You could use this same technique for a "Obama and Hitler: Two of a Kind" or "Obama and Leatherface: Two of a Kind" story. But how does Hanson support the interesting concept that "Obama is Trump’s doppelgänger"? This'll give you some idea and believe me, even if you're familiar with Hanson's work you may be surprised:
Donald Trump believes he can oversell America abroad in the manner of Chamber of Commerce boosterism; isn’t that the twin to Obama underselling the country in the fashion of a wrinkled-browed academic? Both are stern moralists: America is too often shorted, and so Trump is angry over the sins of omission. For Obama, past genocide, racism, and imperialism vie as sins of U.S. commission.Ahh, we are not so very different, Mr. Trump! I think America has too much, and you think it has too little! No, wait, that didn't come out right -- how about:
The two see the world in similarly materialist — though, again, opposite — terms: Trump wants net worth to be the litmus test of political preparation (“The point is that you can’t be too greedy”), even as Obama professes that big money is a Romney-like 1 percent disqualification. Obama’s infamous communalistic quotes to the effect that you didn’t build that, at some point you’ve made enough money, and this is no time to profit are just bookends to Trump’s money-is-everything ideas that he built everything, he’s never going to make enough money, and it is always time to profit.Ahh, we are not so very different, Mr. Trump! We are both materialists, unlike the rest of America -- you in your money-is-everything way, I in my communis -- my commonalist -- my supercommunalisticexpialidocious way oh fuck it.
In some ways it's vintage Hanson -- there's even an obligatory VDH Obama/Jay-Z moment -- but in other ways it's uniquely awful, just like so much stuff coming out of National Review anymore. They're actually breaking the Jonah Goldberg paradigm, and I didn't think such a thing possible.
