Voz media US Voz.us
Apple store Voz-media Play store Voz Media

David Mamet finds hope in Hispanics: "They are super smart, work hard and believe in God and family"

The author of the book 'Recessional' acknowledges that "I was hooked on progressive ideas, which are as addictive as drugs or alcohol."

David Mamet en un rodaje / Cordon Press.

David Mamet en un rodaje / Cordon Press.

Published by
José Carlos Rodríguez

David Mamet (Chicago, 1947) has made a career out of film and literature as a screenwriter, playwright, novelist, and film director. Mamet has dabbled in every facet of theatre and film, always portraying society with a critical eye.

That look was left-wing. The son of two communists, Mamet began his career under the influence of May '68 and the new left. In 1984 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glenn Ross, which was later made into a movie with an outstanding cast: Jack Lemon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, and Alec Baldwin. He had a trouble-free career full of wonderful moments, such as his play Oleanna.

"Hooked on progressive ideas"

His critical spirit has taken him to places he never expected to find himself, like rethinking his leftist ideas. "I was hooked on progressive ideas, which are as addictive as drugs or alcohol," he said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. When asked why he believes progressivism is addictive, Mamet said:

Because woke ideas cause people to feel a mixture of anger and outrage, and that combination secretes some kind of pleasurable hormone in the body. No one feels more powerful and self-confident than when he or she is in a fit of indignant rage. Such is the power that the progressive feels in these circumstances, that he says crazy things like: "Laws are no longer useful" or "what matters is what I feel." As soon as that happens, the fox is already in charge of the henhouse. That precipitated the fall of Persia, of Rome, of the USSR... and, I am afraid, that is what is happening now in the West.

Hope lies in the Hispanic community

This apocalyptic tone is prevalent throughout the entire interview. So much so, that the interviewer was forced to ask him, "Don't you see hope?" The playwright said:

Yes, Latinos. They are super smart, work hard, and believe in God and family. At some point, three or four decades from now, they will form an electoral bloc large enough to regain control of the state.

Hispanics are that sleeping giant which is on its way to becoming the largest minority in the country. They now vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, but for reasons unrelated to the woke movement. In fact, it appears that their preference for that party is fading fast.

Hiding beliefs

In the interview, Mamet talked about what his transition was like from an icon of American progressivism to being a conservative Donald Trump supporter:

It happens to a lot of people. To get out of that pit, you first have to hit rock bottom. It happened to me two decades ago, when I told a friend that I hid my books by Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman whenever I had visitors. 'Why do you do that?' he asked me. 'Because they laugh at me,' I replied. And suddenly I saw how ridiculous my behavior was. I had been defending the freedom of expression all my life, and suddenly I was afraid of people's mockery... for reading right-wing authors! For reading right-wing authors!

That is exactly what he talks about in his latest book, Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch. The book, as its title promises, discusses censorship. Is it our main problem?

More than a problem, it is a symptom of the inertia of modern civilization: the fear caused by the excess of prosperity. When people get too rich, they outsource their cumbersome activities to foreigners, whether it's picking fruit or serving in the military, and spend extra time looking for trouble where there is none. What if the police are overfunded? What if we are destroying the planet? What if children are born in the wrong body? All are fears provoked by an excess of prosperity, but no one dares to question this leftist rhetoric.

Mamet, at one point in the interview, talked about how many don't buy into the Woke ideology: "technicians, make-up artists, cameramen, scriptwriters... They come up to me and say quietly, 'I agree with everything you say.' But they whisper it because they know that if they put a Trump election bumper sticker on their car, they're out of a job." He acknowledged that his "value in the industry has dropped for speaking [his] mind."

tracking