Decline and Fall

by David Remnick
The New Yorker
November 14, 2011

Sometime in the future, when a twenty-first-century Gibbon searches for a moment to use as a starting point for a chronicle of American decline, he or she might want to alight on the late-October and early-November days of 2011. Not that there is much to be gained from such spectacles as the abruptly sundered union of a power forward and a callipygian star of tele-realism—the Age of Kardashian is barely distinguishable from the Age of Hilton—but a chronicler could profit richly from reviewing the week just experienced by those ambitious members of the Republican Party who have put themselves forward as candidates to revive a fallen nation and lead the march down Nostalgia Avenue and up to the City on a Hill.

Let’s begin with Governor Rick Perry, of Texas, who gave a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire, that was so obscurely digressive, so marked by airy hand gestures and slurry intonations that it was as if Foster Brooks were playing a character called Rick Perry. And, in the days that followed, the Governor found himself forced to answer questions as to whether he had in fact been drunk. Until then, Perry had seemed glum and witless, especially in debates, heartbroken by his inability to answer a simple question with a coherent reply. Now, suddenly, he was pumped up with helium cheer and unnerving confidence. Forced to make sense of the performance, Perry told Carla Marinucci, of the San Francisco Chronicle, that this was just a “pretty typical speech for me,” and that, while he had undergone back surgery, in July, he had not been taking painkillers and was clearheaded. Marinucci asked him if he was trying to “reboot” his drive for the Presidency. “Reboot?” Perry said. “I’m already rebooted.”

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