The media, with its right- and left-wing extremes, each seeking to proclaim its virtue in its own way, has often encouraged our post–Cold War presidents to be moralistic rather than moral. Passion, often the enemy of analysis, is precisely what is encouraged by social media, which has had such an insidious effect on our politics. To some extent, nations, especially in democracies, get the leaders they deserve. America was a great and well-functioning mass democracy in the print-and-typewriter age. It is unclear whether it can continue as such in a digital-video age aggravated by social media,
...more
