Jay-Your “little essay” is a gem. More would likely have been too much more. More people, especially those with me on the “left”, need to feel this way.
"The Ugly American" has been wilfully mistaken for a training manual by the very subjects of its ridicule. They've also done the same with Orwell's "1984".
The problem is that Americans were given a choice between someone who lacks the kind of aspirational civility that Mr Nordlinger espouses and those who literally kneel before a subsection of Americans, and between someone who is going to break the family china or business as usual. Mr Nordlinger is, by extension, denigrating that half of American voters who wanted a change in direction. He is putting manners above a drift towards increasing division in the US and the superficial above the real.
So far as I can tell, Patrick, Mr. Nordlinger is speaking only of the President as an individual and of the policies that are so expressive of his character. Mr. Trump did not run on a platform of New World imperialist threats and coercive land seizure from European allies based on his personal psychological sense of its necessity. No one who voted in 2024 should view condemnations of his recent behavior as an attack on their choice.
Thanks Bob, but you remind me of what was said during his first term - Those who support Trump find his speech amusing and judge him on his actions, while those who don't, take his words literally and ignore his actions. The thrust of my comment is that while it may be valid to criticise his behavior, the real issue is whether he is better than what Harris/Walz would have delivered, perhaps with better manners, and what those who ran the Presidency during the Biden years did to America, while saying all the right things.
I did understand that Patrick, and I would answer it differently from you, but I don't think Mr. Nordlinger meant to raise that issue or to address the substance of our disagreement.
When Mr. Trump first began talking about Greenland, conservative friends assured me that my taking him seriously showed how little I understood him. This is in line with the first part of your reply to me here. But I think the record of Trump 47 has undercut what I take to be the unstated assumption in your comment that those who support Trump have the more accurate perception of the relation between speech and deed.
Yes, I am less certain of that because he has surrounded himself with better effector mechanisms.
Getting back to what Mr Nordlinger wrote, I also believe that someone who had more normal societal mores would never have survived the serious attacks on him, legal, political, social and even physical, without giving up. Only a man who is "outside" could deliver the counter revolution desired by those who elected him, relatively peacefully.
As an addendum, I suggest that you read The New Criterion, a pinnacle of probity and good manners, for which Mr Nordlinger is the music critic. This is why I read him, although I have been disappointed.
Jay-Your “little essay” is a gem. More would likely have been too much more. More people, especially those with me on the “left”, need to feel this way.
"The Ugly American" has been wilfully mistaken for a training manual by the very subjects of its ridicule. They've also done the same with Orwell's "1984".
Thank you for reminding us of what we are. Lord willing, this aberration will pass. Remember “Ozymandias”.
The problem is that Americans were given a choice between someone who lacks the kind of aspirational civility that Mr Nordlinger espouses and those who literally kneel before a subsection of Americans, and between someone who is going to break the family china or business as usual. Mr Nordlinger is, by extension, denigrating that half of American voters who wanted a change in direction. He is putting manners above a drift towards increasing division in the US and the superficial above the real.
So far as I can tell, Patrick, Mr. Nordlinger is speaking only of the President as an individual and of the policies that are so expressive of his character. Mr. Trump did not run on a platform of New World imperialist threats and coercive land seizure from European allies based on his personal psychological sense of its necessity. No one who voted in 2024 should view condemnations of his recent behavior as an attack on their choice.
Thanks Bob, but you remind me of what was said during his first term - Those who support Trump find his speech amusing and judge him on his actions, while those who don't, take his words literally and ignore his actions. The thrust of my comment is that while it may be valid to criticise his behavior, the real issue is whether he is better than what Harris/Walz would have delivered, perhaps with better manners, and what those who ran the Presidency during the Biden years did to America, while saying all the right things.
I did understand that Patrick, and I would answer it differently from you, but I don't think Mr. Nordlinger meant to raise that issue or to address the substance of our disagreement.
When Mr. Trump first began talking about Greenland, conservative friends assured me that my taking him seriously showed how little I understood him. This is in line with the first part of your reply to me here. But I think the record of Trump 47 has undercut what I take to be the unstated assumption in your comment that those who support Trump have the more accurate perception of the relation between speech and deed.
Yes, I am less certain of that because he has surrounded himself with better effector mechanisms.
Getting back to what Mr Nordlinger wrote, I also believe that someone who had more normal societal mores would never have survived the serious attacks on him, legal, political, social and even physical, without giving up. Only a man who is "outside" could deliver the counter revolution desired by those who elected him, relatively peacefully.
I believe you're correct Patrick. However, I suspect that within that agreement we are thinking of different revolutions that Trumpism is countering.
As an addendum, I suggest that you read The New Criterion, a pinnacle of probity and good manners, for which Mr Nordlinger is the music critic. This is why I read him, although I have been disappointed.