Everyone’s waiting for that one person to stand up to Trump. Not just that one person. There are a lot of such people. You can read about them in every newspaper. But that one person with real power who’s willing to risk something costly in defiance. That one university president who’ll say, fuck you and your money. That one Democrat who’ll say, fuck you and your threat to my reelection or that of my party. Everyone’s looking for our Tank Man, staring down a column of tanks, all by himself, in Tiananmen Square. Why don’t we see that person? Where is our Tank Man? (And, no, I don’t think Cory Booker doing a marathon-length filibuster counts.) The reason we see […]
David Brooks disapproves of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Snowden’s actions, Brooks says, are a betrayal of virtually every commitment and connection Snowden has ever made: his oath to his country, his promise to his employer, his loyalty to his friends, and more. But in one of those precious pirouettes of paradox that only he can perform, Brooks sees those betrayals as a symptom of a deeper pathology: Snowden’s inability to make commitments and connections. According to The Washington Post, he has not been a regular presence around his mother’s house for years. When a neighbor in Hawaii tried to introduce himself, Snowden cut him off and made it clear he wanted no neighborly relationships. He went to work for Booz […]
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Categories
Political Theory, The Right
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Tags Alexander Cockburn, David Brooks, Elia Kazan, George Will, J. Edgar Hoover, James Taranto, Kermit Bloomgarden, Lee J. Cobb, Mino Akhtar, Roy Huggins, Stalin, Sterling Hayden, Zero Mostel