Through the years I have watched Peter Baker on PBS and read him in the New York Times - as well as his wife Susan, who writes for the New Yorker. When the couple recently produced a book on the Trump era it looked like an interesting read. Rather than buying it I put a hold on it on Libby to read on a tablet - and assumed that since it has just recently been published, there would be a long wait - I certainly wasn’t at the top of the line.
And then it arrived. It was some 1200 pages on the device with a limited time to go through it, but I have persevered. I’m not surprised that those waiting for it an anticipating learning something new have given it a rather quick read and are somewhat happy to be freed from it. It would never have been a keeper that I would want to return to for either facts or inspiration. This is what stands out.
The Trump era has mostly been in plain sight, so there is surprisingly little that an American politics obsessive like me didn’t know already from reading or watching the New York Times, PBS, Washington Post and even Canadian news and the Globe and Mail. The main takeaway from their comprehensive reporting is the perpetual use by all the key players is - the F word. It must occur in quoted conversations in the book at least as many times as Trump’s 30,000 plus lies. I suppose there was a time when such quotations were shocking but now it’s just banal.
The authors never comment on this. I have no idea how they feel about it, though they are quick to pass judgment on many other issues in the book. But I will. I grew up in an era when the use of profanity was a shocker when it occurred; it was rarely used even in private. Get on any bus now and the F word has actually replaced “like” as something to amuse one’s self counting.
But words do say something about our society. Occasional profanity in the past suggested that the sacred actually mattered. Using the F word in every sentence means we have moved way beyond obscene - and any kind of violence is okay now. Civil society used to demand something better. It suggested a world of citizens who were polite to one another because others were human beings. There was such a thing as civil rights. Civil law had to do with things that had different implications than criminal law. Those who worked at any level of government were described as civil servants.
As Americans head into mid term elections, our own little news cycle here notes that the provincial government has withdrawn its use of the Notwithstanding Clause of our constitution - due to a good deal of backlash to shut down a strike - and the union has called off its strike of school support workers and custodians - those who support the lives of our children. It’s a small consolation that both will at least return to the negotiating table. I have no desire to be a fly on the wall in that room. But let’s hope for even a small degree of civility. When tempers flair, no amounf of use of the F word is going to make things better. It’s always arrogant because the speaker is always responding to the other. I echo my fellow octogenarian Ursula LeGuin in her wonderful essay in the book, No Time to Spare. “Would you please just F-cking STOP.