Though I never thought I'd say this, Brooks is wrong and Steve Bannon is correct. Every day we spend arguing about gun restrictions is a day Republicans win. To see this, just take a look at gun ownership by state.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/gun-owners-study-one-in-three/
As you can see, the overall support for gun ownership in the US is not geographically uniform. And that's what counts. The ownership is over 40% and even 50% in most areas of the heartland. Brooks' contends that liberals' loss on gun control legislatively is less important than the social stigma that may be attached to gun advocates. In this view, the resulting separation from polite society will cause electoral doom.
But I don't think it's that simple. Sure, Delta Airlines chose to end its rewards program with the NRA. But rather than shy away from such culture fights, Georgia politicians chose to rebuke Delta by excluding a long-sought tax exemption for jet fuel purchases. As support for his contention, Brooks points out that "There are a number of formerly popular ideas that can now end your career ...the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman ..." And that's certainly a liberal win. But gay marriage doesn't threaten to take away anything from conservatives ... while gun regulation and possible confiscation does. By all means, Democrats, please continue to talk about guns.
9
Mr. Brooks, you do not understand much of this country. Did you know that in more than half of the counties in this country, there are no murders? Can you even imagine a place where there is less than one murder a year? I’m thinking you cannot. Source: HTTPS://CRIMERESEARCH.ORG/2017/04/NUMBER-MURDERS-COUNTY-54-US-COUNTIES-2...
Think about it. The people who live in these counties have plenty of guns, and yet there are no murders. To these people, gun control is elitist coastal liberals telling them how to live. These people use guns responsibly. They don’t mind if teachers are armed. They live where students proudly show their teachers a photo of the deer they shot after school.
Trying to shame such people for their attitude about guns would be like trying to shame them for not drinking Starbucks coffee, or for not reading the New York Times.
What has changed in the culture war is that many liberals now feel comfortable saying that they wish to completely ban some guns. Others talk about banning all guns. This unmasking of true intent has, in a sense, confirmed NRA prophecy. This could make the NRA stronger, not weaker.
How many of your friends are members of the NRA? If the answer is none, then you live in a bubble.
11
Mr. Brooks associates progressives with "elite cultural intimidation".
It's worth pointing out that the American voter supported Hillary Clinton ... Donald Trump won only because of the support of the elite Electoral College.
Progressives support their positions and ideals with facts and reason. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt considers this to be "mean" and "intimidating"
http://time.com/5158661/scott-pruitt-first-class/
Apparently, Mr. Brooks does too.
8
Proto culture, nothing more, David Brooks. "Progressive" has no meaning in context with those who attempt to apply, reassign or misuse the term. Save your strength, elevating chaos to criticise common sense reform will only make one 'way tired'. MAGA.
2
It's very disappointing that you denigrate people who are only trying to do
something good for this country, maybe bring us in line with other places where it's not so easy to get an assault rifle or any kind of gun and go out to kill fellow citizens. There have been so many lies, so much nastiness on the NRA-supporting side, people who deny Sandy Hook and the other tragedies despite the evidence.
Now you're trying to paint these good people who're demonstrating for change with the same brush. Shame!
12
Mr. Brooks: You have a profound misunderstanding of the battle against guns, at least from my point of view. For god's sake, you think that we are in this because we want to win political points? Are you nuts? The bodies of children are literally piling up. I am in this because I want guns to be GONE. I don't care about culture wars or political points. I don't care if gun owners' feelings are hurt or not (although the backlash you warn about is troubling, simply because it may keep guns in the hands of killers.). The NRA *is* a terrorist organization, in my opinion, because they put the guns in the hands of terrorists. It is about saving lives, not "winning" a political fight. If we delegitimize the desire to own death-machines, that is fine with me.
20
Every so often Mr. Brooks loses discipline, forsakes the pose of the "reasonable social scientist" conservative, and reveals his true partisan colors, as he does here. There are too many flaws in this piece to take them one by one. Let me simply say that if, in the "culture wars," you are on the side of neo-Nazis and their sympathizers, most reasonable people would agree you should lose such a war. Mr. Brooks simply can't conceive that the right is losing the battle of ideas on the merits of their poor, outdated ideas despite having inordinate legislative power. As a result, he imagines chimeric "elite liberals" undermining liberalism without providing any realm examples let alone significant evidence. When Brooks speaks for the "reasonable" wing of the Republican party with nonsensical screes like this it only reveals how debased the right has become. Sad.
8
Your own quote says it well: "school shootings could be just the thing that persuades the mainstream that conservatism is vulgar and socially illegitimate"
Read what large elements of the right are saying about the survivors of this massacre, children who are demanding that their elected representatives engage in the most important function of government, basic safety and security.
I figured out long ago what the modern republican/conservative movement was about: racism and resentment, appealing to the worst instincts of their reactionary base. Gun fetishists, hypocritical "pro-life" fanatics, religious hypocrites. Vulgar and socially illegitimate doesn't even adequately describe these people. Pathetic and yes "deplorable", just might.
15
David is scratching his head and thinking out loud. Not a bad thing for a columnist to do. I wonder if he wrote the headline himself. The headline suggests he's offering an answer, but he isn't. He's presenting the conundrum. The entire column boils down to one statement: There is a culture war going on during which long-term results will quite likely differ from short-term results, so be careful. That means different things to different people, depending on how much longer you expect to live, I guess.
5
"...the N.R.A. has been called a terrorist organization." And why not? Do you think for one moment, David, that the U.S. government would hesitate to label it a terrorist group if it were based in, say, the Middle East?
8
Ha! At last; someone from the cons side advocating for a moderate stance. Im a libertarian (socially liberal, fiscally conservative, republican) Trump voter and make no fuss about it.
But there is ONE issue I side with Democrats and is gun control. Its still beyond me that someone, anyone can get into a Walmart store and come out carrying a gallon of milk in one hand and a rifle in the other. Its beyond me that people with obvious mental problems have easy access to guns. And just like is annoying hearing lib-progs with their eternal smugness, so it is to hear these gun-loving ultra conservatives with their stupid arguments ("guns dont kill, people do..." etc).
Im delighted that for the first time a US president is listening both sides and proposing measure to at least diminish these massive killing disasters: rising the minimum age and banning the devices to make a regular gun an automatic weapon are just common sense.
1
Progressives may win over the coastal elites but they will not convince middle America and rural areas that progressivism is the correct path for America. They believe in traditional values and feel it is the liberals who are hurting our way of life. They still the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman and are against abortion in most cases.
1
Mr Brooks: Who says all progressives are "Elites"?
5
Brooks’ problem is that he has too much good will. He needs to read Thomas Edsall’s recent column that discusses how, in today’s world, we aren’t for anything as much as we are against our opponents. Rather than reach an agreement, we prefer to throw rocks at one another. The people we like are the one’s helping us throw the rocks. Kind of stupid.
3
Planned Parenthood is one of the "usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups?" If so, it's only in the minds of the hate-filled conservatives who have outrageously made a villain out this venerable, valuable organization. You should know better, David Brooks.
9
I agree with you David. At this stage of my life, after watching so much carnage from guns, I do not want any of these right wing, NRA loving gun huggers at my polite dinner parties. I do not want any smokers or racists either.
After watching the Ken Burns Vietnam series and seeing the brave protesters fight to end that cruel war without a conscience, I know what side I want to be on. I hope the lefties win this one, and I will be with them on March 24th.
5
Lost me at calling Planned Parenthood a "left-wing group".
10
The NRA IS a terrorist organization.
Progressives are tied to the belief that it is better to be correct than to win because, as Dr. King said "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
The idea that "marriage is between a man and a woman" or that "men and women have inherent psychological differences" can end careers is only scary until you remember that once "Blacks should be slaves" and "women should not vote" were mainstream positions. Then they were not- and the world was a better place for it.
6
I think your generalizations are backfiring on you. All of a sudden you realize that
progressives have the moral high ground on the subject of guns, and you are trying desperately to align that fact with your narrow worldview about morality.
It doesn't work.
4
"If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society they will mount a political backlash"
Pray that that backlash is only political.
2
Democrats and progressives are exactly why we have these tragedies.
Hands off parenting, a lack of boundaries, feelings over facts, contempt for any viewpoint but their own, and a profound disrespect for our country and anything resembling traditional values.
A perfect recipe for growing sociopaths.
Another gift from those that brought us “Change”.
4
Mr. Brooks seems angry that everyone doesn't think just like him.
3
"Illiberalism breeds illiberalism...Using power to silence others always produces a backlash." Exactly right. We have watched children be slaughtered over and over again, seen people go to the movies, work, night clubs and concerts have their lives ended senselessly. And we have been screaming for years for something to be done. We've been told we're out of touch. We've been told we don't have a say because we don't own guns. We've certainly not been heard.
The Republican response has been to loosen gun laws, to reverse an Obama executive order making it harder for the mentally ill to obtain guns, to do nothing about people on the no-fly list being able to get weapons, to decline to even take up the bump stock ban.Few states have red flag laws, few have laws that keep guns out of the hands of those with a history of domestic violence. And the push for more guns everywhere was constant, insistent and overwhelming.
Mr. Brooks, this is the backlash.
10
David,
NO! The Big Prize is not winning some sort of academic cultural war. The Big Prize is to stop the enabling the NRA via the bribed GOP from enabling the murdering of kids at will in order to sell more guns.
Your suggested cure that somehow the left needs to continue to play nice with conservatives who simply turn a deaf ear to anything the NRA directs these conservatives not to hear is nonsense. This stance on possible amelioration of gun violence is as bankrupt and as untenable as your Neo-Con stance once was when you endorsed the Bush wars against non-christian countries. How did all that work out, David?
No the left did not goad the right into the outrageously increasing gun violence. The left sounded the alarm while gun manufacturers money through the NRA on to Republican office holders is the root problem sounded by the left.
We need less guns and less of your "formerly legitimate opinions".
RK
8
OMG, you are so right. Those Americans who need the second ammendment to defend their need for a military grade weapon also need a safe space. We liberals without guns are so threatening we must watch our use of trigger words that might make America's right feel stigmatized. A culture of guns produces death and a society that prays for the children they do nothing legislatively to protect is a dying culture. But we will try our best not to stigmatize the snowflakes who cry for more guns so they can hide behind their righteousness as well as their guns. These children will remember and they will not forgive. Culture wars, trade wars, wars against drugs, wars and walls but do not stigmatize the Right, they are so sensitive.
9
Planned Parenthood is "left-wing" We, the people pushing for gun restrictions, do not contest responsible gun ownership. The problem in not true conservatives like yourself. It is the fringe who cling to their own interpretation of the Second Amendment, even rejected by Anthony Scalia. They have been brain washied by the NRA and isolate themselves.
3
Having children and not wanting them to get murdered at school is not "elite progressive culturalism", it's just common sense finally being hammered home by non-partisan teenager survivors, continual blood baths, and drooling at the mouth NRA shrills.
American politics have always been a pendulum, and that pendulum is swinging in full American glory as the people reawaken to realize they have to actually do something to maintain a reasonable country. Yes, Trump and the GOP are off the deep end but the correction is coming. Yes, political correctness and far left bubble world are finally being correctly challenged. This is not "elite cultural intimidation", it is American's waking up to notice the huge cultural, political, and economic problems we are facing and realize they have to participate in the answers or the country will go down the drain.
David has been trying to bring the country back together in his array of articles but this piece is way off base - claiming a conspiracy theory that the new, sneaky progressive elites are going to "cut what's left of the conservative movement off from mainstream society". What a bunch of hokey! And to end with some kind of threat about a catastrophic political backlash from "40% of the country". Really? First of all, it isn't 40%, and second, 35% of the people aren't going to rule this country.
3
Is it really "elite cultural intimidation" to insist that assault rifles have no place in a civilized society?
4
I voted for Trump with the hope he would destroy the GOP and ultimately Conservative ideology. He is doing magnificently.
1
Poor David Brooks. You still talk in terms of conservatives and progressives. Don't you see there is a smaller number of real conservatives than we've had around for decades? The Republican party is no more. Your conservative friends have no home now. I am old and remember interesting and thoughtful conversations with conservatives, including with my own late father in the early eighties. The Trump party has taken over
Trump and his voters have stolen the Republican name and stand for nothing good, for themselves or the country. And the remaining Republicans in Congress are reaping the consequences of their own disgusting behavior over the past many decades, turning a real political party into the awful beast it has become. Trump is the result and now they don't really know what to do about him or the party. Take a look at the people in Congress. Old, white men, and if they are anything else, they are the result of the money corruption of our politics. They are not there to serve anyone but their big buck donors, and yes, the NRA. Listen to old Orrin Hatch these days. Appalling, and would be sad if he still didn't have the power of his Trump devotion. What a bunch.
If you want Conservatives to have power, mobilize them in Congress to get rid of Trump. Get rid of Paul Ryan for starters. A few Senators occasionally try to stand strong, but give up or are duped into nonsense pledges by dishonest, conniving Mitch McConnell. Totally corrupt leadership. Pathetic.
5
Mr. Brooks asks the impossible. How can we respect gun owners? How can any decent person respect those who arm themselves with high powered rifles, march into the wild, and kill animals as they go to their water holes? These so-called hunters don't even bother to track their prey; they simply sit and wait until they come to them. How can we respect people who acquire assault weapons just to brag and intimidate, in a perverse game of one-upmanship? How can Mr. Brooks expect us to respect those who parade down the streets, brandishing their guns, while shouting racist and bigoted slogans? How can we respect those who own guns to engage in a life of crime?
Sorry, Mr. Brooks, there is no way to respect those who believe that owning guns, all kinds of guns, and all number of guns is the equivalent of a God given right. They are the moral equivalent of terrorists, and as such, they deserve to be marginalized. They might hold the political power, but they are quickly becoming as stigmatized as racists, bigots, and child molesters.
3
For many readers of this column, David has successfully conflated “gun owners” a very large and largely sane group with the NRA and LaPierre, a demonstrably stiff-necked insane group of rabble rousers opposed to anything resembling common sense.
Maybe that confusion helps David to inflate the number of the rabid to his 40%, but it is a bit of rhetorical legerdemain that David should know better than to engage in.
4
Brooks wanders all over again in this piece, but with this quote (which I will reuse for sure), he is correct: "Conservatism is now less a political or philosophic movement and more a separatist subculture that participates in its own ostracism."
2
Neither progressives nor much anyone else musters courage and outrage about guns until the victims are white innocents. If you ever had to question why Black Lives Matter exists, this should answer it for you. The culture war is really about whites when you think about it. Politicians like to lump as many groups together as often as they can in their rhetoric, but nothing really galvanizes until whites feel threatened.
4
Conservatism has caused more societal upheaval and is nothing more than a big lie. The ideology of unending wars, brutality towards the middle east people except Israelis, tax cuts for the wealthy paid with increases for the middle class, gre trade with attendant environmental pollution and job losses, recessions/depressions. When have the message of Conservatism not been wrapped in a lie? People are protesting and demanding TRUTH. Hopefully Conservatism will end on the ash heap of history like fascism and communism.
2
"the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups: Planned Parenthood,"
Conservatives spent decades demonizing, vilifying and making Planned Parenthood a subject for partisan attacks, and somehow it's Planned Parenthood's fault they are "polarizing." Seriously? You sound like the spouse abuser who blames his victim because, "She made me angry, so I had no choice but to hit her. It's her fault."
4
Oh yay. Today's mental pretzel is massive projection. Wouldn't it be easier to give up the ghost on Republicans, David? I don't think you mean to advocate bad or hateful policies (even if you're willing to tolerate those outcomes), so whatever you believe or once believed, surely today's party does not represent you.
1
Mr. Brooks, when will you stop parroting that conservative lie that "liberal elites" are antagonizing the solid, honest, workers of America? It is utter nonsense.
3
Well, to pick up one point. Obviously men and women are different and 98% of the population believes so and acts accordingly. For example Nordstrom will setup their stores according to this assumption well aware that the majority of their customers are women because women are different from men and women who shop there confirm this by simply going there.
Feminism like Progressive is doomed to failure. Like Communism they will collapse on its absurdities and contradictions.
And that is why so many people vote republicans and will continue to vote for them. Beyond the occasional fun fiesta nobody believes men consume as much lipstick as women do.
In fact, logic dictates that anybody should be surprised if any field of human endeavor we observe equality of outcomes between the sexes. We never will and mere expectation of such an outcome is pathological in itself and utterly ridiculous as anybody trained in science will tell you.
1
So many of David’s pronouncements in this article are strange. For example, he says: “The blunt fact is that Republicans control most legislatures. To get anything passed, I thought, it would be necessary to separate some Republicans from the absolutist N.R.A. position.” OK, that’s a goal; but what’s the plan?
David suggests the problem may be difficult: “Conservatism is now less a political or philosophic movement and more a separatist subculture that participates in its own ostracism.” These words suggest that penetrating the minds of this group will be a challenge. Again, OK. so what’s the plan?
“To do that you have to depolarize the issue: show gun owners some respect.”
Now here David has gone off the track. “Gun owners” are a huge population and only a fraction of them are in David’s subculture engaged in ostracism. There isn’t a problem with “gun owners”. The problem is with the radical group spoken to by the NRA’s LaPierre. The bunch that sees ANY approach to gun control is a step toward all of us losing our “freedoms”. That position is extreme and speaks of minds beyond reason, locked in credo.
Can David make such an obvious shift, from an insane radical group to a wider population that enjoys sanity, without noticing what he’s doing? Whether David has done this consciously or inadvertently, it is a discredit to his reputation.
3
What's sickening to me is Brook's claim that people who don't believe in gay marriage and do believe in racial discrimination are (unjustly) losing their careers.
The far larger reality is that he careers and very lives of gay people and minorities have been damaged or destroyed in this country for a few hundred years.
Nobody is losing a career because of the claim that men and women are psychologically different. That's not what people can get fired for. They get fired for claiming women as a class can't perform as well as men in the job place.
And getting fired isn't the suppression of free speech. It's the consequence of saying something stupid. It's how a business protects the bottom line, rather than losing a giant chunk of its customers over the misogynistic claims of an employee.
What you are seeing, Brooks, is the awakening of the Progressive movement. We are tired of being steamrolled by the minions who put their guns above dead kids, denying gays the rights everyone else enjoys, and controlling women's reproductive destinies. While we prefer civilized discourse, we are tired of "going high" while the right, a group who consider negotiation and compromise signs of weakness,takes delight in pummeling those who fall outside of their agenda. We are tired of the hypocrisy of the "prolife family values party". Get used to it, Brooks, we're not going anywhere.
2
Mr Brooks, the people you should be reproaching are your friends on the right. They are the ones doing the most damage to our culture, with their pathetic attempts to hold back inevitable change. Don't worry about the left so much. On past performance, they WILL shoot themselves in the foot eventually.
1
Oh calm down, David. Planned Parenthood is not ramming birth control pills down your gullet. People are simply fed up with mass shootings--especially of schools--and are demanding that military-style assault weapons be taken off the market. Weapons that are designed for mass human slaughter in war should not be sold for profit in civilian society. We are no more attacking gun owners than Americans "attacked" gun owners when we outlawed machine guns back in the 1930s. The stranglehold of the NRA on our government heretofore has made it impossible to pass rational legislation regarding the sale of modern weapons of war in the marketplace. Your own hyperbole points to why it has taken so long for our nation to take simple measures in this direction.
2
The conservatives are going to be on the wrong side of history on this one. For decades, the narrow-minded fundamentalist conservative approach has been to hammer into the ground anyone who has a whiff of "liberal" about them by calling them elitists, socialists, communists, extremists, among others. The president upped the ante on name-calling and those of us who are more open-minded and on the receiving end of conservative taunts are tired of being polite.
3
I’ve read your recent columns on Gun control. Your mistake is thinking it wise to be devils advocate for both side of the issue. But there is only one side....dead people, children on the other side of a gun. There are no sides.
1
Conservatives engage in scorched-earth tactics, but progressives shouldn't?
1
"I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD."
-Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, 1831
That's what today's activists are saying. They're on the right side of history. You, David Brooks, are not.
4
"Progressives have won on most social issues. They could win on nearly everything else." David, that is music to my ears!!
1
Slavery was cool until it wasn't. It took a war, but the extreme progressives (think Frederick Douglass, John Brown) won. Then Jim Crow was cool until it wasn't. First it was wacky to protest it, now it's understood it was bad. They won on smoking. They won on social security. They won on medicare. They won on gay rights and marriage. They won or are winning on women's rights. They're winning on pot. Come to think about it, they've won or are winning on just about everything. They will win on environmental issues, sustainability. Guns are over, done with--it's just a matter of time. Progressives ultimately have reason and justice on their side. The facts have a liberal bias. Global warming won't go away because Trump disagrees with it. The more irrationally abusive the "conservatives" become--favoring Trump's lies and gross insults--the more they demonstrate the rightness of the progressive positions.
3
Shorter version: Progressives have been right, all along.
The idea that it is the left that has polarized the nation, and has vilified and silenced the right is laughable. The right declared the culture war a long time ago. Indeed it has perfected ad hominem attacks as its principal tactic since it has cannot respond substantively to challenges. They have worked tirelessly to render government —state and federal—the tool to achieve their self serving exclusionary, short term goals.
Now that the left is energized and fighting back, Brooks says “unfair”. It’s war, dude. Get used to it.
3
A few apt quotes for Mr. Brooks to ponder, from a great, heroic Floridian whom many of us dreadful, "elite" progressives admire deeply, for without her fierce activism, there would be no beautiful Everglades in our state, only yet more dredged-and-filled concrete wastelands, condos, strip malls, cookie-cutter masterplanned "communities", and of course gun stores:
“You have to stand up for some things in this world."
"Be a nuisance where it counts, but don’t be a bore at any time… Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action...be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics — but never give up."
"I do not believe in compromise, you want to compromise in weakness, if you are winning you do not have to compromise.”
- Marjory Stoneman Douglas, journalist, author, women's suffrage advocate, and conservationist fought for and served our sunny state until age 108.
1
What a great shame. I mean this as something good. A shameless president foisted on us by a shameless party- the only appropriate response is to bring shame to this shameful lot.
