Really?  They chose to publish this rot going into the Fourth of July weekend?

Peak Vox: The American Revolution was a mistake, you know

Generally, I’m not one to hammer on outlets as a whole, although some — Salon comes to mind — seem to use trolling people with ridiculous premises as their entire marketing strategy. Vox has its moments like this, although they also recently hired the estimable Jon Allen as a political editor to shore up their credibility. However, it’s essays like today’s “3 Reasons the American Revolution was a Mistake” two days before Independence Day that provide most of Vox’s reputation for intellectual heft. Well, it’s those and that West Bank to Gaza Bridge that inspired Sonny Bunch to offer “The Year in Voxfails” at the Free Beacon, along with the supposedly longest winter night ever that wasn’t.

At least this essay from Dylan Matthews is more of an opinion piece, and Dylan’s entitled to his opinions and to write about them, even if they are more or less spun out of pure fantasy. That’s what this is, of course — a series of improbable what-ifs that ignore historical realities and contexts for simplistic assumptions, built around a trollish central argument guaranteed to get clicks. It’s practically old-school undergrad blogging at its most pure, and only needssome Rule 5 imagery to complete the experience.