Thanks for this perceptive exegesis of the American psychodrama. Just as the New York Times seems to do a better job of pinpointing the British condition than our domestic press, I sometimes think that British punditry is rather more adept at seeing America for what it is than those who live within its borders. The Darwinian connotation of the American Dream is their central neurosis, just as the vestiges of the class system remain ours. It was always a sham, but the country seems incapable of escaping it. I guess that’s why the American left is so shrill and desperate — they have so much delusion to combat.