This lot has bullied people away from the usefulness of shame by asserting their right to be vulgar, rude and demeaning. Any call against such behavior has been castigated as “politically correct”. They attack accounts of their shameful acts as “fake news”. This has worked for some time. But this shamelessness is finally understood as unacceptable - the MeToo movement shouts this out. The shame of gun violence in schools, tax payer funded luxuries for cabinet members, nepotism, and lying at every turn needs to be called out.
The real shame it is that it has taken so much awful shamelessness for people to finally find voice.
4
Progressives think in terms of social, political, and economic rights for all. The right thinks about culture wars and winning them. Progressives really don't care whether or not evangelicals choose to have an abortion, when they have an unwanted pregnancy; they care about preserving the right for women to control their own bodies. We don't care if conservatives smoke marijuana. We think it should be legal for the rest of us to do so. We don't care if evangelicals practice their religion, we don't want them to shove it in our face in schools, public buildings, etc. We don't care if conservative adults who are wired to be gay remain celebate, marry gays or straights, or give conversion therapy a shot; we think gays who want to live openly as gays and marry other gays should have that right and full legal protections. We don't want to force you to watch movies or listen to music which you find objectionable. You don't have to read the NYT. Most of us have nothing against your owning and hunting with shotguns and small-magazine long rifles. We won't take these from you. We don't have a lot of sympathy for your 'slippery slope' fear-driven defense of weapons of mass murder. We don't want the government to condemn your way of life; neither do we accept that the government should treat your way as morally superior. We don't support discrimination against blacks, Asians, Hispanics, women, gays, native Americans, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, atheists, or yourselves.
3
Some cultural mores eventually fades away in the face of progress.
Moral and culture superiority is not American privilege, There are 7.7 billion people are living on this planet, almost 700 million in western societies except the USA. Such as Gun issue all those people are looking us and shaking their heads, Brooks talking about Gun issue should be perpetual in our daily life is a nonsense. This particular problem doesn't even have a long in history, since 1970's we are in this Mass shooting. Of course, even the dumbest one, one day is going to realize Mass shooting is the result of unregulated GUN ownership isuue nothing else.
Today's generation particularly grows up in a radically different world, In this world guns are the extension of Drones, not humans. That concludes the discussion.
Conservative 40% should figure out what is best for them quick, last 10 years their disarray created a big problem for this nation. From science to economy, environment to energy Conservatives is on the wrong side of the ail. I am not even sure they are supporting Free market capitalism, they are more like old style eastern European socialists.
So the issue is really a cultural "rather than" political matter — as if the two were really separate, always DB's default binary blindness — 320,000,000 guns and off the charts gun deaths in the U.S. compared to every other "advanced" country. Really, on the gun issue, how much persuasion do you need?!
Without character their is no culture.
The regressives have have gone from the politics of personal destruction to the destruction of the US government. Take them at their own words from Grover Norquist's mouth: "Drown it in a bathtub".
Their is no "conservative" culture. There is only a regressive political party that has infected the evangelical religions. Any evangelical that support the regressives is no christian. Jesus was a LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE that gave his life fighting regressive religious and political leaders.
Today's regressives side with Pontius Pilot.
Jesus wept.
Three Rs
Repeal and Replace ALL Republicans
Dave
1
The term "elite" feeds the conceit of superiority. "Conformist" seems more apt. Intersectional and SJW excess have captured academia and reign on cable and awards shows, where gauche caviars perform. Orwell described enforcers as the Inner Party whose Thought Police persecuted individualism and independent thinking, which are regarded as "thoughtcrimes." The true resistance resists that.
1
david Brooks- the best schools, wrote for National Review under Buckley, himself. Got a job on the NYT at a young age.
For several years has had almost no clue at all about what is going on.
Conservatives have political power solely because of the Senate and the Electoral College. The 450 odd counties that voted for Hillary Clinton produce 72% of GNP. The 5,000 plus that voted for Trump produce 28% and a disproportionate amount of that would come from oil rich but sparesly populated counties in Texas.
If not for the Blue states, every Red State except Texas would be even more poor and backward than they are now.
They WORSHIP Trump. It's Cult now and so is their view on firerms.
They cannot be persuaded./ They just have to be beaten.
brooks references the opioid crisis issue vis-a-vis the gun control issue. that's odd, I don't recall the right to bear opioids mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. The disdain brooks seethes with I can only attribute to frustration, facing the de facto realization that the Times and his commentary have become utterly irrelevant.
Mr. Brooks, it isn't the progressives that have brought us to this point. Did you listen to LaPierre's latest rant? Instead of blaming progressives you might consider advising the Republican party to take responsibility for the ugly political discourse they have fomented and the ugly partisans it has tolerated in its quest to create the "permanent majority" of their dreams.
I find it rather odd that you try to legitimize the false premise that gun owners don't get any respect. Nonsense. It is those gun owners that are shilling for gun manufacturers that don't deserve any respect. And by any reasonable observation the NRA and its willing members are just that. I was a member of the NRA when they taught gun safety. Unfortunately the NRA has taken on the mission of promoting anti-government hysteria. Again, did you not listen to LaPierre's rant?
Finally I find it rather disingenuous of you to bring up the whole "elite cultural intimidation" issue when, as we all know, the right-wing has been using that hammer to beat progressives' heads in for quite some time now just like LaPierre was doing. Who has been trying to make the word "liberal" a dirty word all these many years (didn't Reagan start it, or was it the John Birch Society?).
Sorry, Mr. Brooks, but when you start complaining about progressives' tactics it is a trigger for me to look more closely at what the 'conservatives' have been doing for decades.
1
They win, as leftists always have, because they believe the ends justify the means. And the cause is everything. Everything else is subordinate to it. Conservatives aren't like that. We care about other things
My parents were committed communists, even after Stalin's crimes were exposed,
but they always referred to themselves as progressives. Brooks is a slow learner.
2
As for the "formerly popular idea that can now end your career: the belief that men and women have inherent psychological differences": of course we have inherent psychological differences. What will get you ostracized is the idea that this automatically disqualifies you from anything.
1
The NRA are terrorists. They terrorize to get their way. That's not semantics, Brooks. And Georgia legislators just defended the NRA, by sticking themselves into a private business deal between two companies. Is that their role?
1
Not sure where David gets the idea that conservatives have zero cultural power.
Evangelicals, pro-military, pro-gun, right-to-life, have long ago conquered radio talk/news shows, have their own television station, supplemented by Catholic stations, and as a consequence, own much of the folk wisdom, the “common knowledge” (much of it false) of the lower and middle classes.
2
If you look at history, you will see that social change can happen in a heart beat. Western women's skirts were down to the floor for 1000s of years. In a 20 year period, they went up above the knee (and stayed there). How long did it take to get from the Stonewall riots to gay marriage? One day something is OK, the next it is not.
2
The kindest view one can take of David’s opinions is that he is arguing for conversation instead of intimidation. He says: “The only thing I’d say to my progressive friends is, be careful how you win your victories. It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation.”
He fears the anti-gun forces will succeed in making the NRA and LaPierre pariahs and that somehow marginalizing these irrational intransigents will poison society against discourse and reason.
This entire picture of what is going on is crazy, and I am amazed that David sees it like that. If anybody is beyond compromise and beyond addressing facts it is the gun lobby. If any force is poisoning discourse it is money and rant from the gun lobby. When LaPierre claims ANY step limiting guns is a step down the slippery slope to taking away our freedoms, what room does that leave for discussion?
We need the freedom to machine gun school children? David sees that as a “position”??
Amazing!
1
The progressive Left has made this country a better place:
The philosophy of a Social Safety net.
The Civil Rights movement.
The Anti-war and anti-armament movement.
The Women's movement.
The Environmental and green energy movement.
That's just fact. Who are these 40%ers that oppose these things, and why? Why do they put bumper stickers on that say Nuke the Whales?
I know some of these people and what they hate is complication; petty and burdensome regulation that chiefly acts as revenue enhancement; many elements of political correctness...
But mostly, many of these rural people perceive and hate that the "educated elite" are middle-men, parasites on their labor and skills, work that actually creates physical things. And of this they are often correct.
Desperately, the Dems need to appeal to working Americans and they should do that with care and respect. The 30 percent or so of whack-a-doodles are unreachable, don't even try.
But you gotta be careful. These are the folks with military weaponry who entertain themselves with fantasies encouraged from watching Screens. In his dwindling days, Trump will call on these folk for support.
Conservative elites never have understood the power of the PC cultural revolution. They especially ignored or simply accepted what I have termed "the diversity machine" which fused racial/ethnic hiring and admission quotas to mass migration--becuase free market theory demanded open borders. Today, even open and illegal quotas are simply taken-for-granted. (Ex-Google employee James Damore just uncovered evidence of secret hiring quotas at Google; but his voice is largely unheard outside of FOX News.) Conservative elites accomodated P.C.and cooperated in censorship. They deserve what they get.
1
This all reminds me a bit of past battles like the ones fought over smokers rights in taverns and bars and how that played out.
Statistically speaking the wide availability of weaponry and lack of strict licensing laws is most harmful to those who own guns, and to their relatives and associates. The headline victims are doing all the heavy lifting on this issue but the biggest group of eventual beneficiaries in terms of deaths will be the gun owners themselves. So gun owners please trust us, we’re just trying to help you stay alive.
Oh David. Students who have lost friends to the American gun madness and then start a protest movement have nothing to do with "elite cultural intimidation." The rights' obsession with elitism is its' achilles heel. Eventually we all see that common sense has nothing to do with elites, that common decency is not a liberal position. You are on the wrong side of this story. It has always been about senseless slaughter and corporate intimidation, never about the much misunderstood second amendment.
Speaking of illiberal ideas, David, here's a grossly inappropriate claim: that "the belief that men and women have inherent psychological differences" is wrong/anathema/can get you fired. What can get you fired is making absolute claims about natural polarization of qualities by gender, then evaluating some of these qualities as inherently inferior, in the manner of Damore's claim that women are more "neurotic." If he'd said that there may be some differentiating tendencies in populations by gender, whose causes may be a combination of nature and nurture, he would have said something unobjectionable to all but the most rabid extremists. Instead, he followed the time-worn path to patriarchal dominance: 1) declare that the sexes are by nature fundamentally different from each other; 2) label each sex with a list of polarized qualities (all men are aggressive, all women are emotional); 3) label one sex's qualities inferior (cooperation and nurturing, rather than aggression, is "neurotic" and unsuccessful in business/tech). If you want to help the cultural wars be resolved in a non-zero-sum manner, begin by accurately characterizing the non-zero-sum ideas of those with different positions from yourself (whom it's best not to characterize as "opponents").
1
The only people fighting a culture war are those who intend to cling to the past forever. All culture happens through assimilation and the development of a common norm that instantly becomes the past. It always changes and always will. Insisting that culture is important is to be oblivious to it's ephemeral and temporary nature. Why not move forward to what we are inevitably to become.
How uniquely American it is that government is paralyzed by the gun lobby, while private corporations are gradually taking up the burden of protecting the public from a plague of gun violence. Maybe the real power resides in the businesses run by people who have plenty of money and can actually value the lives of children more than they want more money and more and more and more....
1
Total nonsense.
There will be no meaningful change on gun laws because the political costs of change is too high. Maybe we will do a couple of token things to reduce the pressure, and, I’d so, republicans will claim ownership of those changes
Progressive or Democrats should stop the nit picking and instead focus on real solutions. Learn from the disaster Obamacare inflicted on the party, or the apparent support of illegal immigration, or support for thugs and rioters who support them.
High school kids won’t vote for years, if like most not until they are in their mid 40’s. Ultimately Mr. Brooks will prove right in his initial opinion. Guns will undermine democrat’s optimism and republicans will retain control of government. And guns and the NRA will help assure it. Trump’s tweets today show he has gotten the message
1
Mr. Brooks, you claim that we don't respect gun enthusiasts while the opposite is true, the left has tip toed around the gun issue and the result has been further loosening of gun control. We at no point have have attempted to take all guns from owners. We have at no point tried to abolish the 2nd Amendment.
Meanwhile, the NRA and gun adherents have claim that any sensible gun restrictions automatically equates to us being against freedom and rights and have pushed the ludicrous narrative that guns are a “god given right”. That the media relishes these horrific crimes, etc. Did you listen to the vitriolic speech by LaPierre? And we are the ones who have polarized and radicalized the issue? That is risible.
Sorry Mr. Brooks, it is time we start fighting fire with fire.
It's hard to take seriously commentary that "Conservatives have zero cultural power" (when their power is derived from cultural identity, fear and grievance) and the view that those who want to ban (yes, outright) military weapons are "extreme". David, rather than accepting the party that you have nostalgia for simply does not exist (and hasn't for decades) and stop ruminating on false moral equivalents, you desperately peddle that "progressives are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior." Maybe there is some truth in that, but what has it got to do with banning the ownership of weapons Madison never envisioned and that threaten our freedom and pursuit of happiness?
I'm amazed at the glee at "progressives are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior. All sorts of formerly legitimate opinions have now been deemed beyond the pale on elite campuses. Speakers have been disinvited and careers destroyed. The boundaries are being redrawn across society."
Shame
1
This is even more myopic than usual for Mr. Brooks. He seems to want to warn us against defeating a political movement that has devolved into a tyranny of minority rule at the expense of logic, justice, public safety, religious freedom, and human rights. Somehow, we are to believe this will be a bad thing. We are issued a threat that if this tyrannical minority is overthrown, then, with respect to Trump, we ain't seen nothin' yet. The truth is, if the conservative movement (whatever that even means anymore) is ever to be "defeated" it will only be because an overwhelming majority of Americans realize the logical and moral rot at its foundations. (Which may not be far away.) The people left to hunker down and get angry at liberals while plotting to install a king even dumber and more immoral than Trump will not represent 40% of the population, because most will have left the party already. The rest of us will re-organize and re-stratify, liberal and conservative alike, and hopefully into a fuller spectrum of political thought, represented by a healthier number of political parties (i.e. any number greater than two.) As for the warning that liberals should be careful in how we win our victories, perhaps conservatives should heed Mr. Brooks' advice. If he thinks his party is imploding, it's only because of how they've won over the last two decades. By his own theory, our next president will make Obama look like Reagan.
If David Brooks’ purpose in this column is to warn the left against triumphalism, that is good advice, as it would be to any political group promoting an agenda. Still, it seems bizarrely premature, since every day the federal and many state governments devise new ways to deprive Americans—and lots of foreigners—of human dignity, health,and safety, in the pursuit of their right-wing program.
I think this column reflects Brooks’ new experience of speaking from the great unhappiness of exile. Deprived of all influence on the right, he sees himself occupying the sensible center and feels the need to warn a left-wing that must be as extreme as the current right. Since Trump’s stunning triumph in the Republican primaries and culminating with most of the Republican establishment kissing his ring, principled conservatives have seen themselves ... ignored. The merchants of hate, starting with the president and proceeding through Sean Hannity, Breitbart, Infowars, and assorted congressional trolls, dominate the conversation because that is what the base wants to hear. No wonder Brooks sees everything as tending toward the extreme.
1
Brooks takes a tactic (hurt them at the pocketbook and attempts to make the NRA less controlling) and turns it into a strategy attacking “conservatism.” He calls the tactics “elitist,” “illiberal,” and “attempts to silence less educated foes” which could lead to a political backlash. He demeans current behavior and ignores overwhelming Republicans political and cultural influence in this country. He claims “Conservatives have no cultural power.” ?? How many decades have past and women still paid less and frequently abused;clergy rarely prosecute for crimes that would land most of us in jail and school boards still rejecting evolution and banning books.
IMHO we are all conservative and progressives. We want to hold onto the things that we think are good and seek to implement change where we see better solutions or ways.
Let’s deal in issues,and solutions and and facts that are verifiable. Throwing around labels and seeing grand societal shifts puts Brooks above the fray, not a part of the dialogue that may help. Today, March 2, 2018 we have conservatives supporting what they demonized yesterday- huge debt. What will tomorrow bring? Oh yes, limitations on free trade.These changes are not a result of broad cultural shifts. Voters who one day are in favor of universal background checks vote against them the next! Tribalism (as defined by group alliance rather than philosophy), fear, greed, fact, and the willingness to to support lyingd are easier for me to get my head around.
Mr. Brooks, this is not a culture war. The question is whether the Congress and President, our elected representatives (employees, if you will) will move heaven and earth to protect our children. Or will they choose the NRA and their mistaken notion that the Second Amendment gives everyone the opportunity to turn the bodies of our kids into ground meat. There is no room here to be sober and polite while the US president and the head of the NRA mock and lie, and Congress is too cowardly and too cheap to act with the country's good at heart. There is no room for timid and stopgap measures. We cannot prevent all school shootings, but we must try every measure, however expensive (all that mental health care) or unpopular (anti-gun legislation).
If our actions fail to meet this shattering threat to the country, then we have lost all moral authority. The USA is finished, however glorious our economy may appear or how gargantuan our military. Do we care enough to protect our (all) children? On the answer depends "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor".
The recent seismic on gay marriage will soon be backed up by fundamental shifts on firearms, and (I hope) immigration. David Brooks is wrong about many things, especially the Psychology of the Masses, but I continue to listen to him because he admits there is another point of view, and he knows how to debate.
No kidding Mr Brooks? Ever since Newt Gingrich, the Republican party has used every available weapon in the cultural war arsenal (guns, abortion, gay marriage, global warming, even evolution! ) for political gains, going further and further to the extreme. For most of this time the Democrats have tried hard to stay "reasonable" and "depolarize". This only encouraged the extreme right to further escalate the cultural wars. Appeasement didn't work too well , did it? It's time to state the obvious: the current Republican party is a very dangerous and destructive organization (hundreds of dead kids in shootings and putting Trump in the White House being only a few of the tragic consequences). It has to be fought by every legal available means and delegitimized, if this country is to survive as a democracy.
Mr. Brooks, you think these are culture wars, they're not. they are wars about the preservation of democracy, right to life, civil liberties, social justice. last I looked- none of these are "lifestyle choices". that's also why they are eventually won- kinda like you know... the abolishment of slavery.
The "people" stopped prohibition. This one is far more important.
Conservatives still believe in traditional marriage and feel abortion is wrong in most situations. They cherish moral values, family, and faith, and do not agree with the coastal elites way of life. The progressives will have a difficult time convincing these people that their views are correct and they see their liberal ways as harmful. They are not ready for this drastic change and are not likely to go along anytime soon.
1
"If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society they will mount a political backlash that will make Donald Trump look like Adlai Stevenson." Well Mr. Brooks, what can you do with the Dark Enlightenment from the Right? Every iteration of these folks is usually more grotesque than the original.
"Culture War" is a meme invented by conservatives to de-legitimize good faith efforts to make positive change in the world. By the lights of David Brooks and his merry band of reasonable conservatives, it is always the responsibility of progressives to meet conservatives "half way". Mean-spirited progressives are forever making war on innocent conservatives who are after all merely standing by their sacred principles -- and its not fair to point out that among those principles are inequalities, barbarities and unjust outcomes of all kinds.
We've reached out to conservatives for a generation. We even implemented conservative policy preferences over the objections of conservatives (ACA anyone?). And look what it got us? Neil Gorsuch among other reasonable conservative actions.
Well, we're done with that. We're done with your culture war. We're just going to get on with making things better. Wakanda forever.
The Gun Battle in the Culture Wars will be won when assault weapons are demonized; the political battle will be won if gun owners are not.
Battle lines are being drawn, and it is had to know how the argumentation will go. It seems that sustained outrage is required to take us beyond the "common sense" legislation that politicians not beholden to the NRA would pass, but this may not preclude the sort of sustained conversation that David argued for in his last column. This conversation would start by understanding that easy access to assault weapons like the AR15 is a real problem, but that a ban on assault weapons, such as was the case between 1994-2004, would probably now, as then, diminish, but not prevent (Columbine) mass shootings. It would also recognize that taking away the 5-8 million "assault weapons" currently owned would be next to impossible.
Perhaps, however, during that sustained conversation, more gun owners might see owning such weapons as something less shameful than just strange, or, oh my...un-patriotic.
1
Mr. Brooks, has the thought entered your mind that schoolchildren being shredded to pieces repeatedly across the country by military style weapons is an issue that might transcend party politics, culture wars and 'liberals vs conservatives' polarization?
Other countries have liberals and conservatives and all kinds of opinions, but they don't have this problem.
If there were no political parties, would this even be an issue? Adhering blindly to political viewpoints has crippled coherent decision-making.
1
Seems to my cynical old-saw self that Reactionaries are radicalized & have remained radicalized for decades. Theirs is a reductive religious indoctrination: Liberalism is evil.
Progressives in recent decades are not so reductive, they are nuanced, open-minded, thoughtful & tolerant.
There was a time when the 'leftists' were radicalized, & far more dogmatic. Whether that particular brand of leftism was actually entirely on the right side of history or not, it was the last time 'liberalism' seemed to have the upper hand in the 'culture wars'. And it lasted for all of about 3 years.
For the subsequent 40 years the reactionary revolt was vast, overwhelming, organized & committed.
Progressive values have not had a chance, even Obama, hardly a wild-eyed liberal was cut off at every pass by a unified opposition, & now his policies are systematically being dismantled.
Any position that isn't gun-toting, evangelical free-market extremist is tarred as godless socialism to be eradicated. And eradicate it they do.
I think either progressives actually grow some compellingly populist teeth & actually organize a passionate, organic movement that can actually shout down & out-vote the Reaganistic appeal, or they'll just have to wait till the 'moral majority' dies out before progressivism gets another chance in the USA.
Would being more diplomatic & tolerant of gun-toting Trumpism make friends across the aisle? Not on your life! It has & will be seen as weakness & Trumpled upon.
1
maybe it is just the realization of more people that the conservative way of a bigoted, self-serving, non-inclusive, and self-protective concept has no moral reality that is eroding the conservative base. i certainly hope that is the case.
But most progressives aren't actually in "polite society." They're on the fringes. A majority of citizens who own their own homes aren't progressive. A majority of citizens who pay a majority of society's taxes aren't progressive. A majority of those anchoring stable, two parent homes aren't progressive. A majority of church goers, those who serve in the military, and those who regularly donate aren't progressive. And even on campuses where progressives get a lot of attention for acting like hyperventilating jackals, they're hardly a majority.
