RIP David Brooks

For many, reading David Brooks is the best way to begin hating David Brooks

cruel revive

No! It's like a pulling someone out of wet cement - you got to tackle the problem NOW before that shit is literally set in stone!

― birdistheword

She's my mom. I'm not her mom. It was stupid and self-destructive of me to even try and talk to her after what she did to me. I'm grateful to her for reminding me of that right off the bat.

So I guess, uh... thank you David Brooks for reminding me to stop talking to my abusive mother?

David Brooks: Favorite pundit of abusive mothers everywhere

Apologies Kate, I didn't know your family history beyond that single post.

Haha no worries it's not like I provided a great deal of context. I mean if it's funnier to you to think that I decided to stop talking to my mom, who is otherwise a kind, loving, and caring person, simply because she happened to read a David Brooks book, by all means Barthes the fuck out of my post. That's kind of why I made that post, because I thought it would be kind of funny.

Bobos in Hate

it's a real struggle for me to communicate the absolute tragedy and pathos i felt in that conversation. it's indicative of something larger. like, she legitimately is more emotionally invested in the writing of david brooks than she is in the life of her own daughter. she legitimately, i think, legitimately has no idea what she's doing wrong, what she's done wrong. she's the smartest person i've ever known, which is saying a lot, but i could never explain to her why her following up my trying to emotionally connect with her by talking about a _david brooks_ book made me cut bait as an act of self-preservation.

there's a whole world of people like me who have these kinds of fraught relationships with our parents. i've read that book "adult children of emotionally immature parents". the one that got me was "down the rabbit hole: the world of estranged parents' forums":

https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/

i read this and i understood so much more about, like, the theory of mind that leads my mom to act in the ways she's acted all her life.

and maybe this is a thread swerve and isn't _about_ david brooks per se, but to me it's part of a larger trend, it's part of the toxic influence of neoliberalism. like my mom always had problems, and as a result of those problems she engaged in severely abusive behavior towards her kids, and even now i don't think of her as _irredeemable_. she's just not someone who _i_ can heal or make better. there's a lot of talk about "social contagion" and for me, that's one of the reasons i got the hell out of indiana. because i was afraid of becoming like her. it's something i worry a lot about. i don't think she's a bad person. she just doesn't know what she's doing wrong, and at this point, i've accepted the strong possibility that she never will. that's why i'll say sometimes that i'm waiting for her to die. i love her deeply, and right now, she's only _capable_ of hurting me. it really helped me a lot when my dad died. it took a load off my chest. because, again, he was stupid and fucked up and so guilt-ridden over abandoning us that he didn't answer the phone when i called. i kept trying, though, because as long as someone's alive, it's not too late. it was this self-defeating cycle. yes, he abandoned us, yes, we suffered a great deal after he abandoned us, and i couldn't get across to him that i legitimately didn't give a shit, that he was still my dad, and that even though his actions hurt me a lot i still loved him and wanted him in my life. we couldn't ever talk about the real shit like that.

and it's the same way with my mom, with most of my family. we can't talk about the real shit, for the most part. i talk about my feelings and she talks about some horrible book she's reading, and she argues in this... i mean, you know, you've seen it, the "debate me" people who come on like they're being all rational but are deeply emotionally driven. my mom is very good at putting an intellectual veneer on her cruelty. she's very good at justifying and making excuses for herself. she's very bad at acknowledging or accepting responsibility for her behavior.

that's kind of what frames my view on discourse, where that comes from. i learned that pattern of behavior from her, and i put it into practice, often, in my younger years. discourse, particularly internet discourse, _thrives_ on that sort of abusive behavior. i really internalized the idea that that sort of behavior was... not normal, but _righteous_, that it was _righteous_ to behave that way. i don't think it is today. i think it's dishonest and cruel to treat another human being that way, particularly to treat your own child that way.

