How political discourse has changed
I used the long Labor Day weekend to devour Carl Hiaasen’s latest offering, “Squeeze Me.”
It is classic Hiaasen, funny and wellobserved, which stretches reality just to the point of breaking. It’s satire that lands at the terminus of “it’s funny because it’s true.” It involves some Florida society ladies who call themselves the “Potussies” as a tribute to the (unnamed) president they support.
Also, an 18-foot snake. There are too many twists to spoil the book, but this also means it’s difficult to summarize. If you’ve enjoyed Carl Hiaasen in the past, you’re going to like this one too.
So I was mystified to go online and see a not insignificant number of one-star Amazon reviews, nearly 10% at the time I checked. Logic dictates that a well-established author like Hiaasen writing a book in his regular mode should receive very few one-star reviews, a rating that signals deep dissatisfaction. And indeed, a check of Hiaasen’s earlier books shows that fewer than 5% of readers (and often as few as 2%) give his novels 1-star.
There was a theme to many of the highly negative reviews, many of which featured the phrase, “I used to love, but ….” One example of what followed: “his barely disguised attack of a sitting President and family is beyond the pale, and I will no longer be a follower.”
This phrasing is familiar to me because every time I offer even the slightest negative opinion of the current president, I receive at least one, and often more than one, very much like it.
I’ve read your column every week, but no longer. You’ve lost a fan.
This makes me sad in complicated ways. Of course, one never wants to lose readers. It is the opposite of the goal for a writer.
I am also sad for the writer of the email, who claims to have generally enjoyed my column in the past, but who now will deny themselves such pleasures because I have said true things about the president — such as observing his penchant to threaten to sue people who once worked for him when they write books about their experience in the White House.
It wasn’t always this way. Twenty years ago in January will see the anniversary of the publication of my first book, “My First Presidentiary: A Scrapbook of George W. Bush,” co-authored with my friend Kevin Guilfoile. The premise of the book is that Bush is like a child who does not know how to be president, so the adults have created a workbook to help him learn the job.
It is filled with silly and sophomoric jokes at Bush’s expense, and sold well enough to become a Washington Post No. 1 best-seller.
Do you know what the Bush administration did and said? Nothing. Do you know what supporters of President Bush said to us?
Nothing.
What is it about this man that inspires so many to inflict injury on themselves to defend his honor, at even the slightest criticism?
What’s changed? I’ve been making fun of presidents in print since fifth grade as a supporter of independent candidate John Anderson in 1980. Our politics have been split for a long time before now, and somehow we still managed to find pleasure in the work and lives of one another without having to declare an ironclad loyalty to a singular figure.
How can we change back?