“People who consume the Fifth Column and similar products are being trained, every week, to direct their moral attention away from the principal threats of the era and toward the exhausting cultural-left adjudication that the brand has chosen as its territory.”
Really? I’ve been listening every week for the past, I dunno, seven years, and I have found myself increasingly alarmed by the principal threats coming out of the current administration thanks in part to their coverage of it. They either suck at their job or you’re selectively assessing their work in order to fit what at least appears to be your prefab conclusion.
For the past decade, Americans from all sides of the political spectrum have been racing to see who can become the next John Brown. The bitterly partisan American political climate of the 2020s reminds me of the 1850s. In his famous John Brown lecture, historian James Patrick Shenton argued that Brown was the catalyst whose violence both broke the logjam of failed political compromises and propelled the nation towards the bloodiest war in U.S. history. Lest we forget, that between 1862-1865, Americans killed 700,000 other Americans. Although John Brown’s 1859 attempt to spark a slave rebellion, by storming the federal garrison at Harper’s Ferry was an abysmal military failure, Shenton described his martyrdom as a “spectacular moral success.” After Marines led by Robert E. Lee and J.E.B Stuart killed ten of Brown’s men, including two of his sons, the abolitionist was captured, tried, and sentenced to death. Before John Brown was hanged in front of 1500 Virginia militia men that included John Wilkes Booth and T.J. (soon to be known as “Stonewall”) Jackson, he slipped this note to his jailer John Avis. “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood,” he wrote. “I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” As the abolitionist was driven to gallows in a horse drawn cart, he looked at the Blue Ridge Mountains and said, “This is a beautiful country.” Less than a month ago, I wrote about a Trump true believer and a Trump hater who said their respective political adversaries were “traitors” who should “hang.” Despite their ideological differences, these men had more in common than not. Both were members of what Peggy Noonan best described as “the protected” class and live financially secure, sheltered, upper-class lives. Neither served in the U.S. military and their only experience with violence comes from what they have read, more likely, what they have watched in films and on television. I doubt either of them has ever heard of John Brown. “I can’t happen here? It did,” I wrote last month. “Black Panther H. Rap Brown put it best, ‘Violence is as American as cherry pie.’ Be careful what you wish for.”
Has anyone told you that you misquoted Matt for something Kmele Foster said? It was even part of the cold open.
You know who Matt Welch is, you have the image as a thumbnail for this article… but do you know Kmele? He is subscribed to you.
Maybe check your references and make a correction?
“People who consume the Fifth Column and similar products are being trained, every week, to direct their moral attention away from the principal threats of the era and toward the exhausting cultural-left adjudication that the brand has chosen as its territory.”
Really? I’ve been listening every week for the past, I dunno, seven years, and I have found myself increasingly alarmed by the principal threats coming out of the current administration thanks in part to their coverage of it. They either suck at their job or you’re selectively assessing their work in order to fit what at least appears to be your prefab conclusion.
For the past decade, Americans from all sides of the political spectrum have been racing to see who can become the next John Brown. The bitterly partisan American political climate of the 2020s reminds me of the 1850s. In his famous John Brown lecture, historian James Patrick Shenton argued that Brown was the catalyst whose violence both broke the logjam of failed political compromises and propelled the nation towards the bloodiest war in U.S. history. Lest we forget, that between 1862-1865, Americans killed 700,000 other Americans. Although John Brown’s 1859 attempt to spark a slave rebellion, by storming the federal garrison at Harper’s Ferry was an abysmal military failure, Shenton described his martyrdom as a “spectacular moral success.” After Marines led by Robert E. Lee and J.E.B Stuart killed ten of Brown’s men, including two of his sons, the abolitionist was captured, tried, and sentenced to death. Before John Brown was hanged in front of 1500 Virginia militia men that included John Wilkes Booth and T.J. (soon to be known as “Stonewall”) Jackson, he slipped this note to his jailer John Avis. “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood,” he wrote. “I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” As the abolitionist was driven to gallows in a horse drawn cart, he looked at the Blue Ridge Mountains and said, “This is a beautiful country.” Less than a month ago, I wrote about a Trump true believer and a Trump hater who said their respective political adversaries were “traitors” who should “hang.” Despite their ideological differences, these men had more in common than not. Both were members of what Peggy Noonan best described as “the protected” class and live financially secure, sheltered, upper-class lives. Neither served in the U.S. military and their only experience with violence comes from what they have read, more likely, what they have watched in films and on television. I doubt either of them has ever heard of John Brown. “I can’t happen here? It did,” I wrote last month. “Black Panther H. Rap Brown put it best, ‘Violence is as American as cherry pie.’ Be careful what you wish for.”
Thank you for cutting to the bone of what is causing the cognitive dissonance many of us are experiencing.
How many rightwing shooters can you fit on the pin if a needle? Millions apparently.
It seems from afar that your country is ruined by artificial dichotomies that are difficult to even justify.
Par exemplar...You are obsessed with leftwing/socialist/ communist CONTRIVED BIAS by media flunkies of the traitorous GOP.
Muricans would be pushing to know a leftie if s/he bit you.
Your vampire capitalism makes marionettes of y'all.