A nation of tricorn Grovers

What struck me upon seeing Chait's column title, "Grover Norquist Is Dead; Norquistism Lives On," was the profound constancy of the headline's secondary content. Grover himself is expendable; that much is vividly apparent--but Norquistism I doubt we'll ever purge, since it's in our national blood.

I have long suspected that what actually defined the much-vaunted American character was not, as is usually reported, a bunch of white Europeans fleeing religious oppression. After all, most simply turned and oppressed the next generation of American colonists. No, what defined the American character came much later: the colonists' rather rude refusal to help their king reduce his bloody debt from years of war to protect, in large part, the colonies. The mother country tended to find such refusal both shocking and incomprehensible, while the smug and now imminently safe colonists thought the entire matter of fresh taxes a royal and supremely unnecessary pain in the ass.

Americans' post-French and Indian War philosophy was essentially that of Norquistism. Colonists wanted all the benefits of big government, but not the price tag, thank you. So what else is new?

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

A couple of sidebars:

Said war was essentially set in motion by a young colonial officer who accidentally committed a few war crimes (a.k.a. George Washington).

In addition to the tax issue, there was arguably an even larger issue for the landed white gentry in the colonies. The king prohibited them from racing across the mountains to steal land from the natives and get rich via speculations - which probably would have set off another war.

[Peter G]

I prefer my own nomenclature for the followers of Grover. I call them Norquislings.

[Janicket]

Neat one, Peter G!