i don't blame david brooks for that, but i think the intellectual tradition he represents is, honestly, a harmful social contagion, a form of trauma inflicted on and by people who can't get away from it. a basilisk. i guess el sandifer wrote a book about that once, right? _neoreaction, a basilisk_? it's probably good. i haven't read it. i don't really read books about discourse. any of them could turn out to be basilisks. what's more important to me is that my relationship with my mom has been very painful for a very long time, and david brooks happens to be a good symbolic representation of that pain.

kate, i got a wildly abusive xmas card from my mom just a few weeks ago. i opened it, started to read it, tore it apart, put the pieces back together, read the whole thing twice. the next week or so was a little rough but the clarity from that - that i had made the right choice to cut her off two years ago - was really invigorating, and i walked into the new year grateful to be rid of the poison and growing on my own. ask her not to contact you unless she is ready to take responsibility for her abuse (keep it to 1 sentence) and cut her off completely. block on all channels. she can send you a letter in the mail if she has a change of heart, but she won't. no contact. stop the poison from flowing to you. you deserve better. the years will pass and there will be hard moments and the grief won't end but you will grow and know that you made the right decision.

Ok can this just be a thread about Davis Brooks ffs

thanks map :heart:

I'm still waiting for the announcement of his demise.

Grim Reaper doesn't want to go near him

thanks map :heart:

― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, January 25, 2024 3:38 AM (seventeen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

you're welcome babe

Doth he not have feels.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/opinion/trump-republicans-immigration.html

Down at the bottom: "READ 1230 COMMENTS"

No, I don't think I will.

He thought he was beyond shockable

"are we the baddies????"

My progressive readers are now thinking: Have you not been paying attention? Donald Trump has owned this party for years. If he told them to kill the immigration compromise because he needed a campaign issue, they were going to kill that proposal.

To which I respond: I don’t think you quite understand what just happened.

Do go on.

"Let me recount my dinner conversation with my wife, who I think, as I told her at the time, doesn't quite understand what just happened"

this man is a walking definition of fatuity

They have to mouth the Trumpian prejudices to survive in this era, but somewhere deep inside, the party of Reagan still lives in their souls.

Uff da

it doesn't matter a damn what's deep inside their souls because they sold their souls to Trump and are no longer in possession of them

"souls"

lol the party of Reagan is where the problems really started, asshole

when will this fucker really die, c'mon 2024

seriously, thread lets me down time and again

LOL I know. Every damn time.

Seriously, "the party of Reagan." I spent the Reagan years protesting his illegal wars, go fuck yourself.

Spouse suggested that I love to hate on DB the way I watched 60 Minutes to hate on Andy Rooney back in the day, but it is truly a different thing with me and Brooks

Ugh, he's definitely more smug than Rooney was. I haven't read him in awhile and then I saw this annoying bit--

Last fall I argued that Joe Biden was the Democratic Party’s strongest 2024 presidential nominee. I believed that for two reasons: He has been an effective president, and he is the Democrat most likely to appeal to working-class voters.

I still believe Biden is the party’s strongest candidate, but I’m getting more pessimistic about his chances of winning.

The first reason is not political rocket science: Voters prefer the Republicans on key issues like inflation and immigration. Most Donald Trump supporters I know aren’t swept up in his cult of personality; they vote for him because they are conservative types who like G.O.P. policies and think Trump is a more effective executive than Biden.

"Most Donald Trump supporters that I know" ...

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/24/opinion/thepoint?searchResultPosition=1#biden-poll-young-voters

and think Trump is a more effective executive than Biden.

Brooks is huffing something if he takes this at face value.

every single trump supporter david brooks knows supports trump because he'll lower their taxes and/or abandon all regulation of them or their businesses

that is what being 'effective' means

yes, but that was amply covered by "prefer the Republicans on key issues". I perfectly understand that the the follow-on reference to "inflation and immigration" was just camouflage for lower business, personal, and capital gains taxes combined with reckless deregulation, both of which Trump leaves entirely to his minions in Congress to make happen. He has no interest in such petty details as writing and passing legislation. He just likes to sit in the big chair and give orders.

*reads* this guy is the most dangerous bastard in the public discourse because people don't realize or won't admit how motherfucking dishonest and/or deluded and stupid he is.