Great response to David Brooks.

[Hamlette]

I would like to quote an answer to conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks, who tried to give advice to Dems recently:

Bill Abbott of Oakland California writes:

“David:

You write, ‘We post-Cold War Americans haven’t really settled on what story we are a part of.’

“Really? I’m pretty clear what story I’m part of. Objective truth exists and is important. We are measured by how we treat the least among us. Science works because it is based on reality. Hope can overcome fear. Do unto others as we wish to be done to ourselves. The challenges we face mean we have no-one to waste, yet too many people are poor, marginalized and left behind. Women’s rights are human rights. Black lives matter. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Love wins. We don’t educate our neighbor’s children because of charity, we educate them because we will have to live with them. We are not perfect, we have never been perfect, but we can always get better. That’s my story. That’s the story of my country, and of humans in general.”

https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2018/07/with-trump-being-putins-puppet-and-most-gop-leaders-being-trumps-puppets-putin-now-owns-the-gop.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Excellent. Thanks for posting! . . . nt

[WinstonSmith4740]

2. Brilliant!

Thanks for posting!

[rainin]

3. Wow! This is awesome!

[Harker]

4. Nice.

Mr. Abbott seems pretty clear about who he is.

[Moostache]

5. BRAVO!!! EXCELLENT WORK!!! (n/t)

[Kurt V.]

6. the best thing I've read in a while.

mr. abbott get's it.

[Achilleaze]

7. Yes. These are American values.

Well stated! Brooks can go pee up his degenerate republican-values rope.

[Nitram]

8. May I quote you? This is excellent!

[Hamlette]

12. it's not me, it's from a longer article at 3 Quarks Daily

but with attribution, quote away.

I want it on a coffee cup or t shirt

On edit, I found the original post. It was a comment to a Brooke column dated July 23. If you can get behind the pay wall, look under "Reader's Picks"

edited again to add a link to the Brooks column: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/opinion/democratic-party-race-ocasio-cortez-economics.html?action=click&contentCollection=undefined&contentPlacement=3&module=stream_unit&pgtype=collection&region=stream&rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fdavid-brooks&version=latest#commentsContainer

[Nitram]

14. Brooks lives in a quiet little universe all by himself, untouched by grimy reality and hard truths.

Little Lord Fauntleroy.

[Hamlette]

16. agreed

I used to think he was okay back in the day he was on the McNeill Lehrer report which I watched religiously. I wonder has he changed or have I?

[Nitram]

17. Brooks is a calm and reasonable-sounding figure. It's just that when faced with heinous crimes and

immoral behavior on the right, he still manages to rationalize it away and continue to use false equivalency to criticize liberals. We didn't change. Events just exposed Brooks for the weak intellect that he actually is. Even George Will has come out more strongly against Trump and the GOP than Brooks. Unfortunately, Wills still never writes a column without a nasty swipe at the left, no matter how irrelevant to his topic. "Intellectual ideologues" like Brooks and wills are oxymorons by definition.

[bobbieinok]

9. Safe bet Brooks ignores this. Also bet MAGAts don't have this goal!

[Augiedog]

10. Nicely done. Ratpublicans will be totally confused by this because You don't want to shoot anybody,

deport anybody, lock up (chose your minority here) anybody, make people sit, stand or jump for the American flag, anthem or bible, run reporters out of town, take down LGTBQers, elect misogynists, racists and neo nazis or libertarians.im sure the list could go on.

[niyad]

11. excellent6. I doubt brooks understands one word of it.

[NRaleighLiberal]

13. David Brooks manages to be wrong more often than a broken clock.

[skypilot]

15. 'We post-Cold War Americans...

...haven’t really settled on what story we are a part of.’

What does that even mean?

[Hamlette]

21. he is scolding the left for caring about the poor and minorities

his article starts like this:

"There’s a lot of discussion about how far left the Democratic Party should go these days. Is it destroying its electoral chances when its members call for a single-payer health plan or abolishing ICE?

That’s an important question, but the most important question is what story is the Democratic Party telling? As Alasdair MacIntyre argued many years ago, you can’t know what to do unless you know what story you are a part of. Story is more important than policies.

We post-Cold War Americans haven’t really settled on what story we are a part of. We’ll flock to anybody who can tell us a story that feels true.

The story Donald Trump tells is that we good-hearted, decent people of Middle America have been betrayed by stupid elites who screw us and been threatened by foreigners who are out to get us. That story resonated with many people. You can get a lot of facts wrong if you get your story right."

I do wish more in our party could express our positions as clearly as the writer in the op.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/opinion/democratic-party-race-ocasio-cortez-economics.html?action=click&contentCollection=undefined&contentPlacement=3&module=stream_unit&pgtype=collection&region=stream&rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fdavid-brooks&version=latest#commentsContainer

[skypilot]

22. You can get a lot of facts wrong if you get your story right.

So, we're supposed to come up with a bullshit "story" that's not based on facts? I can never read anything this guy writes. He's such a fucking worm. I was tempted to read the article you linked to but it's paywalled and I've exceeded my free NYT articles for the month. Probably for the best.

[Hamlette]

23. as you imagine, it was BS

as was the line you quoted. He seems to be excusing, if not down right advocating, politicians lie as long as they play to the Applebee's crowd.

useless.

[marieo1]

18. Response to David Brooks

Bill Abbott - What can I say? This is exactly how I feel and you were able to phrase my thoughts so perfectly. Thank You.

[Upthevibe]

19. Thank you for posting this!

Also, I read the article and the author makes some excellent points. He's very optimistic. I recommend folks read it...

[Paladin]

20. Fuck David Brooks, drum major for the rightward march of the NYT editorial section.

And fuck the NYT execs who pay no-talent hacks like Brooks and Maureen Dowd anything more than minimum wage.

