There is this . The longer he sticks to his guns about being anti-Trump the more believable he will be, but he isn’t anywhere close to there yet.
This was patently obvious all along to everyone (a) who wasn’t a moron or (b) whose vested interest depended on pretending it wasn’t obvious.
Brooks has a proven track record of using his self-described above-average communication skills to manufacture pleasant-sounding justifications for total bullshit. I see lots of hand-wringing in this essay, lots of scales-falling-from-eyes, but no admission of collaboration and culpability. Yes, Trump is violently attacking the people and values Brooks claims to hold dear… and he’s doing it because Brooks helped him.
You want me to find Brooks admirable for turning on Trump? Show me where he confesses his own dishonesty and malfeasance. He even explicitly notes this as necessary for national healing, when he talks about Germany’s leaders “accepting responsibility” for their Nazi past — but Brooks accepts none of his own. He admits being wrong in his beliefs — painting himself as some sort of dewy-eyed naïf — but not in his actions.
This is especially galling because nearly all the symbols of American goodness and progress he holds up as worth celebrating — cultural shifts that disfavor sexism and racism, programs to fight HIV and AIDS internationally — were efforts driven largely by the left which were bitterly opposed by his ideological allies. He postures as if the nihilism and money-motivated bullying is new. It’s not.
I will grant that his observations about the Whigs are somewhat interesting and insightful. They are poorly remembered by modern political thinkers outside the circles of professional historians, and it’s true that they arose as a reaction to the Jacksonian years. But it’s simple-minded to say we just need another Whig-type resurgence. It’s a totally different political environment, and more importantly a different media environment, where the levers of communication are dominated by the trolls and nihilists Brooks decries — and who he helped prop up.
Great, it’s one more voice against Trump. We can use all of these we can get. But as a rallying cry for realignment on the right? As an expression of true contrition? Nah. Pure self-serving horseshit.
I object to how the word “conservative” has insinuated itself into the conversation. I’m a firm believer in the fact that words have meanings, and although meanings change over time, they don’t change overnight.
Trump is a flat-out fascist demagogue, not in any sense a conservative. His radical and reckless behaviours and policies are not even remotely conservative by any rational definition. And the Republican Trumpists who are his enablers, both in Congress and in state legislatures, aren’t conservatives, either – they’re raving lunatics who’ve not only lost all their principles, but also their minds.
Brooks wasn’t being a conservative, either, when he supported Trump. I guess it took all these years for him to finally realize that.
To insist that Trump and his ilk are Conservatives is to insist that the definition of “Conservative” itself has changed.
What significant item on the conservative ‘wish list’ since, let’s limit it to, Reagan is not on Trump’s ‘to do’ list?
IMHO, you can say that Trumpism is something more than old school conservatism, conservatism-plus if you will, but I don’t see how anyone can say that Trumpism is not what conservatives have been saying that they want.
I probably didn’t read the LONG article carefully enough, but did Brooks disavow ANY of his previous actions or beliefs other than support for Trump? I mean, he was historically quite critical of any number of liberal values and programs independent of Trump. And, as Cervaise notes, this apologia does go a way towards saying, “The liberals made me do it!”
I’m honestly trying to recall when I lost my prior respect for Brooks as a (relatively) not insane conservative. Perhaps it was concurrent with Trump 1.0. But that is so many LONG years ago that I can’t recall..
It is of some value to have one more person defect from the MAGA camp. And his voice is somewhat louder than yours or mine. But other than objecting to Trump, he sure isn’t saying he embraces liberal values.
Free trade?
Yep.
Here’s his complete version of “the Left done did this to us!”, from the Atlantic article:
Tell us more about how the Left “stamped out dissent” and these “purges” of which you speak. And about how the current battle is between the “sleazy rich kids” (Trump administration) and the “pretentious rich kids” (the Left), and that once again embracing True Conservatism will bring about a return to the Golden Age. And how it’s OK to demonize your political opponents, just don’t go so far.
It would also be interesting to hear about True Conservatives’ concrete plans for what Brooks refers to as “working class abundance”, and whether they’ll include True Conservatives typical contempt and hatred towards unions, like we’ve seen time and again in the editorial pages of the Wall St. Journal.
If Brooks can resist playing his own version of the Resentment Blame Game, he’s a modestly useful addition to resistance against the current mess.
But where’s his call to action for the vast majority of Republican legislators who’ve bowed down to Trump for fear of their petty political power?
He’s such a bullshitter. The left didn’t purge conservatives from anywhere. Maybe they purged racists and bigots? But, racism and bigotry isn’t essential to conservatism.
I think the tut-tutting in this thread is pretty funny. As others said, if I had a sit-down with David Brooks, I would say that it was wonderful that he has written about how bad the current administration is. But, on this obscure message board? I’m definitely going to call out his hypocrisy, and the legitimacy he lent to Trump for many years.
When democracy is at stake, writing about how some college stopped serving Thai food for fear of cultural appropriation is really missing the big picture. Wringing your hands over PC word Nazis while ignoring the actual Nazis trying to destroy the Republic is essentially editorial malpractice.
