A thoughtful, upbeat column; I enjoyed reading it and I think many of you might enjoy it too. On economic issues, Zinger’s views are somewhat to the left of mine, but he strikes me as an unusually thoughtful, clear-headed thinker and a very good writer. extract:
When I was about 24 and working a fun but low-key online editing job in the youth department of the Center for American Progress, I asked Jon Chait (one of my favorite writers) if he would meet with me. Because he was a decent guy, he agreed, and we had lunch somewhere in Washington.
At one point, I complained about how flawed America was and how important it was to fix the problems, and Chait responded with his characteristic gentleness: Well, a few generations ago our ancestors lived in villages and sometimes other people would come in, loot everything and kill everyone. things are not That bad.
The problem isn’t that America is perfect – Chait hasn’t been and doesn’t think America is, and around that time he published a book criticizing conservative economic policies for making life more difficult for Americans. while making the rich even richer. But looking back on that conversation, my sense is that Chait was trying to calm down a young and enthusiastic quasi-intellectual who was reciting lefty mantras rather than actually thinking about the issues.
Whenever I think to myself about how my perspective has changed since I started writing professionally, I remember that conversation because I think it captured something important…
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