Writes David Brooks, in "What Democrats Need to Do Now" (NYT).
Somehow I thought you should know he's saying that. Be it known that it’s not just a matter of getting on your Harley and hitting the open road.
July 19, 2024
"Viewed from the traditional American abundance mind-set, MAGA looks less like an American brand of conservatism and more like a European brand of conservatism."
"It resembles all those generations of Russian chauvinists who argued that the Russian masses embody all that is good but they are threatened by aliens from the outside. MAGA looks like a kind of right-wing Marxism, which assumes that class struggle is the permanent defining feature of politics. MAGA is a fortress mentality, but America has traditionally been defined by a pioneering mentality. MAGA offers a strong shell, but not much in the way of wings needed to soar. If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century. It should be said that social dynamism is more complicated than it appears at first blush. It’s not just getting on your Harley and hitting the open road. It’s not really about rugged individualism or the libertarian version of freedom as the absence of constraint...."
Writes David Brooks, in "What Democrats Need to Do Now" (NYT).
Writes David Brooks, in "What Democrats Need to Do Now" (NYT).
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LOL! Brooks is the exemplar of European "conservatives".
Why is it always about the "Russian" refugees and their fears of an American pogrom? Trump couldn't be friendlier to them, so really, why are the Rubins and Frums clawing at the walls?
If you're an integrated immigrant, go get a Harley and enjoy your country. If you're not, go back. Why stay somewhere you don't like?
It will always Boil down to: “ Not our kind, dear.”
Be it known that it’s not just a matter of getting on your Harley and hitting the open road.
Noted. I’ll turn around at the next exit…
What a silly column. Democrats need to offer dynamism and optimism? What have today's democrats ever done to make you think those qualities have anything to do with them? Today's Dems are the party of sitting in the dark with the lights off contemplating your sins.
MAGA looks like a kind of right-wing Marxism, which assumes that class struggle is the permanent defining feature of politics.
How to admit that you’re clueless. When you’re over-educated but under-brained learn to leave people the f**k alone.
A bushel of bull dung from Brooks--as it was in the beginning it's now and ever shall be. That's Brooksie--seduced by a pants crease and then on his knees for 8 years.
Brooks and the Democrat cabal he speaks for organizes us into classes--and like the Czars sends us off to Pales of various kinds. The Blacks are on the voting plantation down South with extensions to big cities in the North. The Deplorable Pale is somewhere out there in flyover country. Now the Hispanics are herded off into haciendas somewhere in the Southwest--just so long as those icky Mexicans don't make it to Manhattan. And so it goes.
Well Brooksie-- just sod off--Just-----Sod----Off!
"If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century."
America's dynamic cultural roots are anathema to the Left. What Brooks means is 'lie better.'
"If Democrats are to thrive, …"
And why would a "conservative" writer be concerned about that?
Like so much of Brooks its just abstraction piled on abstraction all based on unproven assertions. For example:
"MAGA is a fortress mentality, but America has traditionally been defined by a pioneering mentality."
Notice the complete lack of concrete policy or connection to facts. FIrst MAGA is labeled a "fortress mentality" which means something bad, but what exactly isn't made clear.
Then without any support we're told the USA has a Pioneering mentality. Hello? The Frontier was closed in 1890. And do our sainted immigrants after that have a pioneering mentality? The just showed up. And what does "pioneering mentality" mean? And what is a "Mentality"? Is the USA a mental patient in Brooks eyes?
If the Democrats want to win, they better not listen to Brooks, assuming they can figure out what he's talking about. Maybe do something concrete, like securing the border, stop funding the Genocide in gaza, and the war in the Ukraine. Try to bring the Country together and stop the lawfare against Trump or pardon the J6 protesters. Or maybe pass some legislation showing their on the side of the average American and not Big Business.
The problem with the Democrats is they seem to hate their fellow countrymen who arent Democrats, and they don't seem to like America 1.0 very much. They don't want to change anything except move even further left. And Brooks seems to think that's OK.
Please Democrats, listen David Brooks and follow his advice. Do it for the good of the party.
Achilles said...
It will always Boil down to: “ Not our kind, dear.”
Yep. Trump was always susceptible to that given his being from exotic Queens, but beyond that he’s also an apostate, so he has to be destroyed.
Original Mike said...
"If Democrats are to thrive, …"
And why would a "conservative" writer be concerned about that?
I am sure you know this.
Because Republicans and Democrats are united against MAGA and always have been.
That is what this is all about.
"When you’re over-educated but under-brained......"
I'm stealing that!
If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century.
Sorry Brooks. Democrats have done everything they can to destroy American history. Democrats mock MAGA by saying Anmerican was never great. Democrats have been busy tearing down statutes of American forefathers as uncontroversial as Washington and Lincoln. How's that for tapping into our cultural roots.
Same old, same old.
Trump voters couldn’t be voting out of their own perceived self-interest and for policies they favor, they suffer from some sort of pathological disorder.
BTW, if you don't know anything about David Brooks, you need to understand that he hates European conservatism. Yknow - God, King, and Country. He loves American conservatism. Freedom and liberty. In other words, libertarianism. Open borders, free trade, Globalism, internationalism, and big business uber alles. Constant flux and change.
