The Bestselling of America
I just saw this week’s New York Times listing of the top Bestsellers in the non-fiction category in America. The top four books on the list were all pretty much newcomers with three having only one week on the list and the fourth having been on for only its second week. I’m not sure whether that’s normal or unusual, but what does strike me about the top four books is that they are all political in nature with two clearly left-leaning and two clearly right-leaning. Political non-fiction has probably never been a bigger slice of the non-fiction pie than it is right now. I don’t think I’ve bought anything but political non-fiction for five years. But there is something else about this clear and obvious indication of the galvanization of American life that deserves some attention.
The books, in order of ranking, are:
1. Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson (publisher – Simon & Schuster)
2. Killing the Witches by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (publisher – St. Martin’s)
3. The Democrat Party Hates America by Mark R. Levin (publisher – Threshold Editions)
4. Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson (publisher – Viking)
It won’t surprise you that I have read (or listened to) the #1 and #4 books on this list. It also shouldn’t surprise you to see that the two right-wing books are both written by either an ex-Fox News host or a current Fox News host. O’Reilly’s book is about the Salem witch trials…get it…witch hunts. While the book is the thirteenth in Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing” series of historical thrillers and it is not about the travails of Donald Trump, it wouldn’t shock me if his readers thought there might be an implied reference. Just the fact that killing things is such a fascination to O’Reilly strikes me as more than a little macabre. And Levin’s book is all too obvious about what it argues for, the defeat of the Democrat Party in 2024. Compare that nonsense to the other two book. One is a righteous and honest recitation of the crisis of conscience experienced by a senior (though very young) member of the Trump White House during the final three months of the Trump presidency, when all the controversy and the Big Lie began as Trump’s way of denying that he did not represent the majority of American opinion about what this country is about. By all rights, one should perhaps call this a righteous right-wing book, but I doubt very many Republicans will be purchasing it. The other book is from Heather Cox Richardson, a respected historian who teaches at Boston College and writes a daily newsletter that I and many of my friends and like-minded Americans read every day. Actually, I usually read Heather’s daily summaries in the middle of the night when I wake up for a spell. There is literally no news source I value more for its objectivity and insight.
I was very aware of Heather Cox Richardson and Cassidy Hutchinson before I read this Bestseller ranking, but I must admit I didn’t really know much about either Bill O’Reilly or Mark Levin. Doing my usual light research for this story has given me a much deeper understanding of who they are and how they are linked to Fox News. The truth is that they are both bestselling authors much more so than Fox News hosts. In fact, I think it is fair to say that they became Fox News hosts because they gained so much traction for their written and public radio narratives focused on their Uber-conservative political views. But even more than their conservatism, they are both strangely infamous for their rants and outrage. Bill O’Reilly went center-stage in 2008 when an outtake of his Inside Edition show went viral because of a meltdown he had at the end of the show when he was not happy with what his producers had put on the teleprompter for him to read. His blinding rage and his comment of “Fuck it, we’ll do it live!” became a hallmark of celebrity meltdowns.
In some ways, arrogance like O’Reilly’s is not so very uncommon among accomplished people, who are often saddled with the “Doesn’t suffer fools lightly” moniker. These moments are momentarily embarrassing to be sure when they are highlighted, but are often quickly absorbed by an intelligent celebrity for their public relations value under the heading that any publicity is good publicity. Donald Trump, of course, has taken that very concept and perfected the art. In fact, it is fair to say that there is a part of the population that loves a good meltdown and admires the person for saying what they themselves are often thinking. This was very well epitomized in the 1976 classic movie Network when Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) goes mad onscreen and howls at the moon that “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” The storyline about how the network decides to exploit this rant because public reaction to it is so positive rather than negative is a case where art can truly be characterized as imitating life, only to have life (meaning the manner of dealing with political outrage by the Right in today’s political dialogue) imitate art.
Mark Levin is very much the same. He is the Howard Beale of our generation. Where O’Reilly had a momentary breakdown that got captured and went viral in a bootlegged manner, Levin seems to have a practiced version of that outrage. In 2016, a study of incendiary commentary showed that looked at “emotional display”, “misrepresentative exaggeration”, “mockery”, “conflagration”, “slippery slope”, “insulting” or “obscene language”, as the basis for popularity. Mark Levin scored the highest on the spectrum for just such onscreen mannerisms. Neither he nor Trump, nor even Bill O’Reilly are unique in taking advantage of deep-seated human rage on which to build a career, but it should worry us all that this sort of seething and not-so-submerged ill will is being encouraged to find its way to the surface and get openly expressed at every opportunity. Where does it lead? One might easily suggest that something like Palestinian angst about their treatment by the Israeli government over a protracted number of years has led to the rage that was allowed to come to the surface and express itself in violence of grotesque proportions over the last week outside the boundaries of the Gaza Strip. Where most people are smart enough to condemn this, there are a growing minority that see it as the sort of bold statement that is needed to wake up the world to their political grievances.
The surfacing of political hatred and condoning of political violence is an old and sad story for humankind. Rage and violence are Biblical and go back to Old Testament tales of Caine and Abel or even earlier. One might even say that God himself was enraged and violent when he cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for disobeying his rule of not eating of the forbidden fruit. In some ways, that depiction of the Mr. Hyde side of humanity contrasted with the enlightened and empathetic Dr. Jekyll, is the very Yin and Yang that makes up the human condition. It seems inevitable and fundamental enough that it should not surprise us when it rises up to the surface and bubbles over. And yet it does and it creates a shock and awe of its own. Even Howard Beale was ranting less about Marxism and liberal ideology, like Mark Levin does, and mostly about the ramifications of the social ailments and depravity existing in the world. That depravity is ironically best shown by the very ranting, raving and violence with which it lashes out.
But hey, you gotta sell books, right? And you gotta get the ratings and stay on the charts, as Billy Joel likes to say or you “get put in the back on the discount rack, like another can of beans.” I am therefore now suggesting that the real topic at issue here is the bestselling of America and what it is doing to our sense of civility and our very American fabric. Not a new topic, I suppose, but just another something to rant about.