The Ongoing Sad Bastard Divorce Chronicles of David Brooks

For 20 years, David Brooks was one of the John Henrys of the American Conservative movement:

John Henry was a railroad man,
He worked from six 'till five,
"Raise 'em up bullies and let 'em drop down,
I'll beat you to the bottom or die."

Swinging that hammer and laying track for the Republican Party faster than damn near any man alive!

John Henry said to his captain:
"You are nothing but a common man,
Before that steam drill shall beat me down,
I'll die with my hammer in my hand."

For 20 years he swung that hammer and laid that track right over every Dirty Hippies who tried warn him where that track was leading, and what kind of Hell was roaring down it.  But Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times ignored the pesky Liberals and their wild nonsense, and went on laying that track, straight and true, because swinging that hammer and laying that track for the Republican Party was his True Calling:

John Henry said to the Hippies:
"You must listen to my call,
Before those Liberals beat me down,
I'll jar these mountains till they fall."

And now that Day-Glo fascism has come a'rumblin' down those very tracks, hauling the entire Republian Party behind it, Mr. Brooks has decided that he very much no longer wants to be in the steel-drivin' business.*

Better yet, he'd very much appreciate it if everyone would agree to completely forget that he was ever in the steel-drivin' business.  That literally the only reason he has a column-for-life at The New York Times, and a gig on PBS, and a gig on NPR, and a gig on "Meet the Press" and a permanent invite to TED Talks and Aspen Institutes and Davos gathering and college lecture from now until the end of time is precisely because he spent his entire adult life swinging that hammer and laying that track for the Republican Party.

So instead of steel-drivin' and railroadin', Mr. David Brooks would like to get back to the important topic of...

...Romance!

Which brings us to the latest chapter in the The Ongoing Sad Bastard Divorce Chronicles of David Brooks.

Which you can skip completely because I'm going to condense it for you...

right....

now...

What Romantic Regime Are You In?

Polina Aronson spent her first 16 years in Russia...

But when she was in high school, Aronson moved to America, and stumbled across an issue of Seventeen magazine...

Aronson concluded that she had moved from the Russian Regime of Fate to the American Regime of Choice...

The Regime of Choice encourages a certain worldly pragmatism. It nurtures emotionally cool, semi-isolated individuals...

The dating market becomes a true market, where people carefully appraise each other, looking for red flags...

Even those of us who have had humbling experiences in this realm can look at those who seem to have this lifelong thing figured out and see a different set of attitudes and presuppositions, which you might call a Regime of Covenants...

The Regime of Covenants acknowledges the fact that we don’t really choose our most important attachments the way you choose a toaster...

There.  All done!  Enjoy the rest of your day and don't forget that thank Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times -- who gets paid real money to write stuff like this year after year after year -- for working so tirelessly for so many years swinging the hammer and laying track that delivered Il Douche into the White House.


*Thanks for the catch