David Brooks has finally repudiated the Dark Side. Maybe I can respect him now. A little

In My Humble Opinion
21

Same here, for the most part. My point was (intended to be) that none of us here are actually having a discussion with David Brooks, as far as we know.

I was responding to Alessan’s comment about “Just say ‘Good job’ and ‘Keep up the good work’”, which sounds relevant to a direct communication with the person whose behavior you’re discussing, rather than to an internet kibitzing session about the published opinions of a well-known public figure.

I don’t think it’s particularly hypocritical or disingenuous to acknowledge the proverbial difference in tone between “thou” and “they”. Talking about somebody, in the capacity of a remote spectator of their public behavior, is necessarily somewhat different from talking to them, even when talking about the same behavior.

22

It’s not the ground-level Trumpians in the U.S. that will see Brooks’ article. It’s the Trumpian/conservative opinion leaders who’ve seen Brooks’ about-face in person (see below, from The Atlantic article), and are gradually weaving together a net of a permission structure for more influential Trumpians/convervatives (esp American federal-level politicians) to ‘safely’ oppose Trump’s administration.

David Brooks (my bolding):

In February, about a month into Trump’s second term, I spoke at a gathering of conservatives in London called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Some of the speakers were pure populist (Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Johnson, and Nigel Farage). But others were center-right or not neatly ideological (Niall Ferguson, Bishop Robert Barron, and my Atlantic colleague Arthur C. Brooks).

In some ways, it was like the conservative conferences I’ve been attending for decades. I listened to a woman from Senegal talking about trying to make her country’s culture more entrepreneurial. I met the head of a charter school in the Bronx that focuses on character formation. But in other ways, this conference was startlingly different.

In my own talk, I sympathized with the populist critique of what has gone wrong in Western societies. But I shared with the audience my dark view of President Trump. Unsurprisingly, a large segment of the audience booed vigorously. One man screamed that I was a traitor and stormed out. But many other people cheered. Even in conservative precincts infected by reactionary MAGA-ism, some people are evidently tired of Trumpian brutality.

23

Generally speaking, the first word said to those who step off the Trump-train should be,
“Welcome”.

There are exceptions to every rule: in this case we’re speaking of someone who has stepped on and off the Trump train dozens and dozens of times. It’s getting old. His columns in the NYT would intersperse occasional attacks on the GOP with specious defenses of the same, generally delivered via a myopic attack on liberals. This thread provides an example:

David Brooks deserves no moral plaudits because he has absolutely no moral authority. All the same, “Welcome to the never-ever-Trump-hater team David. Let’s make this mercurial positioning permanent.”

David Brooks is an ultra-liberal hero, the anathma of all that is MAGA. I say this because Brooks is 100% opportunist, and once you capture the opportunists you win.

ETA: Ok, I’m about halfway through the article. Typical Brooks positioning, utter horseshit, I stand by my conclusion:.there are useful idiots and useful oppotunists and Brooks is the latter.

24

This is a misrepresentation of what Brooks wrote. To start, note that he’s not talking about his college – the incident was at Dartmouth, and Brooks is a University of Chicago alumnus. Here’s what he actually wrote (my bolding):

I should have understood this much sooner, because the reactionaries had revealed their true character as far back as January 1986. A group of progressive students at Dartmouth had erected a shantytown on campus to protest apartheid. One night, a group of 12 students, most of them associated with the right-wing Dartmouth Review, descended on the shanties with sledgehammers and smashed them down.

Even then I was appalled. Apartheid was evil, and worth opposing. A nighttime raid with sledgehammers seemed more Gestapo than Burkean. But conservative intellectuals didn’t take this seriously enough. In large part, I think this was because we looked down on the Dartmouth Review mafia, whose members had included Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D’Souza. Their intellectual standards were so obviously third-rate. I don’t know how to put this politely, but they just seemed creepy—nakedly ambitious in a way that I thought would destroy them in the end.

25

Sure. I’m glad this is one of those “massive towers of black smoke coming off a pile of burning tires” fire and not a smokeless propane cutting torch for.

26

You need to re-read that part.

27

We need conservatives. For the past couple of decades, Democrats have been forced into being both the conservative party and the liberal party, and let’s face it, we suck at being conservative. We need actual conservatives, and there are far too few of them left. So, add one to that column, and may many more follow him.

28

Completely agree. If we dismiss or demonize people who admit they were wrong, we lose allies we absolutely need.

Thanks for the link, ThelmaLou. I subscribe to the Atlantic, but my reading habits these days are erratic.

Others have already pointed out that you misread what Brooks was saying, but I’ll just add that this kind of misinterpretation is something we all need to guard against when reading the words of someone we are primed to disagree with/be angry at.

29

It has to be bad enough that the sycophantic hangers-on in the Republican Party see the threat to their own power from Trump’s policies as worse than whatever Trump can do to punish them if they deviate from Trump-worship.

That’s the “silver lining” in the coming economic slump.

30

Hey Brooks: Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so.

31

Someone remind me? What was the reaction when Harris accepted the support of Liz Cheney? But yeah, the Democrats need to open the tent flaps to conservatives that claim to have seen the light . . . said light being that Trump is doing what the conservatives have always said they want to do.

32

Channeling Debbie Reynolds as Grace Adler’s mother?

