Hell Freezes Over: David Brooks Sounds Like A *GASP* Liberal!
By Nicole Belle Sunday Jun 28, 2009 5:00pm
It's an ever-present meme on the Sunday shows: how will the Republican Party get back to their "rightful" place in charge of the government? Of all the problems facing the country right now, this probably ranks right up there with the federal response to Dutch Elm disease, yet it gets countless broadcast hours, over far more pressing issues.
Bush and neocon cheerleader David Brooks has a provocative solution that host David Gregory didn't notice had suspiciously leftist origins: Republicans should become populists!
GREGORY: David Brooks, how does this Republican Party of the future chart a new course. If you look back historically from Nixon to Reagan to George W. Bush. In each case, it was not only a kind of an indictment of the past, but also the charting of a new course for the future of the Republican Party.
BROOKS: Right, I take a maximalist view. I follow the British Conservative Party. They had to lose three national elections before they changed. I think this Republican Party is going to have to lose two or three national elections. So I take a long term, most pessimistic view possible. But what is the route back? It’s two things. The first thing , boring, sensible practicality. And that’s why of the potentials, Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana is the most sensible short term prob…answer to the Republican problems. The guy is just a good manager. You got a guy, Barack Obama, in the White House. Fantastic guy, happens to spend a lot of money. And so that would be my short term.
The long term is that they have to learn to talk to people in densely-populated parts of the country and to young people. And the answer to that is the same: They have to learn to talk the language of community and common endeavor. It’s been too much individual, profit, tax cuts. It has to be community, what we can do together, including in some cases, the government.
So the answer is to appeal to young people and urban centers by admitting that as a community, we have to take care of one another and stop focusing so much on individual profits?
David, that's called being a liberal.
It reminds me very much of something I experienced years ago. Back in the early 80s, I was invited to attend a Young Leaders of Tomorrow conference at Pepperdine University. Given its location and the names of the scheduled speakers, I should have realized that it should have been more accurately named Young Republican Leaders of Tomorrow. I was a little bit of an odd fit, and after not too subtly challenging Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf at a session (moi, a liberal agitator? Quelle suprise!) he attempted to shut me up with this little homily purported to be from Churchill:
If you are young and not liberal, you have no heart, if you are old and not conservative, you have no brain.
Harrumph! Didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now, almost 30 years later. Either you understand that we live in a society and there are responsibilities inherent in being part of that society beyond trying to prove who has the biggest phallus/weapons program, or you don't. And if you don't understand that, you have no business being a Leader of Tomorrow, young or otherwise.
And let's be honest: the Republican Party doesn't understand that. Never have and they never will. Their entire focus (and appeal) lies in that less evolved part of the brain that governs toddlers: the world revolves around you and you are entitled to whatever you want. Everyone else should be scorned and distrusted because they are trying to take what you want to have. That's been the GOP's modus operandi since the beginning.
The problem is we don't want a government run by self-centered children any longer. Not that the Democratic Party has been doing a bang-up job of governing like adults, but they are a step in the right direction.
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Sadly, I feel for you guys Nicole. What other choice do you have? Dems or Reps. That's it basically. But, if you were like Canada, you'd probably be in the same boat we are. Minority governments because nobody wants to elect any major party. Politics attracts scavengers, thieves and fraudster millionaires. The masses have figured that out, but have no choice but to elect millionaire number 1 over millionaire number 2, 9 times out of 10. Humanity is de-evolving.
but its not just voting, all ideas presented especially in msm are either right or far right. So not only do they not have a choice they don't know what choice looks like. Take the beck "watermelon/climate" post as an example. (IMHO)There is way too much schadenfreude i.e. "look how stupid Glen Beck is!". So when Beck is puts down one of Obama's plan, then the assumption is made that Obama's plan is a good idea.
Good for C&L providing follow up with Taibbi: Guess Who's Getting Rich Off The Cap-and-Trade Bill? Our Good Friends at Goldman Sachs!, but I think you know what I mean. Just because someone disagrees with the republicans should not automatically mean that they agree with the dems, and too often that is exactly what happens.
BTW, What does the green party think about the bill? How about some third party coverage, after all this isnt the msm.
From time to time I get suckered into reading David Brooks' column at the NY Times. He often has excellent titles, and the link on the front page only gives the title .. not the author.
So I go ahead and read the first coupla paragraphs. The first paragraph usually makes very good sense.
And then he takes a turn into lala-land.
So, him sounding like a "liberal" (for at least a few moments) is just about par for the course.
:)
Yes, there are lots of things that David Gregory doesn’t notice. Most likely because he usually has a neo-con dick in his mouth.
The future of America according to a bunch of white people
After the Repubs are done with thinking they need to go more wingnut and losing at that then maybe they'll try out this strategy of liberalism light. It won't work them them. Just as Truman said that if Democrats try to pass themselves off as Republican lite, the public will choose Republicans, if Repubs try Democratic lite it won't work for them. More time in the wilderness for them. Works for me.
