Hunter S. Thompson is famous for his “Gonzo” style of journalism which was unique in its melding of the artists’ personality and personal story to the subject material of his writings. In his book Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, Thompson details his work with the various campaigns including those of Ross Perot and Bill Clinton, his motivations for supporting particular political candidates even in a climate that overtly opposed his lifestyle and often leveraged the power of the state to make his life harder, as well as the overall effect of the news cycle on politics from the perspective of a decidedly addiction-aware person.
In todays hyper-speed news and information overload Thompson’s work is quickly more relevant than even the day in which he wrote. While the work itself includes many of the quirks of Thompson’s own style it provides a first hand look at his extensive correspondence with many important political figures including numerous copies of letters faxed or written by hand. Thompson’s personal correspondence provides a window into political personalities and media powerhouses which is easy to overlook but necessary to examine. Thompson, the person, reflects to us not just the dark underbelly of the American political machine but also the grim reality that only a person who is not wholly political can have the freedom to express.
Through his reporting we see how the timeline of events affects the psyches’ of all those involved in the White House administrations and how this reflects upon the larger institution as a whole. But there is something far more striking that Thompson presents in his comparison of Nixon’s evil to that of Bush or Clinton. As the rise of the television age made a person as unappealing as Nixon an impossible avatar for the American Patriot, the political machine shifts its focus to the smiling devils of Bush (Senior) and Bill Clinton that would later pave the way for the Obama years.
While the leaders of the American “free press” would love to point to the anomaly of Trump as proof that there is nothing that “good journalism” can do against a public willing to subject itself to the rule of such a despotic dunce, this only makes clear that they have done nothing to heed the dying wails of the doomed early movements of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street that sought to remedy the pains felt in the heartland of America when the last of the “good working class jobs” were finally erased during the collapse of the American auto industry and later housing crisis and financial meltdown.
In the wake of these ignored cries, what would the grotesque monster that is the American political machine turn to except for the clown that is Donald Trump? As the “middle class” sees its fleeting privileges melt by the day to join the ranks of the lower working poor the future of American remains grim. In times like these it truly is a testament to the democratic idealism that Tocqueville described (albeit as much out of aristocratic disgust as sociological curiosity) that the American people do not simply wallow is despair but still hold on to the hope that their communities can survive the onslaught of inhumanity which its Government represents.
Thompson’s book ends with a final chapter added to celebrate the passing of Nixon which happened shortly before the publishing of Better That Sex. This chapter offers us within it the reserved optimism of a person at wits’ end, driven only by the fanatic addiction of hope for a future that is a Free America. To all those that hold on to the hope that Thompson’s life and work represent, heed the calling of his ghost: Rise up! Do not sit back and fall into the malaise that allows another tyrant to ravage your world so! Seize your freedom today!