Derbtown
29th November 2012
John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, looks at elections.
It’s not issues, it’s race and religion. All those acres of print, all those months of TV time given over to talk about taxation, education, protecting small business, protecting Social Security, America’s role in the world, a path to citizenship, opportunities for women, deficits and debt, unemployment, abortion, fracking, gay marriage…nobody gives a rat’s ass about any of that—nobody but a tiny and ignorable minority on each topic. People vote based on vague, generalized images of the parties—on gestalten.