So much has happened on the American political stage since Frank Bruni published his latest book, The Age of Grievance, in April that he could already fill another one worth of analysis.
Mr. Bruni spoke at the Chilmark Community Center on Thursday evening, opening up the 2024 Martha’s Vineyard Author Series. He was interviewed on stage by NPR political correspondent Mara Liasson.
When Ms. Liasson asked what addendum Mr. Bruni would make to his book based on current events, he said he could focus on the past week alone. He said that he viewed President Biden’s response to the negative reaction to his Presidential debate as another example of victim mentality.
“We’re in a moment in time where if you want to get out of a scrape, if you want to appeal to people, you make yourself a victim and you start articulating your grievances,” Mr. Bruni said. “The way [President Biden’s] done that in the last eight days is almost inevitable and predictable, given where our culture is.”
Mr. Bruni is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, where he has covered a wide range of topics since 1995. The Age of Grievance is his sixth book. It analyzes the ways in which the problems and complaints of Americans have shaped the political and cultural landscape of the country. The idea for the book came from a shift Mr. Bruni observed in the news.
“I began to notice five years ago how a word that I had not seen that much in journalism before, grievance, was coming up again and again,” Mr. Bruni said. “I didn’t used to see this word all the time, but what I realized even more was when I’d see the word in the distant past, it was kind of value neutral.”
Mr. Bruni said that not all grievances are made equal, but when legitimate complaints and lesser complaints are treated with the same severity it leads to more political turmoil, such as the country is experiencing today.
“We all know there’s a difference between things that cannot be abided and things that are differences of opinion,” he said. “We’re not discerning and we don’t discriminate in the good sense.”
During the question and answer session, the conversation turned to the state of young people in the country. Mr. Bruni, who is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, said that the younger generation is also struggling with how to discern legitimate grievances.
He said he finds hope in his classroom.
“I spend a lot of time in my classes, whenever there’s an opportunity, talking about the way they use social media and whether they set up their social media universe in a way that actually is aligned with that they intended, what their values are,” he said. “They’re very interested in that kind of self-examination. You find them able to be more self-aware and more interested in self-improvement than the caricatures in the media suggest.”
Mr. Bruni said he also finds hope beyond the classroom, looking to Vermont and Kentucky as examples of bipartisan collaboration.
“I’m cautiously hopeful, but I am hopeful,” Mr. Bruni said. “There are politicians who are modeling consensus-oriented compromise approach to leadership that tells us there’s an appetite for something different, that there’s a better way.”
Next up for the Author Series is Percival Everett on July 21. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is scheduled to speak on July 27 about her autobiography True Gretch.
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