[H]ere the problem is that merely being located in the United States of America isn’t good enough to pass the inane identity politics litmus tests of the contemporary right—New York City isn’t America (except for purposes of exploiting 9/11 on behalf of torture and aggressive war) nor are Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, etc “really” American. So therefore mass transit is un-American and therefore it’s socialist, so it follows that anyone who wants to build mass transit is doing so out of socialistic hatred for the United States.
— Matthew Yglesias
Read the rest here. (Hat tip: Atrios.)
For the record, I use regional mass transit for about 80% of my local commuting and travel, a bicycle for about 15% more, and a car for the rest. It also merits mention that much of the anti-mass-transit agenda can be traced directly back to the national effect of policies enacted by the enormously influential Robert Moses in the mid-20th century; his closer-than-previously-known ties to both the automotive and petrofuel industires are at last being examined by historians.
