Is David Cole a jerk as a writer?

[ “What’s up with David Cole?”]

By A Longtime Reader
sunday, october 6, 2024 at 5:45:00 p.m. edt

This is not about his political and social commentary, which I often find sensible. I don’t care for David Cole’s writing on stylistic grounds which link to more serious intellectual failings.

Number one is his frequent resorting to profanity in the most trivial occasions. Resorting to the s- and f-words in ordinary discourse is like a dinner guest ostentatiously picking his nose and admiring the results for all to see: the ne plus ultra of bad manners. More than this, it demonstrates a lamentably impoverished vocabulary when all one can say is “s—t” and “f—k,” instead of whatever expressions that can convey precisely what you mean.

Another problem with his writing is his hyperbolic style, the extreme exaggerations of his comparisons. We are supposed to admire them or laugh at his prompting, but they don’t work for me, being too far-fetched—grossly so, to the point of stupidity or meaninglessness.

Thirdly, in his Takimag column and his emails from bestservedcole@substack.com, Cole frequently mentions offhandedly—really boasts about—his alcoholism as a long-established habit, if we are to believe his accounts. That Cole assumes we will find his chronic drunkenness tolerable, if not amusing, indicates an almost childlike delight in self-display, no matter what the subject. The same egotistical self-display creates his hyperbolic, profanity-ridden literary style. The writer seems blissfully ignorant of how the persona created by his words affects an actual audience.