Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated, apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction, discovering the virtues of the status quo. “The last thing you can be accused of is having turned your coat,” Thomas Mann wrote a convert to National Socialism right after Hitler’s seizure of power. “You always wore it the ‘right’ way around.” If apostasy weren’t conditioned by power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in both directions. But that’s never been the case. The would-be apostate almost always pulls towards power’s magnetic field, rarely away.

Norman Finkelstein, ‘Fraternally Yours, Chris’