O'Rourke on New Book

Cry from the Far Middle. It is out. You got to pick it up because it captures so much, as he tends to do, of the absurdity of our time, but with such a rapier wit, as they used to say. He joins us on the phone from New Hampshire. P J, what a pleasure to have you here on Bloomberg Business What a pleasure to be here, A pleasure to be here Otherwise unpleasant times so unpleasant. It's so unpleasant. So how do you even I mean, listen, if nothing else,

there's a whole lot of material for you. How do you even go about attacking this right now? Yeah, it's tough because everybody is so angry, and anger is not the friend of the happy humorist m So you know, it makes it really tough. It's not so much that I'm worried about offending people. It's just that I'm I'm worried about people being in any kind of mood to receive, receive any kind of lightning up um about anything. Well, you know, that's such a good point, you know, PJ.

Because people it's like, you know, I try to have conversations with people, and it gets so heated and angry so quickly. I'm like, lighten up. We're discussing things, and you're gonna have maybe a different opinion. I'm gonna have a different opinion, but let's let's discuss it is. We've got the whole nation involved in that kind of fight that those of us have been married for a long time cannot help but be familiar with this kind of fight.

It starts out over like whether we should slip cover the couch, and by the end of the fight, it's like, uh, And not only that, I remember when you flirted with that girl at that party in nineteen and you leave wet towels all over the bed and your socks are all over the floor, and it's it's the kitchen sink. You know, we're throwing the kitchen sink at each other and uh, we we we we better stop that. The other thing for it is, I don't get what the

causes really, I mean, in a way I do. I Trump is shall we say that he's a somewhat divisive president? I could probably go that far. I get that. And then the pandemic has got everybody cooped inside, like seething with grievances, you know, and like letting their minds run on all the things that make them angry and stuff. But you know, really we're not facing a huge external threat at the moment where you know, wors overseas were winding down. China is a worry, you know, but it's uh,

you know, it's just a word. It's not you know, it's not an imminent throughout I don't think. Uh. The economy was perking along pretty well, and it shows some signs of being able to reperk um uh And you know why are we so mad? So you take to this on directly in your book, And the essay that I love the most is whose bright idea was it to make sure that every idiot in the world was in touch with every other idiot? Social Media, I have to think is responsible for part of this right, social

media has got lots and lots to blame. You know, I grew up. I'm I'm I'm old. You know, I'm seventy two years old. So I grew up in like, you know, the fifties and sixties, and there was this wonderful idea that we would all get along better if we could just communicate, you know, if the generation gap could be closed with communication, if we could just talk to the Soviet Union, you know, if if if if races, if people from different races would just communicate with each other.

And there was this big star, Malcolm mclowin, you know, who had the whole idea that that that television would create a global village. And we all thought, oh, this is just genius. This is just wonderful, and it gives me excuse to sit around and watch TV. And what thing is is that we were We knew about Marshall mcgloon, but we hadn't read him, because if you read him,

Marshall McLellan, he was. I found a radio interview with him actually where a Canadian radio broadcaster says, I thought, you said, we're gonna have a global village, and there's almost like war and Hadrian rioting and stuff. You said we're gonna have a global village, and mcglellan goes, I said we were going to have a global village. I didn't say the villagers would like each other. Right. Um, there's one essay. It's the inaugural address. I'd like to

hear the president, whoever it may be, deliver. Um. PJ. You do write a lot about politics, and you know, there's so much in here that I love, But there's also one that I'm just trying to find. I had a line highlighted just this reminder of the government is more than just one individual, even though that's who we elect. And you know, just tell us about kind of how you look at politics right now and what you kind

of want to get across to Americans with your writings. Well, a lot of the things about the presidency is we've just allowed it to grow into some sort of cult. You know, it's almost like a shi Jing king or or or Vladimir Putin, where the President of the United States becomes like this sort of sacred king who is responsible for our well being of our entire country. And and of course if anything goes wrong, we we we

take that sacred king, and we sacrifice him. Um uh, actually what we We don't kill him the way that primitive societies do. We just give him a giant book contract for a really really boring book. But you know what I mean. And the thing is that that's not how it works. If you read the Constitution, it's you get you get about five pages into the Constitution before the president is even mentioned. You know, you know, he's a chief executive. He's not the chairman of the board.

