The pied piper of the conservative throng, still with us

Paul T. writes:

Mark Steyn’s new book, After America: Get Ready For Armageddon, was published August 8 and I see that its Amazon Bestsellers Rank is (are you sitting down?) No. 5 in Books and No. 1 in Books > Nonfiction > Politics.

It occurs to me, as a matter of pop-cultural interest, that books now have to have “strong opening weekends,” just like movies, and just as with movies, sales can be expected to drop sharply soon afterwards.

Amazon pitches Steyn’s book as a laugh-a-minute Jeremiad for our times: “With his trademark wit, Steyn delivers the depressing news with raw and unblinking honesty—but also with the touch of vaudeville stand-up and soft shoe that makes him the most entertaining, yet profound, columnist on the planet”. I may throw up.

LA replies:

Joining together a discussion of the impending fall of our civilization with a laugh-a-minute schtick that makes a joke out the whole thing is the very essence of decadence. And this is the mainstream conservatives’ hero. And then there’s that other conservative hero or guru, Bernard Lewis, who tells conservatives, who suck in his every word, that Islam will destroy us, unless it accepts our freedoms. The effect of both Lewis and Steyn is the same: to shape the thoughts of their conservative followers in such a way that they will DO NOTHING to defend our civilization. For the harm they’ve done, Lewis and Steyn deserve to end up in the same circle of Hell

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 10, 2011 05:33 PM | Send