Game of Choads
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, 22 September 2023 21:14 (one year ago) link
good rundown of all the ways david brooks has been weird about restaurants:https://maxread.substack.com/p/what-is-it-with-david-brooks-and
― jaymc, Friday, 22 September 2023 22:06 (one year ago) link
I think my man is just toasted
― treeship., Friday, 22 September 2023 22:47 (one year ago) link
The official NJ Twitter account has come for him now:
Hey @nytdavidbrooks, here’s what $78 at Smoke House actually looks like 😉(ordered at their Trenton location) pic.twitter.com/2UgFlIvSPJ— New Jersey (@NJGov) September 22, 2023
― read-only (unperson), Friday, 22 September 2023 22:48 (one year ago) link
It would be a start, now play out the logic and stop writing, period:
>> @nytdavidbrooks: "I screwed up. I should not have written that tweet. I probably should not write any tweets." #NeverTweet pic.twitter.com/NECpWRA1pG— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 23, 2023
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 23 September 2023 14:58 (one year ago) link
So it was my mom's birthday, and I was feeling sappy, so I sent my mom this really sweet email in which I thanked her for instilling in me a lifelong love of learning.
Her response started out "That's funny. I am reading this book by David Brooks who spends a lot of time talking about how to know other people in today's divided world..."
Well, I'll talk to her again next year.
― Kate (rushomancy), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 02:08 (seven months ago) link
God damn it.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 02:16 (seven months ago) link
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, Wednesday, 24 January 2024 19:25 (seven months ago) link
For many, reading David Brooks is the best way to begin hating David Brooks
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 19:36 (seven months ago) link
cruel revive
― dead precedents (sleeve), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 19:37 (seven months ago) link
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
― 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?
― Kate (rushomancy), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 20:38 (seven months ago) link
David Brooks: Favorite pundit of abusive mothers everywhere
Apologies Kate, I didn't know your family history beyond that single post.
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 24 January 2024 20:56 (seven months ago) link
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.
― Kate (rushomancy), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 21:09 (seven months ago) link
Bobos in Hate
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 24 January 2024 21:12 (seven months ago) link
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 (rushomancy), Thursday, 25 January 2024 02:11 (seven months ago) link
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.
― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 25 January 2024 02:55 (seven months ago) link
Ok can this just be a thread about Davis Brooks ffs
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Thursday, 25 January 2024 03:35 (seven months ago) link
thanks map :heart:
― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, 25 January 2024 03:38 (seven months ago) link
I'm still waiting for the announcement of his demise.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 25 January 2024 16:46 (seven months ago) link
Grim Reaper doesn't want to go near him
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Thursday, 25 January 2024 17:04 (seven months ago) link
― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, January 25, 2024 3:38 AM (seventeen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
you're welcome babe
― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 25 January 2024 21:33 (seven months ago) link
Doth he not have feels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/opinion/trump-republicans-immigration.html
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 9 February 2024 16:30 (seven months ago) link
Down at the bottom: "READ 1230 COMMENTS"
No, I don't think I will.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Friday, 9 February 2024 16:33 (seven months ago) link
He thought he was beyond shockable
― symsymsym, Friday, 9 February 2024 16:39 (seven months ago) link
"are we the baddies????"
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 9 February 2024 16:41 (seven months ago) link
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.
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Friday, 9 February 2024 17:05 (seven months ago) link
"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"
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 9 February 2024 17:37 (seven months ago) link
this man is a walking definition of fatuity
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Friday, 9 February 2024 20:24 (seven months ago) link
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
― Rich E. (Eric H.), Friday, 9 February 2024 20:31 (seven months ago) link
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
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Friday, 9 February 2024 20:35 (seven months ago) link
"souls"
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 February 2024 20:57 (seven months ago) link
lol the party of Reagan is where the problems really started, asshole
― Surfin' burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (sleeve), Friday, 9 February 2024 22:03 (seven months ago) link
when will this fucker really die, c'mon 2024
seriously, thread lets me down time and again
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Friday, 9 February 2024 23:23 (seven months ago) link
LOL I know. Every damn time.
Seriously, "the party of Reagan." I spent the Reagan years protesting his illegal wars, go fuck yourself.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 9 February 2024 23:37 (seven months ago) link
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
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Saturday, 10 February 2024 03:52 (seven months ago) link
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
― curmudgeon, Friday, 26 April 2024 00:33 (four months ago) link
and think Trump is a more effective executive than Biden.
Brooks is huffing something if he takes this at face value.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Friday, 26 April 2024 01:13 (four months ago) link
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
― mookieproof, Friday, 26 April 2024 02:12 (four months ago) link
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.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Friday, 26 April 2024 02:43 (four months ago) link
*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.
― schrodingers cat was always cool (Hunt3r), Friday, 26 April 2024 03:49 (four months ago) link