Of course brooks does have a country, its Israel. His son served in the IDF. And he does have a God, it just doesn't include Jesus Christ. And he does believe in a social order but its based on the wealth rather than an aristocracy.
How many "migrants" is Brooksy hosting?
I think this shows how disconnected Brooks is these days. He's talking like it's the late 20th century.
People aren't thinking it would be great to get on a Harley and hit the open road. They're concerned about vast government corruption and inflation that has led to gas and food prices to soar, housing costs to rise astronomically beyond the reach of most people who didn't get into the market years ago, and so much else. This is much less sounding our barbaric yawp and more just wanting to be able to live and thrive without being needled by government bureaucracy and bloats.
He's really removed from the economic and cultural issues, so assumes it's just social frustrations. The fact that someone like Trump, a very wealthy, extremely privileged, man could become the hero of the working classes shows it's not a class struggle going on, it's something more. Americans tend to celebrate success but just don't want the successful to become so by social/political manipulation and corruption that is so blatantly supported by folks like Brooks.
What nonsense. To pick teo simple examples, MAGA is not opposed to legal immigration. In fact, Trump recently proposed awarding green cards to non-US college graduates.. Further, Maga is not ethnically based despite the effort of Brooks and others to insist on its inherent racism.
If Democrats want to win, it's easy. They should become absolute opponents of any kind of government corruption. They should do the things they say they are for--helping the poor and outcast--by not just no longer facilitating gross government corruption but becoming ruthless in addressing it first within their own ranks and then in every direction.
Indulging government corruption expresses hatred for the poor. And it's only the already wealthy and privileged who want this to continue. There's a reason why Scandinavian countries are always highlighted when talking about democratic socialism policies: they also have the least corruption of any other countries.
Fight corruption ruthlessly, I'll believe there's an interest in helping the poor.
But, of course, the Democrats like Pelosi and Schumer and Newsome won't ever do this because they are vampires feasting on the blood of the poor.
Brooks has a selective memory. The Manifest Destiny era of westward expansion was very much an outgrowth of European colonialism/conservatism with local governance. The Protestant Christians who founded the country (1) had a very clear moral structure derived from traditional European Christians, and (2) the USA resisted non-white immigration until the 1980s. The entire USA constitution was derived European enlightenment-era authors.
Class warfare: What about (conservative) Teddy Roosevelt's Trustbuster anti-oligarch movement of 1890 to 1900? He went against JP Morgan -- Wall Street banker and owner of railroads -- back then.
Mr. Brooks should retire.
https://www.ushistory.org/us/43b.asp
"MAGA is a fortress mentality, but America has traditionally been defined by a pioneering mentality."
Ah, but for the last 25 years, the Democrats and Establishment Republicans have moved to the Bureaucrat mentality. That's what you get in this late phase of the "priestly cycle of universities" where adherence to dogma rules and the eccentric pioneer is shunned.
I’m not saying that for an individual, education is useless: it builds helpful credentials for one’s own career–but such effect washes out at the country level. Education stabilizes the income of families across generations. A merchant makes money, then his children go to the Sorbonne, they become doctors and magistrates. The family retains wealth because the diplomas allow members to remain in the middle class long after ancestral wealth is depleted. But these effects don’t count for countries.
–Nassim Taleb, ‘Antifragile’
College is now about getting the credential (and connections) to bury yourself in the bureaucracy, government or corporate.
They do not talk about their being young and about the rights of youth; they act as young people must act. They do not boast about their own “dynamism”; they are dynamic and there is no need for them to emphasize this quality. They do not challenge the older generation with arrogant talk. They want to beat it by their deeds.
But it is quite a different thing under the rising tide of bureaucratization. Government jobs offer no opportunity for the display of personal talents and gifts. Regimentation spells the doom of initiative. The young man has no illusions about his future. He knows what is in store for him. He will get a job with one of the innumerable bureaus, he will be but a cog in a huge machine the working of which is more or less mechanical. The routine of a bureaucratic technique will cripple his mind and tie his hands. He will enjoy security. But this security will be rather of the kind that the convict enjoys within the prison walls. He will never be free to make decisions and to shape his own fate. He will forever be a man taken care of by other people. He will never be a real man relying on his own strength. He shudders at the sight of the huge office buildings in which he will bury himself.
--von Mises, Ludwig (1945). Bureaucracy
Brooks has the right advice to Democrats but he's wrong about Maga, probably because he is literally compelled to say something bad about the right if he offers criticism of the left.
He's right in that the core Democratic messaging has been, since Obama, pessimistic and counter-productive. Degrowth, depopulation, deindustrialization. Rules, regulations, reparations. Redeuce, reuse, recycle. Precautionary principle.
Their message is that unless you are a straight white male, this society is not for you. You are oppressed. The racism is structural. The system is rigged. You can't succeed. Whatever misfortune comes, it's not your fault. If you are a straight white male, you need to stop. You need to be quiet. You need to listen. You need to step aside. You need to stay your lane. Theirs is the fortress mentality - it's straight white people trying to oppress everyone else, everywhere, always, forever. Success is a sin. Victimhood is virtue.
