Bret Easton Ellis interviewed by Isaac Chotiner

Isaac Chotiner interviews Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho and an evidently half-hearted believer in the idea that America has overreacted to Donald Trump's elevation to the presidency.

[Chotiner] There are a lot of things to get angry about: children being separated from their parents, Trump saying nice things about marchers in Charlottesville. What is it that bothers you about this?

[Ellis] You do know that plenty of people don't think that? You do understand that?

Don't think what?

Don't think all these things you are saying about Charlottesville. What does he have, a ninety-three-per-cent approval rating, or, let's say, a hundred per cent, from his base? Let's say it is, over all, way up, from thirty-eight per cent to fifty per cent, or even higher. And let's say Latinos are now fifty-per-cent approval for Trump.

That's not true, but O.K.

Well, whatever.

The tendency for Chotiner's interview subjects to unravel under his fair but persistent questioning (Giuliani, Buruma, take your pick) is genuinely amazing. Chotiner is journalism's Chigurh on the stairs. His targets surely sense that their rules have led them to a murderer, but the same rules impose upon them a strange duty to go back to their rooms with him, to talk and die.