Rashness and Revolt
29th April 2020
Kevin Williamson does some yeoman work for his Establishment masters.
None of this really comports with the facts on the ground in that “Real America” we hear so much about on talk radio. In the real America, rural farmers are part of a very large and complex network of industrial and scientific innovation, international trade, and business innovations made possible by the “financialization” dismissed by populists Right and Left. American farmers rely on scientific work done at elite universities, on technology from Silicon Valley, on high finance, and — horrors! — on international trade, not least trade with China. Some of them employ a fair number of immigrants, too. The American farmer is as much of a “rootless cosmopolitan” as any Connecticut hedge-funder or California code monkey.
I keep expecting him to break into the ‘resistance is futile’ rant from Howard Beal in Network.
National Review once prided itself on ‘standing athwart history yelling “Stop!”‘. Nowadays they spend their time standing athwart history saying ‘wait for me!’.