[We haven’t heard from you in a while. Have you been overtaxing your dogged little mind, busily cogitating over the abstruse implications of Tuesday’s elections?]
Something like that, my exalted Editor-in-Chief. I didn’t want to write a response before the results were known to the public, or that portion of the public that isn’t completely comatose. As you may recall, I have a serious issue with this culture of the “quick hit” and the “immediate reaction”. One of the many reasons we are in this mess is because we spent such little time in thought. If this were a society based on some notion of functional intelligence, then almost everyone you see on cable news would be unemployed—and of those who would keep the jobs they currently have, none of them would speak until several days after the bloody midterms.
[You consumed some of the news media’s commentary, then?]
Yeah, mostly that of Fox. I believe very strongly in knowing thy enemy, which is one of the reasons I always read Pat Buchanan’s columns when I still a regular recipient of the Laconia Daily Sun. I still read him when I get the chance, but as of late, I’ve taken a greater interest in Jonah Goldberg and George Will—not that I consider either of the latter men my enemy, but just as an aside. Now, back to Fox: I made sure to watch Sean Hannity’s opening monologue on Wednesday, and I was a little uncomfortable with his attempt to depict the midterms as some kind of unmitigated success for the President.
[President Trump said the same thing. How, may I ask, have they come to that conclusion?]
At the height of the Kavanaugh hearings, Sam Harris said we have diminished “the quality of our lying” in the Trumpish age. Something I have noticed about Trump’s style of deceit is that he very rarely leaves himself vulnerable to accusations of outright mendacity. Usually, he gives himself just enough wiggle room to muddy the waters—or, barring that, to claim plausible deniability.