City Journal’s Harry Stein gives chapter and verse of his own and his wife’s ancestors’ history, including near misses in survival of the latter by accidental near-drowning of one after falling off the Mayflower and another’s almost being shot by a Union soldier for cheering Jeff Davis — all part of our national history which he terms “rife with moral complexity.”
Then this about the president:
All of which is a preamble to saying that, in his exchange with the churlish and ignorant press corps in the aftermath of Charlottesville, Donald Trump got it right when he said: “This week it’s Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”
He may not have been the ideal messenger—with his combative style, manic egotism, and casual relationship with facts, he never is—but he laid out a case that for months has cried out to be made, and he did it so clearly that the refusal of the media and the elites of both parties, not just to credit it, but even to acknowledge it, speaks volumes. Though Trump has never quite defined what his notion of making America great again actually means, preserving that which needs no fixing—including the history that is our common legacy—is a key part of it.
Trump’s a diamond in the rough, full of flaws but a master case of seeing what you get. He flails but says things no one else in high position says but millions think. No wonder he got elected, no wonder he has so many enemies.
Other administrations brag about or promise transparency, notably the one just ended; but none has been so transparent as his. It’s enough to make one’s undoing — or greatness.
There’s more more more in this excellent piece, about anti-fascist mobs and media facilitators, by an accomplished veteran of news writing and commentary, including a dozen books. Bravo.
Blithe Spirit 