Ben Fountain

“The American identity is mind-bogglingly various.”

“In true demagogic fashion, Trump bypassed the head and spoke directly to the gut, to the biles and bubbling acids of raw emotion.”

“My first visit to Haiti was in May 1991, four months into the initial term of Haiti's first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. At the time, it seemed that Haiti was on...”

“In the arsenal of the phony, the politics of God is one of the deadliest punches to the sweet spot of the American mind.”

“Democracy's premise rests on the notion that the collective wisdom of the majority will prove right more often than it's wrong; that given sufficient opportunity in the pursuit of happiness,...”

“From the start, Trump's rallies had the air of the tent revival, that same hot thrum of militant exorcism and ecstasy.”

“The Gilded Age robber barons - the Goulds, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans and Rockefellers - did quite well under laissez-faire. Most of the rest of Americans were still stuck in the ditch, wi...”

“Upward mobility across classes peaked in the U.S. in the late 19th century. Most of the gains of the 20th century were achieved en masse; it wasn't so much a phenomenon of great numbers of p...”

“If you want to see a bunch of happy Americans, go out to opening day at any baseball stadium in the land.”

“Political rights notwithstanding, 'freedom' rings awfully hollow when you're getting nickel-and-dimed to death in your everyday life.”