A CRY
from the
FAR
MIDDLE
ALSO BY P. J. O’ROURKE
Modern Manners
An Etiquette Book for Rude People
The Bachelor Home Companion
A Practical Guide to Keeping House Like a Pig
Republican Party Reptile
Confessions, Adventures, Essays, and (Other) Outrages
Holidays in Hell
In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World’s Worst Places and Asks, “What’s Funny About This?”
Parliament of Whores
A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
Give War a Chance
Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind’s Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer
All the Trouble in the World
The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut
“I Was Tragically Hip and I Recovered! You Can Too!”
Eat the Rich
A Treatise on Economics
The CEO of the Sofa
One Year in the Life of a Man Who Said, “Mind If I Put My Feet Up? I Think I Will Take This Lying Down.”
Peace Kills
America’s Fun New Imperialism
On the Wealth of Nations
A Minor Mister Opines upon a Master’s Magnum Opus
Driving Like Crazy
Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-Bending Celebrating America the Way It’s Supposed to Be—With an Oil Well in Every Backyard, a Cadillac Escalade in Every Carport, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Mowing Our Lawn
Don’t Vote—It Just Encourages the Bastards
A Treatise on Politics
Holidays in Heck
A Former War Correspondent Experiences Frightening Vacation Fun
The Baby Boom
How It Got That Way . . . And It Wasn’t My Fault . . . And I’ll Never Do It Again
Thrown Under the Omnibus
A Reader
How the Hell Did This Happen?
The Election of 2016
None of My Business
P.J. Explains Money, Banking, Debt, Equity, Assets, Liabilities, and Why He’s Not Rich and Neither Are You
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 Money 73
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
Acknowledgments 221
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