Every vision, every project dies a death of a thousand cuts. Every grifter wants their pound of flesh. Every regulator wants to wield a veto. Every profit is questioned, every revenue taxed. Nothing gets done, and nobody is accountable. There is nobody responsible, and nobody to blame. Government projects, under bureaucratic control, operate with no oversight, no timelines, and no real budget. Climate change is going to kill us all, and also it's impossible to stop. The country is a nightmare hellscape no ethical person would birth a child into. The world is fallen, salvation only through gnosis.
Nobody forced them to do this, and the more rational elements of the party understand how toxic it all is, but it has become so embedded in their base and their activists that changing direction means jettisoning a lot of progressives and reforming the ones who want to stay. They can do this of course; the Republicans of today have jettisoned much of their former power base to get where they are now. But they haven't yet, and it might be that the rational faction is actually too small to take control, which would mean the party is lost until someone with enough natural charisma and force of personality can gain the support to take it back by force.
The proper comparison of MAGA is to the American Revolution. Both are rebellions against an oppressive, illegitimate ruling class.
So apply Brooks's idea of "tapping into America's dynamic cultural roots" and apply that to the current D party. How do the government unions, urban minority groups, identity grievance promoters, single women, university faculty/administration/students, Hollywood, and bearded leftist soy boys create the "wings needed to soar" to take America to where Books thinks it needs to go?
Are we going somewhere in Brooks' imagination, or is soaring itself the point?
And why should we believe anything that the NYT is publishing any more?
Weren't they telling us very definitely that Biden was sharp as a tack, capable of doing 100 handstand pushups, and swimming across the Potomac in record time.
Now this clown comes on - and it's Russia this, Russia that. Russia. REALLY?
As RCOCEAN II posted:
"If the Democrats want to win, they better not listen to Brooks, assuming they can figure out what he's talking about. Maybe do something concrete, like securing the border, stop funding the Genocide in gaza, and the war in the Ukraine. Try to bring the Country together and stop the lawfare against Trump or pardon the J6 protesters. Or maybe pass some legislation showing their on the side of the average American and not Big Business.
The problem with the Democrats is they seem to hate their fellow countrymen who arent Democrats, and they don't seem to like America 1.0 very much. They don't want to change anything except move even further left. And Brooks seems to think that's OK."
The Dems do hate the folks who don't sign on wholeheartedly. Any deviation or disagreement from the desired orthodoxy is met with sheer hate, designed to get them back in line.
The Dems want their plantations - their serfs who'll genuflect when they ride by in their limos. Think 'Hunger Games' dystopia, when the left having everything they want, and the peasants having a subsistence lifestyle so they'll be grateful for the crumbs they're tossed.
Thank God Brooks is no longer a Republican. Now I am completely free to ignore him and know that he wields zero power and influence over my party.
"right-wing Marxism, which assumes that class struggle is the permanent defining feature of politics"
I get all the potshots at Brooks. But he has a point here and, depending on how you define class, MAGA need not oppose the labeling entirely. Yes, our patronizing inferiors do constitute an elite, yes, they run institutions in their own interest, yes, they are trying to impose a class ideology, and yes, some struggle is necessary at least in defense, possibly to win. The MAGA policy mix is also quasi-socialist, if DJT pushes tariffs and reindustrialization, keeps all the redistributive entitlements without reform, opposes Wall Street handouts and Big Green subsidies, and goes with Vance in Lina Khan's direction.
Fairly clever and pernicious for Brooks to call MAGA right-wing Marxism. That's slightly better than calling the GOP fascists.
The thing of it is that the Dems are real Marxists and fascists and it is obvious.
"MAGA is based on a series of victim stories...." Always the pretentious nimrod, Brooks misreads MAGA. When did we start thinking journalists were smart. Remember them in school?
It is difficult not to feel victimized momentarily when someone tries to murder your spokesperson and presidential candidate, but it was clear at the convention that it didn't last long.
The Democrats are evil and they are dismantling our country. We must stop them. I don't think that is a victim story. If it is, I doubt it's the one Brooks is talking about.
We are threatened less by aliens from outside than by the elite globalist cabal being foisted upon us against our will.
These guys. It's always Gorillas in the Mist with these guys.
What French and the rest are taking great pains to avoid is that Trump is running the Reagan "Morning in America" campaign because his message is optimisrtic like Reagans, and his opponent is a man befuddled by inflation and malaise. Young people (I turned 18 in time to vote in that election after missing the primary) became his strongest supporters and we even persevered through the Bushes even though it was clear the GOP wasn't at all like Reagan.
Trump is remaking the GOP to reflect its actual voters instead of the fatcat insiders. Since French likes hanging out with corrupt fatcat insiders so he can't see it, or refuses to see it, or is just plain full of shit and wants to please the Trump-hating readers and fatcats who like to revisit the halcyon Russia Russia Russia days. So he goes there. Again.
Wow! Trump has the elite shaking in their boots. They have visions of Fly Over Country and not them choosing the President.
Not to worry. The normal Americans have huge pick up trucks, not Harleys. Which is why gasoline price is what will elect Trump.
America was defined not only by pioneering but self-sufficiency. If you came to the United States, there was no safety net. Work or don't eat. If you got in trouble, there was no guarantee anyone would be there to help you, and in many cases it wouldn't even be possible to get help to you. If you did not speak English, that was your problem. If immigration decided you were undesirable, you were deported. If you made trouble, you were sent to prison, then deported (or executed).
