You’ve got to be either a saint or a masochist — maybe a little of both — to try to explain American partisans these days. Seek out figures on the far left or far right, after all, and you’ll get either criticism for snarking (from that side) or blowback for platforming (from the other side).
Of course such work is essential at a moment when too many of us listen only to our allies. That’s where the sainthood comes in.
All of this forms the unique, admirable and I-still-wouldn’t-want-to-be-him professional role of Donie O’Sullivan, the Millennial CNN reporter who travels around the county earnestly-wryly talking to hardcore figures on all sides, who have a noticeable tendency to open up to him. (That recently included an hourlong Hasan Piker-focused special on the Democrats’ insurgent left and a shorter package this week on the Minnesota gubernatorial candidacy of MAGA hero Mike Lindell on the Trumpian right.) In a time of echo chambers, O’Sullivan is both anomaly and antidote. He’s also a legacy journalist in an influencer world, its own Rubik’s Cube.
As an intense primary season comes down the homestretch — key races testing the far left and far right unfold both in Minnesota and Wisconsin Tuesday — O’Sullivan seems particularly well-positioned to document where he thinks the country is going. Not to mention describe what it’s like to hurl yourself into the spray with every segment. So The Hollywood Reporter hopped on a Zoom with the Ireland-born journalist to ask how he thinks America is doing, and what it’s doing to him.
