He was an articulate, erudite, and wholly original character of the sort we are so badly in need of in current times. Even his sparring with the likes of Willia

He was an articulate, erudite, and wholly original character of the sort we are so badly in need of in current times. Even his sparring with the likes of William F Buckley is akin to the political discourse of a lost civilisation in the lense of contemporary events. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/02/lost-heart-of-political-debate-gore-vidal-william-f-buckley-best-of-enemies https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/02/lost-heart-o... "Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine." "We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic." The incredible universality of his appeal is captured beautifully by Hitchens in 'Hitch 22' in relation to the odious and bellicose Newt Gingrich: "I was once seated in a television studio with Newt Gingrich, waiting for the debate between us to get going, when the presenter made an off-air remark that was highly disobliging to Gore. The former Republic Speaker abruptly became very prim and disapproving, and said that he would prefer not to listen to any abuse of the author of 'Lincoln' - a novel that he regarded as being above reproach. I conveyed this news to the author himself, who took the tribute as he takes all tributes: as being overdue and well-deserved." As for the contention re: TikTok, he'd certainly be a regular on Bill Maher in the same vein that Hitchens was in the early 2000s. He was particularly prescient and open in speaking about the separation of sexual acts from the state of being - a thesis more easily digestible now than then. "There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices."