Nostradumbass Returns to Form: The Ongoing Adventures of David Brooks.

 

It's gonna be Rubio!  

Er...

Um...

I mean, it's gonna be Youngkin!  

Or maybe Sununu!

Or maybe Cocaine Bear, who, let's face it, is only polling a point or two below any of the ciphers and misfit toys Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times has identified this time around the harbingers of the upcoming Awesome Republican Renaissance in his latest biannual column predicting an Awesome Republican Renaissance which is forever just around the corner but never actually arrives.

In fact here is Mr. Brooks just yesterday swearing by God and Emile Durkheim that a Bright Republican Future is Just Around The Corner...

The Post-Trump Era  

As awful as Donald Trump is, it will be exciting to witness the coming re-creation of the Republican Party. 

Oops!  Stop everything.  Stop the presses.  My mistake.  My deepest apologies.  

This is not the headline of Mr Brooks' column from yesterday.  

This was the headline of Mr Brooks' column from almost exactly seven years ago.  From March 25, 2016.

This is the headline from yesterday:

Trump and DeSantis Could Both Lose

I can assure you that I will not make this mistake again.

So with what powerful evidence does Mr. Brooks' fortify his bold assertion?  With his unique, insider access to the power centers of the Republican party, of course.  Rest assured that the "governing wing" of the Republican Party will soon step and set things aright:

This is going to go on for a long time.  This is the Iran/Iraq War.  I want them both to lose.  And I think that's gonna happen!  ... This is going to go on for months and months and months.  Right now you have a conflict with the Conservative -- the philosophical Conservative wing -- and the rogue wing.  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 10 years ago.  But Republican establishment, do not panic...

Damn it!  Damn my ancient eyes and rowdy, troublemaking fingers!  Once again, I must apologize and even more humbly than before.  Because once again that is not a quote from David  Brooks' column from yesterday.  

It was instead a quote from his appearance on Meet the Press from more than seven long years ago, in January of 2016.

These are the relevant quotes from his column of 12 hours ago: 

The conclusion I draw is that the Trump-DeSantis duopoly is unstable and represents a wing of the party many people are getting sick of.

Furthermore, the conservative managerial wing of the party is not some small offshoot of the Tucker Carlson universe... 

The Republican donor class is mobilizing to try to prevent a Trump nomination, and DeSantis is overpriced...

So since the Sulzberger family continues to pay Mr. David Brooks an obscene amount of money to extrude the same steaming logs of Beltway insider claptrap over and over again, decades after decade, I see no reason why we shouldn't amuse ourselves by repurposing some of it to create an equally plausible and much more satisfying fairy tale about how the Republican primary Cocaine Bear Lane is wide open and how one of several, promising American  Cocaine Bears could jump into that lane and perhaps ride it all the way to the Republican nomination!

There are two different narratives running through the Republican Party right now. The first is the Trumpian populist narrative we’re all familiar with: American carnage … the elites have betrayed us … the left is destroying us … I am your retribution.

On the other hand, Cocaine Bears from places like Georgia, Virginia and New Hampshire often have a different story to tell.  They are living their best, cocaine-fueled lives in growing, prospering states.  

 

So their stories are not about the left behind; they can tell stories about the amazing amounts of cocaine that are locally available. Their most appealing narrative is: I'm a bear, and I have done an unsettling amount of cocaine, and yet I'm still strong and bitey.  Vote for me!

These different narratives yield different political messages. The bellicose populists put culture war issues front and center. Cocaine Bears certainly play the values card, especially when schools try to usurp the role of parents, but they are strongest when they talk about how amazing cocaine is, and how much they enjoy it.

One Cocaine Bear, for example, is making Georgia a hub for green cocaine production. It has vowed to make Georgia “the clean energy cocaine capital of America.” As Alexander Burns noted in Politico, Georgia Cocaine Bear doesn’t sell this as climate change activism; it’s jobs and prosperity.

The two narratives also produce radically different emotional vibes. The Donald Trump/Tucker Carlson orbit is rife with indignation and fury. The Cocaine Bear of New Hampshire, Virginia’s Cocaine Bear and the previous Arizona Cocaine Bear, are warm, upbeat Cocaine Bears who actually enjoy their cocaine.

The former resemble the combative populism of Huey Long; the latter are more likely to reflect the populaism of F.D.R.

If American politics worked as it should, then the Republican primaries would be contests between these two different narratives and governing styles — between populism and Cocaine Bears.

But that’s not happening so far. The first reason is that Trump’s supporters are so many and so loyal, and his political style is so brutal, he may be deterring Cocaine Bears from entering the campaign. My educated guess is that Virginia Cocaine Bear will not run for president in 2024; he wants to focus on cocaine. And Arizona Cocaine Bear may not either. Arizona Cocaine Bear has taken on Trump in the past, but who wants to get into a gutter brawl with a front-runner when you already have a fantastic job doing cocaine in Arizona? It could be that the G.O.P. presidential field will be much smaller than many of us thought a couple of months ago.

The second reason we’re not seeing the two narratives face off is Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor should be the ultimate optimistic, businesslike conservative. His state is growing faster than any other in the country. But instead, he’s running as a dour, humorless culture war populist — presumably because that’s what he is.

So right now the G.O.P. has two leading candidates with similar views, and the same ever-present anti-woke combativeness. The race is between populist Tweedledum and populist Tweedledee. 

...

Do we really think [Ron DeSantis] with a small, insular circle of advisers and limited personal skills is going to do well in the intimate contests in Iowa and New Hampshire? As voters focus on the economy, DeSantis massively erred in playing culture war issues so hard.

The conclusion I draw is that the Trump-DeSantis duopoly is unstable and represents a wing of the party many people are getting sick of.

What does that mean? Maybe one of the Cocaine Bears can be coaxed into running. Maybe eyes turn to a South Carolina  Cocaine Bear.   Or maybe a New Jersey Cocaine Bear enters the race and takes a sledgehammer to Trump in a way that doesn’t help his own candidacy but shakes up the status quo.

The elemental truth is that the Republican Party is like a baseball team that has a lot of talent dong a lot of cocaine in the minor leagues and a star pitcher who can’t throw strikes or do his job. Sooner or later, there’s going to be a change.

Unless, of course, the Cocaine Bears hook up with the Forward Party or No Labels.  

If that happens, all bets are off.  

No Half Measures