There is a boldness about simplicity, even over-simplicity, that is morally attractive, as if to defy reality, to deny complexity, is an assertion of moral superiority, of the power of mind over matter, of will over all the mundane and ignoble circumstances governing our lives.

Gertrude Himmelfarb Introduction to J.S. Mill’s On Liberty

Morton Downey is the name of the show, a syndicated effort presided over by the title character, the kind of opinionated shirt-grabbing shvitzer who clears out neighborhood bars. A big mouth the guy has, literally, with large, improbably white teeth, the centerpiece of a rubbery mug with ready-to-bug-out eyes. It’s a caricature face, recognizably belonging to just one of the gang—the one you don’t want to hang with too much because you know he’s going to get on your nerves by talking loud and long about things you can just tell (I mean, look at that face, those buttinski manners) that he has no special insight into. What he does have, though, to compensate for the low candlepower upstairs, is nerve. Sheer unmitigated gall, as the old folks say. The kind of boldness that even people who should know better are now and then moved to admire.

Downey’sformat is pseudo talk show; each day has its topic, usually something political (a wide net these days). A few guests sit on the stage in chairs, pro and conners address the world from the audience. Downey, whose orientation is doctrinaire

post-Reagan conservative in populist’s clothing, shambles across the stage, smoking, jabbing, exhorting, badgering. Thought the show usually starts quietly (after a rousing precredit spot), spelling out the selected issue as simply as is humanly possible, things get to the shouting stage pretty quickly thanks to Downey’s knack for inciting a riot and the fact that the audience is always, to put it

mildly, up for the show. They scream and they chant while the panning camera reveals them to be the usual suspects—beer bellies, anal retentive suit wearers, Howard Beach understudies, i.e., the Reagan coalition minus the ever-clannish God squad. They cheer Mort when he moves in for the kill and hoot their bloodlust when he strikes home with his pearly fangs. The appeal of this cathartic ritual is undeniable, though it’s bound to be a guilty pleasure for anyone whose sense of hatred hasn’t been properly nurtured. Myself, I purred with pleasure the time Mort nailed the vegetarian/health nut— as a burger-scarfing cigar smoker. I appreciated the blasphemies (rarely are we sinners so vigorously defended)—but it would have been so much more satisfying if the victim had not resembled a trembling rabbit caught in the headlights.

But then it’s softies like me that really get Downey’s blood to boiling—‘pablum pukers” he calls us (ad nauseam—though his show biz instincts are pretty sound, he sometimes doesn’t know when it’s time to retire a riff), we weaklings who would hesitate that fatal second before putting the boot to the face. ’Cause in Mort’s world you gotta be one hairy sonofabitch to stand up against the commies, those shadowy, almost mythicevildoerslurking behindall that’s wrong with our beloved system. Of course, Mort may only seem to have commies on the brain . . .

what he does have is the Reaganite ability to put across essentially elitist ideas in terms of common man needs and desires. Not so hard, what with common man aspiring to elitism, but there is some trickery involved. For example: Downey does a show on rent control. You can’t get people jumping out of their seats because renters are gouging the poor landlords (the conservative position). So you a) call rent control “socialized housing”—has a nice pinko ring to it, b) invite a particularly fractious city commissioner and then attack her for being an ex-commie—a little off the subject, but it gets the juices flowing, c) mention taxes as often as possible—guaranteed to induce blind fury no matter what the topic. Taxes and commies (they’re real! they’re coming! they’re here!) are the main diversions, though child abuse is a featured fallback (Downey even managed to work that one into a discussion of the Persian Gulf).

Mort works this scam so well that I’ve had smart, if politically unsophisticated, people tell me that they didn’t

think he was a “real” conservative. There’s no doubt, he’s the master of the emotional pitch. But if you can get past that, the best thing about the show isn’t that it offers the opportunity to watch an ace manipulator bury a topic under a pile of self-serving, blood-pressure-raising irrelevancies, but rather the way it manages to convey that mixture of hurt pride and desperation that’s behind the Reaganite flag waving. Downey has taken the brittle new patriotism out of the contented context of beer and Jeep commercials and put it in a more appropriate arena where the prevailing emotions are fear, confusion, hysteria, and unhappiness— and where the closest thing to an expression of joy is some apoplectic sap bellowing “SHUT UP!!!” Meanwhile, kicked back on the couch with ourfavorite refreshment, watching with glee as, after eight years of the most conservative president in history, the right-wing .dies its slow death shouting inanities and beating its breast, we pablum pukers are havin’ a ball.