David Brooks: The G.O.P. Is Getting Even Worse

[brooklynite]

New York Times

Those of us who had hoped America would calm down when we no longer had Donald Trump spewing poison from the Oval Office have been sadly disabused. There are increasing signs that the Trumpian base is radicalizing. My Republican friends report vicious divisions in their churches and families. Republican politicians who don’t toe the Trump line are speaking of death threats and menacing verbal attacks.

It’s as if the Trump base felt some security when their man was at the top, and that’s now gone. Maybe Trump was the restraining force.

What’s happening can only be called a venomous panic attack. Since the election, large swathes of the Trumpian right have decided America is facing a crisis like never before and they are the small army of warriors fighting with Alamo-level desperation to ensure the survival of the country as they conceive it.

The first important survey data to understand this moment is the one pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson discussed with my colleague Ezra Klein. When asked in late January if politics is more about “enacting good public policy” or “ensuring the survival of the country as we know it,” 51 percent of Trump Republicans said survival; only 19 percent said policy.

[hatrack]

1. Yep, you've got to get up pretty early in the morning to evade Brooks' eagle eye!

[oasis]

2. "Survival". GOP code meaning: "Back to the good old days". nt

[DFW]

3. Goethe saw this coming centuries ago

In „Der Zauberlehrling,“ or „The Sorcerer‘s Apprentice,“ the apprentice wails with regret, „Die ich rief, die Geister, werde ich nun nicht mehr los,“ or „The spirits I have summoned, I can no longer rid myself of them.“

Brooks and his Republicans summoned the evil spirits of the Trumpanzees, and now wail about the effects of their actions. We told them what would happen if they went with him, McTurtle and Fox Noise. They did it anyway, and now they whine, „but I didn‘t mean THIS!“

Sure you did, and you got it. Now fix it.

[Blues Heron]

4. Brooks helped normalize the pukes for decades

now they're showing who they've always been all along. Can't stand that smarmy puke-faced POS

[tanyev]

5. +1. His surprise and dismay is disingenuous, to say the least.

[JHB]

6. It's been getting worse for your entire career, David.

Perhaps you should retire and take up a hobby.

Something that does not involve you opining in any fashion, neither publicly nor privately. After all, that's your job, and you should really get away from it.

[Irish_Dem]

7. "Survival" means continuation of racism and white supremacy.

They believe violence, cheating, lying are all acceptable means to this end.