You couldn’t buy [Pop Tarts] where I was staying, but I loved them and still do. I also love McDonald’s. I love Thanksgiving Day parades and Fourth of July pool parties. “Mission: Impossible” movies and John Grisham novels. Holiday Inn Expresses and my hometown’s annual Corn Festival with a mountainous pile of corn right there on the street, which you can grab from and eat raw. I’ve been to every U.S. state except Hawaii and North Dakota and have loved things about each of them, so it is deeply confusing that Donald Trump and his allies keep insisting I hate America.
They have now collected letters on the topic. There's a lot of nostalgia, and of course homages to immigration ('nothing is more American than things that aren't' is a strange bit of logic, though it is true that you can get good Mexican and Thai food in much of America, whereas in either Mexico or Thailand it would likely be either one or the other). The nostalgia reminds me of the piece AVI wrote about Christmas and liberals.
All the same, though, it's kind of nice to see at least a passing attempt at patriotism. It's been all negative for so long it's nice to hear some positive things.
UPDATE: They probably won't mind if I borrow their graphic to give a feel for the thing.
I actually do believe that they love the weirdness aspect of America. There is quite a lot of that to love!
Bullshit. They love the stuff, they hate the concept. And are too stupid to see one follows the other.
ReplyDeleteAin't no poptarts in the gulag, sister.
I must be cranky this morning...
Must be! Have a firecracker popsicle.
ReplyDelete😃
DeleteThe article is behind a paywall, so I can't read the whole thing. Based on the cited paragraph, though, Raven is mostly spot on.
ReplyDeleteLiberals--modern day monarchists--love some of the small superficial things that America makes possible. They do not love America at all.
Incidentally, among the parades this WaPo writer claims to love, did he have anything to say about the parade honoring the Army's birthday? Regarding that Fourth of July parade, does he say anything about what that parade, that holiday, celebrates?
I don't, though, agree that they are too stupid to see that one follows the other. These self-acclaimed smartest persons in the room most assuredly know that. That knowledge and their careful distinction makes them completely useless.
Eric Hines
She did, in fact, talk about that parade.
ReplyDelete"If you try to picture what Trump must love about America, what comes to mind from this presidential term is his redecoration of the Oval Office and the parade he recently held to celebrate the Army’s birthday/himself. It’s striking to me how impenetrable both of those displays are. The White House mantel is no longer covered by living, growing ivy but by a homogenous phalanx of gold artifacts. Pristine, reflective, shiny. (“People have tried to come up with a gold paint that looked like gold and they’ve never been able to do it,” he told Laura Ingraham in an interview, though a shelf at Home Depot begs to differ.) The parade — a line of tanks groaning down a city street — was intended to be an overwhelming display of might, even if it ended up looking like a dry recitation of camouflage. Something that celebrated uniformity rather than difference, something to admire rather than participate in.
"There’s a place for that pageantry, and I dunno, maybe the Oval Office and Flag Day parades are exactly that place. But their messaging is: Look at what great things we have, but don’t try to touch them and don’t try to change them."
The WaPo didn't cover itself in honor in its journalism about that parade. Almost every picture I saw simply described how a "military vehicle" was in the photograph. Apparently none of them could tell an M4 Sherman tank from an M1 Abrams.
ReplyDeleteThat explains it. I thought those floats looked odd.
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