Tuesday, March 06, 2018

David Brooks: Many Sainted Men

QUEENBOBO_SM


Today in David Brooks...

Yadda yadda.

Then Both Sides!
The younger generations are more radical, on left and right. The rising political tendencies combine lavish spending from the left with racially charged immigrant restrictions from the right.
Then more yadda yadda.

And then the inevitable question.  The same question.  The apparently eternal fucking question. Why does The New York Times continue to pay David Brooks to write the same, trite, toxic Both Siderist piffle over and over again, decade after decade?

For the answer, we turn today to The Alienist Season 1 Episode 7: "Many Sainted Men"
Let me tell you how this city is run, you stupid Mick. We serve the rich, and in return, they raise us above the primordial filth. And God help us if we don't keep up our end of the bargain.

There is no real mystery here.  Keeping Mr. Brooks on The New York Times payroll is part of the ancient bargain.  The role he and those like him play in our long, national nervous breakdown is to tell the rich the fairy tales they wish to believe.  Over and over and over again.

And if this seems ludicrous and dangerous to you, remember that, in their eyes, we are the primordial filth which the Beltway Elite and their billionaire patrons were put on this Earth by God Almighty to rise above.


Behold, a Tip Jar!

7 comments:

Andrew Johnston said...

My favorite part about this particular bothsiderist quote is just what an afterthought it is. The rest of the column is about fascism and Putin and xenophobia and rightists, and then the second to last paragraph is "both sides are scary." Really, this was phoned in even by Dave's standards.

He could have done a better job. Today's book report subject was a guy I don't know much about - I'm inclined to dislike him off the bat because he calls Trump a "populist" (Nnnnnngh) and insists that social media is destroying us (NNNNNGH). Any halfway competent bothsiderist could have used his book as a springboard into that "The Republican Donald Trump is a trainwreck, therefore liberals must never have power" narrative that they're all falling in love with, but Brooks just lets it slip away.

I'm disappointed - not so much with Brooks, but with the revelation that I know enough about the bothsiderist mindset that I could write like one of them without much difficulty.

RUKidding said...

What's even more disappointing, Andrew Johnson, is that just about anyone of us commenting here - and of course, even more so our esteemed "host," Driftglass - could EASILY churn out an even better, more cogent Bothsiderist column than DFB... but alas we are not on the cocktail weenie circuit sucking at rightwingnut tittie, so we'll never see the big buckeroo$.

bowtiejack said...

". . . to tell the rich the fairy tales they wish to believe."
Nailed it!

dinthebeast said...

Um, just what "lavish spending from the left" is he talking about? Did I miss something? I lavishly spent six American dollars on a rotisserie chicken from Foodmaxx yesterday, is that what he's referring to?

-Doug in Oakland

Meremark said...

Re: "lavish spending." $30 average lavishing, and then if 50 million spend their average all together, boom, you got a billion and a half. ...if petrodollars count.

My point is Matt Gertz plays driftglass LOUD
boom

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/03/06/ny-times-election-coverage-2018-and-2020-will-be-bad-it-was-2016/219564

Bruce.desertrat said...

Mrs .desertrat asked today, and I quote "After reading this, particularly the last couple of paragraphs, answer this: Is Brooks on drugs? "...

Yes, yes he is the most pernicious drug known to Media: bothsidesidol.

Pagan in repose said...

Off topic.

How I despise thee? Let me count the ways.

Regarding the insider trading by Carl Icahn on the new tariffs, I just don't get the billionaire club. I mean he risks getting caught for a lowly 6 million when his total worth is 16 billion dollars. That is about .00004% of his wealth, what is the frickin' point. My equivalent would be if I had made 60$ off of a total worth of 150,000$ by engaging in insider trading while risking all that I have. My point is the billionaire club is quite like any common addict, as the saying goes "1 is too many and a billion is not enough.

I think all billionaires are sociopaths and should be stripped of their wealth by at least 99%. I personally think that no person should be allowed to have that much money. Because people with that much money no longer have any idea what daily existence is like. In fact they tend to think that they know what is good for us normal working folks by buying our government and implementing their views of the world. Of course they don't give a shit about us they just want to make things better for themselves by acquisition of all the money in the world.

I just don't get why people equate wealth with being smart. During my working life I met a few wealthy CEOs and they were all dumb and dumber than a stump. That is an insult to stumps, as sumps have a purpose in this world.

Sorry, I just needed to wax redundant for a few minutes.