P.J. O’Rourke hoped to make life hell for do-gooders everywhere

THOUGH HE never showed an interest in doing it, running for political office often occupied P.J. O’Rourke’s mind. Nothing bothered him so much as the sorry state of the American system, when compared with the fine way it had started out. The nadir came in 2016, when he watched the Trump/Clinton circus with ever-increasing horror. (“How the Hell Did That Happen?” was the book that followed.) Mr Trump was clearly unstable; Mrs Clinton was wrong about absolutely everything, but wrong within normal parameters. For the first time in his life, holding his handsomely large nose, he voted Democratic that November.

Would he, the Lone Humourist, make a better candidate? Very possibly. Great name recognition: some 20 books, editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, foreign-affairs chief at Rolling Stone, regular columnist for the Weekly Standard and go-to conservative on any talk show. He looked presentable, too, in chinos, blue blazer and a Brooks Brothers tie. It was a look modelled on Tom Wolfe, his favourite member of a band of glass-sharp satirists whose numbers had been dwindling ever since Swift and Voltaire. The weirder you were going to behave, the more normal you should look. He had even written books, his first two, advising on mannerly and sober living. (“Never do anything to your partner with your teeth that you wouldn’t do to an expensive waterproof wristwatch.” “Never serve oysters during a month that has no pay-cheque in it.”)