Source: The UnPopulist
by Cathy Young

“Rubio’s speech was not without some good points. If nothing else, as the Journal notes, he ostensibly treated Europe as an ally and partner rather than a target for scolding like Vance. He said some nice words about the West’s tradition of liberty and representative government. And, amid MAGA world’s aggressive contempt for anything that smacks of intellectualism, there is something refreshing about a speech that name-checks Aristotle, Plutarch, Copernicus, Newton, and Michelangelo. Unfortunately, Rubio’s tribute to the Greek, Western, and American spirit is also a conceptual salad in which Socrates, the 300 Spartans who resisted a mighty Persian army unto death at Thermopylae, and the mythical Achilles who chose glory over long life are mashed up into the model hero willing to die for ‘a cause worthy of his loyalty.'” (10/21/26)

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/rubios-grotesque-defense-of-western