I think the labels are somewhat misleading. For example, I think that "tax and spend" is more aligned with fiscal conservatism than "borrow and spend".
And I wonder whether the labels liberal versus conservative are applicable today. We also have ideologues versus data driven people. Take health care. We're supposed to reject single payer because of an ideological aversion to "socialism" and ignore the data (evidence) that indicates that the approach is much cheaper.
And then, there is another distinction, which is the corporate owned politician versus one who works for the people.
Buddy, that was classic. "tax and spend", "borrow and spend".
Here is your gold star for the day.
good at getting to the point, and better at summing it up. I think of all the comments I've read on any blog all week, yours makes the most sense. I'd suggest YOU run for office, but I'd hate to waste a good mind.
You'll notice that Brooks only said the Republican Party needs to learn how to "speak the language" of community-- not that they need to abandon their actual philosophy. He's talking about marketing. He thinks they need a new scam, because the old one is worn out.
The entire purpose of right-wing politics, going back 200 years in this country, has always been to enrich and empower the few, and to pursue a two-tiered society of wealth and poverty. That doesn't change. What changes is their marketing.
"You'll notice that Brooks only said the Republican Party needs to learn how to "speak the language" of community"
"He thinks they need a new scam"
The regressive philosophy has proven to be bad for the economy, bad for the masses, bad for the environment, and bad for humanity. May it long wander in the wilderness and maybe just get lost there.
He reveals the real difference between us and conservatives. They fundamentally do not believe in "the common good." For conservatives, only private profit or advantage are possible. Of course they assume that everyone else is just like them, so that liberals must also view the government to be looted for the benefit of themselves and their friends.
How come all these conservatives didn't have any problem with Bush spending lots of money? Oh yea, it's different when Rethuglicans do it.
Hi Nicole.
You wrote irritation with someone using churchill's blubbering witticism:
If you are young and not liberal, you have no heart, if you are old and not conservative, you have no brain.
Well, I have a response for you, and you can use it if you wish. I do. And shuts those smarmy dimwits at cocktail parties right up. My response is:
If you are young and not liberal you have no heart, and if you are old and not a fire breathing leftist radical, you simply haven't been paying attention to what the hell is going on in this world.
cheers.
Tweakerbelle
I'll raise you two Abby Hoffmans... and a Phil Donahue.
Also, I LOVED that swipe (above) at David Gregory. What a terrible loss for network "issues" discussion! I CAN'T STAND TO WATCH MTP any more... I depend upon C&L to give me the highlights so I don't have to listen to Gregory for a whole hour.
I really miss Tim.
It's like you write like I think.
When Obama and Biden said nearly the same thing during the campaign, the Right accused Obama of pushing "shared sacrifice" and started calling him a "Marxist".
The Right will NEVER argue "putting the needs of the community ahead of your own" because someone else on the Right will start screaming "Marxist" and "Socialist!"
Last night I got into an impromptu political argument where the meme was "socialism and socialized medicine". I got so tired of all the same tired old rhetoric and the name calling, so finally I had an outburst in which I said, "Why don't you fuckers just pick an "ism" and stick with it! Or do you just throw Marxism, socialism, Nazism, and communism around because Limbaugh says so?" So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Right to put the needs of the many ahead of the fat cats who hold all the wealth, unless they are planning on reincarnating Teddy Roosevelt to do some trustbusting. I'm not even sure he'd be considered a Repub today. They would probably call him some lefty tree hugger for preserving all that pristine land that they could be making a buck off of if it wasn't a national park.
Besides the MSM and the idiot talking heads, who gives a flying puck if the Republithug party ever regroups?
God, I am so sick of the suck up to corporate America broadcast groups like ABC, CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox, etc.
If they actually did the job they are suppose to do... the Iraq War would have never happened. Instead they were too busy greasing the skids for their corporate sugar daddies. I wish Americans would wake up to the fact, MSM sold us down the river.. with the help of Republithug scum!
the origin of the phrase is french. Guizot and later adapted by Clemenceau. different context.
but you knew that.
and btw: If you are young and not liberal you have no heart, and if you are old and not a fire breathing leftist radical, you simply haven't been paying attention to what the hell is going on in this world.
ref&h/t: tweakerbelle, above.
?
Riiight!
Daniels was President Bush's first budget director (2001 to mid-2003) and his budgeting fantasies made sure that Bush's assault on our budget surpluses got off to a roaring start. In late 2002 this economic genius deemed Lawrence Lindsey's $100-$200 estimate of the Iraq War "way too high" and lowered the Bush White House estimate to $50-$60 billion. (Lindsey left the White House fairly rapidly thereafter.)
Daniels is from the Grover Norquist school of governance. At least John McCain admitted he did not know much about economics.
an example of marketing as cat atomic noted above. .... different labels same old/same old.
not long ago we had a compassionate conservative. new boss, same as old boss...only worse. or maybe some of us are getting weary of this conservative scam.
"If you are young and not liberal, you have no heart, if you are old and not conservative, you have no brain."
