 Hi folks, welcome to the future of democracy. My name is Sam Gill. And in this show what we try to do is take a look at some of the big ideas, big trends, big controversies that are really animating our democracy, our national conversation. And take you a little deeper than you might be able to get just hearing a debate on cable news or reading one article. And this month we are teaming up with the Miami Book Fair to host an amazing set of conversations with authors with artists focused on different topics about what they think about the future of democracy. And this is all leading up to the 37th annual Miami Book Fair from November 15 to 22. The book fair is an incredible collection of authors and incredible collection of books are really vital conversation about ideas. If you're interested, please go to Miami Book Fair online.com, or follow them at Miami Book Fair. If you're not interested, then you're not paying attention to the incredible authors they're going to have this year, Natalie Portman, the actress is going to be a part of the Miami Book Fair bill night a science guy is going to be part of the Miami Book Fair. And you can hear every single presentation every single talk for free, but only if you tune in for November 15 to 22. So of the authors that we had a chance to sit down with one of them is the inimitable PJ O Rourke PJ O Rourke is a famously caustic satirist caustic observer of the American political scene. He's a multiple New York Times bestselling author. He's also a frequent panelist on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. And we had the chance to sit down and talk about his new book, A Cry from the Far Middle Dispatches from a Divided Land. I hope you enjoy the conversation. All right PJ, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. So the book is called A Cry from the Far Middle. Where is the Far Middle and what does it want? Well, where it is is a very lonely place. I feel like I'm standing out on the double yellow line on some, some lonely highway with idiots passing me on the left at 140 miles an hour and more idiots and great big pickup trucks flying Confederate flags throwing up gravel on the right. And then I'm just feeling all sort of sorry for myself out here. But the truth of the matter is I think that the great majority of Americans are in the middle. I don't mean that we should agree about everything. I mean, we're in the middle to the extent that we know that there are a lot of like really important political issues big, aggressive, difficult, complex political issues, and they need to be argued out, but they need to be argued in the, in the proper sense of the word not not screamed and shouted out. Not not not not not not burned and busted and looted out, you know, not intimidated and shot out. This needs to be an argument. It really struck me in the book and and for those who are listening we're recording this, you know, 48 hours after the less fewer than 48 hours after the first presidential, you know, debate and quotation marks for those of you listening on the podcast version. And I was when I when I read the book before the debate. There are two chapters at toward the end that I would consider a positive vision of politics you give a version of an inaugural address that you would give, and a kind of idealized political debate. And it's as a reader, the linchpin to me for both of those was an idea of humility and civility just what you said it wasn't about agreement, but there was a notion of humility about the need to solve problems together and civility and making that happen. After that presidential debate. It's hard to feel like we're even in the same solar system of that ideal. Yeah, well wouldn't be an inaugural address that I would make because I'm not going there I mean one of the problems I think we have with politics in the United States is that what sane person, any longer wants to run for office. Humility was the keynote that I would have my ideal liberal my ideal conservative and my ideal either one of them that got elected is to say that look you know the president is you own this company you the citizens own this company. I'm sort of the janitor, you know I don't even make the laws the Congress makes the laws. I don't decide whether the laws are, you know, fit with our Constitution or not the courts decide that I'm supposed to execute the laws but you know, it's not like they gave me a bunch of executioner weapons to do it with. You know, I'm really the school janitor here, and not everything that happens on my shift is was caused by me. So if you think that I'm responsible for all the good things in your life that's not true. And you know on the flip side of that, it's not true that everything bad that happens on my shift is, is exactly my fault. And I'm going to have to take responsibility for it because you elected me but you got to understand the world is much more complex. And this is a very free country. And I don't have that much control over your life I'm not supposed to have that much control over your life. But let's get back to the debate. And if ever there were a use for air quotes. Let's get back to the debate. I have seen more substantive arguments take place on bar room floors conducted with fists and boots. And I will say this I've never seen one of those that last 90 minutes. It was just just an awful thing. I mean, the president's behavior was was was bad. I mean, it was just incredibly rude dismissive