History is Bunk

As regular readers know, over the years I have grown ever more firmly convinced that Mr. David Brooks is not merely in the business of extruding one steaming 800-word log of fact-averse flapdoodle after another, but is in fact engaged in a much larger, longer-range enterprise: creating an entirely fictional history of the modern Republican Party the modern Conservative movement.

A fairy tale past into which Mr. Brooks can insert himself as a national sage, arbiter and visionary.

When viewed from the vantage point afforded me by working very hard for the last decade to become arguably one the most expert observers and critics of David Brooks' entire body of work, I can say without fear of contradiction that, on the one hand, in column after column, the sheer scale of the meta-fraud Mr. Brooks is attempting to perpetrate on the American public it is a genuinely breathtaking. 

On the other hand, it would also disintegrate like a Sno Cone in a cyclotron if anyone, anywhere in the American Media Aristocracy ever subjected the works of David Brooks to the slightest critical scrutiny.

But that will never happen, which means Mr. Brooks' Great Big Lie grows thicker, heavier and more difficult to pry away from the enter of American political thought every day.

In that context, let me say that Mr. Brooks' column today stood out as a jewel of pure, jaw-dropping Brooksian awfulness and criminally dishonesty. However, as I'm literally jotting this down while sprinting from pillar and post today, I will have no opportunity to drill and frak it with all the zaz it deserves until long after the sun goes down, so until then let me leave you to contemplate America's Greatest Conservative Public Intellectual thoughts on another election from not so very long ago...

from a Big City Newspaper

The Values-Vote Myth

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: November 6, 2004 

...

It's ridiculous to say, as some liberals have this week, that we are perpetually refighting the Scopes trial, with the metro forces of enlightenment and reason arrayed against the retro forces of dogma and reaction.

In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues.

But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man.