Travel Channel

At a time, the waning days of 2016, and on a topic, the presidential election, where simple explanations are elusive, Anthony Bourdain, the chef, author and TV host, gives it a go, in an interview with the libertarian monthly Reason published this week:

‘The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that we’re seeing now.’

Bourdain goes on in that section of the interview (which also touches on nationalism, authoritarianism, vegetarianism and more) that “a hell of a lot of nice people” reside in “gun-country, God-fearing America” and that no one benefits from treating swaths of the country dismissively or with disdain. “Nothing,” he says, “nauseates me more than preaching to the converted.”

Elsewhere in the interview he tepidly defends a previously stated view that a vegan or even vegetarian life is a life not worth living, saying he equates fundamental animal-derived ingredients with joy and pleasure, which he calls central to the work of the chef.

Also in Key Words:

George Soros: Democracy is in crisis around the world, and don’t count on Trump to rise to its defense

Harry Reid ponders his party’s presidential prospects for 2020: ‘an old folks’ home’