noisy. I guess we sort of expected that from him, but it was also in a weird sort of way self defeating. I'm no fan of the president but I'm no huge fan of Joe Biden either. If the president had just shut up and let Biden ramble on Biden has the capacity to drone and sort of like lose the plot and you know, say, we were talking before we went on about how glad we were we weren't playing the here's the deal drinking with Joe Biden and that Trump would have had a much stronger performance keeping his mouth shut and letting Joe giving Joe some rope. And so, you know, I truly don't understand and of course, and instead what he did every time is Joe was wandering off into some like into some policy maze. Trump would say something horrible about his kid and and injected adrenaline into into Joe's performance, you know, perk him right up, you know, snap him back into focus. What but what do you in in the context of the malady that the that the book really, really explores in in in American politics in American political culture like what, what's the antidote like it's as you're saying you know let's say it had been the most civil debate ever it would have been a debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden like it's not not have promised a kind of inspiration the kind of pragmatism, the kind of cosmic humility that it seems to me you feel has really become missing do we just do we need different candidates or do we need a new system. Well, you know, we, it's very hard to change our system but but at a sort of macro level, but at a micro level, yes, we probably do need a new system which would entail each of us getting involved. Because we have the lousy candidates that we have and I speak for both parties over a long period of time is that our political parties really don't have much, much power at a national level, I mean, the Republican National Democratic National Committee are really dependent on everything for on 50 state party committees, and those 50 state power committees party committees don't really have that much power either, because they're dependent on the county level. And none of us get involved at county level I mean who among us can name our county Republican chairman our county Democratic chairman I sure couldn't. You know I mean there's a 5000 and some counties in the United States. And what happens is that the Republican County Committee ends up being run by some retired aluminum siding salesman is plaid polyester plant pants don't match his plaid polyester shirt. And the Democratic County Committee ends up running by being run by an embittered divorce woman with 40 cats. And that's who's running the country, you know, so that we as individual citizens have to get our get down in there and involved and of course what we really need to look for is not candidates who want to run wanting to be president of the United States is probably an indication of mental illness on the face of it, you know, if you open the psychiatrist desk reference and check narcissistic personality disorder I think there are like nine indicators of narcissistic personality disorders, and the average politician ticks off 11 of nine indications of narcissistic personality disorder we need to draft people. I would have loved to have seen Colin Paul as president I know he didn't want to go but he was in the military he understands about the draft you know we should simply just drafted him. So that's one thing then of course as journalists. We are not without blame either because our attention tends to be turned not to the dull and worthy candidates of which there were a plethora of last time around. But, you know, if it bleeds it leads, or in less, less violent circumstances if it sleeves it leads. And we pay far much to too much attention to the crazy people I mean, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders got an amount of attention in this previous election. And, and this, you know, then, then either of them deserve. Sometimes I got to say in the case of like Hillary Clinton a candidate is so dull that I as a journalist I despair of making this interesting but but that's my problem that's something I have to solve. So, one of the things that was interesting early in the book. You, you have a have this line what this country needs is fewer people who know what this country needs and sort of thinking about this in the context of the current, you know, crisis COVID crisis that we're living through, which, you know, on the one hand, you know, certainly is is not helped by the sort of dueling performances of I'm here to help without real practical solutions. On the other hand, you know, part of the crisis has been that it's unclear who to turn to it's unclear who actually is going to exercise some real leadership in helping us to in helping us to identify what's safe and healthy, and helping to ensure some kind of uniformity in our response. How do you how is the how is the COVID crisis influenced your view about about the management side of leadership about what constitutes effective leadership. Well, it does bring back into focus that question of leadership and it's almost, you almost get the feeling that being led in the wrong direction. It might have been like better for the nation and not being led at all. Generally speaking, I mean, it's, it's a paradox of our system. Generally speaking, our federalist system with its devolved and decentralized forms of security were really most of our