I’ve been arguing for a while now that President Bush really is just another imperialist in a long line of imperialist presidents in a country whose history of imperialism dates back centuries before it was even a country.
David Michael Green, a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York, suggests otherwise. Referring to historical abuses ranging from McCarthyism to Nixon, he writes that “somehow there were limits then that don’t seem to exist today. Somehow there was a fundamental decency – though hardly universal – that has disappeared in our time.” There is a hatred, he senses, based on economic stagnation (for the working and middle classes), what some call “reverse discrimination,” self-absorption, and imperial decline.
Without question, these politicians resonate with our bedraggled [Baby] Boomers not only for their jejune policy prescriptions of belligerence abroad and selfishness at home, but most especially because such voters recognize in them a kindred spirit. One which hates Hillary Clinton profoundly and viscerally, without really being able to explain why. One which thinks blacks and Hispanics have gotten to be more than a little uppity and are stealing ‘our’ jobs. One which thinks that kicking some Arab ass might be a pretty good idea just on general principles.