As I mentioned earlier, I just finished reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Kingdom of Fear. It’s nowhere near Thompson’s best work, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more relevant writer in what I suspect will be regarded as the American interregnum. The 2016 election exposed many flaws in our of democracy, the most glaring of which was that our entire system is designed to present two candidates as de facto equals. The system doesn’t have a mechanism to cope with a candidate who isn’t at least minimally qualified. The press falls over itself to create a scaffold for this candidate with legitimacy in order to maintain an air of journalist objectivity.
Dr. Thompson wouldn’t have played that game. He would never let objectivity get in the way of telling the truth. That was his greatest virtue, and it’s one we desperately need now. He wouldn’t have allowed the mythical “respect for the office” from letting the president have it with both barrels and then reloading. The phrase “This is not normal” is true, and it’s worth remembering, but “He is an ignorant, foolish monster would destroy us all if not for his own incompetence,” has a nice ring to it as well.
The book itself is a bit of a mess; it meanders from an unlikely story to an obvious fabrication to an incredibly on-point criticism, but it never fails to be entertaining. I doubt there will ever be another Hunter S. Thompson* no matter how badly we need one. The lesson, however, remains:
“So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here–not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”
* And no, Spider Jersualem doesn’t count.
* And no, Spider Jersualem doesn’t count.