We incline toward the gold. If you don t win the gold, your face will never get on the cereal box. But, of course, we do. Slavery, dead pioneers and dead Indians. Northern Unionists and Southern Confederates blood soaks our soil it s just that we don t dwell on it.
People don t die in America.
They pass away into euphemism. Oh, we forgive people for losing, we admire Christopher Reeves for overcoming tragedy. It s an old American Protestant knowledge. Character is formed by defeat. Richard Nixon, our most complicated political losers.