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Wayne had his feet upon the table and was looking at a monitor mounted to the wall on a flexible arm. He’d obviously been watching the interview.
“You did remarkably well. You didn’t lose your temper and you had a short, snappy answer to every loaded question. Not bad at all.”
“This wasn’t my first rodeo and Mir has been helping me with general content. He’s great at telling me what does and doesn’t work. What do you think I could have done better?”
Wayne looked thoughtful for a while before he answered. “There are a lot of things you could have done worse. But better? I don’t think that is a question you should be asking.”
“It is true people can do things wrong when they get interviewed. But one of the things that is very commonly done wrong is to think that there is a solution to every problem. In fact, I like to get people to think about the difference between a problem and a dilemma. As I use those two words, a problem is something that you can fix if you just find the right response. In contrast, a dilemma has no solution at all. You can’t fix a dilemma---all you can do is see it as a test of character.”
“A lot of people get bad advice saying they must avoid making a mistake. The problem is they try so hard they end up just repeating talking points, which makes them sound like robots. At best, they look like they are incapable of thinking for themselves. At worst, they look like they have something to hide. If you do this while on the set of people trying to destroy you, they will eat you alive.”
“So no. I don’t think you could have done better. Moreover, I would advise you to not try to do better. Just be yourself. Have confidence in the fact that the Old Ones chose you for a reason---you are the best person for the job you are in.”
“But having said all of that, I do want to do a little coaching. You adapted well to the generic cable news event in our simulation. Tomorrow I want to run you through a specific combative interview with an actor who is primed to act like Tylon Talon.”
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Overnight Mikhi searched for You Tube clips of Talon. He didn’t like what he saw. Talon didn’t seem to be very thoughtful or open to new ideas. In fact, it didn’t seem that he was terribly interested in the truth of anything he was talking about. Mainly, it seemed that all he was about was winning.
He was a thin, very intense-looking young man with short hair. He spoke in a “burst transmission” way---short, very fast sentences interspaced with short moments of silence. Mikhi thought that this was part of his debating style. He tried to race past points that people might take issue with if he gave them more time to think. He also liked to use “loaded language”. He never allowed someone to make a broad statement about something he disagreed with and instead instantly went after them to talk about specifics. In general, he always talked so fast that the other person was always trying to play verbal “catch up” after the fact. If someone resolutely refused to play his game, he would quickly figure out some excuse to shut the situation down. If he was being interviewed on another person’s show, he sometimes even took off his mike and left the stage in a huff. If he was doing the interviewing, he got his producers to cut the mike and moved to a commercial after which a clip of something else would be cued up and ready to go---with no mention of the previous guest.
Tylon didn’t converse with people---he fought them to the death. And if it looked like someone else might get the upper hand, he instantly shut the fight down.
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The next day when Mikhi showed up at Wayne’s studio he was put through the same routine as before. But this time when he was led into the studio he sat across from an actor who was dressed like Tylon Talon and was doing his best to mimic his mannerisms. Bookchin had to admit, he was doing a pretty good job.
This actor introduced Mikhi and then went directly to a short clip of the Climate Trials where Wilson Gillespie was talking about the way the oil industry had campaigned to get evangelical Christians to see environmentalism as anti-religious. The clip was edited to ensure the audience didn’t hear any of the evidence. That made it look like Gillespie was just making an accusation without any accompanying evidence. When the clip abruptly stopped, the actor playing Talon immediately threw a statement/question at Bookchin like a machine gun spewing bullets.
“What does the environment movement seek to gain from attacking Christianity?”
“Don’t confuse a small number of evangelical church leaders who chose to get in bed with big oil with the entirety of Christianity. I’m not a Christian myself, but I’ve spent a lot of time studying the Bible and reading theology. I don’t particularly agree with all of Christ’s teachings---but I will admit that if most people decided to actually follow them, the world would be a better place. The problem is a great many of the church leaders that Gillespie is talking about don’t seem to do this.”
“So, you think you know more about the world than the Son of God? Isn’t that something of an arrogant statement?”
“I don’t remember any place in the Gospels where Jesus specifically talks about climate change or the importance of the oil industry to the American economy---so I tend to see this as a ‘render onto Caesar, Caesar’s due’ sort of thing. Frankly, I don’t think that I’m the arrogant one in this particular instance. I won’t go so far as to compare these particular church leaders to shepherds that turn out to be ‘ravening wolves’, but I do think that a case could be made---.”
The actor drew a blank stare, then quickly went back on the offensive. This time he raced through a shopping list of quick questions---leaving Mikhi no time to answer. “What about the scientists who said that we were entering an ice age?”, “What about the fact that transitioning off of fossil fuels will destroy the economy?”, “What about the fact that the vast majority of CO2 comes from China and India?”, “What about the fact that many leading scientists say that climate change comes from sun spots instead of anything people do?”, “What about the fact that it requires more fossil fuels to make solar panels and wind turbines than they save during their short lifespans?”, “What about the fact that outside of a small number of elite people, no one can afford to buy an electric car?”
It was Mikhi’s term to draw a blank stare. “That’s an impressive list of half truths and out-and-out falsehoods. Let me guess, the show’s almost over and I now have no time to answer any of these---right?”
Actually, his response only got to “That’s an impressive list---” before his mike was cut. The producers were working with a five second delay on the broadcast, which meant that they had time to edit out embarrassing responses and shut down the camera in time for the actor to then launch into a monologue where he said “Well, there you have it. Our religious freedoms and economic prosperity are being held hostage by a radical environmentalist who doesn’t really care about how many people get put out of work.”
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