DAVID BROOKS, MASTER OF READING THE ROOM:
David Brooks, do you remember him?
Once again he’s back pontificating about his incredible insight into a movement he knows nothing about. A cousin of mine sent me the following link: With the following comment, “Eye Opening”. David Brooks is frightened: “The Terrifying Future of the American Right — What I saw at the National Conservatism Conference”.
Mr. Brooks attended the conference and in his own words:
When I came down to Florida for the National Conservatism Conference, I was a little concerned I’d get heckled in the hallways, or be subjected to the verbal abuse I occasionally get from Trump supporters. Judging by their rhetoric, after all, these are the fire-breathers, the hard-liners, the intellectual sharp edge of the American right.But everyone was charming! I hung around the bar watching football each night, saw old conservative friends, and met lots of new ones, and I enjoyed them all.
What were you expecting, child rapists hitting you with a skateboard, a “smurf” with blue hair and 49 piercings, confused by how many genders there are? Granted before Twitter ousted me I would Tweet you with smarmy remarks. However, if I ever had the chance to meet you in person, I would address you properly and leave it at that.
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Mr. Brooks was never a Conservative, nor will he ever be. For such an enlightened man he certainly lacks any inquisitiveness or any true observational skills, for example:
The NatCons are wrong to think there is a unified thing called “the left” that hates America. This is just the apocalyptic menace many of them had to invent in order to justify their decision to vote for Donald Trump.
I guess I must be having hallucinations when Antifa and BLM are burning the cities of Portland, Kenosha and Seattle for example. I must be nuts to think that the majority of bannings, timeouts and the like on Social Media Platforms are for those right of center. Often we hear from the Keepers of The Gate, “It was a mistake”. The Left are never caught up in the Mistake excuse.
In 1997, as a warm-up to his 2000 book Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks wrote an article on Burlington, Vermont for the Weekly Standard (remember that?) called “The Rise of the Latte Town:”
One of the striking things about Burlington is that it is relatively apolitical. The bookstores carry some titles on politics, but the current-affairs sections tend to be tucked away in the back. I saw but three political bumper stickers during the week I was there, two that read “Bernie” for the local socialist congressman, Bernie Sanders, and one, on a pickup truck on the out-skirts of town, that read “Rush.” Bulletin boards are everywhere, but most of the fliers advertise rock bands, not rallies. One of the books featured in the most fashionable of the local bookstores was called Fifty-four Ways to Help the Homeless. Only one of them is government- related — No. 52, “Write your congressperson” — while the rest are various forms of local and direct action individuals can take, such as volunteering at soup kitchens.
That denizens of that “relatively apolitical” town would quickly become very politicized just three years later, beginning with the Florida recount and the election of George W. Bush.
In September of 2011, Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal wrote, “This Sunday’s 10th anniversary commemorations will evoke some semblance of the unity then in the face of an enemy attack on U.S. soil. But make no mistake: It’s gone.” What happened?, asked Henninger: “For activist and professional Democrats, the most ignominious day in their collective political lives occurred a year earlier—the Florida presidential recount. The 2000 election ended only when the Supreme Court resolved it in favor of George Bush. Republican and independent voters moved on, but many Democrats never did; they were now being governed by an illegitimate president. The chances that any Bush policies would retain their support were minimal, with or without 9/11.”
And that was certainly the case with Burlington, VT, as well.