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Thursday, March 14th, 2019

The Power of Petty Personal Rage

Author:     Paul Krugman
Source:     The New York Times
Publication Date:     March 11, 2019
 Link: The Power of Petty Personal Rage
Stephan:   Paul Krugman is one of the most sensible commentators in the country, and he has nailed the American reality. This is what a society is like when it only emphasizes every person for themselves and makes greed the only social priority. None of this is going to change from the top down, it has to go from the bottom up. It has to start with each of us.

Credit: Disney-Marvel Studios

Today’s column is about plastic straws, hamburgers and dishwashing detergent. Also Captain Marvel.

No, I haven’t lost my mind, or at least I don’t think so. But quite a few other people have — and their rage-filled pettiness is a more important force in modern America than we like to think.

My starting point is a weekend tweet from Representative Devin Nunes of California, who headed the House Intelligence Committee until the House changed hands after the midterms. In that role, he basically acted as Donald Trump’s stonewaller in chief, doing everything he could to prevent any real investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin.

But his tweet wasn’t about that. It was about a waitress who, citing the “straw police,” asked his dining party if they wanted straws. “Welcome to Socialism in California!” Nunes thundered.

If this seems like a weird aberration — he wasn’t even denied a straw, just asked if […]

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