You cannot set up a safety net and demand minimum wage and payroll taxes and benefit requirements and so forth for the citizenry, then import millions in unskilled labor that get paid under the table but still get benefits.
As they say, democracy, open borders, safety net: pick any two.
Correction: I voted for Reagan in 1980. "Morning in America" was his reelection in 1984. Then there's this:
MAGA is about as traditional mainstream American populism as you can get. Democrats will have a difficult time "tapping into a dynamic" when they spend all their time spreading hate and dividing people. Look at how they reacted to Amber Rose being at the RNC: they literally denied her black heritage, called her white, just because she won't do like Obama and totally shun her white shared heritage. We didn't care what color she is. We wanted to hear how she came to appreciate MAGA. Other participants who also did not appear to share any characteristics with white Russian chauvinists came to appreciate Trump's message of safer streets or honoring our troops (instead of pretending none of them died "on his watch" like Joe) or to say as Orthodox Jews they no longer feel welcome on the Left.
One great thing about Trump is forced all fake, phony, "Conservatives" to drop the mask. Brooks, like Jonah Goldberg, Erick Erickson, Jen Rubin, David French, Frum, Burt Stevens, Bill Kristol etc. are all out-and-out Liberal Democrats now, supporting Biden in 2024.
Someone, I forgot who, said years ago that the last stop for the NeverTrumpers would be the Democrat Party, and that's come true. Its incredible to look back to 2009 and remember all the "Conservatives" who went to dinner with Obama and came back cooing how impressed they were Obama's pant crease. And how outraged every on the Right was.
PBS newshour doesn't called Brooks "On the right" anymore. They're now more honest and just have "On the Left" and "Even further to the Left" in their discussion segement.
Oh, hey, Ann. I just wanted to mention, in case this hasn't ever occurred to you, that social dynamism is more complicated than it appears at first blush.
"The traditonal American abundance mind-set"
God, what clunky prose. I thought Brooks could write?
Maybe I need to spend more time thinking about what Brooks wrote but I don't think so, I think my first impression is the correct one, it's a bunch of hooeey...and he's wrong about
It’s not just getting on your Harley and hitting the open road.
Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah, darlin', go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once and
Explode into space
I like smoke and lightnin'
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under.
--Born to be Wild - Steppenwolf
Blarney, straight up.
tommyesq said...
We are threatened less by aliens from outside than by the elite globalist cabal being foisted upon us against our will.
--
Sure. But one is more likely to kill you driving drunk or rape your daughter...or just inflate the census giving blue states more reps.
Biden is definitely the one "to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots."
This country will continue heading downhill if immigration (legal and illegal) remains unchecked.
And can never recover until said immigrants assimilate.
Ah, the Torturous Road of Bullshit school of political thought. Which the never-Trumpers are endlessly condemned to follow.
The funny thing about Brook's piece is who is it for? Certainly not conservatives. Nor would the Prog hive take any particular comfort from it. A strange exercise.
Dems are the party of stupid people, weirdos and the elite. The elite dont have to deal with the stupid people and weirdos all that much.
Armed security, private jets, assistants, and expensive security systems help them get by.
Ficta said, "What a silly column."
An evergreen comment for a David Brooks essay.
So dowd brooks bring it home kristof
Brooks and all the other neocons were always onboard for MIGA (make Israel great again). But have serious problems with MAGA.
Teddy Kennedy and some others that wanted to change America passed a law in 1965 that reversed American immigration policy which had favored European immigrants since the Founding. Not that European immigrants were prosperous. Mostly they were escaping poverty and oppression. What Kennedy's bill did was to favor the immigrants with no skills, many of whom were seeking welfare. Look at what the people running Biden have done. We don't even know who they are.
Democrat snowflakes and Karens are not exactly the epitome of the rugged American individualist jumping on his Harley and heading west to find his fortune.
today's Dems are the party of sitting in the dark with the lights off contemplating your sins.
Or sitting in the dark with the lights off, clasping one's knees to the chest, quietly sobbing in fear about a flu virus or a mean man who might bring prosperity to people other than (or in addition to) yourself or the threat of fascism descending from anyone other than those who currently hold power and seek to deny ballot access, personal freedom, wealth and life to the person running against them, or...
Thinking about this more, dems are weak, scared, pathetic people looking for someone to control them so they never have to take a chance and make an actual decision. Sheep.
BREAKING: ‘District Attorney Alvin Bragg Files 2 New Criminal Charges Against Donald Trump
Including "Avoidance of a Targeted Projectile" and "Obstruction of an Assassination Attempt" ‘
The Old guard is still clueless. Biggest Democrat mistake was flushing Tulsi. Another four years of Trump maybe they give the keys to the millennials
narciso @2:02pm… yes!
Tinkered to Nevers to Dunce!
"today's Dems are the party of sitting in the dark with the lights off contemplating your sins."
Today's Dem leadership are those who rob the house of all its cash and valuables while encouraging the people to sit in the dark contemplating their sins.
Maybe the Democrats should deluge the country with memorable recruiting posters showing a smiling Uncle Sam pointing benignly at the beholder and saying "I WANT YOU for the Technocratic Elite!"