[Scruffy1]

24. I could never understand why anybody would give a SHIT ABOUT WHAT bROOKS SAYS.

He is the dumbest of the willfully dumb.

[SunSeeker]

25. K & R & bookmarked!

[Thomas Hurt]

26. To be honest Brooks didn't mean what story, blah, blah...

he meant why hasn't everyone settled on the conservative story.

Why can't you liberals understand that you need to be husbanded by the firm hand of christianity and conservatism.

Screw him.

[Hamlette]

28. exactly

and the conservative story is quickly becoming unmoored from the story of the United States since its inception.

We should have formed 2 countries in 1776. I understand why we did not, but the 3/5th solution and not outlawing slavery from the get go ("the serpent sleeping at the feet of the founders&quot has led to much of the misery in this country.

[Hekate]

27. Exactly my thoughts

[bucolic_frolic]

29. Don't hold back

Last edited Tue Jul 31, 2018, 05:34 PM - Edit history (1)

Bill Abbott really laid into him, but Bill, next time don't be so nice.

[Honeycombe8]

31. Brooks is fine. He recently wrote an article on how to distribute power downward...

He may be conservative, but he's a definite moderate and is not the enemy, IMO.

[Honeycombe8]

30. Seems like Brooks was referring to Russia, not all the other issues.

Hard to know, since there's no link to get the context of the Brooks quote.

[Hamlette]

33. here's the link

to both the letter and Brooks op ed. I put it down in the comments, should have put it in the https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/opinion/democratic-party-race-ocasio-cortez-economics.html?action=click&contentCollection=undefined&contentPlacement=3&module=stream_unit&pgtype=collection&region=stream&rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fdavid-brooks&version=latest#commentsContainer

[Honeycombe8]

34. Thanks. I see what he's saying, I think.

He's talking about the message, about tapping into the discontent among the people. Finding the pulse and campaigning on it (hopefully being genuine about it). He's saying that's what Trump spoke to (of course, Trump was lying; his team had just tapped into the middle class American discontent).

One thing: I think Trump's team did realize the middle class discontent, but I don't think that was enough to win. I think Russia hacked the election.

I do think the Democratic Party has pushed middle America aside in some ways, in favor of the other parts of its base. And maybe its base doesn't include middle America, anymore. I don't know. It'll have a hard time winning without it. But maybe middle America is still on board...it was just this past election where too many of them fell for Trump. (Again...I think Russia rigged it.)

[Hamlette]

39. when he talks about tapping into electorate, he dismisses single payer health care

which is a natural progression of the two examples he gave, Kennedy and Hart, and I bet you good money that Brooks dismissed what they stood for as well. That what bugs us all about Brooks, he dismisses mainstream ideas as well as more fringe ideas.

I think health care is a real concern for the middle class and a great issue for us. I know lots of people my son's age who struggle with medical costs, especially when they start having kids. One friend still hasn't paid off the hospital bill for the birth of her 3 and 1/2 year old. They talk policies, deductions, costs all the time and they all have jobs. Poor people get Medicaid, it is those in the middle that are getting screwed. I also don't think we have failed to address the concerns of the middle class.

I think a huge part of the discontent is the realization that whites will be a minority by 2050. We have witnessed how horribly we have treated blacks and browns in this country and they are thinking they will be treated like that. It is what Trump tapped into. We need to push the "high tide raises all boats" idea re: inclusion, raising the minimum wage and the like.

[Honeycombe8]

40. Single payer is not a mainstream idea to most Americans, I think.

It's far removed from what the American health care system has ever been that most don't see it as ever occurring, or ever working, or even if they'd want it. It's unknown whether we can pay for it, as well, because the enormous population in our country.

We on the left see it differently. But we are not "most," and neither is the right.

[CottonBear]

41. Poor working people don't get Medicaid in non-expansion KKKGOP states like GA. N/T

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. I suspect Brooks meant he and his fellow Republicans hadn't settled whether ...

... they are the party of big business, or the party of blaming non-whites and foreigners. So they've settled on a businessman who got rich by dubious means, but gets his enjoyment from blaming non-whites and foreigners.

[Honeycombe8]

35. He's talking about Democrats and middle America, I think. His party is lost to Trump.

There is no Republican Party, right now. Just the Trump Party.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. I was guessing (and assuming that his 'we' meant himself, because he's not great at empathy)

but I think I was right - this is the context, now I look:

We post-Cold War Americans haven’t really settled on what story we are a part of. We’ll flock to anybody who can tell us a story that feels true.

The story Donald Trump tells is that we good-hearted, decent people of Middle America have been betrayed by stupid elites who screw us and been threatened by foreigners who are out to get us. That story resonated with many people. You can get a lot of facts wrong if you get your story right.
...
Today’s Democrats tell two other stories. The first is the traditional socialist story associated with Bernie Sanders: America is rived by the class conflict. The bankers and the oligarchs are exploiting the middles. We need a fighter who will go out and battle concentrated economic power.

The second is the multicultural story: American history has been marked by systems of oppression. Those who have been oppressed — women, African-Americans, Latinos — need to stand together and fight for justice.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/opinion/democratic-party-race-ocasio-cortez-economics.html

So he does start out with Trump anti-foreigner rhetoric, and that's what he puts right next to the "we Americans haven't really settled..." bit, although most of the article is about Democrats and Ocasio-Cortez, and why he thinks Democrats shouldn't campaign with "Trump is a wanker" but "we're the party of sunny optimists". It's mainly "please stop pointing out I have been part of the rise of a hateful bigot, it makes me look bad".

[Drum]

37. Boom! (n/t)

[TomSlick]

38. Preach!