Whose America Now? Not Gore Vidal's

I recently interviewed Gore Vidal, one of the last old-school aristocrats left in this country, and asked him how he felt about the state of the American republic -- the subject that has fired his political radicalism and a large portion of his literary output over the past half-century.

Vidal, now 83 and in indifferent health, bemoaned the lack of a transcendent figure to match the political skills of a Franklin Roosevelt or the oratory of a General MacArthur. When I asked him about Barack Obama, with his formidable rhetoric and cool temperament, he gave me a look of pure contempt and uttered perhaps the most reactionary single comment of this election season.

"Slaves have a hard time making poetry," he said, relishing the shock factor, "unless it's got a beat."

Vidal, like many of his generation and social standing, clearly cannot fathom how the son of a single mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father could presume to occupy the Oval Office. And while he expressed his distaste with an extraordinary degree of frankness, not to mention racial venom, he is far from the only one.

We've had Republicans on the campaign trail talk about the "pro-American" parts of the country -- as though Obama and his cause were somehow antithetical to what America stands for. In the presidential debates, John McCain seemed to marvel at his opponent's presumptuousness, when he could look at him at all. During the primaries, Hillary Clinton betrayed a similar sense of indignation at this improbable novice upending her carefully laid plans.

In truth, next Tuesday's presidential election is not just about Obama beating McCain, or the Democrats retaking the White House. In a deeper sense, it is about who gets to run this country.

For too long, both major parties have worked from an assumption of entitlement. Between them, they formed a tight-knit little club which alone decided who could be part of the establishment and who could not. Between them, they courted the 50-something per cent of the electorate they felt they could count on, and roundly ignored the rest. For the most part, of course, running the executive branch has been a rich white man's game.

Obama alone won't change everything, but he is transforming the rules quite spectacularly. In the South, black voters are no longer the political dead weight the Democrats have so often taken for granted, and that the Republicans have managed to trounce at the polls time after time. Now they are spearheading a new Democratic coalition in which the divisive politics of race have, at last, taken a back seat to the broader cause of progressive ideas. Across the country, young people are being energized into political activism in ways unseen since the Vietnam War and -- in contrast to the counter-cultural movement of 40 years ago -- given real reason to suppose the future belongs to them.

There is, of course, a backlash. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are far from the first political figures to suggest that "their" America -- the parts of the country that subscribe to their political ideology and conform to their idea of how society should function -- is the "real" America. And it is no accident that Republicans desperate to find solace in the electoral disaster that awaits them are crying foul about the non-existent scourge of individual voter fraud -- essentially, casting aspersions on the legitimacy of hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters whom the old guard barely recognizes as part of America's political process at all.

Vidal's reactionary bile is part of a clear historical pattern that has, at different times, condoned the slavery he alludes to; espoused open prejudice against immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and the industrial working class; and embraced the notion that democracy is somehow too precious to be entrusted to more than a small fraction of the people governed.

We can be glad, though, his brand of entitled snobbery no longer holds sway. A new America is being born.

Comments

[fleming37]

I genuinely wonder how much Andrew Gumbel even knows about Gore Vidal. He certainly doesn’t seem to have done his homework. To imply that Mr Vidal is a racist is just bizarre. Vidal has tirelessly campaigned against racism over the last 60 years and if Gumbel had done more than a modicum of research he would know this.

[Ergon]

I'm a fan of Gore Vidal. IF he said it, then it's regrettable, in the same way Ralph Nader's quote, "it's up to Obama whether he turns out to be the greatest American president or an Uncle Tom" was a very poor choice of words.
But. This is a non-story and I'll let the courts decide, and I hope Mr. Gumbel can prove the statement, and like any good journalist would, have taped the interview?

[PSM42]

Gore Vidal - On D.C. - "it was a totally black city in those days." @ 5.30 Google gore vidal riz khan. On Obama's election - "I was thrilled." @2.30 Google gore vidal dimbleby.

[PSM42]

Gore Vidal - @ 5.30 Google gore vidal riz khan. On Obama's election - "I was thrilled." @2.30 Google gore vidal dimbleby.

[PSM42]

Gore Vidal

[mentalslavery]

Seems as if Gore is suing this cat for libel. Och!!

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_gore_vidal_blasts_racism_claim/

[ruberube]

Your take on Gore is nothing more than "your take!"

[mckinley]

I would like to think that Mr. Vidal's unfortunate quote, was actually his japing on what a hypothetical blueblood might think, and not his own opinion...

[diogeron]

I absolutely agree. I love a lot of Gore Vidal's work and his "The Sky God" piece in "The Nation" is a classic. Having said that, he just doesn't get it anymore. Not all of us have the luxury of sitting in our villa in Ravello in Italy, drinking great wine, and opining about what might have been if the perfect could have defeated the "very good." This is the real world for most of us, Gore, and if you're not with us, as W. says, you're against us. We're putting Obama in the White House and you rich ex-pat leftists will just have to learn to live with it.

[wonderingstar]

Gore Vidal is one of the few consistent political truth tellers. He's been reviled as a traitor by the Right for decades for his unflinching attacks on the Republicans, the military industrial complex and the corruption of the government. He's been a critic of the Right since the 60's: http://www.planetpeschel.com/index?/site/comments/gore_vidal_takes_down_william_f_buckley_1968/. He has guts: Vidal gave this talk on Sunset Boulevard in March 2003 against the War: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAtwkSNS1Cg&NR=1

His prior statements on Obama were positive: see this prescient interview from March 2008: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article3952774.ece. Quote: “I liked the idea of him [Obama], but he never managed to get my interest. I was brought around by his overall intelligence – specifically when he did his speech on race and religion.” In Vidal’s opinion, “he’s our best demagogue since Huey Long or Martin Luther King”. It's hard to square this recent statement against his prior laudatory (but acerbic) statements.

