My Column on Brooks v. Rogers got a very quick kick in the shin
A long time critic of my columns under the sobriquet of “Juan Percent” had this to say in two back to back posts on the Duluth Reader’s page:
JPThursday Jan. 30, 2020
How dare you use ’eminently reasonable’ to describe the war monger neocon David Brooks. BTW, the word Elitist Democrats haven’t learned a thing. Trump 2020.
Juan Percent Thursday Jan. 30, 2020
Times have passed you by Harry, you’re head’s not in the right game. Today the fight is not between democrats and republicans, as much as it’s between national sovereignty (populism) and globalism. The GOP has been remade. The Democrat rush away from Sanders is not as much away from socialism as it is toward globalism. Sanders is a populist. Watch THIS. It will help you reframe modern politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIgmfpHBiDw
Of course I had to do a little reframing myself. I did so, to wit:
HI JP.
This is the first time I’ve checked comments in a long time. Glad you are still following me and offering critiques.
I like Brooks well enough but even he is a little too beholden to establishment Republicans for my taste. Its an establishment I’m none too impressed with myself. They caved to a pretty hideous mouth because despite their eagerness wage war they have proven spineless in the face of Trump’s outrages.
As you noted times may have passed me by. But I stand by the kind of Republicans my parents and grand parents were. Ironically, after my grandfather’s rush to fight in what he later came to regard as Wilson’s War (in his view Democrats could always be counted on to drag us into one) he too turned to isolationism. Or, in your terms “non globalism” although that would be a term for the future.
The Republican party you disparage has become Woodrow Wilson’s party sticking its nose into other people’s wars and making them ours. My Grandfather would agree with you. We’ve screwed up way too many times from Vietnam to damn near everything involved with the Middle East. But my Grandfather was part of the problem. During Vietnam he still stuck by the mantra of standing by his country……He was mystified by war protesters. And LBJ and Nixon both lived in fear that they would be accused of losing the first war in America’s history if they didn’t stick Vietnam out.
Sanders is not being beaten up by Trump for being a globalist. Trump will treat him as a boogeyman for socialism in large part because Bernie is a populist and Trump’s supporters are inclined to like Bernie. As for moderate Democrats they worry that Sanders socialism, not his populism, is what will get him beat by Trump. I think they are right to worry about that. At least when Bernie tells it like it is – its true! The same can’t be said of Donald.
I am glad you directed me to Farage’s little departure speech to the EU Parliament. It was quite good and even, despite the flag waving, cordial in victory. He is a smug bastard though. And I think the British will come to see that the EU with all its bureaucracy was a good place to hang out.
I don’t need to re-frame my view of modern politics so much as most people need to read a little more history. The context of today isn’t just a decade in the making. It goes back stone axes.
