Paul Auster Stands Up for Liberalism

Gothamist has a great interview with Paul Auster up today, and included amidst some interesting insights from the author is this superb tangent on politics:

"Well we’re a very divided country and it seems to be split right down the middle. It’s not as if it’s 55-45. It’s 50-50. And as the rhetorical climate has gotten uglier and uglier over the years, the two sides have gotten unable to talk to each other. We don’t listen. It’s become deeply frustrating to be an American right now, to look at all the problems we have and not be able to discuss them frankly. Because basically the side that I don’t belong to just seems to want to ignore the problems, attack the other side and make fun of them. People who are Democrats, liberals, are unable to announce the fact that they are liberals. Which, to me, is shocking. Because liberalism is what the whole country was founded on. The founding fathers were liberals: secular, sophisticated, elitist liberals.

They created the country and the ideas we’re founded on. And every good thing that we’ve produced since has been the work of the liberal imagination. Everything from Social Security to Medicare to civil rights action and so on. And I think the liberals in the United States should be prouder of their accomplishments and stand up and defend them more vigorously."