Spellbound

The great Victor Davis Hansen bemoans the electronic carnival:


[I]n our world of celebrity sound bites and media saturation, talk, not reality, is what counts. Multimillionaires lecture us about fairness, while sinners rail about sin. In politics, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each election year on campaigning. Image-makers, pollsters, and media advisers shape every election. Fluffy candidates are removed enough from the electorate that the old idea that their own actions should match their rhetoric is seen as hopelessly old-fashioned. The political leaders of this country are essentially too often homogenous. Republicans may represent constituents of traditional values; Democrats may champion the underprivileged. But their similar lifestyles reflect more a political class’s shared privilege than the inherent differences of their respective constituents’ beliefs. National figures may talk conservative or liberal, but they both are more likely to act like libertines.

Victor Davis Hanson