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Thursday, March 23, 2017

Days In, Years To Go

Just saying, people.
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1 comment:

jimf said...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/magazine/how-un-american-became-the-political-insult-of-the-moment.html
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How ‘Un-American’ Became the Political Insult of the Moment
By BEVERLY GAGE
MARCH 21, 2017

. . .


During election season, many Democrats apparently believed their
own story, assuming that Americans were too dedicated to the expansion
of liberty to elect Donald Trump. His victory is a reminder that,
despite the country’s fondness for aspirational rhetoric, our
illiberal traditions have serious staying power, too.

Today’s Republicans seem to recognize this perfectly well. In the
past three years, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has praised the
1924 immigration act as a matter of national self-preservation.
Newt Gingrich has called for a revival of
[the] H[ouse]U[n-American]A[ctivities]C[ommittee]
to contend with ISIS sympathizers. And the Ku Klux Klan and
American fascist movements have experienced levels of attention
and influence not seen since before World War II. Trump complains
that he is being subjected to “witch hunts” and “McCarthyism”
but has advocated policies — like a “registry” for Muslims — that
hark back to the list-making and name-naming of the HUAC era.

For the president’s opponents, it may be comforting to believe that
such policies are un-American. But as the editors of
_The St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ noted more than a century ago,
“the things we hurry to denounce as un-American” are often
“peculiarly and distinctly American.” . . .
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10:29 AM

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