RM: Was it the rise of the Tea Party that made you shift your stance, or was it after that?

JJS: I think it was just the swing, of going from the George W. Bush administration—just the ghastliness of it—to seeing Obama get elected, and what that brought up, in terms of the whole national psyche. I don’t know about you, but for me that was kind of powerful, and disturbing. And it made me feel like getting a little more real about what’s going on politically. As a person coming out of the relative softness of the Clinton years, it was an education in just how consequential that political battle is in this country, and how radical the other side has become.

RM: Do you think you’ll do more political writing in the future?

JJS: Yeah, I really want to. One of the two or three pieces that is going to be my next thing for the Times is going to be about the Golden Dawn in Greece, the fascist party that has formed over there. There’s a certain thrill of going to the point of fracture. Like, if the world economy is going down, it’s probably going to happen here.

RM: On that uplifting note, our customary last question: a wag is defined as a joker, a wit. Who is your favorite wag, living or dead, and why?

JJS: If we’re talking imaginary, I’d go with Withnail from Withnail and I. That’s one of my favorite wags, as played by Richard Grant. He’s supposedly based on a real person. It’s just a masterful English comedy from the 80s, about two struggling actors in London.

But the real-life person—favorite I don’t know—but one I’ve been thinking about recently is Christopher Hitchens. I can remember being pretty young, like in high school, and watching him debate William F. Buckley Jr. and completely holding his own, and feeling like he was a champion of some kind for just being able to match his level of rhetorical polish. You felt like this guy is just thinking out loud, in a completely clear way, and that’s so powerful.