow and stay silent, leaving your fate to the whims and emotions of one’s peers. It takes an intense kind of courage to stand firm and say “You go too far.”

Past winners give us a good example of this:

• John McCain. The year he died we gave him a lifetime Abdiel Award for the number of times he spurned his own party to do what was good for America, best encapsulated by when he provided the crucial vote and voted “no” on undoing Obamacare. That he left his hospital bed where he was receiving treatment for cancer to do it only underscores how important he saw this vote.

• Our 2022 award went to the people at the Bulwark, who spent time building up a centrist/anti-MAGA media group and carve out a more moderate media ecosystem. This was not just someone pointing one way and saying “You’re wrong,” but looking at the media landscape and saying “Nobody has it right, we’re going to try to do it better.” For the most part, they are on their way to succeeding.

• Lynn Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Last year’s winners demonstrated where the entire GOP SHOULD be today. Following Trump’s insurrection, they were outspoken and adamant about how what occured was anethema to everything Constitutional and for which America stands. Kinzinger became particularly outspoken on media, and Cheney worked within the political system to call attention to these unpatriotic acts. Both would serve on the 1/6 Commission this past year and continue to prosper and show good judgment in their post-GOP careers.

You’ll notice that most of these entries skew towards one way on the political spectrum. That is because one side has become particularly outlandish. Despite opportunity after opportunity to break their loyalty to a criminal, purely out of fear of repurcussions, they continue to adhere to idiocy. When someone calls out their fraud, it tends to stand out stronger.

What happens when there aren’t people calling out their sides, saying “Don’t do that!?” You end up in situations like what is occurring in Israel-Gaza, where the political entitites continued to poke and provoke one another, things escalate and evenutally break and it’s the citizenry that pays the costs. Had Israel treated those within the West Bank and Gaza more humanely and respectfully, it would diffuse much of the reasons for the constant kerfuffles that enveloped it since the 1960s. Had those in Gaza refuted and dismissed HAMAS (years ago), and worked more productively toward a lasting peace process, Gaza would not be where it is today.

Which brings us to our list of nominees and the eventual winner. So without further ado:

Congratulations to the Abdiel Award Nominees for 2024.

Professor Vincent Lloyd

Lloyd is a professor we wrote about previously here. He received a lot of attention for his article “A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell.” Lloyd taught African American Studies and the article focuses on how his summer Seminar Study program was co-opted by a more activist, progressive grad student using much of the progressive language distorting social issues. The seminar devolved to a painful level of perceived victimhood and discord. Lloyd himself was called out as an oppressive force (of his own Seminar class). Lloyd’s article is must reading for anyone who wants to understand how far to the left many younger liberals have gone.

Judge J. Michael Luttig

Luttig has been a stalwart in Republican legal circles going back decades. Since the 1980s, whenever an opening appeared on the Supreme Court, Luttig was always floated as a possibility. He is as far right a Conservative as the Republican Party goes by doctrine.

So why is he here? Because when someone of his stature makes the very strong LEGAL case that Donald Trump is a criminal, should be barred from office and emphasizes the need to defeat the MAGA extremism of the Republican Party, people should listen. At this point in his career, he could have just bit his tongue and gone quiet into that good night; instead he demonstrated his patriotism and vocally advocated the legal arguments against Trump. Judges SHOULD demonstrate these principles, and he was the only one I saw from the right taking this kind of stand. His speaking out on this should open up some lattitude for other Republican judges to (hopefully) do the right thing.

Tristan Harris

Tristan Harris is very much a tech bro. He went to Stanford, interned at Apple and worked at Google. His career could have seen him become a billionaire.

Instead he looked around, saw many of the social problems that technology was causing and created the Center for Humane Technology, where he has become the go-to tech ethicist discussing the moral implications of overreliance on technology. If 2023 was the year AI was let out of the box, Harris has been the one talking most eloquently about the implications of that, the problems that will undoubtedly result and why the need to tread lightly and cautiously is the right means of going forward.

Congratulations to all of our Abdiel Award Nominees. All well deserved. And without further ado…

2024 Abdiel Award Winner

Cassidy Hutchinson

At the beginning of the year, not many people knew who Hutchinson was. She was an internal White House Oval Office staff, assistant to the White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. When subpoenas started flying regarding the events of January 6th, she was included in those and her expensive attorneys’ fees were initially paid by Trump and the GOP. They wanted her to say certain things and feign ignorance on others. When the time came, she chose to go a different route.

Hutchinson was widely respected for someone her age. She was up and coming in Republican circles and had a bright future within the party if she wanted it and went that way. Instead, she chose to adhere to the truth, to state clearly and unequivocally the facts of that day and provide the ugly details of what was occurring in the White House, warts and all. Her depiction was unimpeachable, and painted a very ugly, damning picture of Trump, Rudy, the whole “Overturn the Electoral College” gang and their intents. Almost single handedly she gave the public the image of a slow moving coup from the inside. During the January 6th Hearings, she was the star witness and she did not fail to deliver.

She represents everything the Abdiel Awards are meant to commemorate. Good people, in hard positions, at great cost to theirselves and their livelihoods doing the right things. For that reason, she is the PurpleAmerica Abdiel Award Winner for 2024.

PurpleAmerica’s Recommended Stories

I’m always going to suggest Paradise Lost as a book. Its archaic language and Milton drones on about a lot of useless stuff, but there’s a reason its required reading in any college introduction to English Lit course. It really is quite eloquent.

PurpleAmerica’s Cultural Corner

If you are a U2 fan, it might be interesting to know that for awhile, the order of the songs they would play in concert during their ZooTV tour were meant to follow the paces of Paradise Lost. Since then, I’ve always thought a Paradise Lost Musical (with Music by U2) would be a neat show. Here is my playlist for it, along with some notes.

Zoo Station (Satan’s Fall, chaos)

Even Better than the Real Thing (Satan makes his case to the other Demons)

Gloria (First see Adam, praising God)

I Still Havent Found What I’m Looking For (Adam is lonely)

Beautiful Day (Eve is Made)

Ultraviolet (Light My Way) (Adam shows Eve to follow God)

Mysterious Ways (Adam Praises Eve)

The Fly (Satan enters Paradise)

Elevation (Satan Tempts Eve)

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me (Eve Bites the Apple)

Desire/ Vertigo (After Eve Bites the Apple, the World changes)

Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get out of (Eve feels Remorse, Adam feel sympathy)

With or Without You (Adam contemplates his choice; song ends, he bites the apple)

One (Single Overhead Light on Adam looking up, Speaking the Words w/o Music)

So Cruel (Adam and Eve are cast out of Paradise)

Gloria (Reprise)— Chorus of Angels sing and walk the aisles getting the crowd to sing with them to close out the show.

I think it would be a great show.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

Milton was blind when he wrote Paradise Lost. He would speak it to his assistant who would write it down.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

I started with the story of Abdiel and how he called out Satan. Many in that position are fearful of how they will be received by those outside of their peers now that they are cast out. For our final word, we’ll go back to Paradise Lost and reflect how the true angels and God received Abdiel after his return:

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff