RIP David Brooks

If you took a working-class candidate from the right, like Santorum, and a working-class candidate from the left, like Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and you found a few islands of common ground, you could win this election by a landslide.

Brown was born in Mansfield, Ohio, the son of Emily (née Campbell) and Charles Gailey Brown, M.D.[1] He was named after his maternal grandfather. He became an Eagle Scout in 1967. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian studies from Yale University in 1974. At Yale, he was in Davenport College, the same residential college as U.S. Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush

and you found a few islands of common ground

Sometimes he sounds just like Tom Friedman

Has anyone read the Life Reports David Brooks has been running in the nytimes? It's a really good way to make yourself hopeless and depressed.

Otoh, you can probably say that about anything relating to David Brooks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/opinion/brooks-the-materialist-fallacy.html

had to physically restrain myself from ripping the skin off my face as I was reading this.

He really is such a dunce.

what the hell's he talking about

yogurt, I think

He is doing a little kid level response to the standard criticism of Murray's latest book

http://ussc.edu.au/blogs/David-Brooks-apparently-thinks-society-means-white-people

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/america-might-be-better-shape-david-brooks-thinks

more like Roast in Piss

Please take a number, if you would like to be the next columnist/blogger/economist etc. to critique David Brooks' latest pronouncement:

Here's Dean Baker

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-denounces-economics-is-biology-next

Brooks also has an interesting theory on the loss of skills. He tells readers:

"The American social fabric is now so depleted that even if manufacturing jobs miraculously came back we still would not be producing enough stable, skilled workers to fill them."

Five years ago we had two million more people employed in manufacturing than we do today. Has the social fabric become so depleted in this period that these people or others could now not fill these jobs if they came back? If Brooks really thinks that the ill effects of unemployment are that extreme he should be screaming for more stimulus in every column.

brooks recasts real world problems as a morality play in his role as conservative apologist: every david brooks column

tho often i guess they are not so much real world problems as fake made up problems

Today's helping, courtesy of a certain ilx alumnus: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/17/david_brooks_i_have_heard_of_jeremy_lin/singleton/

But even while grappling with the tension between religious values and contemporary cultural values, which is basically well within Brooks’ wheelhouse, he demonstrates a hilarious misunderstanding of sports, and what sports are “about,” because Mr. Brooks has been spending far too much time in his cloistered elite liberal media ivory tower munching on brie and arugula and not enough time among Real Americans in their “Sporting Taverns” watching “The Big Game” over a pint of mass-market domestic lager.

suspect beating up brooks when u need an easy column will outlast "analyzing" linsanity/linreality tbh

A few generations ago, teenagers went steady. But over the past decades, the dating relationship has been replaced by a more amorphous hook-up culture.

a few generations ago, it was legal to marry a 15 year old

a few generations ago, interracial marriage was against the law

a few generations ago, bestiality was legal in Florida

The half-century between 1912 and 1962 was a period of great wars and economic tumult but also of impressive social cohesion. Marriage rates were high. Community groups connected people across class

In the half-century between 1962 and the present, America has become more prosperous, peaceful and fair, but the social fabric has deteriorated. Social trust has plummeted. Society has segmented. The share of Americans born out of wedlock is now at 40 percent and rising.

Ah, the good ol' days..... If only married people had kids, we could have impressive social cohesion and a strong social fabric like we did before 1961, when only men could get decent jobs and we kept those darned negroes out of our good schools, restaurants, and bus seats....

beyond self-parody at this point

Can't be a coincidence that his name is *this* close to douche-hat: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-safe-legal-rare-illusion.html

First they went after the Rockefeller Republicans, but I was not a Rockefeller Republican. Then they went after the compassionate conservatives, but I was not a compassionate conservative. Then they went after the mainstream conservatives, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Got pretty bummed because he's scheduled to speak at a conference I'll be attending next month, which meant I would have had to cover his talk for our org's magazine. Was dreading that. But turns out he's speaking at a luncheon during the conference, so I think I'm free of that burden!

does your org have a rule against reporting on luncheons?

one more liberal wanting a free ride!

David Brooks making right-wingers angry:

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/02/28/is-david-brooks-comparing-the-tea-party-to-nazis/

I would also point out that the Rockefeller Republicans were losers and compassionate conservatism put us on the brink of financial ruin

the last half of the sentence OTM

Similar statements were made about Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and John McCain.

maybe reagan but otherwise, no, child

well ok W in 04 too

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/is-david-brooks-teaching-humility-at-yale-the-most-pretentious-moment-in-history-20121219

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zUrsmH6eO_i-arEN0zf1LwFID7SoyxkgAo36NUiHp0/pub

The strategies covered here start from a similar premise—that human beings are blessed with many talents but are also burdened by sinfulness, ignorance and weakness, which is why I call on both parties for common sense solutions to our problems, the most notable of which is a cat o' nine tails.