Lefties are only in "polite society" to the extent that they tweet and Facebook at polite society from the fringes. Zoom out from their marches and street theater, and they're a pretty motley and insignificant crew. Sure, corporate PR people throw them a bone here and there, but their influence stops and starts at Twitters' edges, and the point at which polite society merely changes the channel or presses mute.
So while progressives wail and gnash their teeth, thinking they're dictating terms for polite society, polite society is doing what it always does. We stay quiet. We keep our powder dry. We tell the pollsters and the hysterics in our own families that we too detest those awful conservatives, and Trump. And then we pull the lever for him, and for the GOP. And then we sit back and watch the tears flow, the gnashing of teeth, and we kind of enjoy it.
And you see, this is what makes it "polite society." It avoids drama.
1
Something about this article really bothers me and I guess it has to do with an arrogant and condescending attitude toward non-elites. The article doesn't just say the left and elites have won the culture wars and most likely will continue to do so. It assumes that this victory is as it should be.
The opinions of all citizens are of value to me, so in any way touting the group think and suppression of ideas that is occurring on the left is not my cup of tea, to put it mildly. The left is extremely contemptuous of the deplorables, but they're glad to have the votes of poorly educated people when election time rolls around. I agree with Trump that once that unpleasant event is over, little is done that is really beneficial to the lesser ones. In fact, some of the problems can't even be openly discussed.
1
Well, YEAH David. We Liberals truly do think we have the moral high ground with respect to most social issues and YEAH David, we do look down upon our conservative fellows as brutish and retrograde.
People who hang onto Christian patriarchal dogma, ignore climate science, and don't understand the principles of harm reduction w/respect to abortion, opiates, etc. are simply not playing with the same intellectual and emotional tool set as modern Liberals.
If we have to shame these people into modernity, then so be it.
I think the "immense political power' that Republicans have is dwindling with every tweet.
How many mass shootings performed with an AR-15 does it take to anger the population? Yes, progressives are angry but so are conservatives who see their family and friends gunned down in public places.
We're also angry Republicans ran on "Obama's coming to take away your guns!" That was the biggest lie ever used to run for office. How about taking that one back for starters?
David, are you angling for a spot on Fox? I agree completely that the gun issue makes the 'progressives' (and Democrats in general) highly emotional and that this just contributes to our polarization. Which doesn't help with gun control or with governing in general. But the idea that people are getting purged from our economy because they believe that men and women have inherent differences is just nonsense. And no, the left-wing thought police have not taken over American campuses. Stop watching Tucker and Laura and get back to work!
This "uneducated deplorables" attitude is exactly how Donald Trump won. Since I'm a devout Trumpster, I whole -heartedly encourage you to keep it up!
1
Valid point. Self-righteous absolutism is self-defeating. This is why the debate over birth control seems so absurd to a younger generation. If you have a religious commitment to procreational intercourse, don't use birth control. That's your decision. However, you are not entitled to enforce your religious beliefs on others. This includes employees. You can persuade and discourage but you cannot forbid. How the issue became so intractable is completely beyond me.
So too with guns. I cannot prohibit the sale of firearms but that outcome wouldn't be desirable anyway. I want gun advocates to choose to be responsible. You're responsible for the safety of your fellow citizens. However, contrary to the conservative narrative, the best way to keep your neighbors safe doesn't involve shooting a "bad guy." You keep your neighbors safe by choosing not to buy or carry certain types of weapons. You also refuse to patronize retailers or venues that sell these weapons.
This is the concept behind consumer sovereignty. "If you build it, they will come." If you don't buy it, they won't build it. This is how dolphin safe tuna came to exist. I think we still need better gun regulation. However, we need people to want that reality. We need more people to say "I don't want a dangerous weapon in my home." That's the attitude that eventually solves the problem. No one wants to bury a child. Your decisions can save someone from ever having to do that. Culture has a chance of winning.
"Progressives" would delegitimize the U. S Constitution if they could. Look at how they hate free speech (Brooks calls this "silencing aggressive behavior"). THEY are the ones who have self-marginalized. What we are seeing is that "mainstream culture" is much more conservative than people thought. The man behind the curtain has been exposed. Trump IS the Resistance!
David, you write "There are a number of formerly popular ideas that can now end your career: the belief that men and women have inherent psychological differences, the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, opposition to affirmative action." Beliefs don't end careers. Behaviors do. One can believe that men and women have psychological differences (almost everyone knows that to be true), but that does not mean it is ok to discriminate on that basis. Those differences are rather slight compared to similarities, and do not mean women are less creative or promotable than men. You can believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Unless your job is issuing marriages licenses and you refuse to do so, it makes no difference as long as you don't discriminate regardless of beliefs. Affirmative action, or lack of it, is a matter of law. Most companies are not required to use it, nor are most colleges, but they some do so. If they do so, they call it something else because that term is so fraught.
The reason progressives are getting tougher is because the NRA position doesn't change no matter what. Being ready to compromise has gotten gun control advocates absolutely nothing. Progressives see that they need to be as committed to their positions and as strong in pushing their ideas as the gun lovers. The second amendment is not absolute but the NRA are absolutists.
17
"Elite cultural intimidation", that is a bit strong. They certainly do not intimidate with guns or superstition, nor with immorality or rigid ideological purity like their partisan adversary.
David, it is with their individual intelligence and education that, the unfairly named, 'elites', win victories. It is with their critical attitude to evidence based facts and a desire to face a reality that requires broad comprehension that they gain anything. Education is not just training for a job. Education is an all-round informative exercise practiced upon children and adults to give them a firm basis in truth, fact and reality.
Gun-toting racists and superstitious bigots are not the product of education but the reason for its existence.
You sound like an academic Luddite seeking legitimacy in a changing world.
15
It’s hard to label a progressive’s vocal dissent as too intimidating when a gun is pointed at his or her head. But somehow, Mr Brooks, you have managed to do so.
14
40% of Americans do not support the current state of gun laws. The accurate figure is 3%. Everyone else supports universal background checks. 60% support a ban on automatic weapons. Maybe you don't understand the culture war because it is over, and you never really showed up, just sat on the sidelines and said "Oh my, oh my!". Trump has exposed his supporters just as the Presidency has exposed him, and both will be left behind, not just by leftists, or the deep state or Democrats, but by history, which will view them, properly, as a fascist cult of personality, worthy of study, but not respect.
21
As cults of personality go, which party rigged its primary so that only one person could have a turn and acted as if that personality could not lose? It is a shame the Democrats did not run a truly open primary where we could have really tested and heard from a range of qualified candidates. Such a process revealed to me where the cult of personality lies.
2
If you are against guns, drugs, porn, professional wrestling, tattoos and strip joints as I am, and for hard work, good manners, faithfulness in marriage, a strong military and regular church attendance, what does that make you?
I have been a conservative all my life and hope to enter Heaven as one, but now find my closest political allies among people with strong liberal beliefs I once had considerable contempt for.
Today’s Trump supporters are not conservatives. They lost the moral right to call themselves that a long time ago.
Best call them deplorables. Or deluded deplorables.
Anyone looking for conservative values today had best seek it among this nation’s old liberals.
27
I am a conservative Socialist, so except for the church attendance and adding a rigorous and accessible education for all, I think we can find much common ground...
It seems like Mr. Brooks is trying to save onto his past. A whiney article at best. His words are offensive. Guns and the love for them is not a culture that one should be lauding, rather it kills people. The culture of the right is hate, in your face spite and lies.
Mr. Brooks, you can write and think better than this article shows.
12
I really don't understand why Progressive/Socialists put so much faith in new laws controlling guns.
Criminals break the laws...that's why they are criminals. Honest people obey the laws and that's why we will not tolerate another stupid gun restriction that only law abiding citizens obey.
Not that hard to figure....don't you think?
3
Yes, criminals do break laws, but we don't cancel laws just because criminals break them. Any reduction of number of guns among population will mean less gun for criminals as well.
If guns are hard to obtain, they’re harder to obtain for criminals...
So why do we have any laws at all? You say any law is useless because only the law abiding will obey them. So by your logic we should repeal ALL laws because we still have criminals that do not obey them.
So you side with the criminals by saying it's useless to have laws against theft because criminals will still steal and do not obey the law. That the laws against theft only "hurt" law abiding citizens by making it harder to steal without penalty.
So you side with the criminals. Make it easier to break the law by making guns easier to get.
Three Rs
Repeal, Replace,Republicans
Dave
2
Progressives win the culture war by shouting down anyone who disagrees. Anyone who doesn't conform is a bigot. Anyone who dares disagree is given the Danmore treatment.
8
For fairness sake, it is true for both sides. I remember O'Reilly show. The guy didn't let his guests to open their mouth. He asked them questions, and answered the questions himself and the ranted non-stop
Ah.....the ties that bind!
1
The risk I see is that progressives have a mixed bad of cultural issue to stand behind. Gun Laws, they probably have many people behind their backs. Abortion and Transgender bathrooms, not sure many are behind them!
The other thing, sometimes, when you overestimate your self righteousness, you become an absolutist, in other words, progressives can become like NRA if they continued on this path with their current agenda.
Who will then stand against them! Will we all march behind NRAs in the future?!
3
This is not about a culture war but saving countless innocent lives in a country drowning in guns. Don't make this about anything else it only makes you look foolish.
9
I wonder how David Brooks would look upon Martin Luther King jr. if he were alive today? Likely he'd call him a hyper polarizing figure whose views would foment a culture war.
13
Mr. Brooks, you are immensely frustrating. For once, understand that the mass murder of children is not cultural posturing! Do not equate it with ivory tower feminism. Go outside your door, visit Newtown, at the least look at the pictures of the murdered kids, then read the clueless abstractions you have written. As a parent of age kids, I am ready to riot with fear for their safety and I am driven there by “conservatives” who are nothing of the sort but in fact extremists. I dare say many are in a similar mood across the political spectrum. So don’t you dare lecture people on “illiberalism” now, the red side has had its chance and now red stands for blood on its trigger happy fingers.
12
I sense more than a little "go ahead, jump off the roof and break your neck" exasperation in Mr Brooks' contemplation of whether he might be wrong about gun control and the culture wars. This is borne out by his warning, at the end, for us progressives to be careful what we wish for, lest we wake the sleeping giant of cultural conservatism and he turns out to be more monstrous than Trump.
That particular giant was woken by Trump over a year ago, when he put down the dog whistle and picked up the megaphone, rallying his supporters to his vision of racial, sexual, gender and make-America-white again culture, with a promise to implement it all from the Oval Office. What is happening now is that a very different giant has been awakened, one that refuses to accept the moral equivalence granted by engaging in polite, respectful conversation with a "culture" that embraces Trumpism at an 80%+ clip.
It is illiberal to shout down Nazi rhetoric, to demand that men in power have their careers ruined because they see a woman's genitals as a negotiating tool? It is illiberal to demand that the NRA stop promoting policies that repeatedly result in the murder of our children? It is illiberal to demand equality under the Constitution, as written, rather than as interpreted for the benefit of Citizens United? If all this illiberalism results in a cultural war with those who oppose these "progressive" ideas, then it is well worth the fight, because refusing to fight gets us Donald Trump.
6
Too many gun owners to have things go that way. They not only believe that they are right, they are proud of their convictions. Plus there are far more voters west of the Hudson and east of the Golden Gate Bridge than there are on the UWS, and a high percentage of them are gun owners. Perhaps the answer is to change our intrusionist foreign policy, which seems to lead us to invade medieval societies all over the world, and to use our militarily-trained sharpshooters to defend our own schools and public sites against idiots with firearms.
2
Do the math. If over 70% of voters support reasonable gun control, its not going to trigger 40% of voters to support a bigger nut than the Donald.
Oh wait, you supported the tax plan...
5
Everything Brooks says about conservatives is really true of progressives - he's projecting the utter failure of modern liberalism. The DNC and the democratic party - the Clinton/Obama Crime Families - have destroyed trust in institutions such as the NSA, FBI, CIA and Justice Department. They are corrupt to the core.
Liberals dropped the ball and Trump is running with it. The New York Times can continue to peddle anti-Trump propaganda, but he's winning, and the American people are winning because of him.
2
Looks more and more that the Trumps and their assorted flunkies are in bed with the Russian mob. The only way Trump is running, is running into Mueller’s arms - he’d be probably safer in a max security American prison than anywhere else, with his indebtedness to the Russian mob and whatnot.
Progressive liberals should adopt the same playbook against guns as they did on tobacco. Associate gun culture habit with the habits of using tobacco, and in general the uncool-ness of "Hillbilly Elegy" culture. After all, if you can place guns in the same coolness category as smoking three packs a day and thing that Pork Rinds should be given their own food group category, then you too are probably a proud owner of multiple assault rifles, and on your way to trailer park stardom. Hey, be cool, drop out of school, buy some cigarettes and guns...isn't that what all the cool, smart kids are doing? Best of all, school is no good for you, while cigarettes and guns go together like peas and carrots, and are even better for you.
2
“The students from Parkland are being assisted by all the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups: Planned Parenthood, Move On and the Women’s March. The rhetoric has been extreme.“
Brooks is so deceitful.
Students whose classmates were just slaughtered are now, by Brooks, pawns of “the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups.”
Planned Parenthood. The same Planned Parenthood that the first Mrs. Barry Goldwater was a long time member of and officer for long before Brooks was even born. Mrs. Barry Goldwater as in the wife of Barry Goldwater.
Contemptible. Low. Slimey.
15
You recommend a Liberal strategy of going around calling everyone else vile names for disagreeing with Democrat dogma.
It has not worked in past elections. Why stop now?
1
I can usually read Mr Brooks without feeling enraged. However, the arrogant, condescending right-wing elite righteousness that pervades this piece is infuriating. Your party has given this country the most corrupt administration we have encountered in over a hundred plus years, Your religious leaders reek of hypocrisy. Your senior administrators offer little white lies, others likely sell influence to our enemies! And you have the utter audacity to imply you are commenting from some arena of moral righteousness. Let me provide some feedback. You are not. Look in the mirror. See the depravity your representatives have been inflicting on others through the dark money buying of votes and supreme court justices and decisions. Your hypocrisy is legend and your vision is so distorted through the money used to buy congress that you cannnot perceive the corrupt underpinning of your value system.
13
It is axiomatic that politics flows downhill from culture. Griswold v Connecticut, Roe v Wade, Obergefell v. Hodges and so on.
However, if the younger people had a real education they would look to Venezuela or Cuba and see how a government can can subdue and make virtual prisoners of its citizens and then take pause in thinking that taking guns away from the people is such a good idea.
1
Who is advocating ‘taking away guns’?
There is an excellent piece from Paul Krugman in today's Times on how the public was scammed in the recent Republican tax cut. It's worth reading and, of course, correct. I am old enough to know the results of Republican tax cuts in 1980 and 2000 and to see 2018 as a repetition. Why don't more voters know this? The short answer is that most voters can't do numbers, but there is more. What Mr. Brooks is talking about is the other side of the story. Guns are one of the "issues" that Republicans have used to gather the votes of people whose economic interests they do not represent. You can add a bunch more: abortion is maybe their best. Gay stuff is slacking off as the people who care die, but bathrooms are still working. Anti-elitism is hot. As long as so many--most--voters vote on social "issues" and ignore economics, it is likely that Republicans will continue to hold the balance of power. I have put "issues" in quotes since these are not real issues that the of government are likely to change, but societal standards.
3
If Planned Parenthood and Move On are 'hyperpolarizing left wing groups', from now on it would not be unreasonable to characterize Mr. Brooks as a 'right wing conservative columnist'.
Aggressive cultural crusades are not separate from or opposite from legislation but rather till the soil in which the seeds of legislation can be planted and germinate. Taking a historical view: who made 'liberal' into a dirty word? who made inheritance taxes into 'death taxes'? how did government become 'the problem, not the solution', abortion become 'infanticide/murder', and socialism become equivalent to communism? Where was Mr. Brooks, who is clearly uncomfortable when the shoe is on the other foot.
7
After an untold number of people have lost their lives to gun violence it becomes absolutely clear that the NRA and the people that support it believe that their right to have guns is so important that the lives of thousands of people, particularly young people, can be sacrificed at the alter of the Second Amendment.
9
Mr. Brooks, I think that liberals have already witnessed the wrath of "conservative" backlash in the person of Mr. Trump. After 8 years of a decent, even tempered man who sought to bring people together, conservatives responded with Trump. Your warning to liberals to be careful is a little late. It's like reminding someone who is face to face with a burglar at 3 in the morning that they should have remembered to lock their door. It's too late. Now it's time to use the baseball bat on the burgler. And, yes, Mr. Brooks, despite liberals' general dislike for social and political violence, we are smart enough to keep a bat ready behind the door.
12
Yes, "certain ideas about gun rights, and maybe gun ownership itself, are being cast in the realm of the morally illegitimate and socially unacceptable."
It is entirely immoral and socially unacceptable to believe that OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES will be taken for free, so you can have a gun hobby, and posture as a "defender of freedom."
8
When the NRA doesn't want to give an inch , people are going to take a more aggressive approach. They have turned this into a win or lose game. They have brought this backlash completely on themselves.
It's better to try different tactics to create change rather than settle for the status quo which hasn't stopped mass shootings at all. The younger generation have seen how useless our current bought and paid for politicians are in stopping mass shootings.
4
Complete and utter misreading of the political landscape of the nation. In its use of language much reminiscent of the period before the fall of the Soviet Union when communists became "conservatives" in the Western press. Now, terms like liberal, (or the excessively clever "neoliberal"), progressive, conservative, leftist, or even the adoption of the color red for Republicans have so seeded the discourse that it would be close to impossible for someone first entering the room to have any real idea of where anyone stands. As David Brooks must be aware, if you speak to any real leftist, the current preoccupation with transgender bathrooms, sexual harassment and gun control, (all worthy of our attention), are characterized as weapons of mass distraction. The legions of the pious who are devoted to various causes--the symptoms of deeper problems in our society--will only serve to postpone fundamental solutions.
1
"Even today, voters trust Republicans on the gun issue more than Democrats."
What does it mean to "trust Republicans on the gun issue"? To trust that they will never compromise their most extreme position, no matter what the evidence against its wisdom? To trust that Republicans love America more than Democrats do?
Is this poll result worthy of our respect, or does it measure how poorly educated, and consequently insane, public opinion is on this subject?
4
I am a moderate on the gun issue but what is galling is the arrogance of the NRA in insisting that gun rights are absolute--that they cannot be regulated. No other constitutional right is absolute--not freedom of speech, not freedom of religion, not freedom of assembly. This is where the extremism has taken us -- a drift toward a vigilante society similar to the old West in which law enforcement lies with groups and the individual: pastors with guns, kindergarten teachers with guns, concert goers and movie goers and shoppers and college students with guns. There is a reason civilized society delegates the police power to law enforcement instead of living in fear in fortified armed compounds like the dark ages.
"A WELL REGULATED militia being necessary to the security of the state.....
7
As citizens we vote. As consumers we shop. The vast majority of Americans who vote believe in gun control and background checks, but politicians have been unresponsive to the wishes of their constituents, responsive instead to the gun lobbyists and their propaganda machine promoting a paranoid delusional system of lies about liberals and lies about government. But we can still vote with our feet by patronizing businesses that do not sell assault weapons, do not sell any guns to children, and do not sell guns to anyone without strict and complete background checks.
1
Mr Brooks fails to mention one crucial development involving the NRA. The country has now finally recognized the NRA for what it is - an unapologetic lobbying organization that is dedicated entirely to the service of gun manufacturers. They are not a good faith negotiating partner: their contributions to the public discourse on guns involve two things: 1) endless stalling (i.e. hopes and prayers), and rampant character assassination.
They do not care at all about American shooting casualties, American gun owners or even the 2nd amendment. Their only concern is keeping those guns flying off of the store shelves.
Americans are on to their game, and are finally rejecting them. The NRA has lost our trust and the ability to remain among polite society. They are cast out.
3
Once again, Mr. Brooks demonstrates that he is completely out of touch with the real world. The "culture wars" are no longer explained as sincere "differences of opinion" betwen "conservatives" and "progressives." What Mr. Brooks means by "conservatives" is something along the lines of a William F. Buckley, with, perhaps, Barry Goldwater at the right-wing fringe. In the real world, the positions once occupied by Buckley and Goldwater have been usurped by narrow-minded, anti-intillectual and, truly, anti-social individuals who can see no further or broader perspective on the world than how to maximize short-term profits for themselves - to the exclusion of the remainder of the population. They see that remainder only as an obstacle to the satisfaction of their short-term greed. This is the "political philosophy" of the Koch brothers, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump and their followers. It is based upon a narrow, almost religious reading of Ayn Rand and neglects to study the greater human experience and accumulated knowledge of the past 10,000 years. The problem that will arise for them, regardless of the measure of short-term success achieved in realizing their shortsighted goals, is that the rest of society - local, national and global - is not simply going to disappear and no amount of money or political power can isolate them from the greater population indefinitely.
4
I wasn't born from a monarch or aristocrat or an oligarch. I was born in a lower end middle-class family. so I saw poor, uneducated masses and their behaviour. Let's accept there are immoral, abhorrent people are in elite people but same is true for the low end of ordinary people too.
I cannot default accept ordinary people vulgairty becasue they are poor and forgotten and gun loving and etc.
4
I have concluded recently, in view of legislative and cultural gridlock on the gun issue, that owning guns must become like smoking: socially stigmatized. As a long-term smoker myself, I felt that stigma, and I finally quit. So did my husband. Smoking has become a signifier for the uneducated and the unhealthy. Gun owners must be ostracized, stigmatized, and made to feel like social pariahs.
All you have to do is see who’s attending the CPAC conference and listen to what they are saying to be convinced that the conservative movement is bankrupt. I love how much the mainstream media covers CPAC. With people like Trump, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, and others. We progressives can sit back and watch the self destruction. I think only progressives read your columns.
3
"Conservatism is now less a political or philosophic movement and more a separatist subculture that participates in its own ostracism."
I think the GOP/conservative Southern Strategy starting in the late 60's pretty much set the tone of the movement. Cozy up to Southern whites who were disgruntled by the civil rights revolution, more specifically, desegregation. Basically transforming the segregationist Democrats and Dixiecrats (Strom Thurmond for President) into Republicans.The bonus for the Southern Democrats was that they really didn't have to change their political views when they joined.
