What a difference a day can make. As of November 7, 2016, Garrison Keillor’s distinctive voice, as instantly recognizable on the page as on the air, retained its signature avuncular warmth, despite increasingly political subject matter occasioned by the presidential election. By November 8, 2016, what had been cozy and familiar for decades took on a new emphasis, not because Keillor had changed his tune, but because the world had shifted around him. Years of the drip-drip erosion of rational standards for political discourse had finally yielded to an all-out flood of posturing, fabrication, and lies, leaving the majority of voters feeling soaked. Since then, primarily through his newspaper columns, Keillor has emerged as one of the most trenchant critics of the president-elect, indicting his behavior on the grounds of common decency and doing so in the simple, straightforward language of his beloved Midwest.
When he comes to town on Sunday, January 22, Keillor will do so as a prime example of the loyal opposition, as in those who pledge themselves to resisting the majority in power while at the same time supporting the fundamental principles of the government to which that majority has been elected. First formulated to protect members of parliament from politically motivated charges of treason, the concept of the loyal opposition has never been as necessary in the American republic as it is today, and Garrison Keillor, without ever having held public office, nevertheless represents one of its most important voices. With a commitment to political satire that extends back to his 1999 novel Me by Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, a takedown of then Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, Keillor has thought long and hard about what to say about a hyped-up, thin-skinned, self-absorbed con man who holds high political office. At a moment when even the most seasoned writers in American politics have thrown up their hands in disbelief, there’s at least this one level-headed man with a laptop who can claim relevant experience wrestling against this particular type of heel.
In the following email conversation with Keillor last week, I heard America singing, and it sounded like early Elvis Presley. What follows is a transcript of that exchange.