RIP David Brooks

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/david-brooks-proposes-a-kinder-gentler-republican-party-20160121

Taibbi has fun.

The hilarious part about the Brooks column is the wounded, incredulous tone. Where, he asks, is the love? You know, like the old days, when the hick megachurcher and the Upper East Side Yalie were joined at the hip for the cause of a sharply-reduced top income tax rate!

"Social inequality is always felt more acutely than economic inequality."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/opinion/i-miss-barack-obama.html

I can't exactly disagree with much in that column, but I can point out that you reap what you sow.

no one linked the "Donald Trump Is Not Real" column eh

it was linked on the *other* David Brooks thread

Personally, I don’t think there is one correct answer to whether we want a dog or a cat as leader. Depends on the situation; there are successful examples of both types. But I’m struck by how catlike Obama is. And it’s striking how many Americans have responded by going for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who are bad versions of the bounding in/we-can-change-everything doggy type.

writing's a bitch

"I was surprised by Trump’s success because I’ve slipped into a bad pattern, spending large chunks of my life in the bourgeois strata — in professional circles with people with similar status and demographics to my own. It takes an act of will to rip yourself out of that and go where you feel least comfortable. But this column is going to try to do that over the next months and years. We all have some responsibility to do one activity that leaps across the chasms of segmentation that afflict this country."

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/726061722642034689

"Poor Like Me"

need a rewrite of Simon & Garfunkel's "Dangling Conversation" as "Chasms of Segmentation"

and beside all this, between us and david brooks there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to him cannot; neither can he pass to us, if he would come from thence.

I wonder where davids gonna hang out

@CafeFilthmuck
He might even ask his caddy what iron to use from this lie.

But this column is going to try to do that over the next months and years.

can't wait!!

We’ll need a communitarianism.

he starts to say it, but it gives him a stroke

I had so much fun reading it

"The little loves..."

https://twitter.com/monfrat/status/737642983802179590

The larger culture itself needs to be revived in four distinct ways: We need to be more communal in an age that’s overly individualistic; we need to be more morally minded in an age that’s overly utilitarian; we need to be more spiritually literate in an age that’s overly materialistic; and we need to be more emotionally intelligent in an age that is overly cognitive.

A tradition, whether it’s Thanksgiving dinner, an annual family reunion or a burial ceremony, takes a physical activity and infuses it with enchantment.

We need to be more communal in an age that’s overly individualistic

this fucking guy never met a republican he couldn't front for until trump came along

every time this thread is revived I am disappointed

How can a man who is wealthy from writing write so poorly?

The larger culture itself needs to be revived in four distinct ways: We need to be more communal in an age that’s overly individualistic; we need to be more morally minded in an age that’s overly utilitarian; we need to be more spiritually literate in an age that’s overly materialistic; and we need to be more emotionally intelligent in an age that is overly cognitive.

A tradition, whether it’s Thanksgiving dinner, an annual family reunion or a burial ceremony, takes a physical activity and infuses it with enchantment.

what's this, the voiceover from triumph of the will

it sounds like he's been talking to his rabbi a lot

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsesuuZXgAA6hL0.jpg:small

oh good

YES

When Europeans first settled this continent they had two big thoughts. The first was that black people were not human beings. The second was that it was acceptable, therefore, to treat them like cattle.

http://verysmartbrothas.com/the-10-worst-sentences-in-david-brookss-the-uses-of-patriotism-ranked-from-this-is-fucking-stupid-to-this-dude-is-on-crack/

i personally rested in peace after reading this garbage

Who the fuck is reading Brooks and nodding and agreeing with him, I want to slap those people

i mean he's no maureen dowd

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/opinion/donald-trumps-sad-lonely-life.html

The funniest part is the gorilla bit

But maybe i just find anthropomorphism funnier than most ppl idk

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C28eXmVUoAAZnu9.jpg

http://bavatuesdays.com/files/2013/03/socialism-big-lebowski-ethos.gif

Lickspittle

Ugh I really hoped he was dead this time

Hope springs eternal

https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2017/01/24/you-will-never-be-good-enough-for-david-brooks/

^^^ I read it this afternoon. Wonderful.

Why do people, who know how to read and write, spend so much time doing both to the NYT pundits? Please shout that at the top of your lungs to get the effect of how I feel about the question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lba_yQHzZCo

why attach that video though

I forgot the caption where I think writing about david brooks instead of doing anything else is probably like that guy going YO instead of calling 911? as I write about people writing about david brooks because I'm procrastinating on some work that I really need to do tonight because the idea that I'll have time to do it tomorrow is laughable.

I think really the metaphor I believe in is that the gas tanker flipping over and exploding is the NYT editorial page, America is all the other vehicles, and we are the guy with the phone, and nothing we do matters.

@dick_nixon
The much-younger woman who played no part in David Brooks' divorce, the "research assistant," I wonder how she feels.

Why do people, who know how to read and write, spend so much time doing both to the NYT pundits?

I know there are several blogger who feel it is their duty to analyze every word Brooks (& other NYT columnists) writes because this is the ruling class talking to itself.

After this sad attempt at a Presidency implodes, there will be several takes on how it was the fault of our era and social media in particular that Trump could not succeed, followed by immediate and yet extremely well-thought-out ripostes from all of these intelligent bloggers, and it will be yet another drop in the opportunity cost bucket of idle smart people, and Bobo will keep his job.

I can discuss Brooks and overthrow Trump and chew gum at the same time.

try not to swallow the gum

my throat can only swallow gin

Healthy approach.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/the-politics-of-cowardice.html

dayummm