Kunstler’s Howl

To say I dislike James Howard Kunstler, who is a condescending scold of suburbia and purveyor of “peak oil” nonsense among other things, would be an understatement. I reviewed a couple of his dreadful books back in the late 1990s in Reason magazine, but can’t seem to find any links.

But in the “stopped-clock-right-twice-a-day” department, on his website today Kunstler lets out a primal scream about the decadence of the Democratic Party and the left in general that has some splendidly juicy parts, though you can also see from his writing style why he’s basically an overwrought ninny (that’s a technical term, by the way). The whole thing is unhinged—not far from what you might hear from someone communing with Elvis on a San Francisco streetcorner, but there are a couple of enjoyable bits:

And now the return of Hillary, gliding above the election arena like Rodan the Flying Reptile — caw! caw! Get me outa here! It’s not just her, of course. It’s the whole disgusting circus parade of identity politics, and PC witch-hunting, and trans-sex drum-beating, and girl-lugging-a-mattress-around-campus idiocy, and blame-it-all-on-Whitey whinging, and drone-strike-du-jour warfare, and out-of-control NSA surveillance monkey business, plus throw in the outrageous scams of “civil forfeiture” under a president who was supposedly a professor of constitutional law — the list of Democratic-sponsored absurdities and turpitudes gives me the vapors. . .

[Bernie] Sanders functions nicely as a foil to the flying reptile. But the self-labeled socialist has a big problem. The public may be simmering with grievance, but my guess is that they are not especially hot for more redistribution of the national wealth — that is, whatever little remains in the hands of a sore beset former middle class. The absence of any other reputible figure on the Democratic “bench” belies a party now more hollow than a supermarket Easter egg.

Some of the comments are fairly amusing, too.

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