AUTHOR: Timothy Egan of The New York Times
LENGTH: 888 words
THESIS: The social contract in America has been broken
EVIDENCE: "Anheuser-Busch, which had survived Prohibition and the micro-brew craze, was sold to a Belgian brewer"
HORROR OF HORRORS: "Bud was now Euro-beer"
TRAVESTY OF COMPARABLE MAGNITUDE: "Next they’ll tell us Huck Finn had a taste for éclairs as he floated down the Mississippi"
OTHER PROBLEMS: Goldman Sachs, "Wall Street excess," flu vaccine shortages
WHY THESE COULD BE IGNORED UNTIL NOW: "So long as Budweiser, the King of Beers, was enthroned in this pleasant and nobly resilient middle American city, the blows of corporate condescension from the other giants who abandoned the Gateway Arch could be endured."
HOW THE REVOLUTION WILL HAPPEN:

There was once a political party that came out against concentration of wealth. They called for regulation of food, drugs, and big corporations. Called for "square deal" for the average American. And their robust spokesman, the leader of their party, said this of his countrymen ... That party was the Republicans, a bit more than century ago, led by Teddy Roosevelt.

The next governing majority will be guided by independents, and include liberals, conservatives and people whose great-grandparents left the Republican Party a century ago. It will also include a whole lot of Budweiser drinkers, wondering how the world changed so quickly, without them.

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Heather Horn