One Of The Questions I Often Get

The Soviet Union Was Brought Down By A Strange Global Coalition Of Western European Conservatives, Eastern European Nationalists, Russian Liberals, Chinese Communists, And Afghan Islamic Reactionaries, To Name Only A Few. Many Of These Discordant Groups Disliked The United States Intensely. But Americans Were Able To Mobilize Them To Direct Their Ire At The Soviet Union First.

You Can Have These Fake Engagements, These Virtual Engagements That Substitute For Actual Engagements. You Don't Have To Participate, You Can Hit A Button, Send You 200 Dollars To The Barack Obama For President Campaign And Think It's Like You Knocked On A Door. But You Didn't Knock On A Door.

Elites Are Inevitable In Politics. That Is How Politics Is Going To Work. The Question Is, Are Your Elites Responsible, Public-spirited? Do They Think About The Interests Of Others, Not Just Themselves? And The Story Of Western Politics Since The Beginning Of The Century Is That As Elites Become More Separated, More Selfish, As They Leave Behind Their Populations And Don't Think About Them, They Become Discredited. And The People Look For Alternatives. But The Alternative Is Worse. Those Rules Of The Game Protect Us All. And They Are More Precious Than Almost Any Political Outcome.

But The Thought Leaders On Talk Radio And Fox Do More Than Shape Opinion. Backed By Their Own Wing Of The Book-publishing Industry And Supported By Think Tanks That Increasingly Function As Public-relations Agencies, Conservatives Have Built A Whole Alternative Knowledge System, With Its Own Facts, Its Own History, Its Own Laws Of Economics.

Republicans Have To Move To A Point Of Greater Unity.