“America…just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.” -Hunter S. Thompson
Do you know when Hunter said that? He said it in September of 1972 when he realized that George McGovern wasn’t just going to lose to Richard M. Nixon, but lose in an unprecedented landslide. As election day approached, his mood continued to darken.
The ugly fallout from the American Dream has been coming down on us at a pretty consistent rate since Sitting Bull’s time-and the only real difference now, with Election Day ’72 only a few weeks away, is that we seem to be on the verge of ratifying the fallout and forgetting the Dream itself.
And then Hunter finally got to the point:
We’ve come to a point where every four years this national fever rises up–this hunger for the Saviour, the White Knight, the Man on Horseback–and whoever wins becomes so immensely powerful, like Nixon is now, that when you vote for President today you’re talking about giving a man dictatorial power for four years. I think it might be better to have the President sort of like the King of England–or the Queen–and have the real business of the presidency conducted by…a City Manager-type, a Prime Minister, somebody who’s directly answerable to Congress, rather than a person who moves all his friends into the White House and does whatever he wants for four years. The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It’s come to the point where you almost can’t run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.
Nixon wasn’t as powerful as he appeared. Neither is Dick Cheney. The people sent a message in 1974 and 1976 and we got much needed reforms. That bought Hunter a few decades of semi-sanity. But it all came to an end on election night in 2000.
There was one exact moment, in fact, when I knew for sure that Al Gore would never be President of the United States, no matter what the experts were saying— and that was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore winning Florida. It was Nonsense, said the Candidate, Utter nonsense. . . Anybody who believed Bush had lost Florida was a Fool. The Media, all of them, were Liars & Dunces or treacherous whores trying to sabotage his victory. . . Here was the whole bloody Family laughing & hooting & sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV. The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth. The sheep’s fate was sealed, and so was Al Gore’s.- * “The Fix is In” (November 27, 2000)
And it took him less than a day to foresee how 9/11 would play out.
* The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now— with somebody— and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.- o “Fear & Loathing in America” (September 12, 2001)
* It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. . . We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? -o “Fear & Loathing in America” (September 12, 2001)
In November 2004 we “ratified the fallout and forgot the Dream itself. Here is his suicide note from February 20, 2005.
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won’t hurt.
Hunter got old and worn down. We need to pick up his banner and keep pushing forward. Remember:
Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of the rat race is not yet final.
Better times are coming. At least, for a time.