A man who has courageously put himself out there, who has been an inspiration (albeit a crochety one) to Liberals, deserves the benefit of the doubt. That's why I'm skeptical of taking this blog quote at face value. If he did say it, I would treat it the way we treat similar-sounding statements from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: ironic, outrageous, and provocative.

[basilissa]

I think Andrew Gumbel has seriously misunderstood Gore Vidal.

I have read and listened to a number of recent interviews with Vidal, and although he originally supported Hillary Clinton, he is not hostile to Barack Obama, nor does he express any reactionary or racist views. Given his long history as one of the brightest lights of American radicalism, it would be very strange if he had. In the videos I saw, his bile was reserved for George W Bush and Alberto Gonzales, because of what they have done to the Constitution. Without having been present, it is hard to say what Vidal meant by these words -- assuming they were accurately reported -- but "racist bile" cannot possibly be the correct interpretation.

Vidal is a great man and I hate to see him slandered in this way.

[PSM42]

Hope this is correct. I followed a commenter's link to an incendiary UK Channel 4 interview from an incandescent Gore Vidal. Great stuff. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/gore+vidal+ready+to+kill/2238447

After seeing that, the thought occurs that the contempt might have been aimed at Gumbel, for some reason. And the quote taken out of context. A hope anyway.

And I like Gumbel's views in his articles that I found in 15 minutes. And Gore's raging frankness.

[guyzer]

No illicit high is harder to give up than the sweet thrill of self-righteousness. Gumbel's de-contextualized nuking of Vidal - - and the resounding echo from the satisfyingly shocked and appalled - - is proof (again) that there's no room in American discourse for sublety or allusion.
This is why we were never able to say "Senator Vidal."

[renatam]

Gore Vidal has a publisher, agent, lawyers, etc. to represent his interests IF this is slander. He is no shrinking violet and has been speaking out and doing interviews recently, so clearly can challenge this assertion IF he choses to do so. Gore Vidal is no victim.

[Jelperman]

Libel law in the U.S. is a pathetic joke. Vidal is a public figure, so unless he can PROVE malice on Gumbel's part (which is almost impossible) he has no case.

Now if this country had sensible libel laws like the British, where one only has to prove the other party was lying or deliberately twisting words, you would have a point.

[TheImpaler]

This is hard to swallow. I’m with you. I would like to hear or read the entire interview.

[LenRay]

I have been reading Gore Vidal for 40 years. There is no racism in any thing he has ever written.
I have read Andrew Gumbel for what...30 minutes? As a retired journalist/editor, I find this "interview" to be skimpy, poorly done, with zero follow up question. .

As for being an aristocrat that once again shows Gumbel's ignorance. Vidal's grandfather was a Senator for a couple of terms in the 1910s, 1920s. Vidal's father divorced his mother while Vidal was very young. So Vidal was raised by his mother's parents, Sen. and Mrs. Gore (Vidal's grandfather is third cousins with Al Gore's grandfather. Vidal and Gore barely know each other.)

Vidal was educated at a great private school and has often said he was on the "fringe" of the upper crust. But always on the outside looking in. He briefly attended an Ivy League college, but barely finished one year before dropping out and joining the service when WWII brokeout. After the war he began writing his many novels, etc. Any "aristocracy" Vidal may possess is due to the dozens of best selling books.

So don't take Gumbel's words as the literal truth. Read Vidal's extensive body of work and find one racist comment. You won't.

Just like we can't blame Barack Obama for being the descendant of African's who may have been selling other African's to European slave trade.

[PleaseMakeItStop]

I wouldn't have expected this from Vidal. How disappointing.

[prog]

I used to kind of like Gore Vidal.

Not any more.

[Jelperman]

I used to find concern trolls like you amusing.

Not any more.

[editorjuno]

It's hard to imagine that someone as astute and erudite as Gore Vidal would base a clever jape on a factual error -- after all, the junior Senator from Illinois is a literal African-American with one African and one American parent, and afaik he has no direct ancestor who was a slave on American soil.

[cobobs]

I am quite willing to allow Gore Vidal to extricate himself from this one. He needs to explain himself.

[gobarackgo]

Vidal's "slave" comment is sickening. Hate speech set to poetry is still hate speech. Absolutely pathetic.

[gd h]

My image of Gore Vidal has changed forever and I'm saddened by that. I didn't read beyond the "slaves" comment.

[Calmuse]

Anyone who has read some of Vidal's memoirs ("Palimpsest" and others) should realize that on his mother's side he is the direct descendant of white racists and former slave-holders from Mississippi and Oklahoma.

Perhaps in his old age Vidal is reverting to the mentality of his maternal forebears. Or perhaps Vidal genuinely believed he was being supremely ironic with yet another variation on the shock-value pronouncements he's known for. But frankly, the remark calling Obama "a slave" was worse than offensive. It was crudely racist and beneath someone of Vidal's literary stature.

[Ms Fu]

As a black woman, I am shocked at the words of Gore Vidal, although I'm not sure why at this point I should be surprised. It is disturbing that a man who has such a stature in the literary world would have such incendiary views.

[renatam]

And that some are making excuses for it because of his stature, talent -- or for ANY reason - IF it is true.