33

Once all of this is over, we’re going to have to figure out a way to live with Trump supporters. They’re not just going to all disappear to our 51st state Greenland or find asylum in the conservative paradise of Russia. As much as it chap’s my hide, when someone comes out of the cold we need to give them a pat on the back. It’s tough for people to leave a cult to begin with and seeing the outside world ridicule those who do will discourage them from leaving.

34

Which cult? The cult of Trump or the cult of government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub/welfare queens/tax cuts/deregulation/etc/etc/etc?

35

Except that conservative intellectuals knew exactly what they getting themselves in for and celebrated it. They weren’t feeding off solely a constant barrage of right-wing news; the other side was constantly dueling with them. American history is littered with intellectuals - on all sides - who supported authoritarian regimes until they had their faces rubbed in their own mess. At any time, did it help the forthcoming worsened world to not ridicule them? E.g., the conservatives who glorified the fascists before WWII were part of the pack who tore apart the left after WWII. They suffered not a whit, but everybody else did.

As has been pounded into the ground here and elsewhere, Democrats need to find a positive vision for the future and feed that to the people most affected. Conservative intellectuals who helped caused this disaster should be given no quarter. Let them wander in the wilderness. Nobody on either side will care.

36

Juror #10 Conservative Intellectuals: Listen to me. Listen.
Juror #4 Democrats: [quietly and firmly] I We have. Now sit down and don’t open your mouth again.

37

I generally agree and this is worthy of emphasis, but Brooks is an exception because he came out of the cold then ventured back into the cold multiple times, generally within the same month. He’s not a reliable narrator and his introspection rings false. He’s an opportunistic phony, but we need those people as well, at least for the 5 or 10 minutes that they stick around.

Let’s look at the article, I should have seen this coming (2025), a companion piece to Confessions of a Republican Exile, (Oct 2024) also in the Atlantic. This month’s version provides us with a good example of the No True Scotsman fallacy:

Trumpian nihilism has eviscerated conservatism. The people in this administration are not conservatives. They are the opposite of conservatives. Conservatives once believed in steady but incremental reform; Elon Musk believes in rash and instantaneous disruption. Conservatives once believed that moral norms restrain and civilize us, habituating us to virtue; Trumpism trashes moral norms in every direction, riding forward on a tide of adultery, abuse, cruelty, immaturity, grift, and corruption. Conservatives once believed in constitutional government and the Madisonian separation of powers; Trump bulldozes checks and balances, declaiming on social media, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Reagan promoted democracy abroad because he thought it the political system most consistent with human dignity; the Trump administration couldn’t care less about promoting democracy—or about human dignity.

Stewart Stevens once asked: how could almost all Republicans disavow their longstanding principles overnight? The question answers itself: the GOP of 2016 never had any principles to begin with. It was all a lie. The same goes for self-styled conservatives. All those conservative principles were bluster: it is as ludicrous to say the Trump administration is not conservative as it is to say the Iraq War was not conservative (some said that). The answer to this sophestry is: “Whether you call it conservative or not, these are projects carried out and advocated solely by self-styled conservatives.”

There is a sliver of truth to Brooks’ contention. Liberals are reformists, conservatives can be defined as reform skeptics who concede the need for change, but want to go slow. Reactionaries have no principles: their ideology is defined in reaction to liberalism. It’s all impulse. The only twist is that reactionaries self-identify as conservatives, conservatives self-identify as moderates, and liberals self-identify as liberals, progressives, and/or members of the center-left. Brooks is a preening reactionary, but not as reactionary as the Trumpists.

We should look for cracks in the conservative coalition, take care not to say, “I told you so,” too much, welcome those with credible commitment to our democratic experiment. Don’t demand that they agree with us on everything: the coalition doesn’t need to rely on members who check every box. But I’m still wary of panderers like Brooks, spouters of tired, well trodden, and misleading analysis.

Will Brooks bring anyone along with him? Honestly, that’s the bottom line: I have my doubts.

38

Conservatives once believed in steady but incremental reform; Elon Musk believes in rash and instantaneous disruption.

Yes, we know. Conservatives want to murder us with a thousand, again literal, cuts while Musk has the decency to simply slit throats.

39

But Exapno, they’re floundering, they’re drowning, they need a hand up, they need help.

Toss 'em an anchor.

I wouldn’t worry solely about the past though. Persuasion occurs in increments and if they can bring a few along, great. But it they can’t, I have little patience with their egotistical and revisionist hagiographies.

Instead ask, "Do they have anything interesting to say, something other than reassuring reactionaries?’ Related: “Do they do actual reporting?” For David French, the answer is, “Occasionally yes”. For the Volokh conspiracy, it’s, “Typically yes”. For David Brooks it’s, “Not really, no”.

40

Disagree. It’s an article littered with the usual references to popular historians and unsupported conservative assertions, but with little or no new reporting. Lazy amateur sociology, Brooks’ specialty. I’m going to need some evidence that he pulls anyone with him.

Ok, ok, I need to backpeddle a little. I’ve referred to Brooks’ writing. I don’t watch much TV, but I see that he still appears regularly as a talking head. Well, that’s great: he’s genuinely good at that, entertainment wise. If he’s tacking towards the constitution, I’ll give him a tip of the hat, but I’ve seen enough bending and weaving in his columns to not take them seriously as an indicator of anything.