Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century

by Chuck Klosterman

II. Simplify, then exaggerate. The McLaughlin Group is not about details. If you want details, don’t watch television. Also, don’t read newspapers or magazines and stay off the Internet—buy nonpartisan books about events that happened no less than ten years ago. Modernity is not detail oriented. What The McLaughlin Group is about is the abstraction of policy, delivered in the most propulsive way possible. Here’s the formula: Take a specific news item, locate its core essence, and then debate its metaphoric significance on the grandest possible scale. Nobody cares if Hillary is up four points in South Carolina; what’s compelling is the notion that those four points could somehow represent the potential for how the new American South may (or may not) be rethinking the role of women in society. On CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, all they talk about is politics. On The McLaughlin Group, they talk about political science. And—yes—I suppose it’s the junk science version of political science, but it’s still more engaging than the alternative.