A Cry from the Far Middle
P. J. O'Rourke
A CRY
from the
FAR
MIDDLE
ALSO BY P. J. O’ROURKE
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A CRY
from the
FAR
MIDDLE
DISPATCHES
from a
DIVIDED
LAND
P. J.
O’ROURKE
Atlantic Monthly Press
New York
Copyright © 2020 by P. J. O’Rourke
Jacket design by Gretchen Mergenthaler
Cover art: USA political party symbols © RedKoala/Shutterstock
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].
Earlier versions of a number of chapters in this book originally appeared in the online magazine American Consequences
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in Canada
This book was set in 12.5-pt. ITC Berkely Oldstyle by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH.
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: September 2020
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-5773-7
eISBN 978-0-8021-5775-1
Atlantic Monthly Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
groveatlantic.com
To Andrew Ferguson
Great writer, great friend, great guide in the political wilderness with whom I have explored the savage land of the Yahoos and with whom I still hope to discover the lost country of the Houyhnhnms
“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”
—Stealers Wheel
CONTENTS
Pre-Preface: As We Go to Press . . . xi
Preface: Manifesto for Extreme Moderation xv
Introduction: O Beautiful for . . . Pilgrim Feet? 1
One Nation—Divided as Hell 25
Coastals vs. Heartlanders 27
Goodbye to Classical Liberalism . . . “It’s the End of the World!” 39
Big Fat Politics 51
But Thank You Anyway, Partisan Politicians 61
Robin Hood Arithmetic 67
On the Other Hand . . . Just Give Them the Money73
It’s Time to Make Rich People Uncomfortable Again 77
Negative Rights vs. Positive Rights It’s Positively Confusing 81
Sympathy vs. Empathy Is It Better to Hold People’s Hands or Bust into Their Heads? 85
Patriotism vs. Nationalism 91
Big Brother (and Everybody Else) Is Watching You Thoughts on Rereading 1984 97
Whose Bright Idea Was It to Make Sure That Every Idiot in the World Was in Touch with Every Other Idiot? 103
A Brief Historical Digression on How Communication Has Devolved 109
And While I’m Ranting Against the Digital Age Let Me Not Forget to Excoriate an Aspect of Social Media that Lacks Even Sociability . . . On the Fresh Hell of The Internet of Things 113
Lessons in Fake News from Two Old Masters of the Form 119
Woke to the Sound of Laughter 123
Why Kids R Commies And Never Mind How the Free Market Bankrupted that Backwards R Big Box Store that Once Held a Greedy Monopoly on Selling Toys 129
Knowing Write from Left 137
Educating My Kids 145
My Own Lousy Education And How It May Be of Aid to the Nation 151
What We Can Learn from the Sixties Drug Culture 157
Can the Government Be Run Like a Business? 165
Two, Four, Six, Eight, Who Do We Appreciate . . . The Electoral College! 169
Is a Reasonable, Sensible, Moderate Foreign Policy Even Possible? 175
The Inaugural Address I’d Like To Hear the President—Whoever It May Be—Deliver 183
My Own Personal Fantasy League Presidential Election 189
A License to Drive (Me Crazy) 195
The Founding Fathers Have Some Words With Us 201
What I Like About U.(S.A.)211
Acknowledgments221
Pre-Preface: As We Go to Press . . .
While this book was being written in 2019, America was deep in an era of idiot populism and hooligan partisanship.
Our country was engaged in a sort of socio-political Peloponnesian War. That is, we were in the midst of a long, confusing, tedious, useless, foolish conflict that threatened to
destroy democracy and left ordinary commonsensical people feeling “It’s all Greek to me.”
Then, when this book was being edited and typeset, somebody ate an undercooked bat in a Wuhan wet market.
Panic and pandemic ensued. The nation was brought to a stay-at-home standstill—whether reasonably or not no one is quite certain and by whose authority no one is quite sure. “It’s like being sixteen again,” a friend of mine said. “Gas is cheap and I’m grounded.”