As long as a significant proportion of the electorate thinks of taxation in terms of Robin Hood against the Sheriff of Nottingham, then there will continue to be a struggle between the ruling elite who retain their power by buying votes, and the taxpaying classes who must supply the elite with that vote-buying lucre or face imprisonment and ruination.
I cannot read Brook's piece, but judging from Althouse's summation it seems merely platitudinous drivel rather than insightful strategizing, which suits me right down to the ground.
Ehh, I'm afraid they're going to crush us, ultimately. In a hundred years MAGA will look like the Free Soil Party and Trump will be William Jennings Bryan.
But I'm not sure why it has to go down that way.
Stockholm Syndrome.
Not a fan of the GOP MAGA populist class struggle rebrand. Fortunately for the GOP, the other party is currently bonkers, so there isn't really an alternative.
David Brooks is upset that coveralls and working stiff clothes don't take creases in the pant parts.
The Democratic Party has exactly one thing to offer to voters; someone else's property.
Ficta writes, "Today's Dems are the party of sitting in the dark with the lights off contemplating your sins."
Correction: Today's Dems are the party of sitting in the dark with the lights off contemplating the sins of others against you, and plotting how best to extort some goodies from the offending class.
Despite the butthurt here, much of what Brooks says in Althouse’s excerpt is true. Trump’s movement shares far more in common with (say) France’s yellow-vest revolution than it does with Reagan’s Morning in America, City on a Hill vision. You can argue whether that’s good or bad, how it came to be, who’s to blame, etc, but blind denial is dopey.
I look to David brooks for insights into modern conservatism the same way I look to Lizzo for tips on dieting.
Harley-Davidson profit falls 23% on slowing sales, shares tumble ...
Reuters
No it doesnt we dont demand taxes on businesses for example
I agree with Earnest.
Democrats in their heart of hearts believe that in an ideal world, your social and moral value would determine your position in a giant social org chart: the "better" a person you are, the higher you should be placed, and the way to reform the world is to put people into the slots that they existentially "deserve." They therefore have a tendency to believe that a person high in the org chart deserves to give orders, be rewarded more than others, etc. (see defenses of private planes for famous people, etc.) even though they consciously know that there are MANY exceptions.
Republicans in their heart of hearts believe that in an ideal world, the amount of productive economic activity you generate would be reflected in your material wealth, and that this would be correlated with your social and moral value. Their idea of how to reform the world is to match rewards to productivity. They have a tendency to believe that a person high on the income scale has on balance done more good for society than someone lower, even though they know consciously that there are MANY exceptions.
MAGA people in their heart of hearts believe that they are the equals of anybody and everybody else regardless of what their position on the org chart or the amount of their income. They INSIST upon this. They will insist VIOLENTLY upon this. We can argue about the source of this belief, but it is real. So someone who didn't finished high school and doesn't have a respected career still believes that his DESIRES aren't any less existentially valuable than those of the wealthy or high-ranking person. This can--and does--lead to enormous resentment, even hatred. But it also means that if you respect a MAGA person, he will respect you right back--that's the "Brotherhood of Americans" or "Team America: Fuck, Yeah!" attitude.
Maybe because Trump is from Queens and spent his life around construction sites he--unlike anyone since Reagan, and in many ways BETTER than Reagan--intuitively understood that all he had to do was RESPECT the desires of the MAGA people as being intrinsically equal to the desires of others. They want closed borders. Others want open borders. Argue it out. Figure out a compromise or, in the end, do what the majority wants, but don't try to claim that people's desire for higher wages or less-crowded schools or housing that they can afford, or protection from crime are illegitimate desires.
And tactically, Trump realized--just like Fox News got rich on their realization that the "niche" of people that didn't want left-slanted news was actually 40% of the country--that the desires of the MAGA people for security, patriotism, tradition, respect for their own micro-cultures were actually far more popular than what either of the two parties was pushing.
David Brooks believes that his desires and those of his social set are simply better than those of the MAGA people, but it is impossible to prove such a thing, so we throw out a huge amount of chaff and winds himself into logical knots because he can't just say that "My desires are existentially better desires than their desires."
Perhaps the circumstances and context has changed since Reagan.
Reagan got duped on "immigration" as well as vax liability.
I agree he turned things around via Volker.
Who out of R's current bench would succeed in Presidential race with strict 80's Reaganism?
David Brooks loved the party of Jeb bush and Mitt Romney. They were so classy, and such good losers!
Maybe we can go back to real Republicanism once Trump goes away. No more vulgar populism, just good fashioned pro-big business Respectability. We won't win, but we can hold our head high at the country club.
Just remember the status quo is always great. Until it isnt.
"Thinking about this more, dems are weak, scared, pathetic people looking for someone to control them so they never have to take a chance and make an actual decision. Sheep."
Warren Meyer (Coyote Blog), from 2004:
In fact, here is a sure fire test for a progressive. If given a choice between two worlds:
A capitalist society where the overall levels of wealth and technology continue to increase, though in a pattern that is dynamic, chaotic, generally unpredictable, and whose rewards are unevenly distributed, or...
