The food was ill-cooked, the drinking excessive, the inns crowded, the street brawls savage.

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 31.

The deeper problem was that most Britons did not really think of the America of 1800 as a real country. The Revolution had given America independence in name, but her claims to a place among the civilized nations of the world struck even sympathetic British observers as pretentious or simply laughable. America’s similarities to Britain only showed her enduring dependence on the mother country; her differences only reflected degeneracy or immaturity, proving how helpless the former colony was on her own. British critics found literally nothing praiseworthy about life in America. In science, art, and literature America was a nullity; “the destruction of her whole literature would not occasion so much regret as we feel for the loss of a few leaves from an antient classic,” pronounced the Edinburgh Review. American conversation consisted of nosy cross-examination of strangers. America’s colleges were little better than grammar schools. The food was ill-cooked, the drinking excessive, the inns crowded, the street brawls savage.

UPDATE: The day I scheduled this, a review came out, Journalists Hate You. by Daniel Addison. Addison reviews Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation by Andrew Marantz. It is not worth linking to the book as it is one long lament from a statist lamenting that the unwashed are able, through the internet and social media, to involve themselves in politics and issues in a way professionally and commercially detrimental to the mainstream media slacker journalists.

Specifically,

Senior CNN Reporter Oliver Darcy says citizens resist his reporting because they “just won’t digest facts.” They, therefore, need guidance from gatekeepers; for Darcy, it’s a tragedy that “technology companies have … given everybody the same ability to broadcast their views, unfiltered really, to millions and millions of people.” New York Times columnist Kevin Roose also thinks we must shut the revolution down, lamenting how “YouTube, Reddit and Facebook have allowed fringe thinkers to bypass traditional gatekeepers and reach millions of people directly.”

Yep. Its a tragedy.

A significant new book by Andrew Marantz, a staff writer at the New Yorker, has reinvigorated the gatekeepers’ efforts to censor the internet. Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation is an account of our ongoing democratic revolution, a historical moment that brings into relief two realizations for Marantz: (1) conservative influencers are now able to out-compete legacy media outlets, and (2) it was this that led to the election of Donald J. Trump. “[T]hey helped propel their man to the presidency,” he writes.

For Marantz, these two realizations justify all-out censorship of the internet. But his extremism comes as little surprise when you recognize that, from start to finish, Marantz’s argument is grounded in his contempt for the intellectual and moral capacities of ordinary Americans.

Having just written the British judgment about the uncouthness and lack of culture of those dynamic young Americans, it was impossible not to hear the ring of similarity.

In 2020, our journalistic preeners are appaled but

the intellectual and moral capacities of ordinary Americans

while for the establishment British in 1812:

American conversation consisted of nosy cross-examination of strangers. America’s colleges were little better than grammar schools. The food was ill-cooked, the drinking excessive, the inns crowded, the street brawls savage.

Same ignorant and arrogant disdain from insiders for the real people who drive real outcomes which benefit everyone. The hatred by insiders for aspiring and energetic outsiders is evergreen and knows no geographic or temporal boundaries.