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The Purposes of Political Combat
- Abstract
O my America, how partisan you have become! How difficult you have made it for visionary politicians who want nothing more than to improve you! You have been paralyzed into stasis by the status quo, which has injected its subtle toxins into your bloodstream by means of radio frequencies between 530 and 1700 kilohertz and a lone television cable-news channel, whose incomprehensible power overruns the combined effect of two others like it; nightly newscasts on three broadcast channels; and the vast majority of newspapers and magazines in the United States. Rallies of surly citizens claiming the mantle of Revolutionary War Bostonians in the spring of 2009 and rude questioners at political gatherings with elected officials home from Washington in the summer of 2009 were harbingers of the inexplicable political reversal that has since been made flesh by electoral defeats in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, and polling numbers suggesting a catastrophe in the offing for President Barack Obama’s party come November, when elections for all 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats take place.
About the Author
John Podhoretz is editor of COMMENTARY.
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