This kind of column's a venerable cliché in left-leaning political writing in the US. Very good instances of it are still valuable, but this isn't really one of

This kind of column's a venerable cliché in left-leaning political writing in the US. Very good instances of it are still valuable, but this isn't really one of those and doesn't add much that anyone who pays attention to political writing hasn't already seen many times over. Better-argued and better-framed versions of the more historical and contextual bits of this are essentially the air that much of the left breathes. I've (repeatedly) seen forum posts cover the recent-events portions of this better, over the last few months, let alone professional writing. (for the record, I'm writing this from a pretty damn "left" perspective, having read just... so many of these sorts of columns, or whole books, over the years. This ain't a notable or particularly good one.)