Norman Mailer, speaking in March 2006 (Mp3; 17:39):

NM: A democracy is a most delicate form of government, the most delicate, that’s why it took so long to arrive in history. It depends on the language of the people becoming more artful and richer, and more elevated if you will, over the decades and the centuries. And it depends upon more and more creativity and substantiality and fine institutions and high development. And Bush is a negative force against that because he reduces language. He’s an abominable speaker. He hide behind his … I won’t get into what he hides behind.

Dotson Rader: You’re making what are essentially aesthetic objections to Bush, which to the American people, the great unwashed performing seals out there they see as elitist. You’re not making political objections. You understand what I’m saying? You’re talking about ‘he’s debasing the language’ – well, advertising debases the language. The whole culture of America is one vast debasement of language.

NM: I will insist on one thing. A democracy is dependent on wonderful language, upon the language improving not deteriorating. This country was fabulous in the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt because he spoke so well. The small taste we had of Jack Kennedy gave us the huge sense of will he felt … here was this intelligent man who obviously was indicating in subtle ways that he also wanted to improve the level of intelligence in politics and in America. Democracies are delicate. The opposite end of a democracy is fascism, always. Fascism is much more implanted in our nervous system than democracy. When we’re children, when we’re one, two, three, four years old, willy-nilly with the kindest parents in the world we’re nonetheless living in a fascistic environment if you will, a totalitarian environment, which is ‘do as you’re told’ we say to a child with all the art in the world, the child grows up knowing in some part of themselves that obeying orders is not the worst thing in the world.

DR: Well, I would say it’s a structured environment, I wouldn’t say it’s a fascistic environment.

NM: Well, the word is unpleasant and causes … but I want to underline and exaggerate it for a very direct reason. Which is democracies are always in danger of becoming fascistic, if they they turn corupt, if the people don’t become more and more intelligent and illumined, as they go along, through history, then they tend to deteriorate. I’ve said this over and over: one of the reasons the English did not collapse and go to pieces given all their reversals in the 20C is Shakespeare; just as the Irish, without Joyce, would have been much less. Now I’m not saying this just and only because I’m a semi-talented novelist. I’m saying it because language is immensely important, immensely important and Bush destroys it every time he opens his mouth.

Norman Mailer: A democracy in my mind depends, absolutely depends upon the populace becoming more and more intelligent and sensitive and aware and nuanced over the decades. When a democracy becomes more stupid it’s in danger of becoming fascistic. It’s the duty I would say of a president to make a nation more intelligent. One of the reasons Franklin Delano Roosevelt was so beloved one of the reason Jack Kennedy was so mourned is they were two of the rare examples of presidents trying to make the country more intelligent. They didn’t jump the easy conclusions all the time. When Roosevelt said ‘the only thing to fear is fear itself,’ he was introducing a concept into the public mind. He trusted the public to the extent that you could talk to them that way. Jimmy Carter tried but didn’t succeed. Remember he used that word ‘malaise’; ‘the country’s suffering from a malaise’ and of course that bombed. Well, Jimmy Carter had very good instincts up to a point but he didn’t have a sense of how to deal with the public. It’s a peculiar ability to raise the intelligence of the public and still know how to talk to them.