I always knew David Brooks was an asshole ....

*folds hands together in a steeple, leans back in chair*

he teaches at yale, he writes two op-eds a week for the ny times, he squares off with david shields on a regular basis, he's on the sunday talk shows every weekend. i realize that's less influence than we here at ILX wield, but it's still something

the gop will never ever ever repeal the estate tax. it was a massive cause celebre during the bush administration when they cut it down to what it is now.

yeah that isn't influence

First, acknowledge that the concentration of wealth is a concern with a beefed up inheritance tax. Second, emphasize a contrasting agenda that will reward growth, saving and investment, not punish these things, the way Piketty would. Support progressive consumption taxes not a tax on capital.

This is so bizarrely contradictory that I can only read it two ways: (1) he doesn't understand what the fuck he's talking about or (2) he's saying "let's throw them a bone with the inheritance tax while not actually addressing concentration of wealth"

x my own p

also realize brooks is on npr all the time and some people only get there news and opinion from it

he does all those things but how do we know everyone he comes into contact with isn't saying "this dude is full of it"

yes, everyone he comes into contact with says "this dude is full of it"

David Brooks talks out of like three to five different sides of his mouth in any given column

I thought I saw somewhere Obama reads Brooks' column regularly and values his viewpoint, it was a depressing moment, hope I was imagining it

Obama does read it, I wonder how he feels about being called a wimp by noted hardcore alpha male David Brooks

sad that he reads/"values" Brooks's opinion, but somehow that makes sense to me, maybe even explains something about Obama

this guy reminds me of when the onion runs one of those editorial/thinkpieces on politics by a seven-year-old or whatever.

xpost

i think that's obama in populist mode, i.e. "i, too, read these brazenly mediocre columns in the NYT."

"I'm just a regular guy, I read the same smug priveleged assholes as joe lunchpail!"

lol reading

I give credit to Brooks for even supporting the inheritance tax. I also think he has a fair point that if the inequality issue is nothing more than the upper-middle-class envying the upper-upper-middle class, then maybe it's not such a big deal. However, obviously the inequality issue is about a lot more than that. Brooks doesn't mention anything about how this dynamic affects the distribution of political power, or the social dynamic in a society in which inherited wealth begins to play a large role. Maybe because he doesn't buy Piketty's arguments that we are headed that way. But his breezy dismissal of Piketty's careful arguments lacks substance.

I also think he has a fair point that if the inequality issue is nothing more than the upper-middle-class envying the upper-upper-middle class, then maybe it's not such a big deal.

How is this a "fair point" given no real evidence that that's the case?

However, obviously the inequality issue is about a lot more than that. Brooks doesn't mention anything about how this dynamic affects the distribution of political power, or the social dynamic in a society in which inherited wealth begins to play a large role.

But this is the big DUH point about the whole issue that every conservative pundit DELIBERATELY glosses over, reducing inequality to "I eat at Per Se you eat at Outback, I drive a Rolls you drive a Ford, what's the big deal?"

also I'd quibble with "begins to play a large role"

basically stop being "fair" to david fucking brooks

Another signature Brooks attempt to incisively analyze "the left" that is almost wholly projection

Also lots of clunky half-hearted 8th grade book report prose in here

Well, of course, this book is going to set off a fervor that some have likened to Beatlemania.

The book is very good and interesting, but it has pretty obvious weaknesses.

Piketty predicts that growth will be low for a century, though there seems to be a lot of innovation around.

I don't know why it's hard for me to hate Brooks as much as he clearly deserves.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2014/05/i_dont_know_whether_this_point050439.php#

Brooks says Simpson-Bowles-like commissions push populist reforms. Author of the piece questions Brooks' understanding of populism and democracy

Author of the piece questions Brooks' understanding of populism and democracy

No surprise. Brooks said a month ago on NPR with one of his trademark embarrassed chuckles that he wished we were ruled by elites.

His favorite books: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/opinion/brooks-really-good-books-part-i.html?rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article

David Brooks has taken his valuable NYTimes column inches to inform his readers that George Orwell and Leo Tolstoy are good writers.

His other lesson for writers, even opinion writers, is that it’s a mistake to think you are an activist, championing some movement. That’s the path to mental stagnation. The job is just to try to understand what’s going on.

But I digress, next on my list of white male writers...

People are always asking me what my favorite books are.

instant lol

Hi, I'm David Brooks

I've read books.

he wished we were ruled by elites.

it must be awesome to have your wishes fulfilled so easily

i thought this was a lovely brooks column:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/opinion/brooks-president-obama-was-right.html

He spent his NPR segment praising the president.

i was kinda down on this decision. since after the shalit trade i've been feeling very cynical about these prisoner swaps (and brooks only refs it obliquely but sometimes you don't even get a living soldier in return). but he makes i think a very rational and on some level moving case about why it's honorable to do so.

you needed david brooks for that? jesus

Despite all our polarization, we do accept the election results, even when the other party wins

o rly

compared to lots of other "democracies" accepting election results is one of our strongest areas!

ffs balls does everything need a snarky remark? xxp

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/david-brooks-is-not-buying-it-poor-people.html

The Brooks column on Baltimore might have been discussed on another thread, but i like this response to it, questioning Brooks' use of stats on poverty and ignoring inequality

This is some of what Brooks considers important in discussing Robert E Lee and whether his name should be banished from schools. I think its weird

As a family man, he was surprisingly relaxed and affectionate. We think of him as a man of marble, but he loved having his kids jump into bed with him and tickle his feet. With his wife’s loving cooperation, he could write witty and even saucy letters to other women. He was devout in his faith, a gifted watercolorist, a lover of animals and a charming conversationalist.

https://www.change.org/p/legally-change-david-brooks-name-to-this-fuckn-guy

a gifted watercolorist

saucy

ticklish feet

Let me tell you this! And you're hearing this straight from the horse. Hitler was better looking than Churchill. He was a better dresser than Churchill. He had more hair! He told funnier jokes! And he could dance the pants off of Churchill!

https://www.change.org/p/legally-change-david-brooks-name-to-this-fuckn-guy

Aww man was gonna sign the shit out of that

If you've got time for a little copywriting we could make it happen...

Robert E. Lee is the best advertisement the confederacy ever had. He gets off easy because his only job was to win battles and he did that extremely well, and he perfectly matched the contemporary ideal of what a gentleman ought to be. He was the confederacy's dreamboat.

If you want to see what the confederacy was really about you need to look at the figure of Jefferson Davis, not Lee. He personified the cause far better, in that he was the one who most prominently and vigorously defended its ideas, not its territory. And its ideas were execrable.

He gets off easy because his only job was to win battles and he did that extremely well

well, until he didn't.

actually, Alexander Stephens is even more representative. Wilson's Patriotic Gore has an unforgettable chapter devoted to him, in which Wilson, enemy of the Cold War and income tax, read Stephens' prison writings and saw in them a noble, futile resistance to the central government.