A Cry From The Far Middle
PJ O’Rourke
Atlantic Monthly Press, 320 pp.
Review by David Williams
We live in an increasingly polarized age. Television talking head, political pundits, athletes, movie stars, everyone seems to be yelling to move to the left or move to the right like some perverse square dance from hell. In the middle of all of this comes A Cry From The Far Middle. This cry is brought to us by none other than satirist extraordinaire, P. J. O’Rourke. Author of such fun works as Don’t Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards and The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way And It Wasn’t My Fault And I’ll Never Do It Again, O’Rourke is back to start a movement towards each other instead of away from each other.
In his introduction he tells us that “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.” This does not bode well for the nation. As he points out this is nothing new. Strife and bickering are nothing new. They are built into the fabric of the US. From the founding of the first British colonies there was strife. To begin with there was strife with the local population who didn’t understand that it was the White Man’s Burden to deprive natives of their food, homes, and land. O’Rourke provides a succinct and darkly humorous reading of these early conflicts.
After setting the historical stage O’Rourke launches into the breakdown. The nation is in a conflict between “Heartlanders” and “Coastals.” These breakdowns are more about ideas than anything else. There are Coastals and Heartlanders on both sides of the aisle. “Harry Truman was a Heartlander. Steve Bannon makes Heartlander tornado noises but is in fact a Coastal hurricane of know-it-all, cared-stiff self-regard. Donald Trump is a Coastal pretending to be a Heartlander, covering his oh-so-Coastal real estate scammer face with a mask of drunk-in-a-bowling-alley Heartlander bigotry. Elizabeth Warren is a Heartlander. You can tell by the middle-American banality of all her “to-do” lists.” The problem in American “is not about Heartlanders being good and Coastals being evil. It’s about their respective ability to tell the difference.” This is at the heart of our conflict.
In his next chapter O’Rourke lays out the case that the best solution to the difference between the competing visions of the Heartlander and the Coastal is what today is known as Classical Liberalism. “Civil liberties. Free speech. Property rights. Rule of law. Representative democracy. Free enterprise. Free trade. These are the ideas of Classical Liberalism. Since 1776 the fortunate among us have been living in places where those ideas were embraced.” Sadly, both sides are abandoning this excellent middle ground in an effort to dominate the other side. The call of today’s society is not to find ways to get along, but rather find ways to dominate.
In this book O’Rourke brings both sides to task for playing the power politics game of trying to rule instead of trying to work together. First he takes on those calling for socialism. “Socialism is the politicization of everything. Socialism is when the stakes in the political battle are so high that they include control of the entire socioeconomic system. In this kind of boxing match it’s the referee—the sovereign people of the United States—who’s down for the count.” Later he takes on those calling for a new nationalism. “The difference between patriotism and nationalism is the difference between the love a father has for his family and the love a Godfather has for his family—the Bonanno family, the Colombo family, the Gambino family, the Genovese family, the Lucchese family . . . Patriotism is a warm and personal business. Nationalism is another business entirely, the kind of business Tessio talks to Tom Hagen about after Tessio’s betrayal of Michael Corleone. “Tell Michael it was just business.” Both world views are zero sum and both are seeking to draw people away from the middle and towards the extremes.
O’Rourke goes after the sacred cows in our society because he knows that in the end they make the best hamburgers. Some of what he says is jarring to consider. Some of it can be a little crazy. But all of it is shot through with his typical satire. If you want to read O’Rouke tearing apart social media, Donald Trump, the “democratic” socialists and the other unpleasant issues of our time then you have come to the right place. As always, O’Rourke takes his pen and skewers both right and left. He is an equal opportunity curmudgeon. It is always a pleasure and a joy to read O’Rourke. This was no exception. It made me laugh and wince at the absurdities around me in ways that only P. J. O’Rouke can do.
Johnny Cash had words of wisdom concerning the political divide. Check out Cash singing this classic song written by the great Jack Clement.
Great Review!