In conversation over the weekend with a set of smart folks, someone raised the sensible question: why is no one in the Republican presidential field (except Trump very briefly recently) attacking a government that is forcing us to buy electric cars we don’t want, toilets that have to be flushed twice (to save water!), dishwashers and laundry equipment that don’t clean dishes or clothes very well, expensive light bulbs that are less congenial to the eye than incandescents and don’t last as long as promised, etc, etc.? William F. Buckley Jr. joked years ago that liberalism is the impulse to reach in and turn down your shower, but now this is uniform government policy.

This took me back to Malcolm Wallop’s first campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1976, where this 30-second TV spot captured the growing mood of the country:

The updated ads on this theme today write themselves, and would be a huge hit with voters. And yet no one has the wit to pick it up and run with it.

I have a hunch, by the way, that the commode attached to that horse back in 1976 would be banned by the federal government today.