Plus ça Change ...

MANIFESTO

I'm struck by Adam Serwer's post this morning wherein he criticizes Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson for believing that "we should just have a cloistered elite group that chooses our leaders for us" because that battle was fought nearly two centuries ago. Here's a somewhat superficial post regarding the transition from John Quincy Adams to Andrew Jackson that points out some of the same issues Buchanan and Carlson fear today. In 1828, "the Federalists were terrified." To a great extent, we see that same fear of the hoi polloi in the thinking of conservatives in 2009.