The Unbearable Lightness of Liberalism

In 2008, half the people who watched the Fox News Channel were over sixty-three, which is the oldest demographic in the cable-news business, and, according to a poll, the majority of the ones who watched the most strident programs, such as Sean Hannity’s and Bill O’Reilly’s shows, were men. All that chesty fulminating apparently functions as political Cialis. Fox News shows should probably carry a warning: Contact your doctor if you have rage lasting more than four hours.

Louis Menand in the New Yorker, Nov. 2, 2009

You’d never guess that, age, race, and gender-wise, Louis Menand is right in the middle of the demographic he holds in such contempt. In his rhetoric, and no doubt his estimation of his own virility, Menand is still the young Turk of his student days. And still, it appears, prone to the lazy logic of sophomore liberalism, which leads him to induce that Fox is bad because it attracts an audience of older white men; i.e., the bad guys.

I envy liberals the ease with which they are able to demonize their enemies while certifying their own moral machismo. Surely there’s no easier target than old white men; they’re the proverbial fish in the liberal barrel, the only ethnicity excluded from the Diversity Club. No need really to throw in the Cialis dig; New Yorker readers already share Menand’s scorn for these guys. That’s just piling on.

How nice it must be to be a liberal pundit or politician. No need to be funny or smart; all you have to do is toss off a few proper nouns from the party-approved punch list, guaranteed to put the tribe into hooting, stomping, fist-pumping delirium. Bush (Boo! Hiss!). Cheney (Aargh!). Haliburton (Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho!). Rush Limbaugh (Chortle! Snort!). In less than a dozen syllables, you can have the crowd up on their feet and ready to follow you out the door to the barricades.

Or, in this case, down to the Fox Broadcasting Studios.