Talking down to you? I even took a moment to add a ‘not that I have to tell you’ in the back bit 'cause one of the exactly two things I know about you is that you are a historian (the other is that you are an American) and thought a measure of respect was due, expertise-wise. I wasn’t explaining anything to you—who on Earth would just randomly start lecturing people for no discernible reason? I was explaining myself because I figured that writing ‘I am worried’ might be a bit curt and contextless and so the preceding is explaining how I cam to be worried. Because if it was just gerrymandering I wouldn’t be.
To be annoyingly pedantic, I did expect you to gain some new information from my post, viz. that I also knew whereof I spoke on the subject and that if you had any good news that might allay my worry or commiseration that it can’t be allayed you’d go right to those rather than first explaining America to me.
I’m sorry, maybe the manners of my homeland and America are sufficiently different, but here it is considered good manners to establish common ground in this fashion.