It worked so well that the South is hard core conservative country (if you discount people of color). Better yet, those conservative Southern politicians were able to inject a lot of their views, steadfastness, and personality into the consolidated political and philosophical conservative movement.
The proof is how seamlessly the congress has melded with the Trump presidency, give or take a couple of senators. In fact the Republicans sometimes have to signal Trump when he accidentally lets slip some progressive notion.
If the progressives are winning the culture war it's because they work to help people and families that need it, while the conservatives work just as hard to help some very rich good ol' boys and girls that would never turn down another million or so.
3
Everyone is so busy fighting about gun control when the REAL issue is making kids safe in their classrooms. This isn't a difficult problem, but it is VERY serious. Lock the school down by a specific time every morning. Have one entrance. No, teachers aren't going to have guns, that's insane - it would take too long to train them and they need to focus on education. Hire police officers, TSA, military, FBI, CIA, or individuals retired from those professions. People who KNOW how to deal with crisis and are already trained to handle weapons. Have these people go through a psych exam - make sure they don't have any lingering PTSD or discrimination problems. Have a couple stationed near the entrance. Then you either hire additional to patrol based on the size of the campus, or the number of students attending the school. They can rotate so each officer gets familiar with the entire campus.
About the guns - I am in favor of gun control, and pulling the AR-15 from production. I am also in favor of strict, national, background checks. The only way to get a solid background check is a NATIONWIDE system. Just like we had doctors go online with medical reocords, we MUST have ALL police departments go online with ALL arrest records into a national background database for gun registry. No exceptions for gunshows or private sales. NO internet sales.
We progressives have history on our side. The Constitution was written by progressives. The abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement were all the work of progressives. These movements became the law of the land above the cries of conservative voices. Progress never moves in a straight line but it always eventually pulls society forward.
2
I get the same feeling, reading David Brooks's talk about "self-marginalizing" GOP and the like, that I get when studying the Civil War. For some, it was all about how the South lost the war, when in fact it was how the North won it. The North was the side moving forward in culture and economics - the South wanted to stay behind in the racially divided slave economy. Now, to David, it's how the conservatives are losing, not how the progressives are winning, the future. You have it wrong, David. When you and I are gone, the young people of today will be calling the shots, and they are the North. They will own the future, and their culture will be progressive, not regressive.
3
"The only thing I’d say to my progressive friends is, be careful how you win your victories."
Are you kidding me? Republicans exercised no care in how they won their victory in 2016 and made a Faustian deal by throwing their chips in with Trump. I suspect their victory will prove to be a Pyrrhic one in the long run - Trump's election was a wake up chime and a call to arms for all who oppose him, including many who had previously been apathetic to and disengaged from the political process.
4
Mr. Brooks, it is conservatives themselves who established “ that conservatism is vulgar and socially illegitimate, somewhere between smoking and segregationism. “ It is conservatives themselves who have embraced lies and falsehoods to further their agenda. It is conservatives who, confronted with the failure of their policies to deliver promised gains (tax cuts leading to growth and prosperity, for instance), blame “elites” who supposedly disparage conservatives and disdain conservative “principles”. I am unclear as to how upbeat, inclusive treatment of conservative fallacies is supposed to magically make these policies effective, though. It is conservatives who are bullying, threatening, and harassing the survivors of the Parkland shooting. It is conservatives who demand affirmation and admiration - wouldn’t want those fine people who are violent white supremicists to feel bad about their poor little selves, would we. In short, if conservatives lose the culture wars, it is because they deserve to do so.
5
Ouch! Backlash v Backlash? David may be getting ahead of himself here. Though voters may have trusted Republicans more than Democrats on the gun issue, the "progressive" point of view does not necessarily lead to the exile of 40% of the country.
People actually do change their opinions based on knowledge, emotion and experience. One does not have to be "elite" to have compassion. One does not have to be "elite" to adjust one's concept of right behavior.
Maybe not ab
Everybody else has eloquently explained why "elites" is a red herring so I won't say it again. But I am bemused by how even right wingers end up with Adlai Stevenson when they're looking for a paradigm of humaneness and probity in politics.
2
I think with respect to guns, we might have reached a tipping point. The victims of the violence are finally "saying enough is enough." Their generation has grown up with school shootings and "active shooter" drills. The new normal? Think about it. For them there's nothing new about school shootings. Even school shooting is now part of our everyday vocabulary. These kids have lived with a sword of Damocles hanging over their schools all their lives. They're angry and disgusted. They want the shootings to end--and I say good for them. Because there's no way on earth why they can't.
3
Right after Sandy Hook, I read a psychic prediction that young people would stop the mass shootings. I thought it really interesting at the time, because there was zero evidence this could be true. Now I know, she was right! Do not under-estimate this group. They outnumber the boomers and are a much more connected. Looking forward to joining their flash mobs!
2
David,
We as a nation experience mass slaughter in our schools, places of worship, and areas of recreation, all committed with guns. To take a strong stand against such mayhem is not polarization. It is a demand that government fulfill its most fundamental function of providing safety. A society in which people are armed in fear against one another is simply not civilized. It is a Hobbesian condition of a war of all against all. Also, I wonder if you ave been attentive to NRA rhetoric, especially on its TV station. It is paranoid and hate filled. Reasonable politicians should not be associated with this organization.
5
Well put.
(I no longer consider Brooks an authentic voice of reason. I don't know what, but something seems to be wrong with him; by which, I do not mean, that he writes things that I disagree with (lots of people do that). It's that he arrives at conclusions that contradict the basis of his own arguments.)
Hobbesian, yes, well done.
"The only thing I’d say to my progressive friends is, be careful how you win your victories. It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation. "
Oh, like those careful Republican "Victories" of Gerrymandering, Voter Suppression, refusing to even vote on Obama's Supreme Court Nominee, Bush V. Gore and Citizen's United?
Mr. Books, like most Conservatives, wants it both ways: When they fight Democrats and Progressives, it's all-out war with no prisoners taken; when Democrats and Progressives fight back, they wonder why the fight is so goshdarn mean and unseemly.
Conservatives only have "Immense political power" thanks to Citizen's United-style Fundraising ( a law making it LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to discover if, say, Russians are funding the NRA who then fund Political Candidates), Gerrymandering, Voter Suppression (incl, ending the Southern Voting Rights act) and Mitch O'Connell-style obstructionism. And now it's PROGRESSIVES who need to back off?
Hey, Mr. Brooks -- if it feels a little sad and lonely and scary on the wrong side of history, progress and true liberal democracy, that's because it should. And if Progressives are just learning now to fight like Conservatives, then well, in the words of a tired old anti-drug commercial, we learned it from you.
7
Maybe Progressive’s are going to win because their ideas are superior to what has been proposed by the House, Senate and the Trump Administration. Let’s face it the Tax Reform bill is not for average citizens long term. It has put us in deeper debt. The ACA reform proposal was just plain mean. DACA is being defanged if it’s provisions to protect Dreamers. They have done away with the protections for consumers because of non-funding thanks to Mulvaney. And all of the Cabinet members are taking apart our Diplomatic efforts, Public Education, EPA protection, our Treaties with Allies, Justice or not in the Justice Agency, HUD not caring about Housing for those who need it. Medicare and Social Security cuts proposed.
The list goes on and on.
Progressives have their priorities straight. Which is more than I can say about the Conservatives. It is because of their gross misbehaving that even some moderates are turning into Progressives.
4
Dsvid: if it's a backlash that no longer allows dangerous people access to military grade weapons, I think I'd call that "progress."
4
Not a chance. Every time someone is ready to declare permanent victory on an issue, the pendulum swings the other way. The election of Obama was the end of partisanship, remember? And the backlash against a black president is Donald Trump. Marriage is liberated by the courts, and the backlash was regulation of bathrooms. Gun control has almost no legal or legislative victories to speak of whatsoever, so the backlash is that gun advocates and owners aren't being invited to the cool kids' tables. The police still act as the state oppressor of minorities, and the backlash is "all lives matter," the resurgence of white supremacists and (again) Donald Trump.
I think the sooner we stop declaring ultimate victory, particularly before anything is even close to having been won, the sooner we'll call a truce in the culture wars and begin to realize how much we all have in common.
1
Cutting out N.R.A. members from fly-discount groups does not "stigmatize" them. There are many groups who don't get special deals when they fly, among them many progressive groups. You seem to be channeling the mindset of the Georgia legislature, which now seems intent on sabotaging their formerly good relationship with one of their state's biggest employers. Poor little gun owners, so unfairly maligned.
3
Conservatives and guns are NOT synonymous. Guns and crazies are. That's what we've learned as the right wing and folks like David Brooks continue to assert that the right to own any and as many guns as you want is a right so solidly constitutional that it trumps anyone else's right to freedom, security, or free speech. Before folks like Mr. Brooks pushed that kind of mythology, and before the NRA did in fact become an organization that promotes, encourages, and enjoys the slaughter of children (especially if they're poor children), the majority of folks who owned guns were usually either hunters with hunting rifles, or collectors. There were a few folks who owned handguns for personal protection of their homes, but they didn't believe they needed to openly carry them to the grocery store, movies, amusement parks and bars.
With the advent of the NRA pushing hate and fear in order to increase gun purchases, hunters are walking away from them. Collectors and history buffs have distanced themselves, and responsible owners are remaining silent. Sure those folks don't want to give up their guns. But they would welcome a return to sanity. Instead the NRA and folks like Brooks want more and more weapons of war in cars, homes, strapped on people's bodies. Those who agree with that position are almost all doing it only to incite fear and violence is why we're where we are today.
1
The GOP would be wise to cease fighting Popular Culture.
The fact is most Americans do not live in small farming communities.
Most Americans live in states that do not share the heritage of the American South.
In the next few decades the GOP will lose a generation of voters.
The GOP would be wise to listen to Popular Culture..
Pop culture reflects current and coming societal trends.
I only wish that Progressives (not sure exactly what that means -- but we'll set that question aside for now) were as organized as Brooks suggests. They certainly feel a lot less like one bloc when compared to the Koch brothers led ALEC crowd. About organizing on guns: Here the groups he singles out -- Move On, Women's March, Planned Parenthood -- are not ones that are leaders in the gun control movement, BUT they do have a concern which conservatives should share, which is that women are more often than men the victims of gun violence. You could say that women's lives quite literally depend on gun regulation. This isn't about culture wars (and this is now a hackneyed term) but about saving lives, and this may be precisely why this discussion, debate and movement has taken off. We may, collectively, just be tired of all these people dying senselessly.
1
"Using elite power, whether economic or cultural, to silence less educated foes usually produces a backlash."
It already has.
I was one those commenters who heavily criticized Brooks for his earlier column, written in the fairly immediate aftermath of Parkland; he extolled the findings of a grass roots organization that is essentially conducting a series of town hall meetings whose premise is that long-term, change will come from changing the hearts and minds of the electorate and here a bunch of Red voters feel disrespected by those (we'll call them "progressives") who see a series of issues through a different prism.
Somehow, he now claims what's happened before and since then serves to vindicate his position.
So my take - which hasn't changed since the day after the Parkland tragedy - is that the Parkland students instantaneously put Trump, the NRA and Republican legislators into what inevitably will be a checkmate position. They did this without regard for politics and a big reason for their success is they struck a giant responsive chord with Americans as representatives of the victims themselves and more important as prospective victims of future similar incidents - they are EVERYMAN for the vast majority of Americans: parents who fear the potential of this occurring in their own communities, other folks who say enough is enough with the failure to address guns and gun violence, etc.
What's going on is literally unprecedented in American history - this is actual populism at work and I don't think Brooks get it.
3
You're getting closer, Mr. Brooks. Think: codependence no more.
"The people pushing for gun restrictions have basically done the exact opposite of what I thought was wise. Instead of depolarizing the issue they have massively polarized it." YES! As an editor once told me once: sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Or a colleague who'd know once advised: Sometimes you have to agitate. (Non-violently, of course.)
"It’s not about N.R.A. members saving some money when they fly." ACTUALLY, it is, (also). Because the brand connections imply moral legitimacy -- even if the member never uses the discount.
A related secret: Many of those memberships are provided by gun manufacturers and the like as in: "free NRA membership with purchase." Smoke and mirrors. Or, less aggressively: Marketing 101.
"The idea is to stigmatize. [...] certain ideas about gun rights, and maybe gun ownership itself, are being cast in the realm of the morally illegitimate and socially unacceptable." EXACTLY! You've written about how this works. See: "Social Contagions."
"You can win more important victories through an aggressive cultural crusade than you can through legislation." SAY IT LOUDER for the people in the back! Laws are important, but, vulnerable to political shenanigans and push-back cycles. But, it ain't civilization if it ain't civil. Nor humanity if not humane. Culture requires more than laws and money to thrive.
Times like these call for some tough love.
2
Born in 1950, I have through much social change-as have many of the Times' readers. Liberals/Progressives, I do not believe, are the source originators of the culture wars. Rather, the conservative movement fought Roe v. Wade, the Equal Rights Amendment, sought (and have achieved, hopefully, temporarily) the roll-back of voting rights, environmental regulation, health care for all, and sensible gun control legislation. I have watched, from the safety of Massachusetts, while many states have gone "mad" and the Congress has fallen into disrepute. Now is not the time for Progressives/Liberals to be quiet. Now is the time to fight! There is no Rockefeller and other Republicans of his stature on the horizon; they have all caved to the insanity on the Right. Now is just the time for Progessives/Liberals to stand up and fight for the future-because the future is now-regardless of what the reactionary right thinks.
2
I'm not sure why Brooks is describing what might reasonably be thought of as a substantial event--people deciding they think something about something, or deciding they think something about something strongly enough to start expressing it--as if it were a kind of hazy trick of branding or a regrettable silencing of other options. It's not that "certain ideas...are being cast in the realm morally illegitimate and socially unacceptable;" it's that people don't find certain gun rights (not "ideas about gun rights," just the scope of the rights themselves) morally legitimate or socially acceptable. Nothing is being "cast" as anything in any "realm." When we find murder morally illegitimate or socially unacceptable, we aren't casting certain ideas about murder as morally illegitimate or socially unacceptable; we are just saying murder's not allowed here. If you hold certain pro-murder tastes, I guess you do. But not all your tastes get to be laws. Or, Brook's point is that all laws (progun, antigun, promurder, antimurder) are just cultural tastes...in which case this is just what a budding moral majority of taste looks like.
"It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation."
It could be clearly argued that based on the last election, cultural intimidation didn't win at all.
Trump was clearly a flawed candidate in many respects, but still won. If Trump is proof of anything, it is that the left's shaming of the right is not persuasive.
The right is willing to accept gun control. Is the left willing to talk about armed guards in the schools? Apparently not. Is it willing to accept that background checks are working poorly (the Texas and Florida shooters should both have been denied based their respective histories with the police). Is it willing to accept that when Cops on scene won't engage a shooter, there is a problem with training. The left appears to want the gun issue front and center than to examine other causes of the shootings. And of course they voicefully shame anyone who wants to bring those up.
1
The progressive movement we are currently experiencing in America is a phase that will eventually lose steam. It is the radicals and Hollywood elites that are fueling the flames of discontent but ordinary Americans will soon tire of their rhetoric and tune them out. Some people feel they have gone too far with the #MeToo movement where even a touch of a leg can be seen as sexual harassment. They are not able to distinguish the real threats of the Harvey Weinsteins from a man who is just showing harmless affection.
They are correct in wanting to ban AR-15 rifles and proposing gun legislation that requires a person to be 21 years old before purchasing a gun. But to ban the ownership of all guns which appears to be what the progressives are trying to accomplish will never materialize. There is the second amendment that allows ownership of guns that will never be abolished. If this is their goal, they are wasting their time.
Also silencing conservative voices on college campuses and in public life may be working for progressives at the moment but it will eventually backfire and the liberals will be the ones who will become out of favor with the American public. The one point in this article that I take issue with is to say that conservatives are uneducated. They are far from it. There are many intelligent college students today but they have been silenced for fear of lowered grades and being ostracized.
The progressives should be very careful and not overstep.
1
David, you are the voice of reason. I may not share each and every one of your views, but I thank you for the careful, thoughtful, articulate and civil discourse.
1
I don't think we want to exclude gun owners from respectable society. If someone keeps a gun or two at home for protection, that's fine. What we don't want is people bringing their guns out in public. So - no guns in cars, or at work or school or at public gathering places, or hidden on people's bodies as they walk around. What we want is for people respect the people around them.
David has a strange point of view. He claims to fear the formation of a Hitleresque right-wing group of revolutionaries. He says:
“If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society they will mount a political backlash that will make Donald Trump look like Adlai Stevenson.”
If we are to imagine this occurrence it will not be the result of preventing the machine-gunning of school children. It will be a response to GOP Autocracy. It will be the result of GOP tax cuts for the rich leading to the further dismantling of social programs like Social Security and Medicare, the failure of health care, the lack of affordable housing, the impossibility of finding meaningful work, the spectacle of government officials spending a fortune in public monies on their private lives.
When what remains of the middle class and the poor revolts, those AR15’s and AK47’s may indeed surface, but not in schoolyards! That is what David should be trying to prevent.
1
"Conservatives have zero cultural power, but they have immense political power"
O.K. they have zero "cultural power". If they have zero than, by definition, the Democrats have 100% of the "cultural power". Congratulations.
What the Democrats seemed to be lacking in recent State and National elections is "cultural understanding". If they had just a little bit more of that then maybe their message (and their candidates) would have been more appealing and drawn in enough voters (or offended less) so we would not be in our current mess.
As a progressive who always likes reading your commentaries, especially for upholding ethical ideals. There is one thing that will change the mess we are in-- Champaign Finance Reform! Thanks for your work!
So David, the Parkland students and high school students across the nation are examples of "Illberal elites"? Actually, no. The median income of Broward county is $52,000. The students' unequivocal demand for common sense gun laws is neither elitist nor disrespectful. I have no fear of a future backlash bcause these kids (Parkland and across the country) are the future. The NRA and those fearful of offending are fading fast into irrelevance.
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I support "sensible" gun control measures, such as banning bump-stocks, raising the age on certain kinds of rifles, fixing the NCIS, and expanding background checks. But after witnessing the mob egged on by CNN a few nights ago, I am really glad we have a 2nd Amendment and civil-rights organizations like the NRA dedicated to policing violations of it. Progressives scare me.
1
I am a supporter of the second amendment. I was an NRA member for many years until they took the hard turn to the right and drove off the cliff. I have no problem with their strong support for the right to keep and bear arms it's their support for the rest of what passes for "conservatism" or "the right" since Reagan/Gingrich with their Voodoo Economics and Contract on America.
There is a civil war coming in this country. It won't be like the last one where there was a border and one side held this territory and the other held that one with actual armies and battlefields. Every street corner will be a battlefield. It will start with assassinations and attacks in the middle of the night. There will be disappearances. This country will disintegrate over night into chaos and lines will form. There won't only be two groups, there will be many, and all will be fighting all. I hope I'm wrong but I'm out there in the world, listening, watching, talking to people, reading comments not just at the New York Times but also on Yahoo and other crazy places. And there is a whole lot of crazy out there right now, built on the ignorance caused by 50 years of erosion from both sides-- political correctness and corporate greed-- of our educational standards.
If you ban guns, go on and ban diesel and fertilizer too. You don't treat gangrene with topical ointment and a bandaid, you have to stem the hate and resentment-- which are the real causes of gun violence in this country.
1
Dan ... go and try to buy pure Ammonium Nitrate now, you'll learn something.
Didn't Barry Goldwater say, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice?" With Trump and the GOP Congress we are seeing a real threat to liberty so maybe it is time for some extremism.
I wish the Presidential ambitions of Donald Trump had been as successful as those of Adlai Stevenson.
Another masterpiece of muddled intellectual thinking that pokes at the culture war raging in America but never quite spells out how progressives win it. That being said, if progressives are unable to "win" at least the moral and ethical humanity discussion in America, against a backdrop of the utter depravity and vulgarity of a Trump led government, our precious democracy is doomed. Winning elections and significant legislative victories are not going to be easily accomplished until the Judicial branch of our government backs progressive laws. Citizens United must be abolished. Furthermore, malevolent foreign powers and groups meddling in US elections, via social media and other means, must be addressed and curtailed Otherwise, without election safeguards and a seismic shift in Supreme Court rulings, any progressive election and legislative victories will be short lived.
2
"Progressives have won on most social issues. They could win on nearly everything else." Yes, and that's not an accident. This is because the so-called culture war is not just a war of words or rhetoric or passion. It is a war of fact versus fiction, of right versus wrong. And the progressive position is on the side of the truth and the right. It might take time for the masses to perceive that reality, but we get there in the end. History shows the eventual, if sometimes arduous, progression of truth, right and justice. And that's why the progressive position tends to "win out" this "war" time and again.
3
It seems to me that David Brooks is trying to cast widespread social beliefs such as the need for reasonable gun laws, gay rights, and women's equality as somehow orchestrated by a progressive "elite". But couldn't it be that these are spontaneous values emanating from are large segment of society, especially our youth?
4
Please go out and meet some working people at the low end of the socioeconomic scale.
I just took my car into the shop for an oil change, and wonderful Gerry, brilliant with cars, gentle and stalwart, salt of the earth, who is a hunter, told me "I have one of those".
He said he'd gladly get rid of it. That's what real men think about all this.
NRA's LaPierre is all about fomenting rebellion by his militia, and they're stockpiling weapons and planning to shoot their way to success if they lose. This is not something that should be supported and encouraged.
Florida? Check this out, scary stuff: "The NRA Lobbyist Behind Florida's Pro-Gun Policies" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/the-nra-lobbyist-behind-fl...
4
This should not be an issue of politics. Children are being slaughtered. This is not debatable, nor is the solution. The fact that the right remains intractable while the body count continues to rise is all many of us need to know about their values and ethics.
11
Conservatives have not articulated their philosophy nor defined polices which then address society's problems. You can't advocate the business model for government and then present Trump as the ideal businessman. You can't advocate free markets with competition, not government, as the ultimate regulator to guarantee optimum allocation of resources and the incentive of reward to the most productive then promote monopoly while tolerating the extreme inequality of wealth and income which exists today. The base of the Republican Party today and its most powerful leaders are in fact deplorable from a moral and ethical standpoint in large part. Perhaps, the best to be said is that they are terrified of a loss of status (Hofstadter's old concept) and rage derives therefrom. It is not a truly conservative party. Racial, gender, ethnic prejudice permeate it. Spin negates research. facts, logic. Compromise is anathema.
