The spectacle of Brown University students' shouting down a peaceful press conference expressing concern about admitting too many Syrian refugees was a brief incident on a relatively minor issue in Rhode Island and would not, on the basis of scale, merit multiple posts (or a forthcoming parody song), but it has the feel of a snapshot of where America is and a warning of where it's headed.
In my recent post, I focused on the Brown Students who strolled over to the State House because they didn't want to hear what some speakers there had to say. But another part of Karen Lee Ziner's article on the event ought to catch our attention:
I've been thinking a lot this weekend about how a narcissistic charlatan like The Donald could emerge as the front runner for the presidential nomination of the Party of Lincoln. I see two closely related reasons.
First, the Obama Presidency has been so profoundly destructive to America's position in the world, so disruptive of our cultural norms, and so dispiriting for believers in the democratic-capitalist version of the American Dream, that there is widespread frustration and desperation from the grass roots to the grass tops.