Oh yeah, Norm? Well, I've got one for you.
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
--John Stuart Mill
Van, what a great quote. That one is going into the starting rotation...
I just wish I could claim credit for it!
Obviously you can't take credit for the quote but you sure can take credit for bringing it to our attention. Thanks for that one and I will be helping to spread the word!
one of my favorites. It's not directly linked to the subject at hand, but it's close.
"That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves." -- Kim Stanley Robinson
--they short-cut their own constituency by casting Palin as their anwser to HRC; the same technique was employed in naming the obviously inept Michael Steele as their answer to Obama; they short-cut themselves with pushing forward ethnic Bobby "volcanoes" Jindal as the "new face" of the party; they short-cut their answer to the Obama Budget with a whopping 4-page response with no figures. They don't know how to lead because, on the whole, they appear to be less intelligent than the Democrats, cheating their way through college, cheating their way through marriage.
"the world revolves around you and you are entitled to whatever you want. Everyone else should be scorned and distrusted because they are trying to take what you want to have. That's been the GOP's modus operandi since the beginning."
Let me fix that for you.
"you are entitled to whatever you earned. Everyone trying to take what you have earned should be scorned and distrusted. That's been the GOP's modus operandi since the beginning."
I'm far from rich, and have worked and earned what I have, I have given time, money and effort to charities. I've volunteered to work on houses for the elderly, and to fix up houses for those less fortunate. I plant probably double to triple the garden that I need for myself and my family to donate to the local food bank and any of you that have grown gardens know that it is work. I currently have 35 tomato plants, 10 zucchini, half a dozen cucumber and pickles, no idea how many bean plants about 250-300 onions, assorted peppers, melons and such. I have no problem doing so, until someone tells me that I HAVE to because I have so much more than others. For my garden if the GOV or anyone told me that I had to donate more than I could use, I guarantee I would be out there with a sprayer of roundup killing everything.
Nicole
This is as succinct a definition of 20th Century conservatism as any I've seen.
I'd add one thing to that, and that is a belief that one can DO whatever one wants, and any rules or laws intended to keep the actions of individuals balanced against the rights of others are vehemently rejected.
Thus, to conservatives there should be no regulation of commerce, no regulation of workplace conditions to protect the health and safety of employees, no regulation to guard against unlawful discrimination, no regulation of the use of natural resources, no regulation against usury, no taxation to pay for infrastructures used by all. The list is long, and the principle results in a dog-eat-dog world and the breaking of the bonds of community and voluntary sharing of resources among people. And a breaking of the deep bonds human beings have with the natural world.
There is an inherent recognition among liberals that there are narcissistic, greedy, and bullying human beings in our midst who aggressively push to the front of the line, and without effective checks on their behavior, they can entirely disrupt and even destroy the natural mechanisms of human community and community prosperity.
The actual quote originated either with Andre Malraux or Andre Gide. In translation, it is:
"If you are not a Communist when you are young, you have no heart.
If you are still a Communist when you are older, you have no brain".
Quite differnt from the Atwaterian confiscation of the quote to claim you would naturally become conservative. If anything, the Gidean or Malraux meaning would be cynicism and siillusionment about -isms. The earliest If Churchill used the quoet, it would have been the original.
The post-Nixon conservatives are insanely jealous of the populaity of the New Left in the 60s and 70s.
I think they shouyld just get stoned and loosen up.
Milo
consider also:
the origin of the phrase is french.
-Francois Guizot (1787-1874) "Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head". [ref is to preference for france as republic or monarchy]
- and later adapted by Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929). "Any man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart. Any man who is still a socialist at age 40 has no head." and further adapted by others ad nauseum.
or it originated w/someone else entirely and was lifted by all these characters.....
He is a traditional conservative like Andrew Sullivan.
The original 19th century conservative mvt acknowledged the importance of common responsibility as much as it promoted individual responsibility.
As for today, I find so-called moderate conservatives such as Brooks, Sullivan, Olympia Snow or Colin Powell much more interesting than Liberals.
The Dims are moving to the right.
Obama is backing secrecy - and getting away with it.
The Repubs will adopt some populist positions.
Maybe the Repubs will look good by 2012.
People will vote for them hoping for change.
Then the whole merry-go-round will start again.
I'm afraid we need a revolution.
So is Brooks admitting that the Reps have not been the party of the people they've always claimed to be?
"The first thing , boring, sensible practicality. And that’s why of the potentials, Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana is the most sensible short term prob…answer to the Republican problems. The guy is just a good manager."
As a Hoosier, I presume Brooks hasn't looked at the disaster Mitch Daniels has made of Indiana lately. I have yet to figure out the man's popularity here or in the national GOP, except for his extraordinary capability to sound convincing when he disowns any responsibility for the programs he advocates (And in some cases ran) after they fail miserably.
If you want the U.S. government as run by the manager on "The Office", by all means make Mitch Daniels president.
Pardon me as I retch - Jonnan
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