10
As someone whose username is what it is, I am appalled by what is often termed "social justice" ideology and the inextricably intertwined mob tactics. They have largely triumphed on college campuses and are now poised to take over the USA with a Marxist ideology, which is pervasive and not noticed. I am genuinely afraid for our planet, our species. If the social justice side wins, it will be a totalitarian nightmare. If the backlash wins, it will be a fascist nightmare.
10
I'm with you. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. That's how I've felt for many years.
Ugh. The man who is never right about anything is lecturing Progressives. Why on earth would anyone listen to a thing you have to say?
How about the op ed page start cleaning house and give us someone whose opinions we respect? Start with Brooks...and move on to Dowd. She is supposed to be the progressive voice but is no more than someone who strokes her own ego by bashing Clintons or Obama. Thank God for Krugman.
8
Stigmatize NRA members?
I will never bake a wedding cake for any couple that are members of the NRA.
16
No question Books lives in a cultural-Marxist bubble at the NYT, but before telling us that "What’s happening today is that certain ideas about gun rights, and maybe gun ownership itself, are being cast in the realm of the morally illegitimate and socially unacceptable", he should spend some time at a local pistol range or rifle range. What he'll discover is that nearly all are from "polite society".
And it's the neo-Marxist who believe, among other things, that there are no inherent biologically based "psychological differences" between the sexes. Despite that he might believe the Stalinist stomping on those who disagree with "progressivism" is working, it doesn't change the biological facts.
4
Brooks apparently has no respect for the civil rights enshrined in our second amendment. He sounds like a democrat. This is the same guy that saw the freshly press creased in Obama's slacks at a dinner party and immediately knew he would be a great president. He even wrote a column on it. We have fake news and fake republicans. Brooks fits the bill on both fronts.
1
The last sentences of this piece read like a threat.
4
Hannity and D'souza sound like they are in the entertainment realm that Rush Limbaugh started. The carnival barker type. The snake oil salesman in Huckleberry Finn. Great entertainment. American tradition. Just letting the american working man blow off some steam during the day. A daily dose of humble pie: let these guys complain so i can now focus on the job. In other day's howard stern and buckwild on hot 97 did the job. But times are different now. Politics took over.
Franklin Graham. Somebody ought to put him in his place like Obama put Reverend Wright in his place.
2
A bit sour today David. As if you lost your teddy bear.
There is a difference between a conservative and a Republican. A conservative generally can think whereas a Republican just takes the money and mouths the corporate press release.
A conservative is fiscally responsible and socially liberal.
A Republican is a straight liar, hates government and believes he is the master of the world.
Fools and religious nuts pretend to run the place but everybody knows Mr. Koch runs the casino!
7
I have never read a David Brooks column that was informative and this one is no exception.
5
Once again, Brooks asks us to, "Please be nice to those Nazis. Don't upset them." And once again I have to retort: Bigotry and ignorance are not things you "tolerate" or "negotiate."
We have a political class (conservatives, and now the entire GOP) that believes it should be harder to get a driver's license than it is to buy a gun.
Explain that difference to me, David. Please.
10
Oh good grief. You are not a victim of anything, Mr. Brooks, except perhaps your own propagandizing and revisionist history.
The sooner assault rifles end up in the dustbin of history, the better. For everyone.
13
It ought to concern Mr. Brooks that essentially he's just repeated what one may hear on Fox&Friends any old day, starting with the claim that "progressives," have been attacking plain old folks for decades.
Kids on a few fancy campuses aren't the only progressives around, Mr. Brooks. And the d'Souzas of the world have been making bank for decades now, mostly off telling white guys that they're being martyred, that they're Victims of Feminazis or whatever.
And what's with the notion that progressivism reigns uber alles in culture? Have you LOOKED at American culture? For crying out loud, they just remade "Deathwish," and Trump's President.
I try to avoid saying this sort of thing--but get off yer duff, go visit Arkansas, and rethink this column.
6
The culture war.
In this corner, we have the Antifa led morality brigade taking responsibility for deciding who can speak and throwing rocks, wearing masks, wielding sticks and randomly labeling people Nazis so they can be unceremoniously beaten to a pulp to reinforce their outrage at the machine.
In the other corner, everyday Americans.
Wonder who will win?
4
This is an utterly despicable column, which stands out even among the many other despicable columns by Brooks. It is the moral equivalent of telling a rape victim that she would not have been raped if only she had been "nicer" and more "respectful" to her rapist; of telling the parents of a murdered child that their child would not have been murdered if only he had been "nicer" and more "respectful" to their murderer.
10
"Conservatives have zero cultural power." Put the Kool-Aid down, David.
7
"...the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups: Planned Parenthood, Move On and the Women's March."
.....it's always the women that are the demons for the righties.
But, until today, David Brooks, you weren't so obvious in aligning yourself to the truly putrid forces of America - the forces that howl that it's all those women's fault! Lesbians! Abortionists! Marriage-haters! Atheist Annies! Demanding birth control! Demanding government child-care centers! Demanding equal pay for equal work! Demanding full Constitutional inclusion!
David: Here's a head's up to you.
Right-wing women take birth control.
They have abortions.
They are Lesbians, too.
They, too, avoid marriage to right-wing men.
They, too, are atheist.
They are also sick of three-quarters of their paycheck going to child-care.
Right-wing women also are demanding that birth control be covered by their insurance.
They also want single-payer.
They also want equal pay for equal work.
And, they also demand that they get full Constitutional inclusion.
Check the stats, David.
Check which states are UNDER the average on Family size.
They are largely the CONSERVATIVE states.
In this nation, women, whether right wing or left wing, are sick of right-wing men.
And, you just openly joined up with them.
No, David, women are not the evil demons.
Stop trying to slip your personal misogyny into everything you write.
I remember when "W" Bush called the Quakers, "terrorists".
Your column today is your new personal low.
9
One could switch the placements of "NRA" and "hyper-polarizing left-wing groups" and have the same article.
The NRA has for decades shown no respect for any opinion other than theirs. The NRA has shown no interest in depolarizing the issue. The NRA has whipped up their base with vile falsehoods. The NRA has used extreme rhetoric - calling their opponents traitors and un-American. They have been supported by the usual right-wing nut-job "think-tanks" and activists (that is the same level of disregard for truth that Mr. Brooks uses to describe Planned Parenthood). The NRA has already expelled anyone with even a modicum of reason. As for stigma's... imagine the uproar that would take place if Delta Airlines offered a Planned Parenthood discount.
The results of this extremism has been phenomenal. Gun control laws have failed and our legislators continue to act like whores - paid to do the bidding of money rather than democracy.
Mr. Brooks on this issue you are dead wrong, and no amount of Ivy-League debate-team pretzel-logic will absolve you of the stain of putting guns before lives.
9
Planned Parenthood? I just can't take you seriously anymore, David. You seem to be speaking English but I'm hearing Upper Pretzel. And an air of desperation. You need to get out of that glass house once in a while.
5
Brooks once again thinks like a writer for the New York Times. The culture war the progressive wage has already been won in Europe.
How is that working out?
4
I am not a believer of evil in the religious sense, but from a moral perspective, the NRA is evill
6
Let’s get one hung straight. My NATURAL BORN RIGHTS are not up for debate. That includes my RIGHT to defend myself.
3
Well Larry, does defending yourself require hand grenades? Hand held missile launchers? 50 caliber machine gun emplacements? Military assault weapons, armor piercing ammunition, neither of which have any purpose for legitimate hunting?
This is the problem you have. So get a shotgun for your fears of home invasion. Society and it's laws can, and I hope does, draw the line at reasonable self defense. Military grade automatic rifles are unreasonable and handguns often too.
My opinion of one who has been a life long hunter and fire-arms owner. The gun-lobby has gone way too far and it hasn't been to "protect" you, it has been done so to make angry and fearful folk malleable to selfish and undemocratic interests....Otherwise defined as Republicans.
2
Deranged, domestic terrorists have caused way too much carnage in the US with their guns and yes, we the people, whom you are calling Progressives, are sick of it!!! If it comes down to a fight in the end with lowly educated gun worshipers, we will gladly pry the guns out of their cold, dead fingers.
4
The biggest weakness from liberals lately is trying to be too inclusive and sensitive. We need a lot more people willing to stand up and call an idiot an idiot. The conservatives are acting like idiots. Plain and simple.
Once they stop doing that, then we can have a better dialog.
1
What the heck is Republicanism or conservatism today? Racist, pro-gun, misogynist, anti-science, pro income inequality, pro Russia, anti trade, anti immigrant, pro Neo Nazi, anti voter registration. Am I leaving anything out? Oh yeah, the worst of all - pro Trump and anti Constitution, trying to undo the 1st Amendment, the 4th Amendment, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Yes, I know this is hyperbolic, but by how much? Not that much, which is scary. "Conservatives" have lost their collective minds, and for that, they should be ostracized, and voted out. The backlash that you write about Mr. Brooks already happened, it was called the Tea Party and Trump, and it was the reaction to America electing an intelligent, dignified, thoughtful, measured, but wait, first black president. What you are seeing now is the backlash to that idiot backlash, and it will not end with just social rejection of conservatives, it will end with several election seasons where the idiot right-wing ideology of Trump and Roy Moore are fully rejected. Or, I've got to move to Canada.
8
Why do I always regret the time I spent reading a Brooks column? Planned Parenthood, MoveOn, and women's March a "usual hyper-polarizing left-wing group?" Oh please. You've just polarized polarization. Brooks is a fool and I will not waste another with him anymore.
5
David Brooks is so soon putting away his begging bowl. A flip-flop in just about a week. Very Trumpian. But I for one am glad to have you back David.
Do we have to wait for individuals to take flame-throwers and mini-nuclear devices into schools, movie theaters and trains, for Brooks to call this what it is? It’s a weapons war, David, and you’re shooting blanks.
I’m chagrined that Brooks’ not so subliminal tone is to denigrate progressives for what he apparently considers to be their unsavory methods in attempting to control assault weapons.
He does this while leaving unsaid, and untouched, conservatives who are guilty of stigmatizing “progressives” through the use of epithets such as “libtards, snowflakes” and other monikers. It is a sad day, indeed, when someone who merely wants to prevent kids from being shot and killed in school is dismissed by the likes of Brooks as being progressive.
All the while, Brooks fails to mentions the specious reasoning behind gun-rights advocates, who rely on the dubious interpretation of the Second Amendment to endorse unfettered rights of private individuals to own rapid-fire, multiple-round assault weapons of war. It is inconceivable that the framers of the Second Amendment, could have conceived of such technology. Claiming the right to own such weapons of war amounts to conservatives hijacking the Constitution.
Defining attempts at gun control as a culture war may be interesting, but it degrades the loss of innocent life resulting from free and easy access to the likes of AR-15s. If this is a culture war, that is incidental. It is a war about weapons, and only about weapons.
3
Looking forward to you regurgitating this tonight on The News Hour. I hope Mr Shields isn't taking a sip from his water when you do.
1
"progressives are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior...progressives are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior" Yes, they are good at shutting down real dialogue by name calling. #Racist #Sexist #Xenophobe - you name it, if you have a defensible counter-position. In the end the masses are drawn into this slogan-driven, sound bite information supported chant, because about two seconds or 140 characters or a 10 word meme is all the effort anyone bothers to put into any issue. This superficial, shaming shutting down of debate, being cloaked in superficial sound bite morality, and reducing every issue to same, is an indication of the total dumbing down of America, and gives the utterers support for their notion that their views that they have a monopoly on monopoly and ethics. The reactions here in comments on Billy Graham's laying in honor are a case in point: people don't even know let alone appreciate the basics of the Constitution. As a conservative, please don't lump me with Hannity, D'Souza, Graham - some people can still think.
I'll start reading more David Brooks columns, if he keeps using this opening line. "I wonder if I'm wrong on the subject of..."
Can anyone explain to me why David Brooks so solicitous of the oh-so-easily bruised feelings of gun owners? A couple days ago, Brooks told liberals to cozy up to NRA members. Today he warns us that if we stigmatize gun owners, we will win the culture war, but our victory will be a Pyrrhic one, because we will provoke a ferocious conservative backlash at the polls and in Congress. According to Brooks, liberals have to make nice with gun owners. I don't own a gun, and I don't particularly like guns or see their necessity. I certainly oppose laws that allow citizens to carry guns in public. But if other Americans want to own a gun, so be it, as long as they do so responsibly. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, citizens have a right to own a gun. So be it. But why are gun owners so thin-skinned and easily offended? Must the rest of us follow David Brooks's advice and walk on eggshells, for fear of hurting the feelings of the nation's gun owners?
3
When declaring a 'war', it is good to understand who is doing the dying and why.
From my limited viewpoint, I see students of all ages dying in schools and universities, I see young and old alike dying from lack of medical access, and I see avenues of despair leading to death by opioids.
Not that those dying believe in dying from lack of safety, or lack of care, or find their higher calling in an overdose; they die because those in power have codified bearing arms as a God given right or legislated poverty as a moral defect.
A 'war' obligating a group to die for beliefs they do not hold soon stops being a war and becomes a revolution.
2
Brooks fails to recognize the radicalization of the NRA at the same time he fails to realize the moderate goals of groups like the Women's March (equality much, Mr. Brooks?). And now we find out that Russia was funneling money through the NRA to the Trump campaign. Morally worthy? I'd say the NRA is not, Mr. Brooks. By any reasonable standard.
2
Brooks' column is in many ways a continuation of one by Bret Stephens, published in yesterday's NYTimes. Among many other perceptive observations, Stephens wrote:
"The United States is going to have a right-of-center party in one form or another, and it matters a great deal whether that party is liberal or illiberal, capable or incapable of shame."
The same holds true for those of us who consider ourselves progressives. Will we be progressives who (again in Stephens' words):
- believe "in the power of reason, the possibility of persuasion, and the values of the Enlightenment"
- champion "social solidarity for the sake of empowering the individual, rather than creating a society of conformists"
- don't "see compromise as a dirty word" and
- believe that "the benefits of civility and diversity [do] not override [our] commitment to free speech and independent thought."
These are the progressive values that I hold dear. If they make me some sort of collaborator with an elitist ancien regime, then so be it. Count me as one progressive who thinks that Stephens' and Brooks' warnings should be heard and heeded.
1
Mr Brooks,
Your efforts at promoting compromises between the left and right are well intended, but doomed. Republicans doomed compromising in 2009 when they vowed to support absolutely nothing that Obama and the Democratic Congress might propose, even when those Democratic proposals -- the ACA, Obama's Grand Bargain on entitlements -- were essentially conservative ones.
The blind Republican opposition to anything from Obama and Democrats made subsequent compromise impossible and taught the left that any progress on the nation's problems meant vanquishing the right. That's where we are now, for better or worse. Sorry to say, Mr. Brooks, the left compromising with the right is no longer an option.
The only hope the left has in making improvements is to do what FDR and LBJ did: Implement improvements over the objections of the right, and when the masses saw that such programs like Social Security, Medicare, Equal Rights benefited everybody, the programs were accepted by all reasonable people.
That kind of production of the obvious good is what an uncompromising left needs to do with clean energy, Medicare for All, tuition free higher education, minimum wages, fairer taxes. The right can then howl in protest all it wants to, but nobody's listening.
4
The FDR and LBJ approach was tried by Obama. The Democratic party lost elections because of it. I don't understand why people think that even more liberal policies would be successful. I think the voters have spoken- they don't want big new government programs.
I think Mr. Brooks is mistaken here:
"It’s not about N.R.A. members saving some money when they fly. It’s that they are not morally worthy of being among the affiliated groups."
Corporations don't give discounts out of the goodness of their hearts, they do so to grow and maintain their customer base. In the case of airlines dropping N.R.A. discounts, the reason wasn't moral, it was financial. Airports in this country primarily connect blue cities and purple suburbs. If you live in deep-red N.R.A. country, describing your community as "fly over" is often quite literal.
David, I'm with you in the repeated undercurrent to your columns that identitarian politics can be deeply flawed. Identity informs perspective but is not itself a monopoly on perspective, and plenty of educated people can speak truth to power despite the terrible affliction of majority status.
But, come on man: Leftists are not tribalists just because the Democrats big tent includes more tribes.
Primitive tribalism is trying to deport or ban the brown-skinned. It is curtailing programs and agendas that disproportionately benefit women, poor people, and minorities (be it consumer protections or defense of civil rights, etc.) because your base is hostile to diversity and expansion of opportunity.
Insistence on recognizing people's basic humanity as a barrier to entry in public discussion is hardly the tragic career-ending boundary shift you make it out to be; it's what should have been happening all along. All progressives are telegraphing is: Go ahead and be against gay marriage and cater to the like-minded should you choose, just don't expect others to view you as a tolerant person when you do.
1
David, No one has more respect for you than I, but to say that this social moment is about elites is radically mistaken. It is powerful specifically because it is neither elite nor big d Democrat. Look at where the young people who are protesting assault weapon attacks are from. My heart is truly with your rational, middle of the road, evolutionary model of social change, but my intellect and my social awareness say, "No, this revolution (perhaps) in the making comes from the people." Please don't start, or help perpetuate, the myth that this is all about radical instigators.
1
The fanaticism and moral absolutism is NOT mainly with gun safety advocates, but rather lies mostly with NRA and gun owners in my experience in Virginia. On a cold day in January, our group of faith based gun safety supporters went to Richmond VA to advocate for sensible gun safety laws in Virginia--universal background checks among others. The Republican controlled General Assembly (controlled by one vote margin in both houses) on that day voted to kill all gun safety bills on a straight party-line vote, without allowing even a public hearing or consideration or debate. The mass killing at Virginia Tech until two years ago was the largest mass killing in U.S. history. Republicans refused to even dialogue with gun violence victims, faith-based groups, and our Democratic governor and attorney general who both supported gun safety laws. If conservatives and Republicans block even dialogue on measures that could reduce gun violence, then who is the ideological radical? I think most fair minded people in the U.S. can accept first gun safety steps like universal background checks, banning of military assault weapons, and limiting open carry. Americans no longer accept the NRA's hysterical claims of 2nd Amendment rights are akin to freedom of religion or speech or privacy.
3
While I do agree that stigmatizing social groups or ideas is unproductive and unhelpful to the democratic process, I think he has the liberal reaction the NRA all wrong. The NRA is stigmatized because of ITS OWN absolutist position on guns, something he acknowledges earlier in the article. I support the ostracising of the NRA simply because it, as an organization, has prevented the kind of dialogue and compromise that Mr. Brooks is trying to promote. While I don't deny liberals have difficulty tolerating and respecting counter-opinions on many of these other social issues, I think their stance on the NRA is different because the NRA is an agent of polarization and an inhibitor to dialogue and compromise itself. Were it to modify its position on assault weapons or at least allow for political compromise, it would not so justly deserve the ire of both liberals and the corporations that are currently shunning it.
2
Agree or disagree with him on any particular point, Mr. Brooks deserves unique credit among pundits for his ability to (gasp) challenge his own preconceived notions and actually be open to the possibility of changing his mind. We are all so sure of ourselves and yet we know next to nothing. How refreshing to witness someone actually wrestling with ideas, as opposed to reiterating the same tired old arguments.
"Culture war," words that wrap reality in civility it does not deserve. Paul Ryan received $500,000 from the Koch brothers after the passage of the tax law scam. How much did the military get in the recent budget proposal? We are all under surveillance, etc.
David, you have read Walter Scheidel's "The Great Leveler, Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-first Century." Only violent cataclysmic events - wars, pandemics, revolutions - destroyed the power of the "elite" and for a short while, not culture wars. That would be a first in the history of large human societies on earth. Hope you are right!
By continuing to frame debates like this using terms like 'Culture Wars', I think that David Brooks remains trapped in a type of semantic cage. A cage that is not serving the country well at all.
I see instead the current fight to reign in the proliferation of guns as common sense attempting to reassert itself.
I thought I knew where David was going with this, but he surprised me--cultural shift (consistent with his other thinking) versus short term political loss. He's been doing that lately, a nice counter to my recent response to a speaker at a public event who claimed that Fox News has an ideology, but implied the NYT does not. I said the NYT also has one as I can predict nearly everything it is going to say. Two points, though, on cultural intimidation. He's not wrong, wrong, but consistent with another his views, things evolve.
I was part of a successful effort at a liberal college this week to treat a very conservative speaker on climate change very respectfully. While it wasn't easy, we listened, analyzed, politely asked questions. No one turned their backs or rocked his car. The speaker was polite, too. Students learned. So please be aware, David, that the academic process can still work. Also, while inefficient and frustrating, it may be that "speech codes" have had to work their way through lurking and then actual anger, defense, possibly excess punishment, backlash, towards gradual evolution to mainstream agreement. I'm open to a better process. Lastly, a hunch. When considering reaching out to opponents, and how, it may help to distinguish between types of issues. Certain issues may, after not necessarily-pleasant reflection, be grayer than we (or our tribe) thinks. Opponents should be approached with respect. Then there are the issues that really are black-&-white.
1
Interesting, David, that you pick smoking and segregation as the two comparisons for unregulated gun possession; it is apt for more than one reason. Both smoking and segregation belong in history's dustbin,and tellingly conservatives defended both smoking and segregation from progressive attempts to reign them in, as they do with gun control now.
Progressives, I believe are tired of compromising with red state folks and getting nothing in return. Banning just assault weapons is a compromise, as are universal background checks and waiting periods. No one is suggesting banning or confiscating guns. No one is suggesting even the restrictions most other countries employ. What more level of understanding or compromise should progressives offer to political opponents who offer neither?
Obamacare was a compromise rather than universal health coverage. Cap and trade was a compromise rather than imposing tough environmental regulations. Yet, once conservatives extracted those concessions, they opposed the compromise. Enough!
Conservatives are the ones who for years have declared a "culture war," despite the fact that they control Congress and legislatures only because they have manipulated the process with money and gerrymandering.
Why wouldn't progressive try to defeat (in your words, "exile") 20% of the country (don't kid yourself into believing the new GOP represents anywhere near a lasting 40%) of the population, when no other path has been presented?
