I am a huge Hunter S. Thompson fan and this administration sorely needs someone with a visceral way with words to eviscerate them the way Mr. Thompson did to Nixon.
I was given a copy of The Great Shark Hunt in the late 80s, possibly early 90s that looked road weary even then. I still have it. It is a little more tattered, the spine held together with tape, front and back covers completely missing. Even in this condition it is one of my prized possessions. Over the years, as our collection of physical books has gotten smaller this battered mass market paperback has remained. This book was my introduction to the Raider Nation, my oeuvre into American politics and the source of a personal mantra that might or might not helped me embrace the person that I am.
I saw a quote recently that help remind me of what is missing from American politics. While Jon Stewart and John Oliver are entertaining, they are primarily comedians backed by teams of writers. Hunter S. Thompson was a writer who dared to fuck with authority figures, it is a wonder he lived to oldish age. Hunter S. Thompson was both a student of the history of American politics and a futurist.
The quote that has resonated so much with me of late:
“The slow-rising central horror of ‘Watergate’ is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it.”
Over the years, I have found myself reading Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan, itself an homage to HST, prior to every election cycle but in order to survive this administration
