A surprising criterion of greatness

Or maybe it really shouldn't be a surprise, in an age whose political discourse is dominated by The Children of Zinn.

America was never great

About two months ago, I wrote a column about the word "again" in Trump's slogan. 

I think it's a racist dog whistle. . . .

Of course he does. Or says he does.

What does the word great mean?

What sustained period in the history of this nation, what decade, what era, what generation was truly great for everybody?

Rome?

Greece?

The British, Spanish, or French Empires?

China?

The Zulu or Inca or Aztec Emprires?

OK, none of those last three were really great, but it's a mandatory racial courtesy to pretend they were, perhaps similar to the mandatory pretenses that there is such a thing as sex reassignment surgery and that men who dress as women and say they are women are women.

But to return to the point, who has ever thought a necessary condition for national, political, cultural, or civilizational greatness was that life has to be - or things have to be? - great for everybody?

It's just not part of the meaning of these expressions, at all, and no one has ever even pretended it was.

Except, I suppose, for particularly bitter and bitchy anarchists, socialists, reds, and others of history's sore losers.

Such as, now, the professional racial and other certified victims of the grievance industry of the professional and radical left.

Blah, blah.

What does it mean if the people who say Trump and the Trumpites are racists are the same as the people who say all white people are racists, that America is and has always been dominated by racism, and that that alone justifies and has always justified an angry shout with Reverend Wright, "God damn America"?

Some of history's losers just never get over it.

Even when the loss is way, way in the past.

Especially when there is political, not to mention professional, hay to be made of eternal whinging, eternal blame.