2
Well, for the record, I'm suggesting "the full Australia." That wouldn't ban guns, but it would make semi-auto weapons highly restricted, also make handguns very difficult to get.
In Australia bolt-action hunting rifles and shotguns (that aren't semi-auto "tactical" guns) aren't all that tough to get, but that's about it.
As a Catholic, I see the gun issue as a pro-life, Human Rights issue, not a culture war issue. Don't we all deserve to see a movie, attend church, teach a class and go to a concert without worrying about being killed by an angry individual? Sensible gun restrictions are good for everybody.
4
David,
its not that conservatism is vulgar and illegitimate, it's that contemporary conservatism is vulgar and socially illegitimate. Contemporary conservatism is about restricting and removing basic human rights, such as to be allowed to love and marry freely, vote without intimidation, control one's body, live and go to school in safety, and have access to clean air, safe foods, and affordable education and healthcare. Contemporary conservatism is illegitimate and will soon find itself invisible.
1
Mr Brooks: It's pretty easy. Progressives are on the right side of history, especially on guns.
2
I do believe that there are two Americas at play here. Cultural conservatives have tuned out of the mainstream culture and created an alternative culture for themselves. Fox News, Christian colleges and universities, music, movies homeschooling, etc. If this is all you hear in your bubble, the idea of speaking with, let alone listening to another person with an opposition viewpoint is downright scary. In their view, "Why talk to unGodly people?" Unfriend them on Facebook and troll them on Instagram... Sure bubbles happen on the left (on university campuses) but liberals are left in the mainstream to control the full culture which controls most of the consumerism in the country. Economically they hold sway in purchases and decision making. They are left to frame the conversation and to progress our history without any daily input from the right. The only input to the American culture the right gives our country's conversation is during election time. They come out of the woods in anger and demand things... After elections they go back to their bubble and grumble among themselves at how awful the world around them is...
1
Democrats have made dreadful mistakes. They discount and demonize whole identity groups such as gun owners, due to the behavior of of a few members or their political spokespersons.
I think if David Brooks and I got together for a chat we would get on very well. But I only agree with about half of what Mr. Brooks says and writes. Which is okay and probably quite healthy in the sprit of debate. But Oh David, here we go again. You describe Trump as I would, yet you chastise Progressives for the way in which we are defending progressivism. We have a president who lies while abetted by his own 24-hour propaganda network, That is on top of the full-power of The White House, the Supreme Court, and a majority in congress. The odds are against us at any rate. In my opinion the NRA should pay a price for abandoning any moral center when it comes to gun safety. I received a letter from the NRA wanting me to join their organization last year. In the first paragraph what I read was pure right wing propaganda attacking the free press, among other things. The NRA radicalized themselves, therefore if Delta or anyone else wants to cut ties, perhaps blame the NRA. As for the others, their depravity is what is turning people away from them. Telling the truth about people and organizations is not playing dirty - lying is. We are not doing anything differently - people are just starting to listen.
Slow down people, a lot of the responses here are harsh on David's warnings about the legislative powers of the deplorables. I'm surprised. People need to heed the call to pierce their Trumpian bubbles. Just because the righteous outrage against the disintegrating GOP is ramping up doesn't mean the trumpian deplorable forces are not to be feared. We all need to remember Trump won (at least won enough to be president). But worse, as David correctly points out, their power is beyond that, especially since 2010. Remember the tea party? This is why the deplorables have most statehouses, governor's mansions, and all 3 branches of the federal government! Finally, Hannity is the number 1 rated show for that kind of thing (holy moly)! Why oh why do these people hate Democrats so much? Who knows, but don't deny they do. 49% of Alabama was more put off by liberals, frustratingly, than evil itself. All these readers are acting as if real gun laws will pass. Don't bet on it until publicly funded elections negate the NRA and the Fairness Doctrine comes back to force rational people to debate Hannity on his own horrible show. It would feel good if "President Joe Biden" won in 2020 with all 50 states, but sadly, it will be a very close race (against Trump or Pence). Winning the culture war is a very very long game.
People drive drunk less than they did a generation ago. Was that due to stricter laws or our culture creating a stigma that previously didn't exist? Probably both. Perhaps stigmatizing the gun culture in its current form will turn out to be just as important as changing gun laws, especially considering the vast number of guns already in circulation.
Unless people realize that a large number of supporters of the gun culture are sexually insecure men, meaningful gun control legislation (which is specifically called for in the Second Amendment), will not be passed.
1
Sorry Mr. Brooks, Conservatives have had their chance to work in a bi partisan fashion for healthcare, immigration and the gun issue for years. They never took the chance to work with Progressives. They always had an array of excuses to pile on their retrograde conservative ideas. On top of this agenda they elect a monkey see monkey do who has not only taken the country by surprise but is unravelling the fabric of this society before our eyes by the click of a tweet and the stroke of a pen. No wonder the country is in disarray. No wonder the Progressives are chanting anti- gun refrains from coast to coast and alienating the middle. If Conservatives were no so afraid of losing their " white majority " to the diverse cultures of this country, of seeing their Evangelical creed relegated to a back shelf, if they were a little more welcoming to refugees and willing to reduce the outrageous number of guns we have in America, maybe we could start a conversation....
1
You have it backwards. By treating this as some kind of political game, which can be won or lost by stratagem, you are missing the point. As with the protests against the Vietnam War, gun control is now being recognized as a struggle between simple right and wrong. After years of bombing and shooting up the countryside of a small Asian nation, people realized it was an indefensible evil to continue the killing to pursue a political strategy of stopping the spread of Communism. It is wrong today, beyond doubt and argument, that schools have become killing fields. When these errors and crimes are seen clearly, for what they are, people of good will can be moved to act. Just as McNamara was transformed from a cabinet secretary carrying out the policies of his government to the personification of evil, the NRA mandarins and lackeys in Congress are practicing for their own roles as purveyors of villainy. And the more they refuse to compromise, the more surely they fit the part. That is the beauty of their intransigence. They are willingly, enthusiastically, playing the role that will get them ostracized and, eventually, defeated.
1. Brooks labels groups that stand behind certain beliefs, oddly most of them dealing with women, as hyper-polarizing. left wing groups. Should groups standing up for women's rights be quiet because Brooks thinks there will be a backlash? Maybe the backlash is what is the voices now rising against the NRA and male privilege.
2. Brooks position is not vindicated by the Florida legislature, rather the Florida legislature's refusal to enact gun laws has awakened more people to the importance of voting out these legislators.
3. Brooks uses ludicrous arguments, worthy of FOX news, when he quotes Andrew Sullivan saying belief in inherent psychological differences between men and women, belief that marriage is between a man and woman, and opposition to affirmative action is against workplace codes. It is not the beliefs themselves, but when those personal beliefs in the workplace affect the rights of others that they are a problem. There is also a difference between taking guns away and sensible guns laws. Brooks tries to tie them together. It's the poor us we're being persecuted argument when there is no persecution.
Maybe Brooks needs to use more of his writing to address his own party and how it has been hijacked by the those who put their personal beliefs ahead of democracy and sensible laws that help this country's people..
1
"If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society..."
Mr. Brooks, the people Nixon and Reagan brought into "your" party have, essentially, self-exiled themselves from respectable society. The support you and yours have given the growing inequality and the shrinking of the public commons is exactly why those Florida kids are gaining traction.
When you can write, with a straight face, "...the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups: Planned Parenthood...," you've left the realm of reasoned discourse. I'm surprised you didn't add in The League of Women Voters.
1
Mr. Brooks the time has come for you and others of your mindset to publicly renounce your membership in the GOP. Start another movement or party like they did in France. But to maintain a membership in an organization that refuses to attempt to reign in gun violence, that supports a corrupt and immoral President says a lot. We do need to assure that freedom of speech is available to all people. I agree with the University of Chicago telling students they do not support "safe spaces" and there will be ideas from all presented. That being said, do not blame progressives or liberals for attempting to make our nation a better place for all. The GOP cannot point to this as a central part of their doctrine. They seek to marginalize those who are not religious, who are LBGTQ, who are poor. And to talk about elites - are you kidding me???? What is unfortunate is that many who support the GOP are actually being used. The GOP uses cultural issues to distract people from the fact the GOP seeks to steal their retirement, health care, wage increases, environmental well being, reproductive rights, and yes, the safety of their children in school. I find the Congressional "leadership" of the GOP morally abhorrent. I live in a rural, "red" area. I don't disrespect my neighbors, but I also find that many are incredibly uninformed. That is what I find most troubling.
1
I suppose Brooks is correct that the Left has won the culture wars. Gay marriage, transgender approval and encouragement, political correctness as it pertains to free speech, gun control, sanctuary cities and the protection of illegal criminals, open borders (although that is in dispute), put down of white men all come to mind. Whether these are positive things for the country as a whole remains to be seen.
The problem is that the real issues are not being evaluated for their substance. They are red flags for division. Climate change, guns, environment, defense spending, all of these need careful debate and conclusions based on facts. However, they are nothing more then red flags that cause emotional reactions against those others. We don't discuss or deal with the issues and what they are really about but we use these to define divisions in our society.
if you are a Democrat progressive you are against genetic engineering, even though the science disproves all of your fears, . If you are a conservative you are against the idea of global warming even though the science shows it to be true. Each side has their issues that define them.
You're blaming the left for polarizing things? Get real.
9
Ominous intoning but no insights to see here, folks. Move along.
1
The GOP turned everything into a war. They have been the ones who have, whenever a Democrat is in the White House, demanded an impeachment, looked for a scandal, refused to cooperate, dragged their heels, etc. The GOP has been the party playing identity politics. The GOP started the meme about welfare queens. They are the party that wants to make certain that there's a gun in every home instead of a chicken in every pot. And Mr. Brooks supports the gun in every home party not the idea that FDR put forward with his Four Freedoms.
8
“Continued school shootings could be just the thing that persuades the mainstream that conservatism is...socially illegitimate.” You betcha. Like fire hoses and cop beatings and dogs persuaded the mainstream that segregation was socially illegitimate. Dead kids is a terrible outcome of current conservative legislative policies.
8
"The only thing I’d say to my progressive friends is, be careful how you win your victories."
Funny, I believe that you are seeing what you are seeing in society because CONSERVATIVES, being a minority (40%, by your own estimate), behaved through intimidation:
- No gun regulations at all, or they will come from your guns!
- Deficits will makes us Greece, Greece I tell you! (and then explode the deficit, of course).
- Obamacare will kill your job!
And turns out that nothing of that is or will ever be true. So 60% of the country is on its way of producing a political backlash.
So basically your article is a typical conservative piece: you blame your oponent of what your are actually doing...
4
Please, please stop asking me to show respect to those who turn their collective backs on murdered teenagers and gunned down first graders and their teachers. They are the ones who decided that the fire armed fueled slaughter we endure is the price of freedom.
9
Pretty petulant mea culpa this week, Mr. Brooks. You speak of "illiberal" Liberals alienating those who enable child murder without mentioning vitriol of NRA spokespeople and false-flag "truthers". Will the "backlash" you fear be worse than the murders we avert? And to flip our polarizing tribal terms, what could be more "conservative" than preserving life, and what law is more "liberal" than universal access to unrestricted firepower?
6
Brooks’ final paragraph states that if we exile the 40%(a generous, exaggerated percentage), they will come back with a vengeance, politically. No, David they won’t. They have already exiled themselves among the trash heap of ignorance, racism, bigotry and misogyny on which they so proudly stand. The true values of our country, as espoused by the Democrats, will look to take back our government in November. We are chomping at the bit to do so and there is no stopping us now.
176
The values Democrats now stand for are best seen on college campuses around the country. Marginalize and attack points of view they disagree with. As the actions get more press, middle of the road citizens will see what the Left has now become. Free speech and expression are no longer values of the Left, which is why people formerly of the side of the aisle like Dave Rubin now refer to it as the “Regressive Left.”
4
I have been a Democrat for 67 years. We are progressive, standing up for the rights of all Americans. We use facts and data. We call out ignorance and lies from right wing media . You are entitled to your opinions but not the facts.
Every previous example of totalizing politics leads to a bad place. I fear my political allies are embracing Mao
1
Why is David Brooks always lecturing progressives about moderating their message while his own party is being commandeered by extremists of a far more virulent nature?
If he wants to save conservatism or promote moderation, then he has some immediate and pressing work to do with his compatriots in his own party.
Republican, heal thyself!
12
Brooks is not a Conservative so stop comparing his "milk toast" positioning to true Conservatism.
New gun laws will be laughed at by criminals just like they laugh ed at the ones previously passed. That's why they are criminals....
New laws will be obeyed by lawful citizens, and that is why no more stupid new restrictions on the 2nd Amendment will be tolerated on my Enumerated Constitutionally provided Rights, because criminals disregard laws. Is this news to you?
I'm not on the extremist wing from either side. I've never been to a protest. I lean moderately liberal.
But even I can see that no one aligned with the GOP or today's conservatism has any right to tell liberals they are getting too uppity or that they should win their battles in some polite way. None.
The GOP brought white supremacists and nationalists in the White House, coddled up to Russians who worked to interfere with the democratic process of our elections, then tried to undermine and downplay any investigation into said interference. The GOP has done and will do nothing to prevent the mentally imbalanced from acquiring weapons of war and using them on our children and teachers. The GOP gave us an inveterate liar and narcissist as president, with quite probably the most incompetent, arrogant, vile and cruel cabinet members ever.
They have lost whatever moral high ground they thought they had; their leader has drained the swamp and turned it into a cesspool.
What you are seeing now is a response to all this and more. What you are seeing now is the backlash from decent people appalled by where our country is going.
296
You must be kidding. And you call yourself elite, meaning smart. Wisdom is what we need not smart.
Best answer yet on Brooks' column and there are a lot of good ones.
1
David Brooks laments that no one is listening to him. Also, he warns progressives that they should be polite in the face of the Right's nonsensical arguments, dangerous policy positions, and willingness to protect the most corrupt and dangerous president in US history. What to do now that the NRA and Republican politicians have made clear they care more about Americans having unfettered access to deadly weapons (read: gun makers selling guns) than those weapons routinely being used to kill children? I for one, will continue not listening to him.
2
I would suggest that when Lyndon Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 conservatives were on their way to defeat. What do conservatives support? Bigotry against the groups of their choice. Excluding people from the protections and values of America. At the same time liberals, not leftists, keep pushing for American values. Baby Boomers, Millennials look at conservatives and wonder about their values and their hypocrisy.
2
Quite simply, without progressives there is no culture.... 'get er done' ... hmm or the form of culture you would want to represent our great country.
2
And here I thought Brooks had some good ideas. I'd like to see him cite some examples of where liberals don't respect gun owners?
Where are liberals telling hunters to go to the supermarket for their food?
Where are liberals protesting in front of gun or sporting good stores?
Where are liberals trying to repeal hunting season or price it out of existence.
Where are liberals telling a distraught, abused spouse she should not own a gun for self defense?
The gun owners liberals don't respect are the ones who behave ideologically like terrorists.
Brooks cites overwhelming numbers to show how gun advocates have essentially shut down the debate in elected legislatures, yet he says it is liberals who are trying to shut down debate by limiting speech.
The gun crowd will not even let the government spend money to research gun violence. Who is stifling whom?
And what does not wanting neo nazis to speak on a campus I own through payment of my tuition have to do with the gun debate?
There is nothing that scares a conservative more than a liberal adopting conservative tactics for his own message.
230
Every cultural conflict depends on both sides believing that they are the victim, the underdog, powerless. So when you say 'conservatives have zero cultural power', I understand why you'd say that, and I guess you actually even believe it. But if conservatives have zero cultural power, then shouldn't this culture war be over already? Shouldn't progressives be taking a victory lap right now?
The truth is that political power is connected to, and waaay more important than cultural power, and conservatives have it, in quantities they do not deserve. You think when somebody tells you you're bigoted you're being oppressed. That progressives TALKING is somehow a threat to you. Meanwhile, as you point out, conservative legislatures have been passing laws that put our children in more danger.
How could you possibly equate the two sides of this 'war'? Progressives telling conservatives that their positions are vulgar is not a threat to conservative speech. Conservatives making it easy to get firepower (and hard to get healthcare, and food assistance) is a threat to many, many American lives.
So stop calling conservatives victims- they hold all the power that's important, and they're far from innocent.
4
Sorry David. When the GOP began supporting Trump unabashedly on anything and everything, that's when "conservatism" separated from mainstream America. It was Trump and the ignorance, bigotry and resentment of his supporters that ruined mainstream conservatism.
3
Progressives are already losing the culture war, David.
The hallowed halls of America’s once-great education institutions have become little more than intellectually hollow echo chambers, grand structures that serve little purpose outside the parroting of platitudes from romantic yet impractical philosophies that, despite their repeated historical failures, simply will not die. The sober majority has taken notice, and the free market is responding in kind. Soon America’s ivory tower will be just another rubbled ruin proclaiming its past greatness.
From sea to shining sea, online and other forms of education are becoming so popular that Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen predicts roughly 50 percent of American colleges will go bankrupt within 15 years.
Bye bye progressive nightmare....
3
Wishful thinking on your part.
Many of the conservative,republican,NRA members I know out here in rural America do not want to turn this country into Afghanistan.They don't want a country where everyone is "carrying" to protect themselves against some imagined threat.They don't want to turn their schools into armed camps.Even though none of them went to the "elite colleges " you're so obsessed with and you may think of them as elitist because they're educated;they're not stupid.They are slowly becoming aware that the NRA is turning this country into a shooting gallery and they don't want this for their children.In the coming years some of them just might change their view that owning weapons of war makes them free.A good many of my conservative friends are beginning to want out of the ideological prison the NRA has confined them to.Some of them have read the article written by a Parkland radiologist who described the damage these weapons do to their human targets.Read it in the Atlantic magazine.....it is a whole different slant on the gun debate.It is with these thinking conservatives that a different sort backlash is more likely to occur.As for the "extreme rhetoric" of the "hyper-polarized" Planned Parenthood......have you ever heard Wayne LaPierre speak?
12
Between 2008 and 2016, Barack Obama and the Supreme Court undertook numerous actions to nullify and circumvent the democratic process in significant, altering ways. The media supported it and promoted it. The damage they have done to the entire system of government is grave and lasting.
3
Good point on "elite cultural intimidation", Mr. Brooks. Such follies are what have sunk the Democratic Party. Calling many in the country "deplorables" didn't do much for Mrs. Clinton's campaign, for example, while Bernie's proposals drew enthusiastic, giant crowds. While we're on the topic of elite cultural intimidation, the NYT was all out for it in the 2016 election in the myriad ways it dissed Bernie, though. Perhaps you can show this column to your bosses!
2
There are so many wrong turns in this piece, one hardly knows where to begin. First of all, why are you pointing to progressives as the ones who have polarized the gun debate? The NRA and their conservative minions did that a long time ago by refusing to budge in any reasonable way about gun control, even after the slaughter of babies at Sandy Hook.
Then you blame progressives(!) for the refusal of the Florida legislature to enact gun controls. Huh? As to your prediction that the Dems will lose seats in 2018 in pro-gun states, I'm not so sure. A lot of those kids will be 18 by fall, and they will vote.
Next, you're blaming us for protesting what you yourself call a "separatist subculture". What's wrong with voicing vigorous protests against racists, misogynists, and people who think the Second Amendment gives them unfettered rights to own weapons, even if it means more dead children. You're right about one thing, conservatism right now is "vulgar and illegitimate." But it didn't get that way because of some liberal and progressive elitist cultural criticism. They did it to themselves.
Stigmatize the NRA? You bet. They have bought politicians for decades and created a gun culture that intimidates and harms ordinary people who don't agree with them. Respect the NRA. Not on your life.
5
Rational polite discussions?
The NYTimes published an op-ed by a Marine, now teacher, who clearly stated how a Marine, a MARINE, must earn the right to carry his (or her) weapon; and it was no easy task.
Does any Republican statesman (or woman) stand in front of constituents and suggest rationally, "Please let me know why some one with mental illness with no background check should be able to by a weapon designed on the most effective human killing rifle in our military, when a Marine must spend weeks of training before even being able to lock and load? How 'bout someone under 21 yrs of age? In fact is there a reason why ANYONE should have a weapon that the Marines treat so seriously? What would be your RATIONAL?"
The only answer I fear would be the one I heard at a diner upstate: "I want an AR-15, I wanna be ready."
Ready for what, I ask.
4
No one is trying to exile 40% of the population, just the 1.5% that are NRA members. Imagine what it feels like to have your kid killed as a result of our gun laws being controlled by 1.5% of the population. Boycott the NRA.
8
It’s fair to conclude that Brooks believes men and women have different psychologies, marriage IS between and man and a woman, affimative action is a bad idea. We really have no no idea where he stands on firearms apart from letting the gunowners lead. Ok, where are they? Where are the responsible gun owners you like to talk about? Apparently, they don’t see sit in the Florida legislature. Here’s some advice, David, stop giving advice. NOBODY is listening to you.
2
Mr Brooks says “If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society they will mount a political backlash that will make Donald Trump look like Adlai Stevenson.”
I’m sorry Mr Brooks but Mr Trump is already our worst nightmare. He IS the backlash. That televised meeting on Wednesday seeking solutions after the Fl shootings was to me, nothing short of chilling!
His lack of knowledge in general and of these issues in particular was stunning. His reversal on Friday after meeting again with the NRA on Thursday evening was totally predictable and will tell the Dems that they can never attend a meeting like that with him again or rely on ANYTHING he says (fool me once....).
The worst part is he does not CARE about informing himself about anything because, the only “policy” he really cares about advancing is himself....
4
Mr Brooks should know - conservatives deftly turned disenfranchisement of minorities into the "war on drugs", made "political correctness" a strawman and turned Christianity into a range of single-issues.
Perhaps, a taste of their own medicine has proven to be, well, distasteful.
3
Haven’t won yet.
But we will.
2
What power do progressives have other than to march in the streets and raise the roof in those hallowed, stagnant halls of the Capitol? The Democrats continue their weak, paralytic communication inspiring few. If they can't win in November, it will be curtains. Get those Millennials to vote!
1
It's time. Retire.
