David Brooks Cannot Stop Being David Brooks

I once worked with a programmer I'll call "Debbie".

This was back in my mainframe, COBOL/Assembler/JCL/PanValet days.

At the time I was in Software Maintenance at an insurance company which no longer exists.  This meant that my team and I were in charge of keeping million of lines of existing code up and running, and making small- to medium-size changes to existing programs as required.  I was one of the people who got called at 2 A.M. if something crashed.  Sometimes I could fix it over the phone (it amazed my girlfriend that I could roll out of bed from a dead-sleep, talk the operator through some arcane step-by-step repair and restart procedure, fall straight back to sleep and barely remember a thing the next day.) Sometimes I had to come in and fix it in-person.

Debbie was in Software Development.  Development was more prestigious than Maintenance because they wrote new programs which, after through testing, would be added to the production environment and become my responsibility.

At least that was how it was supposed to go.

The problem was, Debbie was an absolutely awful programmer.  How she had ever gotten the job was an enduring mystery about which no one ever spoe.  Among her many difficulties was that she was almost completely blind, and this was well before even rudimentary voice-recognition software was available (hell, just getting a laptop for the office with an attachment you could clamp onto an old-fashioned overhead projector to do group presentations was considered a largish miracle.)

She coded by putting a magnifying glass to the CRT screen and putting her eye almost flush up against it, and then typing in her code very slowly.   Except it wasn't new code.   The other way Debbie coped with her disability was by copying and pasting the same old program she'd had in her library for years.  She did this over and over again, for every project:  copy some old billing code that had been around since the Kennedy Administration and hack away at it until it compiled cleanly or the project budget had reached zero.

Then she would dump whatever abomination she had created into Production and (no kidding) leave immediately for vacation.

This happened every time.

It violated the most basic walk-through and turnover procedure that was standard in every coding shop, and the result was always a disaster.  A digital grenade going off.  Her stuff always crashed almost immediately, and usually took down a bunch of other, linked programs with it.  Her code was such a hash and so poorly documented there almost was no way to figure out what it was supposed to be doing.

And of course, she was on vacation and out-of-reach.

So why did the company keep Debbie on the payroll long after it was obvious that she was not just bad at her job, but a menace?

Well, I think a lot of it had to do with her reaction to questions or criticism, which was to freak completely out.  And I mean completely.  She would keen like a banshee.  She would slap her desktop with one hand and slap her own face with the other hand.  And she would keep it up until whoever had dared to enter her domain to ask an unfriendly question withdrew.

I honestly think management was afraid of her.  Her reaction was so unnerving and they were such a timorous bunch that I believe to this day they just decide it would be easier to do nothing -- to give her smaller and smaller projects and let her do her thing until she retired and have people like me clean up her messes -- than to risk whatever they were afraid she would do if they tried to rein her in or lay her off.

Plus, on the balance sheet, Debbie looked good.  After all, because she just dumped her shitty code into Production in whatever error-riddled state it was in when the project budget ran to zero, she never went over budget.  Which was the only metric the Counters of Beans used to measure success.  My team, on the other hand, was constantly going over-budget running up the overtime fixing her fuck-ups.   This made the Counters of Beans very upset because Going Over Budget was the only metric they had for measuring failure.

When we tried to explain why we were running up so much overtime, we might as well have been speaking Aramaic. To hamsters. 

Plus corporate management had much bigger problems on their hands.  This was a family business which was now in the hands of the third generation, and that third generation was spectacularly bad at managing the company.  They had brought the place to the brink of ruin, so the problems of a bunch of programmers twelve tiers down the corporate food chain arguing about Who Struck John never rose to their attention.

Which brings us now to the subject of Mr. Brooks and the question of what error-riddled twaddle he dumped onto op-ed page of The New York Times -- on time and on budget -- today.

To no one's surprise it is exactly the same twaddle he dumped there last month, and last year and ten years ago.  His usual hectoring about the Imaginary Extremes on Both Sides.  His usual conjuring up a horde of Imaginary Invisible Moderates -- Imaginary Invisible Moderates who are too frightened of the Scary Extremes on Both Sides to let the world know of their existence...but who all apparently have David Brooks' private number on speed-dial.

