I'm not very happy with how well
the New American Government out-
fought all resistance in the el-
evation of its obvious perjurer-
partisan to the post-sacrosanct
Supreme Court. It is especially
dispiriting to find resistance
not merely strategically incap-
acitated, but more stunningly
self-absorbed than the narcis-
list it's resisting. We contem-
plate our powers of revulsion
and indignation more ostenta-
tiously, but less pointedly
than the other side regards
theirs, as if we could win a
contest of taste, to gain our
illusions back. We could more
plausibly do that by knocking
back a melon full of hooch on
the beach, if we wish to dream.
On the day in 1940, when Brit-
ain had substantially cleared
a beach in France of her Army,
Winston Churchill went down to
the House of Commons to promise
never to surrender. That night,
he wrote a short note to his
predecessor-but-one, Baldwin,
to be even more blunt. We are
going through very hard times,
but I feel quite sure better
days will come; though whether
we shall live to see them is
more doubtful. To read our
generation of commentators,
our diapers are wet, and we
deserve to be changed right
now. Our nemesis has thought
in terms of decades, and de-
spite the most monstrous de-
formity ever to take its lead,
has routed us all by constancy.
It is immaterial in the contest
to be more deserving. It is im-
material to inherit a grievance.
It is immaterial to linger in
elegant dissonance. Prettiness
is for débutantes, correctness
is for schoolmarms. If anyone
wills a battle, he must accept
not living to see its triumph.
It is the only way to know it.
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