3
Thank you for finally considering the possibility that the reason progressives do not have meaningful conversations with conservatives is that there are no William F. Buckley's and Irving Kristol's left in conservative politics, just "cheesy Republicans" ( your words not mine from your article https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/opinion/the-conservative-intellectual... )
Conservatism has been taken over by Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh', Palen and every whacko on the right who enriches himself or herself financially by cultivating an extremist audience (sounds like trump).Yes Republicans have become cheesy and the rest of us in this country are tired of being held hostage by these people.
4
David. You start your column by admitting that your previous advice was mistaken. Why then should we listen to it now—especially when you’re essentially giving a repeat of your initial take: take it easy and show respect for despicable ideas or risk imagined punishment in the future.
Brooks: >>>The big prize here is not gun laws. It’s winning the culture war, with the gunfight as the final battle.>>> Here Brooks is correct. Then he says to progressives, "...be careful how you win your victories. It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation. >>> Which in turn makes him sound like a Fox news broadcaster. Stop with the "elite" vs common man trope. It is as hoary and out of date as "guns don't kill people, people kill people'.
3
David, we progressives are not your friends. We do not need or want your advice about showing respect for what is indefensible - the idea that "freedom" requires letting a 19 year old have automatic weapons that he can use to shoot 17 children to death in a matter of minutes. This is what you are asking us to respect. You must be out of your mind.
Really, your position shows no respect for the facts. The conservative idea that people must have unlimited access to guns to defend themselves from a mythical dictatorship in the future is a fantasy. The fact is that unlimited access to guns is facilitating horrific massacres of innocent people. The conservative idea that marriage equality will destroy society is a fantasy. The fact is that marriage equality harms no one, while banning it harms millions. That is the problem with the columns you write - you want us to give equal time (and respect) to truth and lies. Please start showing respect for the facts or just go away.
4
The key feature to this gun issue will be the reality of continued killing of school children. We continue to discuss it by saying "WHEN the next shooting occurs," not "IF another shooting occurs." The negative has been cast. Keeping the killing of children at the forefront will provide huge impetus.
Prayers are helpful but love of family is very strong too.
2
This moment is different. There are so many liberal shifts that have taken place over th years that have made the lives of every person that lives in this country better. I can’t think of as many conservative moments that have made lives better except when the moments have been thwarted.
I believe that ultimately we are in the midst of another great moment in our country. It is clear that most people do not really believe in the Republican agenda as a whole. Instead, for non-elite conservatives this moment has been about trying to go back in time in a nostalgic sort of a way. But what the supposedly elite progressives understand is history. History is on the side of the liberal agenda for the most part.
Even in liberal/modern failures there has been more good than bad for most people. Science, History and common decency are much more attractive in the long run and as a bonus ultimately better for business.
7
That you cannot read your own words and recognize them as the thinking of a fanatic is what is truly disturbing.
"...republicans control most legislatures."
Bringing an end to Gerrymandering is the single most important item on democracy's agenda. A democracy cannot exist without one person one vote function.
4
You use the term elite - those on the streets of Ferguson are not elite. Moreover, many of the people speaking out are people on the margins, people that the conservatives had deliberately and repeatedly left out. How do conservatives address that. And if we are talking about elitism, let's follow the money, for example the Koch brothers. These arguments are highly selective and at best, disingenuous. Underneath it is a kind of elitism that argues that certain people should know there place and remain silent.
4
I am greatly concerned about the increasing intolerance of the progressive left towards those with different views. Ideas and viewpoints that are completely legitimate--e.g., that marriage is between a man and woman, preferences based on race are inherently wrong despite good intentions, etc.--result in personal attacks rather than reasoned disagreement. Contrary to what some in this forum maintain, our culture is not currently moving towards increasing tolerance but towards increasing intolerance. I am reminded of '1984' and see us slipping towards an Orwellian society. Most of the young progs do not have the intellectual sophistication nor depth of experience to see beyond their own absolute certainty in the superiority of their own beliefs and so can not or do not tolerate those with different viewpoints. The only solution to the world's social problems is respect and kindness towards all individuals and yes, even showing love and compassion towards one's 'enemies'.
10
Brooks and the rest of us elders don't really understand what is going on. Young people, who will control this country in a few years are totally different from those we grew up with. Who among us would have imagined a young man reaching driving age and not even bothering to get a license and seeing the automobile as simply a means to get from one place to another and being more concerned about the pollution it causes than how it looks and how fast it is? We have no concept of the total amount of information - both true and untrue, good and bad - available to them and readily accessed on social media. It is a new world out there and the old guard of both Republicans and Democrats are so concerned with their own generation that they are rapidly making themselves irrelevant.
1
Spot on, David. The progressive strategy is fast morphing into a Stalinesque silencing and exiling of "dissidents".
That may work in other countries, but in a society that offers individuals the recourse of a private ballot booth it may end up in something utterly undesirable. Such as the election of Donald Trump.
3
How kind of David Brooks to come again to the aid of progressives.
Last week, he advised them to afford respect to gun rights advocates, to better foster a productive dialogue.
Now, he admits he may have missed the larger picture, that conservatives are self-marginalizing and are being ostracized.
Yet Mr. Brooks again addresses liberals, cautioning his progressive friends, "be careful how you win your victories."
Why does he single out one side for his attention? Perhaps Mr. Brooks might address the "less educated foes," as he calls them. Perhaps they might be advised to treat progressives with respect, to better start that dialogue.
It's folly to think they would do so, of course. After all, conservatives — and not exclusively those of the Trumpian variety — were never willing to enter that dialogue to begin with. (The name Merrick Garland comes to mind.) As long as Trump occupies the Oval Office, maintaining his stance that giving an inch is to be perceived as "weak," there seems little point in addressing his followers.
I would suggest that progressives are always willing to come to the table for a dialogue. That's the real story here — there now seems to be evidence that they don't intend to back down.
Mr. Brooks could lead by example, addressing and advising the conservatives. Perhaps liberals could learn how to enter that much needed mutual dialogue. Or has Mr. Brooks given up trying to speak to them? It seems that the progressives have, too.
2
I stopped reading at showing gun owners some respect. Most laws are on the side of gun ownership and almost nothing to protect the population from
1. People who should not have a weapon
2. Requiring people with weapons to show proficiency with said weapon
3. The fact that 3% of the population (around 10 million) own 50% of weapons today (around 150 million or 15 per person. In the military I do not believe a soldier carries that number with them) making each person a platoon unto themselves. I would think there can be an issue with a person having that much firepower even for protection (ignoring collectors of antique and unique pieces)
4. Innocent civilians are being murdered for no other reason that people have weapons they should not nor should need (military style)
So Mr Brooks how about showing the 230 million people who do not have weapons and their children some respect
1
Correct me if I'm wrong, David Brooks, aren't you the one who has all these years -- and often with great effect -- preached the virtues of constructive social cohesion and the shortcomings of excessive individualism? What you are summarizing is a society changing its mind -- as societies are wont to do. Men stopped wearing hats. Well, amazing as it is to me also, society appears to be changing its mind about guns -- not by reasoned parliamentary incrementalism but by an irrational but compelling tide of "done with that." Done. DONE.
1
As I write these words, one of the state universities here in Michigan is on lockdown, with reports of an active shooter.
Which leads into what I wanted to write: David Brooks's first point is the most germane. When an NRA spokesperson's applause line to a conservative convention calls out the media for "loving" mass shootings, it is clear that they are doing more to isolate themselves from the American mainstream than progressives ever could have imagined, or wished for.
2
How do you define compromise in this country when wildly opposite sides are taken on values backed by moral fervor? Compromise on the issue of slavery and states rights started with the creation of our constitution and several attempts were made in the decades leading up to the Civil War to find middle ground on the issue. I think you can put abortion and gun rights on the same level where fervent moral conviction is almost impervious to a solution based on conversation and middle ground. I agree with your argument about using political coercion to ram your political agenda down your opponents throat. The majority of citizens in our country today are experiencing just that at the hands of the Trumpian 40%. Political compromise often entails watering down legislation so that it meets a middle ground sufficient to get votes for passage. That ultimately didn’t work in the matter of slavery and I doubt if it’ll work in the matter of gun control and abortion. Another route to compromise might be some kind of swap. Progressives will back down on some abortion issues if the right can come along on stringent gun controls. But how is that supposed to happen? Not in my lifetime.
The conservative movement has been cut off from mainstream society for decades. Their success is due to nothing more than Big Money.
1
I wish you could have chosen other language than suggesting that there will be a "final battle." It is too reminiscent of "final" solutions, especially in light of the resurgence of fascistic ideologies as we saw recently in Charlotesville. But then this is the heart of the nature of conservatism--this exaggerated threat of doom where change is not progress but annihilation.
The only war with truly final outcomes is that being waged on our planetary ecology. Fracking chemicals in the aquifers, the removal of mountaintops, the melting of sea ice at both poles, the last polar bear and the last honeybee--those are truly final. it is baffling why so-called conservatives despise conservation yet this the war they have chosen to wage. The youth see what legacy you seek to hand them, and they don't want any of your program.
2
"Conservatives have zero cultural power, but they have immense political power." I disagree. Conservatives built their immense political power on the foundation of Midwestern and Southern cultural beliefs.
I agree with most of this column’s premises but I don’t think those falling in line with Trunp are true conservatives. Although I am not a conservative, I respect most true conservatives. I continue to be gobsmacked by the Republicans in Congress who continue to prop Trump up. They have completely lost my respect and ,I hope, the votes of their constituents.
2
When I speak to a gun owner, they tell me I am wrong about wanting to ban an AR-15 because I simply don't understand "gun culture." It's true I don't understand growing up surrounded by guns. I didn't grow up in a hunting culture. I grew up in a home without guns, where we purchased our food at the market and didn't find amusement in killing innocent birds. Why must I understand the "gun culture" any more than those who own guns need to understand the other side, those of us who hate guns and think some of those deadly weapons do not belong in a civilized society? One hundred and sixty years ago, would I have been told that I was wrong to want to end slavery because I didn't understand the plantation culture? Sadly, probably.
1
Just a bit of advice on guns to Mr. Brooks from a current and longtime gun owner, the times are changing.
Only thirty six percent of Americans own guns. There are twenty two million fewer hunters than there were just ten years ago. The youth are not hunting and have very little interest in gun ownership.
So who does that leave supporting the gun culture? People like me who are aging and despise the NRA and what it stands for and supports the ban on assault weapons. And others who think guns should be everywhere.
Have we reached a tipping point? I think so even though the politicians do not. The 2018 midterms may tell us a lot. I think a politician can run on gun control where just a few short years ago, it would have been unthinkable.
1
Common sense attitudes about gun control are what is driving this debate. I simply don't understand how any reasonable person can argue with a straight face that access to assault-style weapons, large magazine clips, and things like bump stocks have not been the cause of the most egregious mass murders in this country. Most Americans respect the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms for hunting and self protection. Yes, determined murderers will always find a way to kill, but they can only wreak such terrible carnage when armed with weapons of mass destruction. That is the fact that has become so painfully obvious to everyone besides the NRA and those politicians in their pockets. This is not a game of one-upsmanship. This is simply a matter of emerging common sense and a clear vision of what needs to happen to make us all safer.
1
There is no "mainstream culture" anymore. People have siloed themselves into their own small worlds, trying to avoid the glare of Big Brother. The radical left now controls the legacy media completely. So anyone who is not a member of the radical left has to look elsewhere. There is no question that the left and the Democratic Party are increasingly authoritarian in their cultural purges. But it is not unipposed. It is the reason Donald Trump is president.
19
Perhaps what you really want to say is you feel oppressed by not being able to freely express anti-social comments and opinions about "others" as was once socially acceptable to do.
2
I guess if being against mass murder in schools makes one a member of the "radical left", we should all be members.
1
Creating a cultural attitude that stigmatizes support for the NRA and guns does nothing for school safety. The people who shoot up public places, and there are very few of them, aren't going to be influenced by elite opinion. There is a strong cultural gun ownership is meaningless. It might make a lot of middle class people feel-good, but that's about it.
5
Mr. Brooks sees a culture was. I see humanity crying out to take care of and respect each other. When are people realize that progressives come from All segments of society?
102
David Brooks seems to live in an intellectual equivalent of a cave- conservative ideals that can’t be stripped away with an election cycle are gaining more momentum in groups that the “mainstream” culture thought it had locked down: younger people, and nevermind that “progressive” used to be proudly associated with counterculture. But now it seems to have switched, and the same progressives who fought so hard to not be marginalized are now doing the same to their conservative counterparts. But back to my main point: I’m not talking the millennial who has no sense of a solid identity, but the age generation before. We had the best of both worlds- we understood that TIME is the great mover, not law. More and more people are turning their heads in disgust at what progessivism is doing to our minds by legislating culture, dictating what should and shouldn’t be said or heard. Again and again, even when it comes to gun control, you think it’s a matter of law. Yes, there should be reform, regulation, and change to prevent these terrible shootings. But how quickly liberals swing: precious topics to them like mental health go out the window. The Parkland shooter talked about killing animals. And then he pulled the trigger. Can liberals talk about two things at once? No. It’s because liberals have no solid ground on which to stand on. It’s situation by situation. Progressive policies are looked at as a battle, and while progressives might be winning some, the war is far from over.
"The blunt fact is that Republicans control most legislatures"
I want to pull my hair when anyone says that Congress can't get anything done. No. It's the Republicans in Congress who WONT get anything done.
2
The Constitution does not guarantee any right to vote to women, and we have moved past that. Stop trying to pit people against each other: liberals vs conservatives particularly. Most people are asking to make schools a little safer by doing something, raising the age to purchase a gun or attention to mental illness are not taking away any second amendment rights. The Congress may not be able to make any laws about guns [now or ever], but Kroger's, Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart seem to be injecting some sanity in the discussion.
3
You were almost there, Mr. Brooks, and then you just couldn't stop yourself from resorting to the very thing that hung you up in the first place. This reckoning over gun violence is coming from the kids who are apolitical. Their insistence that something be done has been there before, in the anguish of previous "events", but this is the first time that young adults have taken the helm. Automatically resorting to warning progressive elites against blowing it just misses the point. Of course, this will have to be dealt with legislatively. But it won't be driven by the legislators.
You say progressives are trying to exile 40% of the population, but right now that 40% is running the show while more moderate and progressive voters have been disenfranchised by gerrymandering and (yes some self-sorting) that has consistently allowed the minority -- driven by extreme Republican primary voters -- to rule in Congress and state houses. These legislators have pursued policies on guns that are NOT supported by a majority of Americans but are demanded by rabid NRA absolutists. The Parkland kids had the courage to call out the NRA. I pray this is a turning point that will finally break the NRA's stranglehold on gun policy. The biggest mistake we've made is believing that's impossible, while the body count keeps growing.
1
Brooks is a thoughtful writer, but too often that virtue only carries him into the first half of his editorials, at which point he retreats to his bunker of boilerplate rhetoric and uncritical values claims. This article is a case in point, where he concludes with a strange array of hasty conclusions and caricatures in the last two paragraphs. To say conservatives have zero cultural power is sociologically misguided and rhetorically simplistic. Just to take one example, by and large the corporations that have stepped back briefly from the NRA are still thriving in a conservative economic system and culture. Another favorite go-to shot is Brook's use of the word "elite", and contrasting it with "less educated", a wink to some of Brook's readership no doubt. Until Brook's starts referring regularly to himself as an elitist, he should stop conflating educational achievement with elitism. In the end, if he has a mind sharp enough to ask nuanced questions about culture and politics, he should have the courage to truly wrestle with them for the benefit those he likes to call the "less educated" among us.
Social norms change. The old generation, unwilling to bend, gets left behind. Slavery, suffrage, empire, foreign wars, gay rights, equality, religious freedom. Each generation think they stand at the apex of history, with some version of David Brooks, heroically taking a stand against cultural "change". Luckily for humanity, we have limited life spans. Ned Roberts already this it better than I. Refer to his comment.
How is asking for universal background checks or red flag gun protection orders "exiling 40% of the country from respectable society"? How is a discussion about limiting the types of weapons and magazine capacities denigrating all of conservatism as "vulgarity"? I think plenty of people would be willing to try to have rational discussions about what gun laws are appropriate. However, every time a mass shooting occurs, gun absolutists continually say "now is not the time to talk about it". How many lives must be lost to make it acceptable to talk about gun laws? It is absurd for Mr. Brooks to somehow reduce this topic to a rejection of all conservative thought. Perhaps Mr. Brooks and his fellow conservatives should look at the inflammatory screed from Mr. LaPierre and ask themselves, is this really what we believe? Is this the hill we will plant our conservative flag? A hill where gun absolutists won't even allow the study of gun violence, let alone consider any changes to gun laws? Or perhaps there are ways conservatives can reach out and engage in this discussion without the pretense that this is an "aggressive cultural crusade" against their very identity . This is not a cultural crusade against all of conservatism, this is desperation and anger at the complete dereliction of leadership to try to prevent mass shootings.
2
Very perceptive. People are intimidated and afraid to say anything in public that contradicts political correctness. People who hold politically correct beliefs don't understand this, as they do not experience it. But people - even people in the center like myself - feel quite a chill in public discourse. "It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation. Illiberalism breeds illiberalism. Using elite power, whether economic or cultural, to silence less educated foes usually produces a backlash.
Conservatives have zero cultural power, but they have immense political power. Even today, voters trust Republicans on the gun issue more than Democrats. If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society they will mount a political backlash that will make Donald Trump look like Adlai Stevenson."
"It could be that progressives understood something I didn’t. It could be that you can win more important victories through an aggressive cultural crusade than you can through legislation."
Come on David, I know you know the GOP has done exactly that. Their crusade is decades old, it has been aggressive and it has been cultural. That is exactly how they managed a stranglehold of that 35 % of the population who are now the base of Trump's power. What is Fox but a cultural and agressive tool for manipulating/fooling the American citizenry. The GOP is so good at it that they used this crusade to PREVENT legislation (under Obama). And if/when that doesn't work so well, they just gerrymander to their advantage.
"It could be that you can win more important victories through an aggressive cultural crusade than you can through legislation. Progressives could be on the verge of delegitimizing their foes, on guns but also much else, rendering them untouchable for anybody who wants to stay in polite society...If progressives can cut what’s left of the conservative movement off from mainstream society, they will fundamentally alter the culture war..."
You're finally getting it, Mr. Brooks. Now, on to the ballot box in about eight months.
1
“Polite society” needs to change their attitude or they will soon find themselves with their backs against a wall facing a bunch of angry outcasts with AR-15s. It’s happened before. It will happen again.
I see that my comment on Mr. Brooks op-ed has been deleted. Is Mr. Brooks, like Trump, so fragile that he cannot take scathing criticism when it's warranted. He certainly writes plenty of nonsense and scathing criticisms himself. In fact his main target are the very people who are being done wrong by the party he shills for. Again, I'd like to know what Mr. Brooks is imbibing because it seems to fuel his wild fantasies that, when the majority of Americans didn't elect Trump and the majority want gun control enforced or made better, it's a progressive issue.
Wanting to be able to survive the day, to have one's friends and family come home at the end of the day in one piece is not a progressive or a conservative issue. It's not part of a war either. It's something that we, as human beings, desire. If Mr. Brooks cannot comprehend that simple truth he doesn't understand human nature.
6
What Brooks is describing used to be called totalitarianism, and that, essentially, has become the meaning of progressivism. It will not win the culture war because of that. It doesn't ask citizens to choose but denies them choice. It doesn't ask them to reason but denies them independent reason, free judgement. So the effect of progressivism is to split society, and to split it radically, perhaps to the point where national unity is no longer possible and institutions no longer function. What many Americans saw on CNN the other night scared the bejesus out of them, whatever their position on guns.
The the conservatives have a huge amount of cultural power, but not in Brooks' neighborhood or cocktail circles.
When I lived in Texas I would never dream of putting a Democratic sign on my lawn or sticker on my car, and I was pretty restrained about what I said in public.
3
David Brooks assumes that all of society fits within a few rigid
patterns and that the dominant national directions depend on the ebb and flow of clever political strategy between these island fortresses. Just as an experiment, why not give citizens credit for more discretionary thinking ? For example, recognizing the substantial community that has no interest in demonizing gun owners but also believe that America has gone off the deep end in rejecting any kind of gun control. The young people in Florida provide an encouraging model for this kind of flexible thinking. Yes they have attracted many strident, extreme supporters but somehow seem to remain remarkably balanced themselves. In interviews they rarely use expletives to describe opponents but just seem to radiate a strong moral and logical presence. This seems to be a much stronger model for future constructive changes in American society. It’s not progressive or conservative – it’s logical, moral, thinking.
4
People shut down debate for 2 reasons: they don't have the facts or they don't have the brains.
In turn-of-the-century America, getting a gun was as easy as opening the Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue. There you could get any gun you wanted at 10 bucks or so a pop. Guns were advertised for kids, for fun, for protection, for hunting…
And for Christmas. Santa was shown packing more than his sack. Guns were ubiquitous. They were de rigueur. They were part of the American tableau.
And there were no mass shootings. Any serious examination of mass shootings must ask why.
The earliest mass shooting at a school that I could find occurred on Aug 1, 1966. The University of Texas massacre. 17 were killed & 31, wounded. The shooter had earlier murdered his wife & mother. It was the deadliest shooting on a U.S. college campus until the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007
What happened in 70 yrs to produce mass shooters?
Of course there are obvious factors: the disintegration of the family; the devaluing of life; a pc culture that protects the civil rights of the killer at the expense of the civil rights of his victims; violence-inducing, compliance-required psychotropic drugs replacing asylums; kleptocratic cool; 2-tier justice; engineered obsolescence…
But what I suspect is the overriding cause—Hollywood movies & Silicon Valley games. They don't simply normalize & desensitize. They train the neuromuscular system to make boys more efficient, more effective, more reflexive killers.
7
What happened in 70 plus years? (Actually it's only 50 plus). Assault weapons, that's what happened.
1
There is s third reason people shut down debate. It is to silence, intimidate and marginalize their opponents. The calls for companies to break ties with the NRA, shut down NRA TV and boycott any person or business who disagrees is straight out of the totalitarian handbook. I see friends on Facebook casually post these boycotts without any comprehension that they are undermining their own first amendment rights.
Well, David you are partially correct. Conservatives are losing the cultural wars, but it is not for the reasons you give. It is because they support ideas like 2 + 3 = 23. People are beginning to realize that a lot of beliefs that conservatives hold simply contradict reality. They contradict data and history. People see conservatives lie over and over and over again. For example they have to continued to point to the work of John Lott on guns in spite of the fact that he has been shown to be a fraud over and over and over again. Why he even posed as an imaginary female student of his to submit comments praising himself.