For newer readers, Imaginary Invisible Moderates are to David Brooks what Magic Cab Drivers are to Tom Friedman:  an all-wise, unverifiable source who always happens to pop up when the columnist needs them the most, to mouth exactly the platitudes the columnist needs them to say:

The Columbia Journalism Review's Liz Cox Barrett has called his technique "quote-the-cabbie" journalism, skewering him with the brush-off line, "everything I needed to know about outsourcing I learned from Harish, who drove me to my Mumbai hotel." It is amusing to watch the great international columnist learn about "the people" from "the help." Normally, places like The New York Times frown on the idea of paying sources. And Friedman stops short of doing that. But the most convenient people he finds are drivers, waiters, and hoteliers, and the scenery he inhabits most is on the inside of Marriotts, so eventually his reporting comes down to what his expense account can buy, rather than who he finds through old-fashioned legwork.

So here's a fun little trivia question.  According to Mr. David Brooks, do you remember who the Big Bads of the Extremes on Both Sides were just three years ago ?  

Hillary, for you the whirlwind is Bernie Sanders. For the rest of you it’s Donald Trump...

Trump has no actual policies and Sanders has little chance of getting his passed.

And yet the supporters don’t care. Sanders and Trump...

...the Trump and Sanders phenomena.

In debates Sanders is uninhibited by the constraints of reality, so his answers are always bolder. Trump speaks from the id, not from any policy paper, so his answers are always more vivid.

Many Americans feel like they are the victims of a slow-moving natural disaster. Sanders and Trump...

I’d love to see one of you counter the Trump and Sanders emotional tones with a bold shift in psychology...

Let Trump and Sanders shout, harangue and lecture...

Let them [Trump and Sanders] deliver long, repetitive and uninterrupted lectures...

Let them [Trump and Sanders] stand angry and solitary. You run as part of a team, a band of brothers...

Let them [Trump and Sanders] assert that all our problems can be solved if other people sacrifice...

Let them [Trump and Sanders] emphasize the cold relations of business (Trump) or of the state (Sanders)...

Let them [Trump and Sanders] preach pessimism...

Sanders and Trump have adopted emotional tones that are going to offend and exhaust people over time.

Yep.  According to David Fucking Brooks, just three years ago, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, were the Extremes on Both Sides.  They were the existential threat to the Sacred Center -- both exactly the same in their reckless populist demagoguery, and both equally unacceptable to the Imaginary Invisible Moderates which David Brooks always claims to represent.  

And yet once we moved to from the primary to the general election and once Bernie Sanders was out of the picture, do you recall how the Brooks Both Siderist algorithm was immediately reprogrammed to go right on doing what it always does? 

The two main candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are remarkably distrustful...

They have set the modern standards for withholding information — his not releasing tax and health records, her not holding regular news conferences or quickly disclosing her pneumonia diagnosis...

Both have a problem with spontaneous, reciprocal communication with a hint of vulnerability...

Both ultimately hew to a distrustful, stark, combative, zero-sum view of life...

Trump’s convention speech was the perfect embodiment of the politics of distrust...

Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” riff comes from the same spiritual place...

Suddenly Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were the Extremes on Both Sides.  Now they were the existential threat to the Sacred Center -- both equally sinister and both equally unacceptable to the Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Invisible Moderates.

And so it should come as no surprise to anyone that, according to David Brooks today. the Big Bads of The Extremes on Both Sides are... (emphasis added):

Moderates Have the Better Story
...

Moderates are afraid to break from the gloom and carnage mind-set that populists like Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders insist on.

This column exists not because anything David Brooks says is true, but because David Brooks cannot stop being David Brooks.

And so, once again, The New York Times pays him to sermonize about the poor Invisible Imaginary Moderates on Both Side!  So scared to speak their truth aloud --

Moderates have a different story to tell, but in both parties moderates are afraid to tell it.

-- that they are reduced to skulking in the shadows and whispering their profundities to David Brooks under the rose.

And just what are Imaginary Invisible Moderates telling David Brooks these days?

The same old shit.

Without citing a single, actual, carbon-based human being, Mr. Brooks goes on the make the following, sweeping declarations ... which are the same sweeping, unattributed declarations he has been making for decades.

Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Invisible Moderates believe that we shouldn't worry because global capitalism is really our friend!

But hope is warranted and must be displayed. In the moderate story, global capitalism is a challenge but also an opportunity field. 

Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Invisible Moderates believe that gummint has a role to play, but it shouldn't be doing scary regulatory or redistributive stuff that might raise my taxes or pinch the shoes of my corporate underwriters.  Instead, gummint should be like your mom at your soccer game: cheering you on from the sidelines and bringing healthy snacks when it's her turn!

In the moderate story, government has a bigger role than before, but it is not a fighting, combative role. It is a booster rocket role.

Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Invisible Moderates believe that gummint should operate like a state religion, but not an oppressive state religion like those fucking Progressives want!

Statecraft is soul craft. Through the policies they choose, governments can encourage their citizens to become one sort of person or another. Progressives want to create a government caste that is powerful and a population that is safe but dependent. Moderates, by contrast, are trying to create a citizenry that possesses the vigorous virtues — daring, empowered, always learning, always brave.

Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Invisible Moderates are angry because Progressives are basically Commies in disguise who want to keep you in diapers, depending on the State for your every need forever!

Second, never coddle. Progressives are always trying to give away free stuff. They reduce citizens to children on Christmas morning. For example, Warren and Sanders want to make public college free. But as common sense and recent research tells us... 

Moderates want to help but not infantilize. They want to help students finish college, but they want them to at least partly earn their way, to have skin in the game.

(Honestly, for someone like David Brooks -- who has never spent one minute off the Wingnut Welfare Teat his entire life -- to go all Teddy Roosevelt/"The Strenuous Life" at this stage in career is almost too hilarious the bear.)

Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Invisible Moderates believe in local gummint and making responsible choices:

Moderates are always aiming to make responsibility, agency and choice as local as possible...

People become energetic, responsible adults by making decisions for themselves, their families and their communities.

Unlike Elizabeth Warren who wants to march every child in Murrica into a gummint-run, Karl Marx Daycare Center:

But Warren wants to make it hard for families to have choice. She supports only federally funded day care, effectively forcing families into federally funded programs, limiting their choice and making them wards of the system.

Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Invisible Moderates are all cosmopolitan internationalists, while Elizabeth Warren wants to pull up the drawbridge on Fortress America:

Fourth, bring on the world. International competition is more rigorous than national competition. Moderates think Americans can meet that test. Warren’s Green Manufacturing Plan would shield American companies from that competition when competing for government contracts.

Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Invisible Moderates are all plucky local entrepreneurs, while Elizabeth Warren wants to to force everyone on to collective farms to grow Commie beets or whatever in accordance with her Five Year Plan:

Fifth, ignite from below. Warren wants to centralize economic decisions...

Which brings us back full-circle to Debbie the Programmer, who was indeed a bad programmer, but who suffered a real, physical affliction which radically impaired her ability to do her job.  However Debbie wasn't a fool.  She was a pragmatic realist, and used every means at her disposal -- magnifying glass, copying old code and primal screaming -- to hang onto her job.  And although she made a lot of maddening, unnecessary work for the rest of us, I respected her tenacity.  Her unwillingness to give up in the face of her disability.

Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times, on the other hand, has no physical disability to explain his consistently shoddy and noxious work.  Instead, Mr. Brooks is willfully blind.  Morally and ideologically blind which makes him is objectively awful at the one job he was hired to do.

Mr. Brooks is also either unwilling or incapable of learning anything new and has, instead, chosen to his entire career rewriting the same godawful column over and over and over again.

And if Mr. Brooks' work is a disaster?  A joke?  A constant public embarrassment?

Well that information apparently never filters up to the hapless executives at the The New York Times who are busy with the much larger problems facing the troubled, third-generation family company for which Mr. Brooks works.  As far his bosses at The New York Times are concerned, sure, David Brooks may be a soulless, Conservative Both Siderist algorithm into which his operators simply punch which aspect of the Left they wish to fuck over this week, but he reliably delivers his 800 words, twice a week, on time and on budget.

And any wreckage that happens after that is somebody else's problem.

Behold, a Tip Jar!