A "progressive" society where everyone is poorer, but income is generally more evenly distributed. In this society, jobs and pay and industries change only very slowly, and people have good assurances that they will continue to have what they have today, with little downside but also with very little upside.
Progressives will choose #2. Even if it means everyone is poorer. Even if it cuts off any future improvements we might gain in technology or wealth or lifespan or whatever. They want to take what we have today, divide it up more equally, and then live to eternity with just that. Progressives want #2 today, and they wanted it just as much in 1900.
Its really is amazing how stupid "country club republicans" are. Its obvious there isn't a majority in the USA for their pro-social liberal, pro-big business beliefs, and that an alliance with other segments of society is required.
But they cant stand that. So they grudgingly throw out a few bones to social conservatives or working class folks upset at globalism or Open borders but whenever they get a chance, they ignore them and its back to cutting the corporate tax rates and wars in the middle east.
Assembling a coalition and then giving each alliance partner what they want is beyond them, unlike the elite Democrats. Mostly, its because these poeple don't really like politics and only care about money. So if the Democrats dont tax them too much, they're happy.
"It resembles all those generations of Russian chauvinists who argued that the Russian masses embody all that is good but they are threatened by aliens from the outside.
That's some world class stupid there. So, basically Brooks is saying here that "American citizens are no better than anyone else in the world". Yeah, GFY
MAGA looks like a kind of right-wing Marxism, which assumes that class struggle is the permanent defining feature of politics.
No, MAGA recognizes that Marxists are trying to destroy America, and they're fighting against that.
MAGA is a fortress mentality, but America has traditionally been defined by a pioneering mentality.
And which new frontiers are you supporting American going after, David? none?
GFY
MAGA offers a strong shell, but not much in the way of wings needed to soar.
Americans already have our wings, we just need the gov't, and the "elates", to stop crippling them
If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century.
The Democrats hate "America’s dynamic cultural roots", which makes it difficult to "tap" them.
It should be said that social dynamism is more complicated than it appears at first blush. It’s not just getting on your Harley and hitting the open road. It’s not really about rugged individualism or the libertarian version of freedom as the absence of constraint...."
And now David drops the mask, and shows that he hates and hated teh old GOP just as much as he hates the new one
Read the Constitution. Conservativism does not exercise liberal license to indulge Diversity (i.e. class-disordered ideologies), labor and environmental arbitrage, redistributive change, political congruence, ethnic Springs, and other dogmatic beliefs under the Pro-Choice religion.
"MAGA looks like a kind of right-wing Marxism, which assumes that class struggle is the permanent defining feature of politics."
- D. Brooks
"Tax the Rich."
- The Democrat Base.
Reagan won on a message of American exceptionalism. After Viet-nam the democrats lost their way and their confidence and their courage. Reagan was the counter malaise. But Reagan passed the torch to neocon Washington insiders - Brooks and his ilk come from this generation. The democrats have moved far from their working class blue collar roots and are now the party of intellectual elites and a mix of allegedly oppressed identity groups. Trump is more akin to Reagan, running on a message of American exceptionalism. His base, the MAGA core are the working class blue collar whites abandoned by democrats. Brooks has nothing in common with blue collar working class people other than grifting their votes during the Bush years. Brooks is now an expat without a party writing drivel that few heed. French is in the same boat, adrift without any true following.
CAIR is a progressive theme that wallows in immigration reform at both ends of the bridge and throughout. American Civil Liberties and lives be damned.
The New Green Deal is offered at the expense of the environment, and on the backs of practical and actual slavery.
Progressive prices are subsidized through capital extraction and sustained through redistribution schemes in a quasi-democratic system with upwardly mobile affordability, availability, and debt that favors the top and bottom 1%.
I long ago wrote off David Brooks as a highly educated boob. I stand by this opinion. He never disappoints.
I enjoyed David Brooks's book Bobo's in Paradise (2000) but everything I read by him after that just made me shake my head. Today Brooks is a member of my "not one more second" list. Same for David Frum. I really loved his book Dead Right (1994) but after 9/11 Frum went south too. Hopefully our side wins this thing and so the entire American Left's opinionater class will either be in a [fed poast] somewhere or in exile. Meanwhile fam just ignore their shit.
Credentialed idiot
This guy just sounds like he types prompts into ChatGPT and copies/pastes whatever it spits out. He doesn't understand America or Americans. I hope he continues to give Democrats advice.
Would the aliens threatening us from outside be the illegal aliens pouring across our borders?
John Henry
"MAGA is a fortress mentality, but America has traditionally been defined by a pioneering mentality."
If David likes to sing in the shower, I bet this is his favorite...
Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don't thunder, there's nothin' to plunder
I'm an over-forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late
The sad part isn't that Brooks is lost.
It's that millions of people believe he's "educating" them.
Trump’s movement shares far more in common with (say) France’s yellow-vest revolution than it does with Reagan’s Morning in America, City on a Hill vision.
@Earnie, I was a county vice-chairman for Reagan-Bush in ’84. You, sir, are full of shit. The City on a Hill is still there.
(hat tip: Original Mike)
Brooks wrote:
"...If Democrats are to thrive ..."
I haven't read much David Brooks ... but is he always this out-of-touch with things? When your patient is on IV, oxygen, kidney dialysis and wearing a colostomy bag is it appropriate to talk about thriving?
