This review of America, the Farewell Tour will be a little different than many of my other reviews. The book appeared in 2018 and is the work of respected journalist Chris Hedges. It is nonfiction. I’ve read one book by Hedges in past, American Fascists. It proved rather prescient, so I gave this one a try.

Without mincing words, Hedges believes that the nation has a bleak future. He’s written seven chapters (titled Decay, Heroin, Work, Sadism, Hate, Gambling, and Freedom) about areas in which national problems manifest themselves.

The writing is the work of a skilled journalist. The book offers plenty of facts and citations. But it also features human stories of how these facts play out at the individual level. Hedges interviewed numerous people and found some really touching stories. Industrial workers in deindustrializing towns. Drug addicts who are victims of the opioid crisis. Adult actresses. Gambling addicts. Prisoners working for nothing in the for-profit prison industry. White nationalists.

Review of America, the Farewell Tour – Who Are the Bad Guys?

But the book goes beyond asking “Isn’t this sad?” Hedges is confident he knows the villain responsible for most of these misfortunes. That villain is corporate capitalism.

Hedges has a rather pessimistic outlook to the extent he sees little hope in the present political system. He believes the Republican Party a cheerleader at the beck and call of the corporate capitalist system destroying the country. The party’s dedication to dismantling the parts of the New Deal that tried to rein in the excesses of capitalism is undeniable. One might say it’s been the overriding purpose of the Republican Party since the 1930s. I’ve read a few history books by respected historians stating exactly that.

However, Hedges is not naïve enough to see the Democratic Party as the antithesis of the Republicans. At least not over the past four decades. He realizes that the Democrats have two wings of their party—a reform wing and a corporate wing. (Those are my names for it, not his, but they fit with his thinking.) Of the two, the corporate wing is far stronger at present.

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Review of America, the Farewell Tour – Is There Hope?

Maybe, maybe not. Hedges isn’t afraid to state that some kind of societal collapse is possible. Indeed, one could read this book and decide it has already begun. Between the privatization of state governmental functions, the terrible nationwide cost of drug addiction, the increasing frequency of hate crimes and racism, the massive profits of the gambling industry, and a for-profit prison system that then turns the prisoners into slave labor, the challenges are daunting.

Part of Hedges’s point is that the problems he uses as chapter titles are not things that most people do when they are mentally healthy, secure, and well-connected to the people around them. People with a strong sense of community and belonging are less likely to spend their evenings watching sadistic porn videos or reading ridiculous conspiracy theories online. They are less likely to embrace the numbing effect of drugs to escape lonely lives they feel are meaningless.

The solution, to the extent that one exists, lies in small communities. It lies in people willing to step outside the net cast by corporate capitalism and live lives less compromised by the need to consume. Protests of the present system must remain nonviolent.

Who Might Enjoy This Book

I’d imagine the opening of the book will turn off some readers. Hedges cites Karl Marx and his writings about how capitalism eventually devours itself. The negative outlook of the book might turn off others. Americans especially tend to have great faith that our institutions are good ones. At least when the other political party isn’t screwing them up. But if you’ve read my review of America, the Farewell Tour this far without writing me off as a nutcase, perhaps this book is for you. (I am, of course, only summarizing what Hedges wrote. These are not ideas I came up with personally.)

Readers will have to step away from their preconceptions to give this book an honest read. It’s worth making the effort, though. You’ll probably find some things that surprise you. I try to follow national events with a critical eye, but I read a few things that had slipped past me. The book might do the same for you.

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