America IS the land of individualism where any perceived infringement on personal liberty is called socialism; where individual rights, rights such as unrestricted gun ownership, trump the common good and common sense. Individualism in America, far from leading to communism (something which seems contradictory on its face) has led - in the context of capitalism and the facile patriotism which permeates the culture - to a lonely materialism empty of community and human attachment. Instead we have the tepid substitute called social media - human contact mediated by computers and corporate America.
Mr. Douthat may be right about the future since individual humans, unlike individual cats, seem more susceptible to herding.
Nice. And I heard there are thousands of kids right here in America who want to go to school but can't afford the tuition, despite their good grades and the number of jobs their parents hold!
Obama did not lose America. We lost him when we handed Congress over to the Teapublicans in 2010.
We also let the Senate Republicans get-away with abusing the filibuster rule a record number of times.
As Gemli said in a comment to Frank Bruni's column: "The fault is not in our political stars but in ourselves".
We are underlings. Et tu, America?
You pretty much missed the point, didn't you? In no way did Obama say that manufacturing of low cost consumer products should come back to America, or that we can compete on everything. And BTW, Apple does have a substantial number of employees in this country.
