I read the Niall Ferguson piece and have read several of his books. He is a perfect example of someone who should know better about Trump, MAGA, and the world-wide fascist movement, but I think fundamentally has such an aversive reaction to the stupidities to which democracy is inevitably prone, and a seriously intense contempt for what …
I read the Niall Ferguson piece and have read several of his books. He is a perfect example of someone who should know better about Trump, MAGA, and the world-wide fascist movement, but I think fundamentally has such an aversive reaction to the stupidities to which democracy is inevitably prone, and a seriously intense contempt for what he sees (not without some reason) as the folly of how we have taxed, borrowed, and spent, that he can't permit himself to acknowledge what is directly before him. Hence his patently ridiculous statement that until last week the Trump team was striking "exactly the right tone." A species and degree of foolishness that only a really intelligent person could fall into. A comparable assessment in 1939 would be that until Hitler invaded Poland, he was striking exactly the right tone.
What is the biblical verse about motes and beams in the eye? The anti-antis trap themselves in a box of mirrors of their own construction. They loathe what they call "the Left" with a disgust beyond the power of reason to control. So much so that, whatever is not "the Left"--- however mendacious and corrupt its adherents are, and however depraved and vile its collective conduct is, and however disasterous the consequences of its actions-- it simply has to be endurable in preference to its opposite.
I read the Niall Ferguson piece and have read several of his books. He is a perfect example of someone who should know better about Trump, MAGA, and the world-wide fascist movement, but I think fundamentally has such an aversive reaction to the stupidities to which democracy is inevitably prone, and a seriously intense contempt for what he sees (not without some reason) as the folly of how we have taxed, borrowed, and spent, that he can't permit himself to acknowledge what is directly before him. Hence his patently ridiculous statement that until last week the Trump team was striking "exactly the right tone." A species and degree of foolishness that only a really intelligent person could fall into. A comparable assessment in 1939 would be that until Hitler invaded Poland, he was striking exactly the right tone.
What is the biblical verse about motes and beams in the eye? The anti-antis trap themselves in a box of mirrors of their own construction. They loathe what they call "the Left" with a disgust beyond the power of reason to control. So much so that, whatever is not "the Left"--- however mendacious and corrupt its adherents are, and however depraved and vile its collective conduct is, and however disasterous the consequences of its actions-- it simply has to be endurable in preference to its opposite.