If Republicans were really so boxed in by a Euro/Russian/Proto-Marxist Shell wouldn't the answer be to get on a Harley and cruise around America in summer?
"...social dynamism is more complicated than it appears at first blush."
Whatever that means. How about the dynamism of coming out dynamically, in favor of an ally, namely Israel - while your opponent flip-flops about the same? How about highlighting the Americans taken hostage by hamas - something Biden, hampered by complicated social dynamism, has not yet done.
I'm glad my mind is not colonized by leftist gobbledygook - not just because the ideas are wrong, but, because it would cause my brain to boil over with bizarre notions of Euro-Marxist Russian Shells and prevent me from taking joy in seeing a large batch of diverse Americans, at the RNC, happy and celebrating under our flag.
Make. America. Great. Again.
it's really not that hard to understand.
The "uneducated" seem to get it right away.
'sound and fury, signifying nothing told by an idiot,
MAGA is a fortress mentality, but America has traditionally been defined by a pioneering mentality. MAGA offers a strong shell, but not much in the way of wings needed to soar. If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century. It should be said that social dynamism is more complicated than it appears at first blush.
Blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah; blah blahblaba, blah. Blah, blah blu blah blah, blah bling blah blutbitzu blah blingo. Blush, blush, blings, and blah blah. Bloop bloob blee, blah blah blah
I'll bet Brooks thought this shallow dribble was brilliant when he wrote it.
Permanent class struggle?!
Ummm, that would depend on how long the snobby assholes keep screwing the working and middle classes.
If Deep State/Big Brother stops the comprehensive surveillance, censorship, forced medical experiments, state run news media, political prisoners, kangaroo courts, relentless gaslighting, open borders, rampant crime, stolen elections, endless wars, sex trafficking, and shithole cities ....
We will happily go back to living our lives and barely paying much attention to politics.
But now is not the time for summer soldiers and sunshine patriots. We have to slay the tyrant.
Brooks is telling his "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" Bobos to give up on their Harleys? Given their average age, probably a good idea just from the highway fatality POV, even if they're just riding those motorized tricycles now. As long as they don't start wearing the European thongs to the beach.
David Brooks is so out of touch with normal people I couldn’t even finish reading the short piece posted above. It just plain nonsense from the first word. Has Brooks even left Manhattan and visited regular flyover country anytime in the last 20 years?
"If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century."
"Dynamic cultural roots"? Like a dynamic, living Constitution, perhaps? You know- where you torture the black and white text of the document until it screams and says it's okay to do whatever you think the "Current Thing" should be?
How about if we tap into the cultural roots of the people who founded this country instead? And if you don't care for that, you're free to go someplace else that's more to your liking. Honest- nobody will stop you.
56 PM
Blogger Skeptical Voter said...
A bushel of bull dung from Brooks--as it was in the beginning it's now and ever shall be. That's Brooksie--seduced by a pants crease and then on his knees for 8 years.
Brooks and the Democrat cabal he speaks for organizes us into classes--and like the Czars sends us off to Pales of various kinds. The Blacks are on the voting plantation down South with extensions to big cities in the North. The Deplorable Pale is somewhere out there in flyover country. Now the Hispanics are herded off into haciendas somewhere in the Southwest--just so long as those icky Mexicans don't make it to Manhattan. And so it goes.
Well Brooksie-- just sod off--Just-----Sod----Off!
Well said, Skeptical.
David Brooks is so out of touch with normal people I couldn’t even finish reading the short piece posted above. It just plain nonsense from the first word. Has Brooks even left Manhattan and visited regular flyover country anytime in the last 20 years?
If you filled a balloon with Brooks' essays, you could fly.
I wonder if Brooks has noticed the emptying out of New York City, except for the illegals of course.
The "American Abundance" Brooks natters on about isn't trickling down to the middle class and working class so much anymore. That's part of the MAGA drive he and his can't grasp.
I thought elites wanted Americans to be more like Europeans.
It's had to keep up sometimes.
"I thought elites wanted Americans to be more like Europeans."
They want Americans to STFU and get back to cleaning their toilets.
They have a real blind spot about immigration, don't they?
No, it's just a "cult of personality," that's all it could be.
Brooks got left behind a looooong time ago.
He's still New York's token "conservative" though.
Safe enough to invite to parties because he's one of the good ones.
Reagan was all about "Freedom" because we were battling an "Evil Empire" ruled by a dictatorship. Reagan's whole political life up till 1989 was defined by opposing the evil -isms. First WW 2 and then the cold war.
None of that has any relevance for today. Russia and China aren't evil empires and they don't have a philsophy of expansionism. Pgymy countries like NK and Iran aren't a real threat. We have a relatively small military and its not clear it needs to be that big.
Reagan could hint about how great immigration was, but that's because until 1965 when he was 54, we had very little immigration, and from then until 1989 immigration 1989 was almost all legal. Even the "Amnesty" on effected a couple million, and no one really cared about it.
The importance of "Free trade", "outsourcing" "Open borders" all came after Reagan was POTUS. Comparing Reagan of 1989 to Trump of 2024 is like comparing an apple to a 35 year old orange.
Yes, our patronizing inferiors do constitute an elite, [etc.]