Then, with everyone cooped up, going crazy and going broke, some fussbudget with a loose mutt in Central Park calls 911—“There’s an African American man threatening my life”—after being admonished by a Harvard-educated bird-watcher (who, if video is anything to go by, is the very picture of a Harvard-educated bird-watcher).
On the same day as that Central Park display of American inclusiveness and mutual respect, members of the Minneapolis police force decide to take a knee—on the neck of George Floyd. After nearly nine minutes of suffocation, Floyd died. He was accused of spending twenty dollars in the form of a banknote that had no actual value. The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are currently spending billions of dollars in the form of banknotes that have no actual value. Would the police employ the same bigotry and violence on them?
No. All across the country the police would employ bigotry and violence on people protesting the bigotry and violence of the police.
Chaos cried out its appeal. The thievish and the vandalistic are friends of chaos, and when their friend calls they come.
The president of the United States called for peace, understanding, and unity. In a pig’s ass he did. The president waddled down to his bunker hidey-hole under the White House and urged the U.S. military to invade the country they live in. Then he talked trash and went to church (he could use it) attacking thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to get there (not a very Christian way of going to church).
That’s where things stood as this book made its—socially distancing and peacefully protesting—way to the printer.
All this is to say that my book looks back on an era of troubles that, in retrospect, seem to have been the good old days.
And now I—who have covered politics and all its works and all its empty promises for half a century and who had so very many things to say about them—am left mute.
There are people possessed of the expertise necessary to explain, analyze, and make judicious commentary upon the present and future effects of the novel coronavirus. And there are, I suppose, people endowed with the foresight to determine the outcome of the social upheavals accompanying the pandemic. I’m not one of either of them.
And the last thing the world needs at the moment is more pundits who don’t know what they’re talking about.
Journalists are supposed to provide answers. But all I’ve got is questions.
Starting with, isn’t somebody supposed to be in charge?
Too many of America’s elected leaders have been acting as if the pandemic is a children’s party game where they’re all blindfolded and swinging sticks—except they’re clobbering each other instead of the virus piñata.
Under microscopic view coronavirus does look like it would make a swell papier-mâché target full of . . . lethal pathogens. Let’s leave the politicians to amuse themselves while we skip this fiesta.
Which raises another question—about this book itself. Is it now completely beside the point?
Will American politics be fundamentally changed by the pandemic? Will Americans emerge from their grievous health crisis, lock-down isolation, economic collapse, and material depravation with a newly calm, pragmatic, and reasonable attitude toward our political system? Will our reawakened awareness of systemic prejudice cause us to critically analyze and democratically restrain our civil institutions? Will we abandon the factional hysterias and histrionics of the early twenty-first century in favor of a polity based upon competence, civil discourse, and good will?
Or will we revert to our petty arguments and stupid animadversions? Having had time alone to dwell on our grievances and affronts, will we maybe even return to our spiteful quarreling with renewed vigor? This is often how human nature works.
I’m betting that human nature will triumph over adversity and challenge. And I don’t mean that in a good way.
—P. J. O’R.
June 8, 2020
Preface: Manifesto For Extreme Moderation
A Voice of the Political Far-Middle
What this country needs is fewer people who know what this country needs. We’d be better off, in my opinion, without so many opinions. Especially without so many political opinions. Including my own.
Our nation faces a multitude of difficult, puzzling, complex, and abstruse problems. Most Americans aren’t sure what to do about them. But we lack politicians with the courage to say, “I’m not sure what to do about them either.” We even lack politicians with the courage to say, “I’m not sure what ‘abstruse’ means.”
Our economy has been upended by technological changes that make the industrial revolution look like James Watt putting a bigger teakettle on a hotter stove.
Our second Gilded Age, with its golden pathways across the ether, is a goldbrick when it comes to crumbling roads, decaying bridges, rackety public transit, corroding water pipes, and collapsing sewers.
