To Screed or Not to Screed
As a writer, I post regularly at PJ Media. Once in a blue moon, you might find my work appearing in The American Spectator, and I have published one piece in the online edition of National Review. The National Review piece was an essay on H.P. Lovecraft and remains one of my favorites. I have a special spot in my heart for that article because it was only quasi-political. Unlike my work at PJ or the articles I have published at The American Spectator, the Lovecraft piece touched on the man and his work. The same can be said of the review I wrote for my colleague Robert Spencer’s book, Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization.
As someone who spends most of his time writing political and social commentary, I savor the opportunities to set aside the task of chronicling the downfall of Western Civilization and focus on, well, almost anything else. Like most writers, I am in the midst of authoring a book. Unlike many of my better-known peers, it is not another recitation of that which has gone or will go wrong in America. It is a collection of short stories, and working on it is like taking a small vacation.
Political writing can be exhausting. It taxes the soul because I must wake up every morning and slog through the legions of news feeds, almost all of which bear bad tidings. And it isn’t just searching through news items that make me think about turning down the lights, putting on some soft music, lighting a few candles for atmosphere, and climbing into the bathtub with my wife’s hairdryer.
Once that task is complete, there is the job of culling the news for topics upon which to expound. And after all, how many people really need to give their point of view about Fani Willis, DEI, the border, Bud Light, or the trans agenda? When Oliver Anthony released “Rich Men North of Richmond,” there was not a conservative site in existence that did not have at least one article that thoroughly dissected the angst of the lyrics. And Joe Biden is constantly stumbling, mumbling, or saying something partisan or incendiary. After all, once a crisis has been around long enough, it ceases to be a crisis and becomes a way of life.
It is mind-numbing and depressing work. PJ writer Athena Thorne once described it as “doom-scrolling” for a living. If you do it long enough, the news begins to affect you even when you are not at the keyboard. Doom lurks constantly in the background when you are out for dinner, meeting friends, or spending time with your family. The feeling of dread dogs you like the soothsayer warning Julius Caesar to beware the Ides of March. Even simple, happy, and joyous moments can be robbed of value by the specters just over your shoulder. If you are not careful, you can find yourself viewing everything in your world through the jaundiced lens of “What’s the point?”
Writing about the events of the day can provide some catharsis. At least I can content myself with the idea that I am “making a stand” or “speaking out” even if I do not have legions of devoted followers.
Once a piece has been submitted and is published, I inevitably question myself. Was the piece passionate enough? Did I use strong, soaring rhetoric, or did I come off like an arrogant pseudo-scholar? I enjoy humor and have jokingly referred to myself as a “discount Mark Twain.” And sometimes, I wonder if I was snarky enough or too flippant. Did I show the right amount of disdain or outrage? Or was I sufficiently detached from the subject matter to be objective? Is anyone offended? Do I want to be an intellectual, a firebrand, or an ersatz satirist?
As a conservative writer, it is a given I am offending someone on the Left. But on occasion, that offense is taken by fellow conservatives. I have written two pieces making light of subjects related to the Trump campaign. One cannot write about Trump and not offend. There are two camps in conservative politics. If one finds fault with Trump, no matter how lighthearted one may be about it, one risks being called a commie, RINO, or something similar. If one finds common ground with Trump or his supporters, then one may be subjected to accusations that one is a low-IQ MAGA knucklehead.
And finally, once I see my article on the screen, I wonder if I did more harm than good and if anyone is reading what I wrote. And I wonder if I am making a difference. And sometimes, in my darker moments, I even speculate on when all of my work will come back to haunt me when I want a car loan, a business license, or a plane ticket. I’m not big enough to be canceled or for the MSM talking heads to compile a list of crimes for which I could be publicly pilloried.
The answer to all of these questions is: “Who knows?” And I admit, after all of that complaining, that answer is a bit anticlimactic. And there are days when I think that if I hit the Powerball, I would drop out of the business entirely, work on my book, and take long hikes with my wife and our dogs after cooking brunch every morning. After all, mimosas can take the edge off a plethora of problems.
As tempting as it would be to buy a Jaguar and a state-of-the-art condo in Aspen, Park City, or Telluride, I don’t think I could be content with that life. And that would not be only because I am no longer the liberal I was in my youth and therefore unable to fit in. The truth is that we must have angst. We must have struggles. It is paramount that we keep that angst and those struggles in context and not allow them to consume our waking hours, but we must have those things. We must have challenges and causes – even hopeless ones. In the end, it is our struggles that make us human, and in sounding our “barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world,” as Whitman said, our humanity is confirmed and celebrated