I don't see how that observation is unique to Marxists, it isn't even new to the last millenia. It is history driven by human nature, not economics.
I think China is rather expansionistic, just ask The Philippines - and an evil dictatorship? The CCP certainly falls under that heading, as does North Korea.
It must be nice being a lazy, pet conservative for a major liberal paper. Unlike the dime-a-dozen lefties who are all replaceable in a heartbeat, your gig just keeps rolling on. All you have to do is be the liberal you really are in a conservative's skinsuit, with every column:
Why Won't Icky Conservatives Be Less Conservative?
This is the kind of thing that you write when you have one eye on the Convention coverage, one eye on the ball game, and Enya blaring through the headphones.
Yep, nothing us deplorables like more than getting on our Harleys and hitting the open road, all the while clinging to our guns and our Bibles. Yippie tie yay and git along little doggies.
"MAGA looks like a kind of right-wing Marxism, which assumes that class struggle is the permanent defining feature of politics."
Big Mike: "How to admit that you’re clueless. When you’re over-educated but under-brained learn to leave people the f**k alone."
Skeptical Voter: "A bushel of bull dung from Brooks--as it was in the beginning it's now and ever shall be. That's Brooksie--seduced by a pants crease and then on his knees for 8 years."
Dixcus: "This guy just sounds like he types prompts into ChatGPT and copies/pastes whatever it spits out. He doesn't understand America or Americans. I hope he continues to give Democrats advice."
Greg: "And now David drops the mask, and shows that he hates and hated teh old GOP just as much as he hates the new one"
Interested Bystander: "David Brooks is so out of touch with normal people I couldn’t even finish reading the short piece posted above. It just plain nonsense from the first word."
So true.....all of the above.
....and then there's Earnest Prole: "Despite the butthurt here, much of what Brooks says in Althouse’s excerpt is true."
LOL
I'm afraid not laddie.
Imagine being a thing like Brooks. You realize that your owners require you to publish some gibberish/drivel, regularly. That means, pretty soon. You've certainly got a week. You certainly don't have a month. At the same time, you have certain pretensions to intellectual depth that you not only used to take seriously, but still expect others to take seriously. You just don't have any actual ideas. So, you are following the Dowd/Blow/Bruni protocol; just keep chokin' that chicken! The NYT never fires a diversity hire! But does "house conservative" qualify as a diversity hire?
Plus, the young popsy the NYT bought you for your birthday, back in the teens, that you dumped Wife 1.0 for, is getting a little long in the tooth. Will NYT maybe buy you a new one, if you can show them that you are still a net plus for the brand? How many popsies does a "conservative columnist" get to burn through, anyway? The NYT has no problem whatsoever with marital infidelity, wife-dumping, or even polygamy. But at some point, the "conservative" label begins to get a bit threadbare. And maybe you're not the only one "going through the motions". Why does a smart chick in her twenties want to fuck David Brooks, anyway? One has to suspect a pecuniary motive. Who dumps whom, once it's clear the check will be covered?
Starting to drink a bit at lunch, Brooksie? WTF, have another. It's only the NYT.
Last year I was in the uk, visiting my brother. While he is not ‘ultra right wing’ he is conservative and right leaning, supporting Brexit. There was a police shooting. A traffic stop resulted in the cop shooting the driver in the head. The reason? He had a firearm sitting on the passenger seat. There was no conversation or interaction, the cop simply shot him instantly when he saw the gun.
Overwhelmingly, people agreed that it was the correct course of action - even those who are in the right. If you have a gun you should be shot and killed. Period. If you have a knife while in public, I. Your backpack, pocket, you should go to jail because you are clearly (sic) up to no good (ironically, if you truly are up to no good, you’ll probably be slapped with an ASBO).
True, guns knives, and the right to self defense are contentious subjects the world over, but eliminating the tools often used in violent situations does nothing to move towards a civil society, and indeed, furthers its decay into barbarianism. I believe the right understands this at a core level, either consciously or subconsciously. Freedom acknowledges that certain societal distastefulness exists.
The euro-right (England is part of Europe, don’t be pedantic and draw an equivalence between the European Union and Europe), the euro-right are not right wing, or conservative in the American sense. They have no concept of real freedom. However, they are truly free to explore their guilded cage.
The right, conservative, republican: all seem to espouse the idea of freedom and limited oversight - the opposite of the left, no matter what they say.
Indeed, when we get on our Harleys to explore the open road, we acknowledge the dangers the unknowns and accept them. Because this leads to great things. This is freedom - and the right - and what is so great about America. Both literally and figuratively, ‘getting on your Harley and hitting the open road’ is what Making America Great Again is all about.
Per usual, David Brooks has his finger on the pulse of his own wrist.
He called the huntress a cancer the most esrnest polite woman you would ever meet
Oh, look! David Brooks had an idea and then wrote about it.
More and more, it seems as if George Will and David Brooks are pinkie wrestling over the one remaining testicle they share.
Jupiter likes to sniff other guys' sheets.
Whenever I start to feel the world is full of bullshit, I stop reading Brooks.
Can't have a pioneering mentality if all the fucking frontiers have been closed.
Hopping on the Harley and hitting the road implies that someone built a road . . .
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