Don't know if you read the column but here is one of its paragraphs:
"Many Americans believe that liberty was gained through our national independence, and, without it, ours would not be a free nation at all. Of course, this is faulty thinking. At the time in 1776, Europe was rife with the idea of the Enlightenment and egalitarian yearnings for change. With the teachings of Rousseau, Locke and many other philosophers who advocated universal liberty and equality, the American colonies would have eventually become constitutional-liberal nations, pretty much like Canada today. Our untamed pursuit of individual freedom and its everyman-for-himself savagery of life would not have become the very millstone that is drowning us today. Very certainly, there would be no Trumpism."