interactions are with local and state government. The federal government has only, you know, despite having expanded enormously it still has only a secondary role in day to day life. It's not the federal government that delivers. It is the federal government delivers our mail but they don't pick up our garbage and think about which is more important. I can't go without mail for a couple of weeks. I can't go without garbage pick up for a couple of weeks. That would be the town. Anyway, normally this works well and allows people to experiment with things like California can go crazy and the other states can look at that and say, the other 49 can go, well, let's not go there. Massachusetts can cut its tax rates and rain in its regulatory apparatus as it did. And we can look at that and say, look, you know, Massachusetts is doing very well economically and Massachusetts is booming. Maybe we should take a lesson from that and so on. But then when it comes to a kind of natural national crisis, especially when it's an internal national crisis. We're pretty good at uniting as a country when there's an external threat. But with an internal threat we're really left with nobody in charge. And it would have taken the president of the United States doesn't have infinite power and in this respect but he has tremendous influence. And the fact that we were already getting to a certain extent getting mixed messages from the most expert people that we were able to contact. Then we start to get, you know, drink bleach from the president. I know, as he said, I said that sarcastically. Well, how else would you say it, you know, but you know, when we when we get a complete confusion at the top like that. It does it does show the weakness of this federalist system I don't think we should give up on it, but it does show how important it is to have a really responsible predictable person who's willing to listen person who's willing to learn in the White House. I mean it does it strikes me to I mean if you've got particularly in a crisis if you've got some broad guidance from the top, our federalism can certainly be a strength, you know having a local public health authority can be an enormous strength and helping a community to distill high level advice and guidance into practice that's going to work for that community. It strikes me though that like one of the challenges it seems we're confronting is that the kind of people that you're speaking to and about in the book people who are just so exasperated in the state of national politics that that that culture of national politics what we saw in the debate stage has also colored our perceptions of whether to trust the look you know the local fire authority when there are wildfires or not trust them and whether to trust or not trust the local public health authority like to what extent is is has the has the malady become something that's led us to go south on the system at all levels even where that system is still really working on our behalf. Well you basically in your question you've said my answer. I'm not a professional interviewer. This is this is this forest fires a hoax you know it. You know the people saying that right until their house catches on fire and then they blame it on George Soros. I mean yes it has infected the bad political atmosphere has has infected our everyday life. And of course we're the carriers of that infection. I mean one of the things I talk about in the book is is is you know the the internet and I mean who's bright idea was it to put every idiot in the world in touch with every other idiot you know no matter how wrong you are about an issue you know with a couple clicks of your fingers you can find a large enthusiastic group of people who are even more aware about that issue than you are and join them in them. It's it turns out I mean of course, the first amendment ensures that we all have our, you know, our, our freedom to speak and to speak our views. You know the pure physicality of that used to put a certain filter on it. I mean if you had nutty views you had to get a mimeograph machine and turn out a bunch of pamphlets and stand on the street corner and hand out those pamphlets and carry a sign and chant the, you know, the world is ending. And that was good. That was a good thing. Now that you can do this, you know, instantly, you know, in your underpants, you know, from from anywhere. It's, it's like, it's, I think it's kind of overwhelmed us. I think this is something that will get over. But it may not be in my lifetime, you know, I mean, it may take, it may take, it may take decades. It is important to remember that when newspapers when when popular newspapers, the dailies and weeklies and small towns were first became practical because of the lowering costs of transportation printing presses and paper and so on. That most of those newspapers were ridiculously, ridiculously partisan screaming and yelling partisan and they were as nonsensical as anything that's on the internet today. It wasn't until they grew into a mature industry. And they had like certain sort of boundaries that they began to feel and also the capitalism and one of its like good moments. I'm kind of insured that these newspapers and then radio stations and television stations would want to reach out to everybody. Because the advertisers demanded it if you got a furniture store you're going I don't want to sell sofas just to Democrats. I don't want to sell sofas just to