I wonder if he still thinks it’s condescendingly elitist to use Italian names for deli meats:
My bold.
Why wouldn’t you say the bolded part to his face? <scratches head>
I’m not rude, and as others here say, it’s better to congratulate him for his (finally!) conversion than scold him for his past stupidity and cowardice. Just what I need, a Brooks article bemoaning how he finally repudiated Trump just to have some liberal tell him it’s not enough.
Democracy was a pejorative to the founders, who equated it with mob rule. Yet within 50 years, the dictionary definition of the word democracy could have just used a picture of America, because that’s how everybody used the word. And has for 200 years, despite several zillion discussions of whether democracy is a truly accurate description of America.
“Conservative” and “liberal” didn’t take modern form in America until the end of the 19th century. That change also stuck. They’ve been the default labels now for 125 years. One would think that a word that has been the default for the lifetime of everyone here might have some relevance to political discussions.
Conservatives have been on the wrong side of history in every major action and reaction throughout my lifetime. They proudly presented themselves as conservatives every minute of those almost 75 years. (I was born in the McCarthy era!) Whatever opprobrium they are getting today as conservatives is well-deserved. David Brooks is a conservative, who has touted conservative beliefs and policies for decades. The consequences of those beliefs and policies were completely foreseeable. (See post #30.) He doesn’t get to wriggle out of it now by denying the association. Just as the arguments over the applicability of the word democracy doesn’t get Trump out of the accusation that he’s destroying democracy.
Of course words have meaning, or, more properly, meanings. The meaning of a word in popular discourse (no pun intended) is formed entirely - let me emphasize that: entirely - by how the word is used in popular discourse. Not its derivation, or dictionary definition, or technical alternate usage. A conservative is a conservative when one conforms to, embraces, practices, and exults conservative beliefs and policies, which - and here’s the kicker - may themselves change over time.
Frankly, I care very little about judging Brooks’ character. He’s an opportunist, so we want to provide him with anti-Trump opportunities. (Ditto for other opportunists: methinks you should pause before flinging brickbats on twitter and purity tests are tiresome.) I do care about how Brooks conducts himself moving forwards.
I’m not yet convinced it will change substantially.
Articles in the Atlantic preach to the converted (though they may have a small country club Republican readership). I’m wondering whether Brooks will move the needle on his many TV appearances. Legit wondering: I could see this go either way. Brooks’ writings are vastly overrated, but his more impactful TV appearances reflect his talent at water carrying. It’s a living.
Speaking of Bret “third party” Stephens, he just wrote a piece on the NY Times about what a disaster the administration is. He didn’t even blame liberals along the way!
I don’t know what he was expecting from this president, but it looks like he’s also seen the light. Although, I think he was always a never-trumper, even if he didn’t vote for the Democrat.
Brooks is feeling sorry for himself, because he knows he can’t be taken seriously again by anyone. The far-right now views him as a “Panican” traitor and everyone to his left views him, correctly, as a useless tool who hasn’t been correct about anything in his life. So his career as a pundit has come to a crashing halt.
Bravo. You are absolutely correct. I am an academic and when we hired, we never asked about political or any other questions, other than about their research and tried to judge (usually from an invited talk) whether they could be effective teachers. Of course, they mostly turned out to be very liberal.
My wife’s stepsister once visited us with a friend who asked why most professors were Dems and the only thing I could come up with was that they were generally very intelligent. That answer didn’t go down very well.
My wife has always said that Brooks is shallow all the way down. While I appreciate that it is clearly good that he has stepped back and seen where his cult has gone, but I don’t think he recognizes how much they were always gone. Brooks was a protegé of William Buckley. Buckley went to his grave believing (or at least claiming to believe) that Joseph McCarthy was a sincere patriot. Incidentally, there is a clear line between McCarthy and Trump that goes through Roy Cohn. Also don’t forget Goldwater for whom the civil rights law was an anathema.
Absolutely correct, in my opinion. No criticism of trump from someone like John Bolton is going to make me regard him as anything but a contemptible, cowardly, POdogS. I don’t regard Brooks as negatively, but don’t expect me to admire him.
Goldwater was an overly zealous ideologue who later repudiated his opposition to civil rights laws. Later still, he expressed support for gay rights (the earliest prominent consevative I can remember doing so). I wouldn’t put him in the same category as McCarthy, Cohn, and Trump.
Goldwater was a libertarian conservative when that was a real position. Some logical consequences of that stance appealed to liberals. He quietly supported civil rights in the 1950s because that was part of letting people alone. Unfortunately, he then publicly went full bigot to appeal to 60s conservatives. His convictions were subservient to his ambitions. (The same could be said of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon as well, of course.) His later positions went back to more standard libertarian conservative. Paving the way for Reagan puts him permanently in the negative column, notwithstanding the times that he happened to say something agreeable to liberals.
Both Liz and Dick Cheney endorsed Harris. Didn’t make them any less fanatical conservatives when they actually had power.