But Don't Call Them Stupid: A David Brooks Adventure

 

Among us elitist, Liberal swingin' dicks who live lives of unspeakable privilege and luxury out here in the Middle of America, there is a common conceit.   As we go about performing the rituals required of  initiates into the inner mysteries of the upper classes -- holding our breath while calculating the cost of another six months of health insurance, praying that the noise the ancient van has been making for awhile now isn't the old beast's death rattle, etcetera -- we note that, year by year, decade by decade, our original assessment of Republican voters keeps proving itself out in ever more blatant, hilarious and terrifying ways.  

To wit, that whatever their secondary electoral characteristic may be -- paranoia, rage, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, gun fetishism, Conservative evangelism, or some hellbrew cocktail of some or all of these -- their primary electoral characteristic is their stupidity.  Their staggering stupidity.  A stupidity so deep and wide and world-swallowing that, when confronted with it in its fullness, the scope of it leaves normal humans of normal intelligence stunned.  

And this primary electoral characteristic is always most evident in who the stupids elect and where the stupids get their "news", because their choices in those areas are the clearest a reflection of who they are.  The media they choose is always Big, Stupid Lies that make them feel smart, delivered by strippers and shouters.  Their president is a malignant narcissistic thug who is profoundly stupid, and the rest of their elected officials are also either actually monstrously stupid and dog-loyal to President Stupid, or cosplaying as stupid and dog-loyal to President Stupid, so as not to offend the stupids who put them in power.  

And since the American government is nowin the hands of President Stupid and his Stupid Party, and they are fucking up right and left, there is no real way for anyone who gets paid ridiculous amounts of money to write banal drivel for The New York Times to avoid the subject for long.

Specifically, how can Mr. David Brooks tackle the subject of the breathtaking, terminal stupidity of his recently former political party without violating his unspoken but clearly iron-clad agreement with the House of Sulzberger to never call voters stupid and never exclusively blame Republican for disasters that are entirely of Republican parentage?

By really digging in and writing most goddamn David Brooks column ever!  Well, maybe not the most, but definitely extruded by he same algorithm that extrudes all of The New York Times; most Brooksian columns.

First, touch the hot stove a briefly and gingerly as possible:

I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.

Then take back as much of that hot-stove-touching as possible as fast as possible:

I am not saying the members of the Trump administration are not intelligent. We all know high-I.Q. people who behave in a way that’s as dumb as rocks. 

Then expand that blanket absolution to denying that "stupid people" exist at all!

I don’t believe that there are stupid people, just stupid behaviors.

Then, in case there was any misunderstanding, make it double-triple-quadruple clear (especially to the 1,800 violent MAGA scum that President Stupid just put back in the street) that MAGA mob itself definitely not stupid.  

And I am certainly not saying Donald Trump’s supporters are less intelligent than others. 

And to underscore just how very much he is not picking on Republican voters, Mr. Brooks expend an entire paragraph explaining how much "many upscale Democrats" (like me) suck!  To back up this claim. Mr. Brooks is not going to call out any specific upscale Democrat by name because, well, because!  Because Both Sides!  

I’ve learned over the years that many upscale Democrats detest intellectual diversity. When they have power over a system — whether it’s academia, the mainstream media, the nonprofits or the Civil Service — they tend to impose a stifling orthodoxy that makes everybody within it duller, more conformist and insular. If Republicans want to upend that, I say: Go for it.

And now that Mr. Brooks, in just three paragraphs, has taken left the Real World, President Stupid and his Stupid Party behind,  he can now settle in to the business of inventing his own definition of stupidity -- 

I define stupidity as...

-- guaranteed to be Brooks-brand detached and abstract enough to not offend anyone.

Then come a series of yadda yaddas about Trump policies that have broken shit and caused fear and confusion, as if chaos and cruelty and a firehose of bullshit were bugs in the fascist ideology of the Stupid Party, and not features.

And then...

I’ve distilled what I’ve learned [about stupidity] so far into six main principles...

I don't care.  At all.  Instead, here are a number of quotes by better writers and thinkers than Mr. Brooks speaking on the subject of stupidity:

Never attribute to malice, that which can be reasonably explained by stupidity. -- Spider Robinson

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way. -- Albert Camus

There is no sin except stupidity. -- Oscar Wilde

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out? -- Will Rogers

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. -- Edith Sitwell

Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. -- Friedrich Schiller

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. -- Unknown

Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance. -- William Gaddis  

The article finishes up with one, final plea to the MAGA mob that Mr. Brooks really feels your pain.  That it's just terrible what all those awful elites did to you, so please, please don't stuff him into a locker and take his milk money.

As time has gone by, I’ve developed more and more sympathy for the goals the populists are trying to achieve. America’s leadership class has spent the last few generations excluding, ignoring, rejecting and insulting a large swath of this country. It’s terrible to be assaulted in this way. 

The idea of David Fucking Brooks disowning "America’s leadership class" and swearing that now he's down with the Bannon revolution is as weirdly mesmerizing as the idea of Lassie sinking her fangs into Timmy's leg, dragging him across the yard and tossing him down the well.   

Then shitting down the well.

Burn The Lifeboats