Bad-time stories
Book examines ways Americans have kidded themselves.
As a longtime fiction writer, creative-writing teacher, advice columnist, essayist and former journalist (in Miami, among other places), Steve Almond knows a bad story when he sees it. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Almond saw bad stories everywhere he looked. Since the election, these stories have only increased.
In the best-selling author’s new book, “Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country,” Almond investigates the many ways we have kidded ourselves about who we are as people and as a country. Only these “bad stories” are no joke. Among them, as named in the titles of the book’s chapters: “What Amuses Us Can’t Hurt Us,” “Sports Brings Us Together as a Nation,” “Our Grievances Matter More Than Our Vulnerabilities” and “American Women Will Never Empower a Sexual Predator.”
While there is plenty of fire and fury to be found in “Bad Stories,” which will be published April 1 by Red Hen Press, Almond is not interested in a simple rehashing of the 2016 election campaign or an airing of grievances about the outcome. Rather, as he writes in the book, “I’m not offering a single theory, or even a set of theories, as to how our democracy fell apart. I’m working toward a synthesis of theories. The ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency is certainly the impetus for this investigation. But it should not be mistaken for my subject.”
Almond, who will discuss “Bad Stories” Monday with Books and Books owner Mitchell Kaplan at the chain’s Coral Gables location, recently responded to our questions via email. Here are excerpts from that exchange.
You analyze 17 “bad stories” in the book. Which one do you believe has been the most damaging to our democracy?
Gosh. That’s a tough question, but I do think the chapter on the Fairness Doctrine has been hugely important — the bad story that there is no such thing as fair and balanced journalism. Because so much of our discourse is really driven by for-profit propaganda. And most Americans have no idea that the government used to crack down on this stuff. The whole point of the Fairness Doctrine was to make sure that controversial issues were debated in a reasonable manner, with all sides represented. It was designed to make sure we didn’t end up with partisan media echo chambers. Its repeal, in 1987, led directly to the rise of right-wing radio, a medium that convinced tens of millions of white Americans that they, and their way of life, was under assault. Trump basically inherited this audience share. His views are not just informed but formed by conspiratorial propagandists. And his loyal base lives within this bubble of paranoid disinformation.
As you note in the book, we Americans have been telling ourselves many of these bad stories for decades, some of them for more than a century. Will it take that long for us to stop believing them? Can the country survive if we don’t?
We all buy into bad stories, and tell them, every day. “I’m just going to have one potato chip.” That’s a bad story. I want to make that clear, because I do think bad stories are a part of the human arrangement. The entire idea of race — the idea that whiteness even exists — is a bad story, one that was invented to keep poor people from banding together to demand more from the rich. But it’s also true that we’ve shed a number of our baddest stories, such as the one about African Americans being property, or women being unworthy of voting rights, or gay people being morally defective. I see the ebb and flow of bad stories are a natural part of our evolution. But the 2016 election was completely dominated by bad stories — stories that were untrue, irrelevant and intended to sow discord.
It has been five weeks since the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. What bad story have we been telling ourselves about guns and mass shootings? What do you think will become of that story now?
There’s a whole host of bad stories being fomented by the gun lobby and their congressional servants. Among them:
Sensible gun control will rip guns away from law-abiding Americans. Gun control won’t reduce mass shootings. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
All of these are bad stories — fraudulent, credulous and intended to distract people from much more obvious stories, such as the story of every single country that has made it harder to acquire guns, such as Australia, where gun control virtually ended mass shootings.
The kids in Parkland have been crucial players in stanching this flow of propaganda. Or rather, in suggesting that a new generation of students/potential victims are sick of the adult world’s excuses.
They are asking common-sense questions, such as: Why do civilians needs military-grade weapons?
And they are suggesting a story that makes a lot more sense. That is: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is … to ban guns.
You co-host the Dear Sugars podcast with Cheryl Strayed and with her write “The Sweet Spot” advice column for the New York Times. How have the questions you receive from listeners and readers changed since the election? Have the questions — that is, the number of people seeking advice — increased?
God, yes. We’ve gotten so many letters from people who are depressed and anxious because they feel our government no longer functions to serve, or even protect, its citizens. Trump talks about the media as “an enemy of the people.” But if you’re a woman or an immigrant or a person of color or just someone struggling to earn a living wage, Trump and his congressional enablers have basically said: your voice, and your needs, don’t count. We’re going to keep shoveling money at our donors and deregulating businesses. And we’re coming after you. It’s a heartbreaking moment if you’re vulnerable in America, because our own government has become the enemy of those people. Trump’s political strategy has also been to sow discord at every opportunity, so as to incite and empower his base. He couldn’t care less about their actual needs, but he’s great at stoking their primal negative emotions. And that’s resulted in a lot of folks feeling empowered to express their bigotry and their violent ideation. It’s a politics of despair and division, a politics driven by masculine insecurity, and our listeners are feeling it. Deeply.
Steve Almond will appear 8 p.m. Monday, March 26, at Books and Books, 265 Aragon Ave., in Coral Gables. Admission is free. Call 305-442-4408 or go to BooksAndBooks.com.