To most readers of this blague, Norman Podhoretz is a nonentity, but for a while there, he was a big deal in certain intellectual circles. His youthful autobiography, Making It (1967), elicited howls of indignation. Nowadays, it's impossible not to read Making It retrospectively, because it's undeniable that the author, who began life as liberal or progressive, has metamorphosed, over the years, into a monster. He is now a full bore Trumpian fascist. In the Podhoretz universe, abortion is infanticide and homosexuality constitutes a danger to the polity. Although the child of shtetl Jews, Podhoretz is now stridently anti-immigrant. In 2010, he ridiculously proclaimed that "I would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama." He has called the Trump presidency "a kind of miracle" and announced that Trump is "a vessel chosen by God to save us from the evil on the Left." Such a sentiment is not just echo-chamber conservative twaddle: it's nutso insanity pure and simple.
How much of Podhoretz's wandering in the wilderness can be traced to his Brownsville Brooklyn childhood and youth is hard to say? Making It is a most peculiar autobiography. It's beautifully written — in the sense that the arguments are finely deployed and the sentences are lucid, sometimes even lyrical. But it's also clear that Podhoretz, from the start, was the kind of obnoxious guy who delighted in provocation. It's not uncommon for Brooklynites of his generation to wish to leave Brooklyn behind. Podhoretz is shameless about his ambition: he had "a vulgar desire to rise above the class into which he was born."
Most megalomaniacal autobiographers want to be liked. Not Podhoretz. He strives to be disliked, even hated, and in this he succeeds. He had a fear of becoming an "inauthentic WASP" but that's exactly what he became. The further to the right he went, the further away from his mother's embarrassing Yiddish accent. A sad life.
The character in literature who Podhoretz most resembles is Johnny Rocco in Key Largo, who wants "more."
- Johnny Rocco: There's only one Johnny Rocco.
- James Temple: How do you account for it?
- Frank McCloud: He knows what he wants. Don't you, Rocco?
- Johnny Rocco: Sure.
- James Temple: What's that?
- Frank McCloud: Tell him, Rocco.
- Johnny Rocco: Well, I want uh …
- Frank McCloud: He wants more, don't you, Rocco?
- Johnny Rocco: Yeah. That's it. More. That's right! I want more!
- James Temple: Will you ever get enough?
- Frank McCloud: Will you, Rocco?
- Johnny Rocco: Well, I never have. No, I guess I won't.
Podhoretz's "more" is similarly empty and was similarly dangerous.
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