PanThe RumpusBeginning with the Iowa Straw Poll, dipping into the mass murder at the Emmanuel AME church, and swinging back out again, Sexton’s book is a whiplash trip through an all-too-recent election. There are quieter moments, too, of watching cable news in dingy hotels, and of drinking cheap watered-down beer with locals. But every moment is scorched through with white male rage. The book is meant to be a Kurtz-like journey into the dark heart of white Middle America but gets lost in the weeds of its own observations and instead becomes an idiosyncratic portrait of a country, revealing nothing except what our narratives have always overlooked—the concerns of women and people of color ... Sexton shreds objectivity in a valiant Gonzo-like effort. But in a book that argues we are divided and stuck in our own echo chambers, Sexton’s own divide goes unexamined, his own echo chamber unchallenged ... His contempt for Trump supporters ultimately undermines his analysis. A writer cannot offer humanity and complexity on the page while simultaneously insulting and despising his subjects. How can Sexton identify with the people he is profiling and also dismiss them with classist language? It’s a contradiction that would have been worthy of examination; instead, it’s glossed over ... fails to rise above surface-level observations, privileging white male rage over all other strains of anger that surge through America, including the anger we now see growing against the current administration.
