It's a sad thing to see. I've seen it happen to a lot of less celebrated intellectuals. We all think that it could never possibly happen to us, that we would never 'flip', just like no newlyweds ever think they might fall out of love and divorce, but a lot of them do. Being really is trying to gnaw at our consciousness at all times. We watch the right wing and we listen to them for years, until in our minds there is sort of a right-wing simulation subroutine that we can activate any time we want to know how the right wing would address a topic.... but sometimes that subroutine gets too much power. Like with those awful cases where progressives go nuts and stage attacks on themselves. And then sometimes the dark side just takes over and you follow the evil Emperor. This is one reason organizations and networks are so important.
lpa