It Seems To Have Finally Occurred To Dave Brooks...

 ...that if decisive steps are not swiftly taken to being the firestorm of paranoia, rage and racism that the GOP has been stoking for decades under control, their next target may very well be places like the wealthy, gated, Georgetown communities where New York Times op-ed columnists live.

And so...

This Is Why We Need to Spend $4 Trillion

I certainly could've done without Brooks' reflexive Both Siderism --

Over the past few decades there has been a redistribution of dignity — upward. From Reagan through Romney, the Republicans valorized entrepreneurs, C.E.O.s and Wall Street. The Democratic Party became dominated by the creative class...

-- but as every reader of this blog, that's so hardwired into his DNA that omitting it would've probably put him into coma.  

That said, if swallowing a little of that stale bullshit is the price of finally, finally seeing this...

Read again Robert Kagan’s foreboding Washington Post essay on how close we are to a democratic disaster. He’s talking about a group of people so enraged by a lack of respect that they are willing to risk death by Covid if they get to stick a middle finger in the air against those who they think look down on them. They are willing to torch our institutions because they are so resentful against the people who run them.

Or this...

The Democratic spending bills are economic packages that serve moral and cultural purposes. They should be measured by their cultural impact, not merely by some wonky analysis. In real, tangible ways, they would redistribute dignity back downward. They would support hundreds of thousands of jobs for home health care workers, child care workers, construction workers, metal workers, supply chain workers. They would ease the indignity millions of parents face having to raise their children in poverty.

Or this...

In normal times I’d argue that many of the programs in these packages may be ineffective. I’m a lot more worried about debt than progressives seem to be. But we’re a nation enduring a national rupture, and the most violent parts of it may still be yet to come.

These packages say to the struggling parents and the warehouse workers: I see you. Your work has dignity. You are paving your way. You are at the center of our national vision....

...in a David Brooks column, I'll take it.  

I'll take it with both hands.

Meanwhile, he fellow The New York Time conservative has very different opinions.

Here's the blurb:

On today's podcast, New York times columnist Bret Stephens talks about Trump's moral universe, Biden's centrist dilemma, the looming danger of inflation, and why Manchin-Sinema could actually save the Democrats.

And here is Bretbug right out of the starting gate after being told about crazy shit going on inside the Wisconsin GOP:

Bretbug:  ...it's such a reminder that the Trump, uh, um, the Trump true believers are the mirror image of the Woke Left.

No Half Measures