Editing Tom Wolfe (section)

==Views==
[[File:Wolfe at White House.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Wolfe at the [[White House]], 2004]]
In 1989, Wolfe wrote an essay for ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'', titled "[[Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast]]". It criticized modern American novelists for failing to engage fully with their subjects, and suggested that modern literature could be saved by a greater reliance on journalistic technique.<ref>Wolfe, Tom (November 1989), [http://www.lukeford.net/Images/photos3/tomwolfe.pdf "Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast"], ''[[Harper's Magazine]]''</ref>

Asked to comment by ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' on blogs in 2007 to mark the tenth anniversary of their advent, Wolfe wrote that "the universe of blogs is a universe of rumors" and that "blogs are an advance guard to the rear."<ref name="blogs" /> He also took the opportunity to criticize Wikipedia, saying that "only a primitive would believe a word of" it. He noted a story about him in his Wikipedia bio article at the time which he said had never happened.<ref name="blogs">Varadarajan, Tunku (July 14, 2007), [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118436667045766268 "Happy Blogiversary"], ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]''</ref>

===Politics===
Wolfe's views and choice of subject material, such as mocking left-wing intellectuals in ''Radical Chic'', glorifying astronauts in ''The Right Stuff'', and critiquing [[Noam Chomsky]] in ''[[The Kingdom of Speech]]'' sometimes resulted in his being labeled [[conservatism|conservative]].<ref name="Elite"/> Wolfe has been labeled a conservative by ''[[The New Yorker]]'',<ref>{{cite news|last=Gopnik|first=Adam|title=Remembering Tom Wolfe, One of the Central Makers of Modern American Prose|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/remembering-tom-wolfe-one-of-the-central-makers-of-modern-american-prose|work=New Yorker|date=15 May 2018}}</ref> ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'',<ref name="Vanity">{{cite magazine|last=Kamp|first=David|title=Tom Wolfe in Full|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/1998/09/tom-wolfe-in-full|magazine=Vanity Fair|date=16 May 2018}}</ref> ''[[The Washington Post]]'',<ref>{{cite news|last=Nardini|first=Nicholas|title=How Tom Wolfe's 'I Am Charlotte Simmons' sounded the death knell for New Journalism|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/how-tom-wolfes-i-am-charlotte-simmons-sounded-the-death-knell-for-new-journalism/2019/05/02/0fe05826-6b4a-11e9-8f44-e8d8bb1df986_story.html|newspaper=Washington Post|date=2 May 2019}}</ref> ''[[National Review]]'',<ref>{{cite news|title=Tom Wolfe, Gentleman Heretic|url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/remembering-tom-wolfe-conservative-chronicler/|work=National Review|date=16 May 2018}}</ref> and ''[[USA Today]]''.<ref>{{cite news|last=Schneider|first=Christian |title=Less Roseanne Barr, more Tom Wolfe — Republicans need new celebrities|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/05/30/roseanne-barr-racist-tweet-tom-wolfe-republican-celebrity-column/656274002/|work=USA Today|date=20 May 2018}}</ref> Editor [[Byron Dobell]] labelled Wolfe a [[reactionary]];<ref name="Vanity"/> while a member of the [[Black Panther Party]] called him a racist, due to his portrayal of the party in ''Radical Chic''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904627-2,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090123232028/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904627-2,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 23, 2009|title=Books: Fish in the Brandy Snifter|first=Timothy|last=Foote|date=December 21, 1970|via=www.time.com}}</ref>

Wolfe rejected such labels, saying, "If I have been judged to be [[right-wing politics|right wing]], I think this is because of the things I have mocked."<ref name="Elite"/> Wolfe opposed the American [[two-party system#United States|two-party system]].<ref name="Trump"/> In an October 2012 interview with ''New York'' magazine, he stated that he had "voted for every [presidential election] winner since I’ve been old enough to vote", with the exception of [[Bill Clinton]] in the [[1992 United States presidential election|1992 election]]. Later in the interview, Wolfe said: "Our federal government is like a train on the track... There are people on the right and people on the left, they’re yelling at it. The train has no choice; it’s on its track! Everyone gets forced to the center, which is fine with me... I read all these things about the country fading, but if you really think about it, we’re still giants!"<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kachka |first1=Boris |title=Tom Wolfe on His New Novel Back to Blood and His Fascination With the Down-and-Dirty Pecking Order |url=https://www.vulture.com/2012/10/tom-wolfes-new-novel-back-to-blood.html |website=Vulture |language=en |date=21 October 2012}}</ref>

