Cool Conservatism: Honoring P.J. O’Rourke’s Authenticity

In a world of conformity, writers like P.J. O’Rourke are rare, especially amidst censoring and cancel culture.

O’Rourke’s humor was a breath of fresh air in an unrelenting yet rightful manner. As ALN reported, “To baby boomers, O’Rourke was their generation’s Mark Twain. Others regarded him as America’s coolest conservative.” 

A colleague of O’Rourke’s wrote about his passing in the New York Post, 

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that P.J. was, for a long time, the only cool conservative writer in America. His pieces for Rolling Stone and Harper’s and other mainstream outlets gamely featured his horrified takes on elite cluelessness and liberal-Puritan malfeasance against ordinary American playful fun.

His most popular political work included “Parliament of Whores” and “Republican Party Reptile,” which paved a new creative landscape in the assessment of Washington and critiqued both the left and the right. He once quipped, “The mystery of government is not how Washington works, but how to make it stop.” 

In a piece honoring the writer, The Patriot Post wrote,

Until yesterday, O’Rourke had more citations in The Penguin Dictionary of Humorous Quotations than any other living writer. He wasn’t just a one-liner churner-outer, though. Far from it. He especially loved the dismal science of economics, even going so far as to read Adam Smith’s torturously long and dry and important The Wealth of Nations and write a book about it.

Young writers should look up to O’Rourke, not to emulate his writing style or personality, but to be inspired by his authenticity.