We will pay special attention to those who attended elite prep schools and universities.

u don't say

someone please call his office phone

Modern societies have become economically and socially more unequal. We will explore status competition and the desire for social distinction—executives who feel unabashed when asking for lavish salaries. We will ask whether it is proper to put a Yale window sticker on the back of your car. We will look at codes of social modesty and ask whether modest people make better business leaders

"Students will be asked to grapple with the indictment of their generation made by Christian Smith, Alasdair Macintyre and Jean Twenge."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/david-brooks-now-totally-pathological.html

More fun from Chait

Brooks rose into prominence as a moderate Republican and has enjoyed immense success and prestige as a result. Psychologically, he could hurl himself from a moving car more easily than he could reject Republicanism, no matter how batshit crazy the party becomes.

same with Frum at this point, imo. i realize he can't begin to approach the loathsomeness of Brooks, but his blog basically serves to titillate liberals (who the fuck else pays attention to him?) and provoke a chorus of 'i-told-you-so's'

except for his recent weird preoccupation with the evils of zomg marihuana and the fact that he can't get his mouth off Israel's dick for 5 seconds, i really don't understand how he's still able to call himself a Republican with a straight face.

i suppose renouncing Republicanism would damage his brand, his blog traffic would suffer and he wouldn't be one of cable news' 4 go-to guys who are "trying to save the party"

(re Frum on pot and Israel: i realize that neither of these positions would preclude one from being a card-carrying Dem)

I mind Frum far less than Brooks. At least Frum gives the impression that he has groggily awakened from a nightmare.

lol at "the chinese have no word for nerd"

clean hit:

David Brooks has an unparalleled ability to shape an intellectually interesting idea into the rhetorical arc of an 800-word op-ed piece. The trouble is, a central part of his genius is choosing the little factoids that perfectly illustrate his points. No doubt he's happy enough to use a true fact if the right one comes to hand, but whenever I've checked, the details have turned out to be somewhere between mischaracterized and invented.

Is it just me or is there a kind of critical mass of media/internet people piling on him now? I find the timing strange -- I didn't think his latest column was particularly more noteworthy than a lot of his other drivel.

I was a little bemused too when he was EVERYWHERE in my twitter feed night before last. I checked the brooks threads on here and saw only vague lol refs-- I'l be god damned if I'm giving that little psycho a click so I actually still haven't read the column in q.

h8 him so much

I think he may have struck a nerve with a lot of bloggers with that "thought leader" piece, since it seems to be satirizing a certain kind of aspiring intellectual not too dissimilar to many bloggers themselves. Yglesias was particularly harsh:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/17/david_brooks_scant_self_awareness_divorced_pundit_suddenly_not_so_worried.html

Basically accuses him of hypocrisy for his recent divorce.

And that’s why I don’t really fuck with either of them! :-D

The New Yorker moreso, but I am more a NYRB/LRB guy if we’re talking mainstream pubs.

And that’s why I don’t really fuck with either of them! :-D

A reasonable choice!

The Atlantic gave Ta-Nehisi Coates his first big platform, and they ran his huge reparations article, so I think "right-wing" isn't a very useful term for it. On the other hand, I imagine The Atlantic would NOT run Coates writing about Palestine in 2026.

But also all that to say that David Brooks is kind a perfect fit there.

new yorker is funny cause its a lot of sleepy celebrity profiles and factoid laden dinner party conversation pieces punctuated by occasional very important reporting, all nicely written and edited of course

I think the difference in their appeal is that The New Yorker flatters its readers that they are sophisticated, and The Atlantic flatters them that they are serious.

The New Yorker sure does love its thorough profiles of awful Trump Cabinet secretaries.

thing thats notable about it for me is how left field a lot of the atlantic is, who is this shit for it feel very disconnected from the concerns of people who arent paid by im assuming one weird billionaire

Laurene Powell Jobs isn't *that* weird :)

i never check this thread but I got happy and thought he might have actually died with all this activity. Disappointing!

>> I think the difference in their appeal is that The New Yorker flatters its readers that they are sophisticated, and The Atlantic flatters them that they are serious.

This is a really good way of putting it.

Agreed! I'll have to borrow that.

just saw this:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:m4vee7k6yhxwn3dru6vxs53q/bafkreifcfrzxzh2st44jrndy44zwtn4mmep3g3wkrokrvk466jbt6vfqfy@jpeg

https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53978-understanding-americans-ideology

not sure wins again

It was funny that the biggest Not Sure was for Susan Collins lmfao

concerned

far is a pejorative

Collins is neither right nor left, but concerned about this message this sends

Cuomo's got something for everyone, very balanced portfolio

“It was funny that the biggest Not Sure was for Susan Collins lmfao”

hahaha i was literally scrolling to post that. the sphinx of the senate. let’s blast off her nose

I always forget about the Atlantic until I see people ragging on this one bad faith "just asking questions ..." writer.

based on this, we can determine that JiC learned the Atlantic existed four months ago, when Jenkins’ first byline appeared, and has not been able to maintain object permanence re: the publication’s previous 169-year existence since

https://i.postimg.cc/wMkTJ6F5/normch.jpg

RFK +20 on GWB for "far-right" responses is pathological

https://i.imgur.com/t5X8fOx.jpeg