LITTLE AMERICA.

Like the old joke punchline goes: You know it's Moses, I know it's Moses -- business is business. Since Trump mainly pulled his punches on the media (but not immgrants, he still hates them!), sprinkled in some pretty promises on infrastructure and family leave, and particularly led the audience in clapping for a military widow instead of saying he likes Navy SEALs who don't get killed, his speech has been widely counted a success by even allegedly woke media hands like Van Jones. It's not because they don't know any better. They know their audience will go for all the bullshit and they don't want to be seen as harshing the buzz with fact-checks and other boring treason. Business is business! And they want that lollipop.

The whole thing's a disgrace, but there's one part that no one else seems to have noticed that bugs me:

Then, in 2016, the earth shifted beneath our feet. The rebellion started as a quiet protest, spoken by families of all colors and creeds --- families who just wanted a fair shot for their children, and a fair hearing for their concerns.

But then the quiet voices became a loud chorus -- as thousands of citizens now spoke out together, from cities small and large, all across our country.

Finally, the chorus became an earthquake -- and the people turned out by the tens of millions, and they were all united by one very simple, but crucial demand, that America must put its own citizens first ... because only then, can we truly MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

Since we became a great nation, our official rhetoric has been (excepting certain lapses) increasingly aspirational and inclusive -- the language of mission and sacrifice, of reaching beyond oneself: "you shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold," "the world must be made safe for democracy," "rendezvous with destiny," "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend," "a thousand points of light," etc. You may have as I do mixed feelings about the sentiments, or even purely negative ones, but that's how we've been, and now we have a change. Now, even though our country is stinking rich and mighty, the language of outreach and aspiration is being replaced with "Where's mine?" Maybe it's to be expected that, after decades of our ruling class squeezing the life out of the rest of us, citizens would turn bitter and insular and less inclined to embrace the idea of a shared destiny. But the transition from the dignity of the working man to the anger of the WWC is, in my estimation, not progress.