David Brooks: Portrait of a Drowning Man Bitching That Lifeguards Are Saving Him Wrong

David Brooks four years ago:

The big Republican accomplishment is that they have detoxified their brand. Four years ago they seemed scary and extreme to a lot of people. They no longer seem that way.

 David Brooks two years ago:

It's going to be Rubio. I'm telling you, it's going to be Rubio. Right now, you have the conflict between the conservative, the philosophical conservative wing, which is the National Review crowd, and the rogue wing, which is talk radio and Trump. And so it's interesting to see how that breaks down.

Right now, Trump has the advantage in that, because the conservative movement is less conservative than it was ten years ago. The financial crisis has hit people hard, and they want a government that's on the side of the little guys, as long as it's not filled with liberal values. So Trump, in the short term, but we're prepping the establishment. Do not panic. There are going to be months of this. Wait for Rubio.

David Brooks today:

Trump represents a comprehensive assault on the moral order. The Democrats fight back with paper clips. https://t.co/t3525cYloQ

— David Brooks (@nytdavidbrooks) October 23, 2018

You know, if they gave prizes for impotent hectoring, finger-wagging, pecksniffery and being wrong about everything all the time...

Wait a minute. I just remembered.

They do give prizes for impotent hectoring, finger-wagging, pecksniffery and being wrong about everything all the time!

In fact, the top prize is a job-for-life at The New York Times. 

So what does Mr. Brooks have to add to our national discourse today?

The Materialist Party
The Democrats fail to take on Trumpism.

Yes it's one more laundry list of impotent hectoring, finger-wagging and pecksniffery about how the Democrats are not reining in the bile-vomiting, hate-mongering Republican hellbeast to Mr. Brooks' specifications and satisfaction.

But for the millionth time, let's clear this up before proceeding. Take it away, Blue Gal:

Don't You Dare Call It 'Trump-ism'

Have you noticed a number of media outlets calling the Republican campaign for President, "Trumpism"?

It isn't Trumpism. It's the Republican Party. And it has been for far longer than Donald Trump has been running for President.

And now (sigh) back to Brooks:

But the Democratic campaign is inadequate to the current moment. It offers no counternarrative to Trump, little moral case against his behavior, no unifying argument against ethnic nationalism. In politics you can’t beat something with nothing. Democrats missed the Trumpian upsurge because while society was dividing into cultural tribes, they spent 2008 through 2016 focusing on health care. Now that the upsurge has happened, they are still pinioned to health care.

So many lies here, all tangled together like a Rat King, so let us boil down a 10,000 word rebuttal into something simple and clear.

Something like, hey asshole,  how about you go just back and read your own god damn writing from 2008 through 2016.

Democrats did not miss "the Trumpian upsurge".  We were beating every drum and sounding every alarm we could lay our hands on.   No, it was you and the rest of your simpering pundit cronies who missed "the Trumpian upsurge".  Missed it and over again, by a fucking parsec, which is both hilarious and terrifying given that this was literally your only job.  The easiest, laziest wingnut welfare job imaginable for which, by any objective measure, you are wildly overpaid.

Your job was to tell millions of readers around the world what was going on inside American politics based on your alleged deep, insider knowledge and supposed access to power.  And in column after column, decades after decade, you got every fucking bit of it wrong.  (Not Safe For Work)

Oh, and for the record, the reason Democrats ran on health care and saving the global economy from collapse and getting us out of the ruinous war that men like David Brooks lied us into was because our country was on life support and taking on all of these legacy disasters from the Bush Administration all at once was necessary for the survival of the nation.  Because Mr. Brooks' Republican Party was perfectly content to see uninsured and under-insured American die like mayflies.  Perfectly content to see the world fall into another Great Depression.  Perfectly content to keep Americans dying in Iraq for another 100 years. 

And since Mr. Brooks was never personally in danger death or bankruptcy from being uninsured, or dying in the desert for George Bush's Excellent Iraqi Adventure, or seeing his personal standard of living lowered by a second Great Depression, the actual fears and tragedies of real humans always mattered so much less to him that making great, gassy pronouncements on the importance of humility and Centrism.

And now Mr. Brooks presumes to appoint himself Lord Admiral of the lifeboat we are providing.  Presumes to lecture us on what a poor job we are doing navigating away from the carnage he created.

Wow.

Mr. Brooks continues:

This familiar, orthodox argument pushes left and right back into their normal categories. It destroys any possibility of a realignment...

I have no desire to "realign" with Mr. Brooks' party of rage-drunk, racist brown-shirts.  I want to drive them back into the political sewers from whence they came and keep them there until they die of a broken heart.

Mr. Brooks continues:

It has now become evident that Republicans are better at politicizing cultural issues and Democrats are better at offering economic benefits to those who are struggling.

For the uninitiated, "politicizing cultural issues"  is Brooks' weasel-speak for "lying".   And that simple truth is both so glaringly self-evident and utterly ruinous to the sniveling Both Siderist bullshit that David Brooks writes for a living that Mr. Brooks will not under any circumstances acknowledge it.

Because the simple fact is that Donald Trump don't have a coherent cultural argument to make to his base, because he doesn't need one.

He just needs to lie.

Lie to stoke racist.  Lie to amplify paranoia.  Lie to bring the GOP base's rage to a full boil and then direct it at the targets the party wishes to destroy.  Lie about crazy stuff.   Lie all the time.  Lie about everything.   And the reprogrammable meatbag base of the Republican Party love it.

They sop it up with a biscuit and ask for seconds. Because lying has always been the source of GOP power.

And before the arrival of Donald Trump, Mr. David Brooks never had a problem with any of this.

Because it was all part of the plan.  This was the Pretty Hate Machine (from me, 12 years ago) --

-- operating as designed, fueled by a pliant, mindless GOP base that would deliver one smashing victory after another.  And sitting high above all, steering the mighty GOP killdozer in the name of True Conservatism, would be men like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney. 

And right by their side, whispering in their ear, would be men like David Brooks.

But it turned out that -- surprise! -- the GOP's grand army of bigots and imbeciles figured out who had the real power in that relationship.  And that, when offered the choice, they not want to fall in line behind Beltway establishment-approved muppets like Jeb or Mittens or Marco or David.  They wanted to goose-step along with someone who understood the lyrics to the music they had been hearing on Hate Radio and watching on Fox News for decades.

Someone who told them, loud and proud, that the voices in their heads were real and true.

They wanted this guy --

-- because the Republican Party had spent 30 years and billions of dollars engineering them to want this guy

And after 30 years of letting Rush Limbaugh taking a dump in their skulls, and 30 years of learning that clowns like David Brooks would let off the hook for any atrocity if they just mumbled the right magic words -- "Muh!  Both sidez!  It were Both sidez made me do it!" -- there is no longer any combination of facts, logic or sweeping words that is going to turn the GOP zombie herd around.

This is the terrible truth that Mr. Brooks would rather eat his own ass than ever admit. 

That All Your Base are Belong to Trump.

Steve M. sums it up nicely:

We've tried offering a "counternarrative to Trump," a "moral case against his behavior" -- and at least 45% of America thinks we're getting upset over nothing, or is inspired to like Trump more.

So screw those people. We can't talk to them. We've made the moral case against Trump, but making it is an exercise in futility. So now we make it only among ourselves; with everyone else, we talk about other issues.

We tried, David. For three years, half of our fellow citizens have told us unambiguously that they don't care. They're the ones who are failing morally. Why is it our responsibility to keep trying to make them change?

Behold, a Birthday Fundraiser!