A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land

by P. J. O'Rourke

Overview

In a time of chaos, the #1 New York Times–bestselling political humorist asks his fellow Americans to take it down a notch.
 
Is there an upside to being woke (and unable to get back to sleep)? If we license dentists, why don’t we license politicians? Is your juicer sending fake news to your FitBit about what’s in your refrigerator?

The legendary P. J. O’Rourke addresses these questions and more in this hilarious new collection of essays about our nation’s propensity for anger and perplexity, which includes such gems as “An Inaugural Address I’d Like to Hear” (Ask not what your country can do for you, ask how I can get the hell out of here) and “Sympathy vs. Empathy,” which contemplates whether it’s better to hold people’s hands or bust into their heads. Also included is a handy quiz to find out where you stand on the Coastals-vs.-Heartlanders spectrum. From the author of Parliament of Whores, None of My Business, and other modern classics, this is a smart look at the current state of these United States, and a plea to everyone to take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy a few good laughs.

“To say that P. J. O’Rourke is funny is like saying the Rocky Mountains are scenic—accurate but insufficient.” —Chicago Tribune
 
“The funniest writer in America.” —The Wall Street Journal

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802157751
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/15/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

P. J. O’Rourke has written nineteen books on subjects as diverse as politics and cars and etiquette and economics. Parliament of Whores and Give War a Chance both reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. He is a regular panelist on NPR's Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me,a contributing writer for the Washington Post editorial page, and the editor in chief of the free web magazine American Consequences. He lives in rural New England, as far away from the things he writes about as he can get.
P. J. O’Rourke has written nineteen books on subjects as diverse as politics and cars and etiquette and economics. Parliament of Whores and Give War a Chance both reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. He is a regular panelist on NPR's Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me and a contributing writer for the Washington Post editorial page. He lives in rural New England, as far away from the things he writes about as he can get.

Table of Contents

Pre-Preface: xi

As We Go to Press …

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 &Cyrund; 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

Editorial Reviews

Praise for P.J. O'Rourke:

“Whether you agree with him or not, P.J. writes a helluva piece.”—Richard Nixon

“P. J. O'Rourke is like S.J. Perelman on acid.”—Chris Buckley

“[P. J. O'Rourke] was able to yank conservatives out of the hands of the humorless and shrill, and make such writing accessible ... He changed my life.”—Greg Gutfeld

“[P. J. O'Rourke] occupies a rare place among the laughing class: He has somehow avoided the orifice obsession that captivates many of its members; he identifies as Republican; and he is no mere thumb-sucker, having visited more than 40 countries to report on wars, regime changes, economic revolutions and the experience of drinking cocktails garnished with the poison sacs of cobras.”—Wall Street Journal

“Outspoken conservatives have long been a minority in comedy, particularly in the mainstream media, which provided an opportunity for P.J. O'Rourke, who for decades cornered the market for prominent right-wing humorists ... If his wry essays have a mission statement ... it's this: Starchy Republicanism is really, really fun.”—New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

2020-07-01
The political satirist frets about America’s state of “angry perplexity,” but he would be well advised to heed his own advice: Calm down.

In his latest broadside, O’Rourke decries the excesses of left and right with (almost) equal disdain. At 72, he remains a libertarian conservative, and he has no use for the mindless populism or rabid partisanship that has Americans baring their fangs at each other. The author fairly wonders when—or if—America will “emerge from its grievous health crisis, lock-down isolation, economic collapse, and material depravation with a newly calm, pragmatic, and reasonable attitude toward our political system.” Even as he sounds the death knell for classical liberalism—free enterprise, the rule of law, civil liberties, free speech, etc.—O’Rourke also hopes, with scant confidence, that we will dispense with our hysterias in favor of competence and a civil tongue. He proceeds to skewer America’s cultural and political ills in broad, superficial detail while championing a form of “extreme moderation” as the only means of addressing them. Occasionally, as the voice of common sense, he does this with sobriety; the most reasonable part of the book is the “Pre-Preface,” written on June 8, 2020. “[George Floyd] was accused of spending twenty dollars in the form of a banknote that had no actual value,” he writes. “The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are currently spending billions of dollars in the form of banknotes that have no actual value.” More often, O’Rourke employs sweeping generalizations, over-the-top screeds, unconvincing self-deprecation, and, above all, gale-force sarcasm. His meld of serious comment and attempted humor is an unhappy marriage, and even longtime O’Rourke devotees may not be sure where one ends and the other begins. The author has become a more jocular, less verbose version of William F. Buckley.

Exaggeration and absurdity are useful tools of humor but not when deployed with a bludgeon.

Kirkus Reviews