When Ann Coulter appeared on The View today, she was hard pressed to get a word in edgewise. On the program to promote her new book, Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole, Coulter needed no help to make herself look like a fool. Nevertheless, the show’s hosts aggressively jumped on every remark Coulter made, repeatedly interrupting and talking over her. Describing Coulter as a “smugly white performance artist,” Gawker’s Rich Juzwiak suggested there was something admirable about their assault. And there was! But if you really want to make Coulter look like a fool, the best option might be to simply let her speak.
Consider Coulter’s response when Ana Navarro asked her to clarify the meaning of her book’s title:
What it means is that the nation that has been so welcoming to immigrants, to women, to children—it’s an amazingly successful nation—and the democrats do it for the votes, the rich do it for the cheap labor and the cheap maids. They strut around like they’re Martin Luther King. No! Who is our immigration policy hurting? And this is the post-1965 immigration. We’re bringing in millions and millions of people from very poor cultures, from very backwards cultures. No. Our social programs are for the American poor, they are for…
At this point, Navarro interrupted Coulter, engaging with what she had just said as if it were worth engaging. By dignifying Coulter’s digressive monologue, Navarro and her co-hosts do the author’s work for her, saving her the trouble of actually constructing an argument and creating a picture of a truth-telling conservative set upon by rude libtards.
Argumentatively incoherent, Coulter’s positions effectively rely on the likelihood that someone will cut her off. The anger of others fuels her: Without it, her bromides quickly burn out. Let her speak for herself.
Here are a few passages from the opening chapters of Adios, America.
- Coulter repeatedly returns to the idea that immigration will somehow destroy American democracy. Reading between the lines, she seems to suggest that the solution is to deny Hispanic Americans the vote:
- In Coulter’s world, a commitment to immigration rights derives from a legacy of hatred for America. Or something:
- Except that supporting immigration is also always self-interested. Did you think Coulter was on your side? She’s not. She thinks you’re an idiot too:
- If I read this right, Coulter believes that immigrants are responsible for all crimes, and most major diseases to boot. At least she has endnotes:
- And lest you mistake Coulter for a family values conservative, she makes it clear that families are terrible too:
