Talk:Tom Clancy

This article is terrible is terrible without a Criticism section

Most of this seems to be written by a bunch of corporate shills, conservative apologists, and Clancy's obnoxious fan base. He was a bit of hack who who wasn't popular with critics and kinda loathed by the half of the public who didn't hop on his bandwagon because of his bigoted views containing homophobia, racism, and xenophobia. Can somebody fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.213.207.245 (talk) 16:59, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Why not fix it yourself if you have sources? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.207.5 (talk) 13:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

151.213.207.245 sounds like a stereotypical SJW nutcase. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:6000:FD0A:FB00:502D:E473:5602:A717 (talk) 02:17, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I suppose if any of those facts were notable, they might be ascertained in some sort of newspaper clipping/archive or well documented somewhere? But #CancelCancelCulture is trending, I suppose people are getting kind of tired of it.MaximusEditor (talk) 02:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Political views

Clancy's novels, especially the Jack Ryan series (like a lot of techno-political spy thrillers) seem to underscore his faith in - or support of - the Executive branch of gov't versus the Legislative branch. (see also Homophobic topic above). Non-presidential elected officials such as Senators tend to be portrayed as either incompetent bumblers who get in the way, can't be trusted, etc etc or are somehow too effette to be trustworthy; whereas Ryan and others working for the President are portrayed as heroes saving us all from ___________ ....
This is a good indicator of Clancy's political inclinations, for whatever its worth...Engr105th 00:45, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Other political views I've picked up from reading his books;

- Virulent anti-communism. Even since the end of the Cold War, he's written at least three novels that centered around Marxist bad guys (Rainbow Six, The Bear and the Dragon, Red Rabbit), plus a fictional Vietnam War rematch in "Fighter Wing." And most of his books featured long sections that would criticize or deconstruct communism.

- General support for organized religion, at least the three monotheistic ones. See The Sum of All Fears, Executive Orders and even Teeth of the Tiger. His contempt for terrorism is expressed many times in his novel, but he has been a defender of Islam since day one, something he made clear after 9/11 (see section below).

- Economic protectionism, expressed several times in his novels. (His novels introduce a fictional "Trade Reform Act" which would allow the U.S. to copy the import-export laws of a foreign nation and apply those laws to imports from that very nation to the U.S). He also seems somewhat more pro-worker than you might expect from a clear-cut conservative.

- Proponent of the flat tax (see Executive Orders). He defends it not only by saying that it's fairer, but also that 1) the current tax system is too complicated for anyone to understand, which is fundamentally bad for democracy, and 2) since fat cats have written loopholes all over the current system, the "progressive" nature of that system is a lie.

- Anti-nuclear theme, surprisingly. Not the 1980s unilateral-withdrawal peacenik type of anti-nuclearism, but he does mention several times that he considers the concept of "MAD" unstable and insane, and in his novels shows a world in which the U.S. and Russia eliminate their ICBMs and SLBMs and draw down their arsenals.

- As for the alleged homophobia, that was based on one incident in "Cardinal of the Kremlin," in which Jack Ryan insults a gay congressman for his sexuality. It's later revealed that the incident was staged so the KGB would think Ryan was having trouble with his superiors, and Ryan and the same Congressman are shown working together again in several novels, where they've developed a mutual respect. Safe to assume Clancy's not actually a "God hate fags" nut. 147.9.230.117 (talk) 23:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting , Its nice to have somebody who knows the source material interpret it for those who aren't quite as familiar. Thanks for clarifying that.MaximusEditor (talk) 02:58, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Numerous scholars have examined the political dimensions of Clancy's book

Shouldn't that read Numerous scholars have examined the political dimensions of Clancy's books? --2003:DE:2F09:BE92:D92D:741C:296D:2DA0 (talk) 18:02, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Several sentences that require further citation

I noticed this article is littered with "citation needed" templates? More out curiosity/discussion is this okay that we arent gutting those sentences? Is it allowed because the community has let these sentences stand because of maybe WP:COMMONSENSE? I'm genuinely curious about this article, seems to be a special case scenario for a quite big notable entity.MaximusEditor (talk) 01:06, 9 September 2021 (UTC)