Wolfe supported [[George W. Bush]] as a political candidate and said he voted for him for president in [[2004 United States presidential election|2004]] because of what he called Bush's "great decisiveness and willingness to fight".<ref name="Elite">{{cite news|last=Vulliamy|first=Ed |title='The liberal elite hasn't got a clue' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/01/uselections2004.books |access-date=19 October 2022 |work=[[the Guardian]] |date=1 November 2004 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="youtube=d35bCiekD3A">{{cite web |last1=Wolfe |first1=Tom |title=In Defense of George W. Bush |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d35bCiekD3A |website=[[FORA.tv]] |publisher=YouTube |access-date=19 October 2022 |language=en |date=July 10, 2008}}</ref> Bush reciprocated the admiration, and is said to have read all of Wolfe's books, according to friends in 2005.<ref name="politics">[[Elisabeth Bumiller|Bumiller, Elisabeth]] (February 7, 2005), [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/politics/07letter.html "Bush's Official Reading List, and a Racy Omission"], ''[[The New York Times]]''. Retrieved May 15, 2010</ref> Wolfe supported the [[United States invasion of Afghanistan|U.S. invasion of Afghanistan]], but opposed the [[Iraq War]].<ref name="Elite"/>

In a 2004 interview with ''[[The Guardian]]'', Wolfe said that his "idol" in writing about society and culture is [[Émile Zola]]. Wolfe described Zola as "a man of the left", one who "went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could not—and was not interested in—telling a lie."<ref name="Elite"/> In the same interview, Wolfe said that [[political correctness]] "has probably had a good effect because it is now bad manners to use racial epithets."<ref name="Elite"/> However, in 2017, he attacked political correctness, mocking it as perpetual outrage.<ref name="Trump">{{cite news|last=Busnel|first=François|url=https://airmail.news/books/2020/9/flak-catchers|title=Flak Catchers|work=Airmail.news|date=22 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230630013251/https://airmail.news/books/2020/9/flak-catchers|archive-date=30 June 2023}}</ref>

In 2016, Wolfe described [[Donald Trump]] as a "lovable megalomaniac...The childishness makes him seem honest."<ref>{{cite news|last=Neumayr|first=George|title=Tom Wolfe's View of Trump|url=https://spectator.org/65918_tom-wolfes-view-trump/|work=The American Spectator|date=30 March 2016}}</ref> Wolfe later compared Trump to literary character [[Jay Gatsby]].<ref name="Trump"/>

===Religion===
Wolfe was an [[atheist]] but said that "I hate people who go around saying they're atheists".<ref>[https://www.npr.org/2016/08/27/491492977/in-tom-wolfes-kingdom-speech-is-the-one-weird-trick In Tom Wolfe's 'Kingdom,' Speech Is The One Weird Trick]</ref> Of his religious upbringing, Wolfe observed that he "was raised as a [[Presbyterian Church (USA)|Presbyterian]]".<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/Fs8lKSmGlLA Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20180516150714/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs8lKSmGlLA Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{Citation|title=Back to Blood: Michael Moynihan interviews Tom Wolfe (12/20/2012)|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs8lKSmGlLA|language=en|access-date=2021-08-31}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Trotti|first=John Boone|date=1981|title=Thomas Wolfe: The Presbyterian Connection|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23328545|journal=Journal of Presbyterian History|volume=59|issue=4|pages=517–542|jstor=23328545|issn=0022-3883}}</ref> He sometimes referred to himself as a "lapsed Presbyterian." Wolfe was a defender of [[Catholic school]]s.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tom Wolfe: Catholic Schools Are The Right Stuff|url=https://www.ncregister.com/news/tom-wolfe-catholic-schools-are-the-right-stuff|access-date=2021-09-17|website=NCR|date=March 19, 2000 |language=en}}</ref> Wolfe was also critical of the [[sexual revolution]], describing it as a "sexual carnival." He expressed sympathy towards Puritanical-Christian views on sexuality.<ref name="Elite"/>