We're the chairman of the board. He's he's just the chief executive. And he's supposed to make the laws that we make in Congress. He's supposed to make sure that they're put into force. Yes, he's the commander of chief during wartime, but it's Congress that has the power to to declare war, not the president. They should remember that every now and then when they're they're when they're griping at the president for the wars that he's had, that

they've got the power. And uh, yeah, this was never meant to be some sort of of of of weird kingship or or or our cult of personality for good or for real. You know, we're not supposed to worship the president and we're certain and we're not supposed to revile him. Um, he's he's he's just he's got a corner office. But you know, he depends on us for

for to do all the work. And yet p J. As I think about it, and and I am conscious of the fact that I and Carol make our living in the in the media, and you make your living, you know, in and around the media. And I listened to you and wait, wait, don't tell me, and I love those appearances. But you know, from McLuhan to Facebook to Twitter, like the media broadly defined is certainly, if not complicit in all of that, or is complicit maybe and and and maybe responsible for the way that this

has been a little bit warped. We probably should all be grounded without TV for at least a month, right, and take away our phones. Right. I'll take my share of the blame here. I'm not I'm not not picking on you guys, but the um, yeah, we we get obsessed with trivia and then you know, of course, there's always been that thing in the media where if it bleeds, it leads Naturally we love a disaster. But then there's

also this thing that has emerged more recently. If it sleas it leads, and um, yeah, I don't think that uh many members of the media could could could say of the media as a whole. I mean, I think we each try and do our own job as well as we can. But overall, the media gets is easily distracted. It's getting sort of Facebook brain, you know where it's so easily defind Twitter or Twitter brain worse than Facebook brain.

Facebook at least has some pictures of grandchildren. Uh so it's the it's the last thing anybody said, it's the last thing anybody heard, and uh, you know, end depth reporting is is is hard to find, and impartial reporting

is hard to find. Um, journalists, I'm old enough to remember when journalists like really looked down on partisan politics, and the idea of a journal having partisan politics would be really like the I don't even know what to compare to exactly, would be like, uh, a journalist having like a favorite European soccer team. We have a few

of those. Actually, yeah, well, listen, one thing I want to ask you, and you you know, you end up this new book, um that's out with a bunch of your essays, and you end with and I'm an optimist, and I know, Jason is to what I like about you USA, and you say three things I like about America fast food, suburban sprawl, and traffic jams. Um. We haven't seen a lot of traffic jams because of the virus. Um suburban sprawl, though we're thinking we might see a

little bit more of because of the virus. As people he's moving out in the gundry, even if the country is only as far as Levittown, best get out of town. Well, you know, and it's interesting, and you write, you do a pre preface if you will, in your book, because you say you wrote these essays in nineteen and then happened. As we know, it's been a year of just one you know, explicative and one an unbelievable story after another,

and a lot of heartache, if you will. And I think we're all wondering what happens on the other side. You know, what are your thoughts about this year? Well, it rights itself, you know, I mean, people say, oh, America is so divided. America has never been this divided, And I go eighteen sixty one, I'm not sure America has ever been Having survived the sixties in the early seventies. America is a ship that's got a lot of keel to it, and we may take on water from the right,

take on water from the left. We have a tendency to right ourselves. It's very important to remember America is not some country that once all where everybody all got along. That that ever ever happened from the moment that the colonists landed here and started to to fight with the people who were already here, who were defeated not in battle but by disease and demography. And then think about all the people in America. I mean, some came here a scam artist, some came here as religious nuts. Some

came here uh totally unwillingly. We're dragged here as slaves. Uh. Some of us here were forced. My family was forced by poverty, the Irish Potato family, um. Some people forced by bigotry, oppression at home, or pure lack of opportunity. Were completely random bunch of people turned loose into huge place. We hate each other. I mean, you know, in a nice and most of the time in a pretty nice and civil way, but every now and then it bursts out.

We've never been there, We've never had this like golden age where we all got along, and I just think we should go back to arguing in a civil you know, see each other in a civilized manner. Yeah, well, here's hoping and we just discuss exactly, let's just have a conversation. Well, really really great to catch up with you. What a treat for us. Thank you so much. The book is called A Cry from the Far Middle Dispatches from a Divided Land p. G. O. Rourke. Um, you know I

should have said this at the top. I read Parliament of who made me want to be a writer? You know? I was going to study politics in Washington and listen, I still have it. It's a it's a gem, and it's about the government and how it works or doesn't work. I gotta love a guy who says America is a ship that has a lot of keel to it. Jason, that is going on our T shirt list. There you go, it's on the T shirt list, p Ark. He's the best