A soaring economy has left absurd deprivation in the midst of ridiculous luxury. A click on a website can now deliver everything to everybody—except a living wage.
Meanwhile we’re undergoing social changes so swift and profound that they send even the best cultural anthropologist fleeing. A latter-day Margaret Mead would be hiding out in Samoa, hoping like heck to study something as relatively uncomplicated as teenagers.
The tic-tac-toe of Cold War diplomacy has given way to the foreign policy conundrums of tri-dimensional chess, like Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock played on the starship Enterprise, except the pawns have nukes.
Transformations in health care have turned the historically cheapest part of being alive—dying—into something so expensive that many people can’t afford to do it.
And surviving Americans are left trying to weigh the delicate balance between having a life worth living and having a planet that can support life.
Yet our political leaders all think they know the answer to “What Is to Be Done?,” to quote Vladimir Lenin, a political leader who—among his other faults—flunked his own quiz.
The problem with opinions is that they’re not synonymous with accomplishing anything. I have three school-age children with strong opinions about climate change but who can’t remember to close the front door in midwinter. The traditional dad line, “We’re not heating the outdoors,” hasn’t worked, so I appeal to their wokeness: “That would cause global warming!”
Then I drag the snow blower in from the garage to clear the front hall.
We need a political system that isn’t so darn sure of itself. It’s time for the rise of the extreme moderate. Power to the far-middle! Let’s bring the Wishy and the Washy back together, along with the Namby and the Pamby, and the Milque and the Toast.
The extreme moderates’ non-negotiable demand? Negotiation. We won’t compromise until we see some compromising. We want political action . . . or inaction . . . it depends.
And wouldn’t it be great if we had an opinion-free news media source? I have the perfect name for it, “Happy Medium.”
We may be on different sides of the fence, but let’s make that fence-top wider and better padded and go sit on it. Then, no matter if I’m of conservative ilk and you’re of liberal stripe, we can have a neighborly chat.
Should the government be Laissez? Should the government be Faire?
We’re all in favor of peace, but when the wolf dwells with the lamb and the leopard lies down with the kid, how often do we have to replace those sheep and goats?
&n
bsp; Does Medicare for All mean young people have to wear trifocals and Depends and trade their bicycles for walkers?
If taxpayer money is used to pay for political campaigns, do taxpayers have ninety days to return politicians for a full refund?
Animal rights are important, but what about animal responsibilities?
Does “Pursuit of Happiness” mean I can drink before noon?
These are all important questions. Let’s discuss them while making social justice more sociable. Here, have a nip from my hip flask. We might be able to come to some accommodation with each other’s views.
If today’s political leaders would rather burn the milquetoast and ignore the wishes of the wishy-washy, extreme moderates should hang them out with the wash and they’ll be toast. Mixed-metaphorically speaking, of course, because harsh words and rash actions are not our style.
Indeed, how to go about being an extreme moderate presents some problems. The kind of things that other extremists do seem so . . . extreme. But I do have one idea. Free speech should not only be protected, it should be compulsory.
Everyone with a strong political opinion should be required to wear a sign proclaiming it.
Hang an “Immigration Is Ruining America” placard around your neck and see how you get treated by restaurant staff, Uber drivers, the people who change your hotel linen, and your immigrant grandparents.
Go see your personal physician with “I Want the Government to Run Your Doctor’s Office” lettered in Magic Marker across your abdomen. “Sorry, Senator Warren, but it looks like we’re going to have to remove your other appendix.”
Introduction: O Beautiful for . . . Pilgrim Feet?
America is in need of some explaining, especially at the moment.
That the country is a mess is the one thing the country agrees on. And even about this we differ. Half the nation seems to be saying, “We don’t know what’s wrong with America, but we can fix it,” while the other half says, “There’s nothing wrong with America, and we can fix that.”
