Patriot. Philosopher. Prophet. Poet.
Let’s start with this. Michael routinely, and reverently, reaches back into American history, contrasting today’s corrupt and mediocre political class – and the preposterous cultural elites who support them – with our brilliant Founders and the greatest of our presidents, military heroes, artists, and authors. In an era of grubby race hustlers, insane transgender ideologues, appalling apologists for Islamic jihad, and miscellaneous merchants of madness, Michael patiently reminds us, time after time, that our beloved country is the product of the strenuous efforts of millions of men and women who, over many generations, and with a quiet nobility and extraordinary sense of self-sacrifice, settled the land, worked the land, and, when called to do so, took up arms for the land.
In some moods, to be sure, Michael is capable of expressing the view that the America that some of us are old enough to remember and were brought up to revere – the America of hard work and high principle – is slipping through our fingers, or is lost already: as he puts it, to Americans “over a certain age, this America, this culture, this society have become beyond foreign. It is not the country we grew up in and it is not the country we want to die in. It is alien.” More often, however, Michael is a man of hope and faith who is quick to assure us – and himself – that in spite of everything that the bad guys, the soulless self-seekers, have done to despoil it, our America “is still out there, that America that we remember, the one that was proud and strong, but also assured, humble — the one that embodied a quiet patriotism that didn’t need boasting.”
Indeed, in a time when we are subjected constantly to the inane bombast of despicable political careerists and unscrupulous media lackeys, Michael reminds us that the nobility of our immigrant and settler ancestors was, indeed, overwhelmingly a humble nobility. And if he is so extremely effective in reminding us of this, it is because he himself embodies that same kind of humble nobility, speaking to us, in most of his essays, not in a hectoring tone but in a gentle yet urgent voice that commands attention because it is speaking fundamental truths – home truths – about who we, as Americans, were, once upon a time, and who we can be again.
Yes, Michael can lay it on the line with the best of them, asking in one essay, with a richly justified asperity, “When did this war on race begin, where did this sudden hatred of white people come from? What is a white person anyway? Am I supposed to have more in common with say, a Bulgarian than with my Mexican-American neighbor or a black man that has roots in America going back almost four centuries? What foolishness is this?” In 2016, when some Trump supporters were “running for the hills” after the release of NBC’s infamous Access Hollywood recording of Trump saying a single vulgar word, Michael was able to work up genuine anger at these “quislings” and to mount an eloquent and stirring – and deeply wise and well-informed – defense of the future president:
As conservatives, we love to think of America being founded, and for 240 years, run by nothing but pious Christian pilgrims. But, this is just fantasy. We have had very pious men in our history, but also very many rogues, drunks, gamblers, womanizers, etc., lead our country, fight our wars, and create our industries. We may not want to admit it, but the very same traits required to take risks, to lead men, to create and build, often coalesce with some of the traits that we find so morally repugnant.
