Today In Both Sides Do It: David Fucking Brooks

First, a little refreshing music to take the taste of the ashes of democracy out of your mouth.

Then, on to business.

Specifically, a reminder that there is no Republican atrocity so blunt, clear and horrifying that Mr. David Brooks will not try to disperse blame for it equally to both sides of the political spectrum.

So today we learn that, sure, Donald Trump is very bad.  And existential threat of the first order.

Over the weekend, Trump ripped the partnership to threads. He said the European Union is our “foe.” On Monday, Trump essentially sided with Vladimir Putin, who has become the biggest moral and political enemy of the Euro-American relationship. Trump essentially dropped a project that has oriented American culture and policy for centuries. He pointed us to a world in which the central ethos is that might makes right.

But...

But remember, Donald Trump exists only to put a capstone on every poisonous trend that preceded him. It took many hands to kill the Euro-American bond.

Because, y'know, Both Sides:

Right-wing politicians and commentators began to use Europe as a stand-in for American liberals. It’s a bunch of godless socialists, just like those heretics in Berkeley and Cambridge. Euro-bashing became a unifying conservative trope.

Progressives fell into the poisonous trap of racialism. They looked at the glories of Aristotle, Shakespeare and Mozart, and the most interesting thing they had to say about them was that they were dead white males...

I'm not 100% sure what Bill Shakespeare would say about Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times, but I bet it would sound a helluva lot like this:

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose!.
An evil soul producing holy witness.
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,.
A goodly apple rotten at the heart. .
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! -- The Merchant of Venice: Act 1, Scene 3

I can do this all day, Brooksie. 

All day.

Behold, a Tip Jar!