Republicans I want to sell sofas to everybody, you know. So that put a certain sort of useful constraint on media that, you know, our personal media interfaces do not have that restraint. I think that will gradually develop. It's almost like we found a new food and we don't know what utensil to use with it and we're smearing it all over our face and eventually we'll figure out that should probably go in a spoon, or maybe needs to be cut up with a knife and fork. But but but this could take a long time. George has the unfortunate quality of already connecting all of us in incredibly profound ways as we try to figure out as we try to figure out quite how to digest it. So one other another development that that happened around the time you were publishing the book has been the protests that have ensued, more or less without cessation since the murder of George Floyd and I want to ask you a couple questions about this the first is, I would certainly regard as having a very healthy kind of skepticism of government and central authority in your writing. How have you responded to a central feature of these debates which is either the either skepticism and criticism of war in some cases the outright rejection of institutional policing, as it's currently practice this isn't something you were able to get into in the book and I'm curious how you've reacted in the month sits. Well, you know, having been on the other side of the of the metaphorically speaking on the other side of the Portland occupied zone fence in my youth. Well, first, I begin by saying, you kind of got to watch it with your protests, especially with the, you know, how, how destructive they got how abrasive they get because I think my friends and I and the anti war movement probably prolonged the Vietnam war with our antics dressing up in clown clothes, you know, to, to, to, to, to spread peace and love and understanding by breaking windows and so on. I may have personally prolonged the Vietnam war by five minutes you know with my behavior, I don't know, but I do know that we got Nixon elected quite handily and reelected by a landslide. You know our antics being a part of that so be careful and this is, as I pointed out, as we all know this is a free country there are tremendous number of ways to show that you think the country is on the wrong track there are plenty of ways to make your views and everything I think that's going on. And it's not baseless. I mean, do the police are the police to militarized or do the police act like an occupying force and too many neighborhoods. Do they get out of hand, do they get panicky, and, and grossly over relaxed over react. Are they as well trained as as they should be. All these are valid questions, but everything should be measured against the standards really of Martin Luther King's March on Washington that that kind of the dignity. The beauty of the rhetoric. The, the self discipline of the crowd. It was persuasive. Let us not forget that that Martin Luther King led the largest protest movement in the history of the United States that succeeded, may possibly the only protest movement in the history of the United States that succeeded. And one of the reasons was the enormous dignity, the calm and the, and the quiet good reasoning that he and many, many people in the civil rights movement brought to that to that movement. That's the way it should be done. What, what words of hope, would you give to, to the far middle in this, in this moment and, and it's okay to start with here's the deal, if you want. He's got that little hand movement that goes. Now this country's got a lot of keel this country's got a lot of keel we can take water from the right. We can take water from the left. We tend to write ourselves and sale on. Now there have been exceptions to that, but we got through even worse exceptions. You know, people say, Oh, America has never been as divided as it is now and I, and I think back, you know, as somebody who not only experienced the 60s but in my own small personal way caused some of it. We were much more divided than it was a really angry and divided country, the kind of riots that were going on in our inner cities at that time, we've seen nothing like that. Thank God. And the heck with the 1960s, what about the 1860s, I mean 1861 now that was divided, you know, however sorry we may be feeling for ourselves at the moment for something is not taking any incoming so Well, this has been tremendous the the this conversation will be broadcast and extended as part of the 37th annual Miami Book Fair, which runs from November 15 to 22 all readings presentations and conversations at the book fair will be free but only available during that week November 15 to 22. In addition to PJ O'Rourke other voices include Walter Mosley, Bill and I have a science guy and Abby Wambuck. You can visit Miami Book Fair online.com or at Miami Book Fair on Twitter. And the future of democracy from Knight Foundation airs live Thursdays at 1pm. Every episode is available at kf.org slash fd show, or on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you follow your podcast we will also drop every single one of these special Miami Book Fair episodes there. The author is PJ O'Rourke. The book is a cry from the far middle dispatches from a divided land. You can find him at PJ O'Rourke.com PJ. Thank you so much for joining us. Sam, you're very welcome. And thank you for for giving me a for not for non non no platforming me.