Monsters of Warhol

Piers Morgan has been flailing ever since he took over Larry King's old show. It didn't help matters any that CNN was a struggling network, unable to maintain its identity in a competitive partisan news environment. But it didn't help matters either that Morgan was a crooked hack who had used up all his chances on the other side of the ocean. Like Tina Brown, he was here for a fresh start, because everything can be new in America all over again. But what he needed was a hook.

Morgan had been chosen for his celeb cred. The thinking was that a man with a British accent and a talent for showing up around famous people and digging up sleaze on them would jumpstart Larry King's tired old show. That plan failed. Plan B was a cause. For months, Piers Morgan had been pushing gun control, mostly on Twitter, but like Al Gore and the angry melting polar bears, he was plugging away at it. Morgan did not really care about gun control or about America. Most European urban elites take it as an article of faith that Americans are obsessed with guns and go around shooting everything. They grew up watching cowboy movies shot in Spain, but starring Clint Eastwood, which just reinforced their belief that the colonials are savages. They visit the United States and exchange shocked stories about gun toting old ladies the way that Americans visit Amsterdam and exchange stories about its open prostitution. What looks like Piers Morgan advocating a cause is the equivalent of an American coming to Paris and running a talk show where he spends hours screaming at French guests about their hygiene, their morals and how much they owe the United States for WW2. It's not so much a cause, as it is a lazy prejudice from the other side of the ocean.

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But to dimwitted American liberals, who denounce class differences but wag their tails at the sound of a British accent, no matter how low class, Piers Morgan is another intelligent visitor from an advanced continent speaking truth to the native barbarians. That is how Morgan sees it too. But Morgan is, above all else, a creature of the spotlight. A modern creation, he exists to be on camera. Fame is his oxygen. Media is how he pays the rent. He makes noise, throws causes at the wall and sees what people will pay attention to. The content doesn't matter much. If Piers Morgan had to advocate cannibalism to keep CNN from firing him for another week, he would have a BBQ pit on the show by tonight.

Piers Morgan is a pre-internet troll

Piers Morgan is a pre-internet troll. You can argue with him, but you can't truly defeat him. All you can do is make him more famous. The petition and his screaming fits about gun control have finally made him something close to a household name. Rather than deporting him, the petition all but insured that he will stay. And it will insure that he will focus more on political causes because they have paid off for him. Morgan's American equivalent is Alex Jones, who throws together whatever sticks on the conspiracy side of the charts. Alex Jones fakes left when a Republican is in office and right when a Democrat is in office. He can play libertarian if it gets him links from Matt Drudge. Like Morgan, his only real politics is Jonesism. Both men are empty soulless blowhards who understand each other perfectly well and feed off each other like an orgy of sinners in some Dantean hell. They are both media parasites who believe nothing, but will do anything to get attention. And both men are working at cross-purposes, but not in the way you might think. Piers Morgan does not want there to be gun control, because that would end his ability to talk about gun control. Alex Jones wants there to be gun control, because it lets him talk about fighting against gun control. Neither man has a cause, both have airtime. And when you have airtime, then you want controversies, not solutions. We are beset with men and women like these, who have no political goals, only personal ones, who destroy whatever they touch and who exist only to get attention. They are the Warhol monsters of our time and they take any idea and make it dumber and take any cause and discredit it. They are the heaving ids of a dying media spectacle crying out for 15 more minutes of fame. And then 15 more. Both of them want lots of Newtowns, because it is the conflict that they want. There are some in the media who want power without conflict, without the friction that makes for headlines but slows down the express train of progressive policymaking, and then there are those who live for the friction. Men and women with holes for souls who are nothing if they aren't shouting and whose only journalistic skills are those of the carnival barker. Like celebrities they need attention. Like celebrities they are nothing without it.