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March 5, 2012

Our Tepid Present Politics

Our foreign-policy hawks are doves compared to Teddy Roosevelt;
our left-wing populists are boring centrists compared to William Jennings Bryan; our “conservative Catholics” are liberals by the standards of the pre-Vatican II Church; our militant atheists are timid trimmers compared to their utopian predecessors. And our demagogues — well, I’m not sure whether we really “live in a time of political and media demagoguery unparalleled since the 19th century,” but even if Frum is right, in the 19th century “media demagoguery” on racial issues involved whipping up white hysteria to defend lynchings, poll taxes and Jim Crow, whereas in the 21st century it involves hurling bogus accusations of racism and reverse racism in a landscape where everyone agrees on the principle of racial equality. -- Speaking of the Dead - Ross Douthat

Posted by gerardvanderleun at March 5, 2012 11:24 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

our "conservative Catholics" are liberals by the standards of the pre-Vatican II Church

Maybe some are, but my friends and I are liturgically, theologically, and politically so far Right that we make the late L. Brent Bozell look like a guitar-strumming lesbian nun by comparison.

Posted by: B Lewis at March 5, 2012 12:25 PM

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