Our civilization is losing interest in doing anything in moderation. To be sure, there are some terrible things in the middle of the road. Behold lackluster, centrist politicians, for example. And culturally, America has made the whole world a little bit happier by demonstrating that taking things to gaudy extremes can be liberating and fun. Half the reason I was never a full-fledged militarist is because I assumed the West could already conquer the globe through the unstoppable popularity of bikinis, rock ‘n’ roll, muscle cars, and skydiving.
But while I notice three celebrities in the news recently for passing away after livin’ large—and partly through their ostentation winning cheers from the world—I can’t help noticing another trio in the news who, though superficially similar, have tended to make the whole world angrier and less pleasant. The contrast is a useful reminder that, as the wise have warned since Aristotle, you can take a good thing too far.
The praise heaped on Dolly Parton when she passed away was a nice alternative to the usual sniping in show biz gossip. Whether you’re more pleased that she mostly sang like a conservative or occasionally talked like a liberal, intellectually honest people could tell she usually tried to stay above the fray and hew to simpler, pre-political standards such as politeness and good cheer. It’s not a coincidence she sang a couple of my mom’s favorite songs. Whether you were Kenny Rogers, Pee-wee Herman, or a Muppet, you knew you were lucky to have her join you in a duet. She made listeners optimistic that hokey things like the carnivalesque country-and-western attractions of Branson, Missouri are rooted in good will after all and are not, as some recent Hollywood writers might insist, fronts for white supremacism or theocracy.
Donald Trump’s Sinatra-like evocations of New York, Atlantic City, Vegas, and D.C., by contrast, have always had an air of menace about them. Even when you agree with some of his policies, you get the unmistakable impression that his version of Americana has less to do with him hoping every last individual in this land is enjoying himself and fulfilling his potential than with him hoping you will feel like a chump when your canoe gets swamped by one of his sons operating a jet ski. Ha ha! Did you see the looks on their dumb faces, etc. You can be an eccentric, even a showboater, without making anyone else in this land miserable. You should try it sometime, as should the President.
These basic principles apply around the world, of course, and not surprisingly apply especially well in America’s de facto parent country, the U.K. So it is that we’ve long since gotten over feeling any serious lingering resentment over the revolutionary/secessionist war the two countries fought two and a half centuries ago and, despite the left’s tireless propaganda campaign to convince us the U.S. is still uptight and puritanical, we’re accepting of decadent British imports such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show—and now mourn the passing of the lead actor/singer in its 1970s film version, consummate drag queen Tim Curry. Entertain people and you can get away with almost anything here. But there’s a difference (usually) between a rock singer hosting an orgy and Caligula hosting an orgy. Bending the usual rules of propriety to some acclaim doesn’t mean you have now transcended all rules of morality and should be allowed to rape and murder. The character Curry most famously played, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, didn’t understand that distinction and was killed for it, which didn’t make us wish a similar fate upon Curry.
British (and for a time, via illegal immigration, American) pundit Milo Yiannopoulos, by contrast, happily plays into the Weimar-like idea that the next logical step after the rise of queer (or now purportedly ex-queer) right-wingers like him is actual fascist jackboots and mass arrests—and oh what decadent fun that will be, etc. He makes occasional good points and tweaks college liberals who deserve tweaking, and he doesn’t urge becoming a Nazi, but (a bit like the pundit-barbarian Bronze Age Pervert) he suggests ancient Sparta understood virtue better than Enlightenment-era Europe or present-day America, and that’s truly perverse. What exactly are right-wingers like him conserving these days? Time-honored traditions such as laughing at peasants who get crushed under chariot wheels? There are better ways, both old and new.
Next week marks two grim anniversaries, the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and, similarly traumatizing for some, the one-year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s 9/10/25 assassination. I think one can coherently admire Kirk and condemn the likes of Trump and Milo even though Kirk himself greatly, almost fawningly, admired Trump. When he likened the U.S. to Rome, for instance, he wasn’t hoping for it to engage in brutal crackdowns employing legions of centurions the way Trump might envision while grinning sadistically at a new A.I.-generated viral video but rather hoping the U.S. would genuinely achieve greatness that would make it deservedly respected for centuries and millennia to come. If Kirk was wrong to see Trump as a means to that sort of greatness, I think we should attribute that more to youthful naivete than to ill will, no matter what some of his ghoulish critics said after his death. (And if people sometimes find the behavior of his widow Erika Kirk strange, keep in mind she inherits from Charlie a gigantic, sprawling, sometimes tacky media operation almost as unruly but as quintessentially American as the country-western shows and puppet acts mentioned above. There’s a limit to how normal her mourning can look under these circumstances.)
Less forgivable is the attack-dog approach to punditry (and unofficial government service) performed by Laura Loomer, the worshipful informal Trump advisor whose efforts to get numerous Trump administration figures fired for insufficient loyalty to the President looks almost Robespierre-like compared to Charlie Kirk’s Mormon-ish optimism. She now crows that she got Milo “LOOMERED,” that is, detained by I.C.E. and soon deported (for overstaying his visa). There are likely very few observers of American politics, even in the most fanatically Trumpian quarters, who fail to see the rough justice in ludicrous Trump-era figures like Milo and Loomer destroying each other—a reductio Milo, if you will.
It can be exhausting picking through the wreckage of 21st-century culture to identify the good parts and the bad parts, but we’re morally obligated to try, even when it seems easier to lump it all together and throw it on the ash heap of history, next to the rhinestones and MAGA hats.
—Todd Seavey is the author of Libertarianism for Beginners and is on X at @ToddSeavey