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/
But that is just one area. I have been posting 10 myths that conservatives believe. Here are some:
1. Significantly (say, 10% or more) paying down the federal debt has usually been good for the economy.
2. The single payer health care systems of other developed countries produce no better results at not much lower costs.
3. The very high top tax rates after WWII combined with high real (ratio of taxes actually paid to GDP) corporate taxes stifled economic growth.
4. A small ratio of federal debt to GDP has always insured prosperity.
5. Our ratio of our corporate taxes actually paid to GDP is among the highest of all developed countries.
6. As a percentage of GDP, today's federal debt service is the highest in many years.
4
The assumption being made here is that there really hasn't been a change in beliefs about, say, gay marriage, so much as suppression of contrary views. Another possibility is that "liberal" cultural beliefs are gaining ascendancy because they are more justifiable than "conservative" beliefs about many cultural issues. Many individuals are evolving from one position (anti-gay marriage) to another, better position.
12
When the people were still allowed to vote on the issue, over 30 states, including California, voted to maintain the traditional definition of marriage, which has existed since the beginning of time. That one man in a black robe voted to wipe out the votes of millions less than ten years later is not proof of overwhelming public support. Neither are opinion polls conducted by the media a substitute for voting.
Control the media, control the courts, impose law through the courts, defend it in the media. That is the left's idea of getting things done. Cut the voters out of the loop, do what you want, then demonize anyone who dissents.
1
" hyper polarized left wing groups -- Planned Parenthood--"
David, you have completely lost it. How can anyone take you seriously?
But back to your argument. No, the diluted middle, which now has become the left, lost the war for control of political discourse years ago after Reagan's puppeteers set out to change the terms. Soon, we had the Democrat Party,the Death Tax, Welfare Queens, Willie Horton. etc. The Coors,Krocks, Hunts , Mellons ( the Kitchen cabinet) founded the right wing think tanks which have replaced the liberal academics as the dominant source of current norms.
It will take a similar well funde, focussed long term counter attack to turn the tide. Seventeen more murdered innocents will have no effect whatever.
6
Talk is cheap Mr. Brooks. It is time for you to discard the mantle of the menacing cowardly anti-American republican party and become human again. If we as a nation are to survive we need to stamp out, with no regard for niceties, the filth that pervades the party of your choice. We need to call a spade a spade. The NRA, gun nuts, and gun manufacturers are complicit in the gunning down of our children. This needs to be shouted out loud and clear until the insane ones get the message.
4
Oh, come on David.
The so-called mainstream Republicans, you included, were more than happy to embrace the Swift Boaters, Birthers, and Lock Her Up crowd, to win elections. Ever hear of the Southern Strategy? Tens of millions were spent by the Koch ilk to trash the left with attacks on the left's loyalties and personal morality. Ever catch Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh?
I don't know if it will result in political gain but the left is now fighting back.
12
Remind, which party has aggressively and consistently worked to suppress voters? Hint: It isn't the group you've labeled the fascists.
Gee, I didn't realize that Planned Parenthood was a "hyper-polarizing left-wing group". For all these decades I thought it was an organization devoted to the nuts and bolts of keeping America's women and families healthy and intact.
Mr. Brooks, where did you come up with this fascinating fact? Perhaps you learned it from the Fox "news" channel?
Dan Kravitz
16
I would agree progressives increasingly act like fascists and attempt to silence dissent. However, if by "polite society," you refer to the progressive mandarin class, you are correct there are not nearly enough to you to win elections and pass legislation in most states.
4
You have conducted an open propaganda war against the United States Government for forty years. Which the Russians now have weaponized against the citizens of the Untied States.
America stands nearly defenseless yet you do not rush to defend us you rush to defend the indefensible.
You have failed in every moral, political and religious sense.
The scales are falling from their eyes and they see you for the corrupt beliefs you hold.
We tried to reason with you
But we will not appease you
Remember your three Rs
Repeal
and
Replace
ALL
Republicans
Dave
5
This is the thinking and attitude that gave us Trump
2
Absolutely nothing has been done (or I fear will be done) to curb the spread of unregistered guns or assault weapons, women's rights are quickly eroding, a Christian preacher lay in state in the Capitol yesterday, a racist president incites hatred against all who are not white, vendors can serve patrons based on their religious beliefs, the oligarchs & elites engorge themselves at the expense of everyone else, and we are sending the young, lower and middle class youths to die in multiple wars.
Good to know progressives are winning the culture wars!
6
David, did you dream this essay while you were sleeping because it is rife with wishful thinking and little understanding of reality? Why do you cringe and mollify when Americans stand up against insanity?
4
Yes. You're wrong on the subject of guns. And here's why.
None of this benighted resistance to removing AR-15s from elementary schools has a thing to do with guns. It's about telling progressives and liberals who runs this country. If the subject wasn't guns, it'd be something else.
Give the gun fanatics the 'respect' -- whatever THAT is -- that they claim they want. That will only get you more irrational, self-pitying self-righteousness, because appeasement never works.
2
There are no AR-15s in elementary schools to remove.
I'd guess that nearly every public school already legally banns the presence of any firearms or weapons entirely. Nikolas Cruz was EXPELLED from his high school for bringing a KNIFE in his backpack -- just a couple of months prior to the shooting.
Dear Mr Brooks,
We have been winning the culture war ever since Socrates drank the poison.
1
Pity the poor conservatives. Every time kids are shot to death in a school their desire to keep America as the most heavily armed nation in history is questioned. Every time they try to convince us that men and women aren't equal, that LGBTQ folks shouldn't get the same privileges as straights, and that non-whites don't deserve to be where they are they get questioned. They control most state and all Federal government, have worked tirelessly and effectively to keep guns in the hands of, well everybody, and yet those mean, old liberals are still here, asking questions. And now they are going to lose their 5% discount on flights in and out of Atlanta! Yes, they know who the real victims are.
6
"Progressives could be on the verge of delegitimizing their foes, on guns but also much else, rendering them untouchable for anybody who wants to stay in polite society. That would produce social changes far vaster than limiting assault rifles."
May your words rise from this page to the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendages. Ramen.
5
The Second Amendment says nothing about a fetish.
We no longer speak the same language.
4
"Conservatives have zero cultural power"
It was good up till that point. Then it Brooks decided to make a parting shot with the new conservative victimhood.
3
Seventeen teenage bodies lying dead on schoolroom floors, hunted like animals with an assault rifle held legally in the hands of a nineteen year old boy. And we read that the left anti-gun crowd is polarizing, hysterical, extreme. Count me in.
4
One by one, things come to pass whose time has come. (Grammar?) Anyway: universal suffrage, child labor laws, labor safety laws, financial regulation, social welfare, desegregation, bi-racial marriage, gay rights and gay marriage and coming soon, gun legislation. These came because enough people were ready, especially enough educated and empowered (and usually, affluent) people. Yes, there will be gun controls eventually--does is really have to be after more mass shootings? The history is not encouraging. Universal healthcare, in fact if not in name, is coming. America is, overall, a more progressive, rather than regressive, society. The current plague in the White House is a glaring exception. You might be surprised, though, at the legislation Tyrannosaurus Rump (T.Rump) might sign if Dems regain the House and Senate. Yeah, not likely any time soon. But you never know. You just never know. And "Amen" to V's comment!
3
As is so often the case, you start well and then can't close the deal, as you backtrack into incoherence and goodthinkfulness. Is there no way to say, once and for all, that supporters of the NRA are complicit with murder?
5
David makes the point "Illiberalism breeds illiberalism " to caution 'progressives' of their society threatening tactic. If he was the clear thinking reasonable non-tribal pundit he would have us believe he is, he might have mentioned in passing that the entire rightward turn of conservatives has been characterized as cultural by them.
David likes to position himself as a role model of the reasonable conservative, but as I have noticed before, he is often blind to his own brand of intellectual hypocrisy. Physician heal thyself. I promise to pay close attention to your critiques of people like me, when you acknowledge the realities of your own tribe.
2
I was following with little objection until I got to 'hyper-polarizing left-wing groups: Planned Parenthood, Move On and the Women's March.' That's a sick joke.
5
Where is this war? Is there such an effete and stupid place as that?
Here are some things which are not a culture war: Law. Knowledge. Facts. Compassion. Awareness. Generosity. Responsibility. Creativity. Power.
Truth, and what is right.
All there for you in the dictionary.
There's Freedom. There's police with military weaponry. They can search anyone they want for drugs on any roadway or sidewalk. Ten years for a first crack offense, but not cocaine. There's three strikes. Executions, too.
Is the War on Drugs, that has incarcerated millions, what you mean, by a culture war?
There's wealth and masses of poverty. The very media which decries stratospheres of wealth, spends 99% of its content on celebrity, style, and luxury.
I have pneumonia, hit hard. Even with Uber to get medicine and food my fever went up. By the library, where the people from the food bank rest, I didn't like to see people just my age, who surely have the flu, on the cold cement, and no $5.99 for Swiss throat lozenges.
There are people with voices. Children raised their fists and demanded change, after their friends were massacred in their midst. Innocence articulated: we fell in love.
Imagine black kids sick to death of their tragedy, angry, passionately shouting, without being enveloped by riot tape and police.
There's no Culture War.
There's just the world and how we use it.
Or, perhaps you mean to say that Reality itself, should adjust its attitude, and learn to get along.
6
Mr. Brooks, I wanna see a sea of hands out there... I want everybody to kick up some noise, I wanna hear some revolution... Mr. Brooks, the time has come for each and every one of you to decide whether you are going to be the problem or you are going to be the solution! You must choose, Mr. Brooks, you must choose. It takes five seconds, five seconds of decision, five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet. It takes five seconds to realize that its time to move, it's time to get down with it. Mr. Brooks, it's time to testify. And I want to know - are you ready to testify? Are you ready??
5
"Democrats are more likely to lose House and Senate seats in the key 2018 pro-gun states."
Where in the world does this alternative fact come from??? Clearly David Brooks has been too busy looking at his navel and pondering the fracturing of the American idea this past year to pay attention to all the electoral analysis, polls and special election data that show Democrats are most likely to gain House and perhaps even Senate seats across the nation, including those 2018 pro-gun states.
5
Mr. Brooks, I admire your sneaky prose. You go out of your way to seem sympathetic to "progressives". As you commonly do, you aggressively overgeneralize what you deem to be the facts- "all sorts of formerly legitimate opinions have now been deemed beyond the pale on elite campuses" is a glaring example. I will leave it to others to shred your arguments, I do not find them convincing. But let me highlight for others your clearly divisive tactics: progressives broadly believe in fairness and this is a large umbrella where you clearly feel you don't belong. It is pretty easy to divide us based on this large umbrella and it is clear to me from this piece that is what you are trying to do. But we progressives need to stand firm in our basic principle of fairness for all. The truth seekers will win, and that is something you are not. You have formed your opinions and are immovable. You can't handle the truth!
5
Another lesson in black - white thinking. When children mature, they usually get beyond this and can handle nuanced and ambivalent feelings. Perhaps, we have been calling David Brooks to get out of his ivory tower and mingle with the common people and he has degenerated in his thinking into one of them. So sad.
2
Why must the debate about gun safety be a culture war?
3
Progressives need no advice from right wingers. The whole idea of "culture wars" was invented by them to distract us as our wallets were stolen.
2
If affirmative Action is correct, than I should have played in the NBA.
1
Read carefully and, once and for all, settle the "snowflakes" issue. Brooks, basically, suggests that "progressives" should tip toe around the right wing extremists so that they do not hurt their feelings and, thus, create a political backlash against progressive policy. This is what happens, ladies and gentlemen, when you view the world through ideological-tinted glasses: you try to fit everything you see in neat little boxes and when you can't - as inevitably you will not eventually - you resort to nonsense, unwillingly, of course.
Oh please. Not more of the American Idea: “…depolarize the issue: show gun owners some respect, put red state figures at the head and make the gun discussion look more like the opioid discussion.” Time to say good bye to some of our shibboleths of the past – approaches that lead to innovation without change, that have allowed people like Mr. Brooks say: “see, our political system works”, but that left too many people at the bottom of the ladder and further concentrated power the hands of a few. Dare I also mention the travesty that was the complete lack of any legal consequences for the US firms that crashed the global economy in 2008?
Maybe, it’s not being “illiberal”. Just maybe, people are actually just fed up with inaction and corruption. The top 5 Senators – all Republican – led by Saint John McCain at $7.5 million, received a total of $28 million from the NRA. The top 5 members of the House – again, all Republican – got more than $3 million. In what universe does this make sense or seem right, other than perhaps a third world dictatorship – although I guess at least our payola is on the table.
Time to get real. And lose the elitist attitude.
2
The inability of today’s conservatives to offer anything except false bromides and empty prayers leaves ample room for the encroachments of bureaucratic liberal despotism.
1
David Brooks, why should I show respect to gun owners, especially those who own assault weapons? Their fetish for unfettered gun ownership defies common sense and decency. 30,000 people a year are killed by guns, sometimes in mass shootings, sometimes by angry ex spouses, sometimes by children who accidentally kill each other, and I'm supposed to respect them or the careless parents. Where is their respect for us, the majority of Americans who think the perversion of the 2nd amendment is a travesty. How also can you call move on and planned parenthood hyper partisan and totally ignore the NRA? Sometimes you write things that make some sense, but you have definitely jumped off the deep end lately with your stance on gun regulations? What would you be writing if one of your own grandchildren had been a victim at the Parkland School? Shame on you!
4
Mr. Brooks, I have enjoyed your columns, but this one, respectfully, lacks self-awareness.
Why?
Because you warn the left not to alienate a powerful political force without recognizing that a powerful political force has so overplayed its hand that now there is a liberal backlash. What can be more alienating than watching our children slaughtered by scores and watch as conservatives callously line up to find everything else in the world to blame, but guns? Right wing gun nuts are literally threatening the lives of children who are speaking out against gun violence in the wake of the Parkland killings. Lawmakers stupidly note that it would be ineffective to get rid of just certain types of weapons and that to really do something you'd have to get rid of all these weapons...and then where would you be? I mean, Rubio's comments were so stupidly revealing.
Or how about the dumb tax cut for corporations? So they highlight anomalous stories of companies giving bonuses (scraps) to their workers, but stock buy backs reached $200 billion. but I digress.
So consider me alienated. Consider me outraged. Consider me a person who looks at a gun rights supporter in a similar vane as those who support big tobacco. They are complicit in the killings of Americans. That's not an extreme position. It's fact.
3
But Brooks, you (unfortunately) STILL have the pesky second amendment.
I work with these kids - they have acute hypocrisy detectors and aren't too fond of tautologies. If I was a republican't, I'd be very worried...
1
“Conservatives have zero cultural power.” Including David Brooks...
2
The constant whining by conservatives about college students and "speech codes" is pathetic. I'm sorry you feel oppressed because you can't denigrate groups of your fellow citizens. Maybe you should have thought of that back in the days of the Defense of Marriage Act.
"The blunt fact is that Republicans control most legislatures."
Thats because progressives (aka liberals), have been losing the culture wars ever since Barack Obama was elected President.
Liberal governance just doesnt work. The problem with liberalism is, the real world always seems to get in the way.
Need proof? Obama's liberal governance gave us 8 Trillion in added debt, the worst economic recovery in US History, paltry sub 2% growth the past 8 years, food stamp expenditures have doubled, and ISIS the JV Team slaughtered hundreds of thousands as Obama dithered and told us they were contained. Trump wiped out ISIS in 8 short months.
and thats what scares liberals to death. They are afraid Trump will show America what life is like opposite of liberal governance, and they may just like it.
President Obama brought us back from the brink of a depression. He saved the auto industry. Stock market soared. Unemployment was low, as millions of jobs were added. Fox News negative spin on all of these accomplishments cannot erase the fact that President Obama is ranked 8th among all presidents and trump is ranked 45th out if 45th.
I meant, 'I do not want semi-automatic weapons sold....'. My mistake.
To be honest I stopped reading David Brooks a long time ago. I think it was when he was on his "humility" bent. A while back a friend said "Brooks has an interesting idea that we should let Red States lead the way on guns". I say OK and then read this: "Progressives could be on the verge of legitimizing their foes, on guns but also much else, rendering them untouchable for anybody who wants to stay in polite society. That would produce social changes far vaster than limiting assault rifles." David it is not progressives doing that it is Trump who delegitimizes everything he touches, looks at comes in contact with. Just like the presidents* ridiculous WH meeting where he proposes things HE KNOWS the NRA will fight against. Whats he do next?Has dinner with NRA execs who afterwards say "He has come back to our position". Now I can stop reading Brooks again because it is obvious Brooks has not the vaguest idea of what is going on in America.
3
"The only thing I’d say to my progressive friends is, be careful how you win your victories. It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation. Illiberalism breeds illiberalism. Using elite power, whether economic or cultural, to silence less educated foes usually produces a backlash."
When women marched and protested to vote, when MLK started marching and protesting against Jim Crow and KKK "justice", and when people march and protest tens of thousands of violent deaths by gun, it was not "illberals breeding illiberalism" who were trying "to silence less educated foes". Brooks
1
Yeah, no, the big prize here for Progressives IS in fact gun laws. If that's part of your "culture war", so be it, but for many of us it's a simple battle to keep our kids safe.
2
On the question of whether or not the NRA is a terrorist organization: I think one could reasonably argue that an organization whose actions and policies result in 50,000 civilian deaths every year, and which defends arming sworn enemies of the government (you have to water that tree of liberty) could rightfully be called a terrorist organization. But if that’s a step too far for “moderates”, imagine this. Instead of Wayne LaPierre, the NRA is headed by Louis Farrakhan. Which is not to say Farrakhan is a terrorist, far from it. But a Farrakhan-run NRA would scare the bejeebers out of white Americans. Terrorize them, as it were. Brooks can scoff at the idea of the NRA being terrorists because Americans (aka Republicans) identify terrorism with dark skin and non-christian polemicists. How could LaPierre be a terrorist? He looks like a grandpa (albeit a spittle-flecked and florid grandpa) who holds a Bible aloft whilst demanding that his members all have access to military weapons. That’s American!
2
"Conservatives have zero cultural power"? Try being atheist for five minutes in this society.
4
Rather than call the NRA a terrorist organization, call it a Well Regulated Militia.
And then hold it responsible for the well regulation of its members, and liable for the bad things that happen when that regulation does not go well.
There is a lot in this article to take issue with. But the central theme is correct. How you win can be even more important than winning. The 40 percent who continue to support Trump are not all racists. Most are working people who are struggling with the changes taking place in the world. Telling them to get over it or name calling is not constructive, and if we are honest, not kind or compassionate. Our anger is misplaced. It should be focused on those who manipulate the public for private gain.
We need everyone working together if we are going to overcome the very real challenges we face from global warming and a growing population. Our planet is approaching an inflection point, and if we are not careful, life as we have known it will not continue. We are going to need each other going forward.
5
I've been reading your column for a long time. I even read your books which changed my thinking and I decided to get a masters in organization development and now a doctorate in psychology. But I think it's time we part ways, because you are fundamentally wrong with this statement "the students from Parkland are being assisted by all the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups: Planned Parenthood, Move On and the Women’s March." I think there is a defensive projective identification throughout this piece that you Mr. Brooks must reconcile. You are off base, and I hope you return.
8
I don't know how much attention it has been getting nationally, but here in Georgia I've seen disgusting examples of corruption driving politics. Delta was giving the NRA a subsidy (discounted airline tickets) and was itself receiving a subsidy from the state government ( a targeted tax cut) . When Delta cut its gun subsidy in the wake of the Florida murderers, the NRA retaliated by having its lackeys in the government cut the tax subsidy. Whether the tax subsidy was justified or not, nobody cares. It's all about power and tit-for-tat.
5
In the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Presidential elections the conservative Republican Party candidate won 57%, 59% and 58% of the white American majority vote. Trump is Reagan without any of the governing, political and acting talent or experience.
But the white American majority is aging and shrinking with a below replacement level birthrate. While the only whites having babies come from the bottom of the socioeconomic educational pyramid. And white life expectancy is uniquely decreasing due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide.
Conservatives have white majority power and political power. While progressives have white minority power plus a majority of the minority power of young and growing non-white European Judeo-Christians.
1
And you seem to be gloating about the human misery and despair that is behind the increasing mortality of whites at younger ages. And that says a lot about you and your viewpoint.
@LiveFree
" you seem to be gloating"?
Despite being part European white, part African black, part Native brown and part Asian yellow I am all and only black in America.
About 2/3rds of the 33,000+ gun shot deaths each year are suicides. And 80% are white men.
Two of my black relatives committed suicide by handgun.
Black opioid addiction was treated as an ignorant, immoral and lazy criminal justice mass imprisonment problem. But white opioid addiction is not a criminal justice issue.
1
"If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society they will mount a political backlash that will make Donald Trump look like Adlai Stevenson."
Oh yeah? Fine, the rest of us 60% will have to make sure that they never get that chance -- ever.
2
Oh, Moe Larry, bring me my cheese please. This isn't culture war -- or, to be more precise, it isn't a left vs. right or progressive vs. conservative culture war. It's common sense versus dangerous nonsense.
Tighter oversight of gun sales is a necessary part of a broader process to reduce firearm violence. That process will also have to include "cultural" or social aspects. Such as, eroding the notions that max firearms equal freedom, and that we'll all be safer if more of us pack pistols, and that shooting people is manly. These are foolish and dangerous notions. (Insert obligatory street cred here: Yes I know firearms, I learned to shoot as a boy, but now I've known too many people who were killed by gunfire or killed others, etc. etc., all true. Sigh.)
Foolish and dangerous, versus common sense. Why does common sense have to be labeled liberal?
2
Now this is a hopeful view, and departure from his more moderate stance! There is a kind of alchemy that creates more permanent cultural change. No doubt it occurs even when there seems no evidence of it, even when it seems to go in reverse. No one can be sure of the outcome, even as each of us acts in our chosen ways to promote change. As with today's weather, maybe we are in the midst of a "perfect storm" for accelerated cultural change.
1
"The people pushing for gun restrictions have basically done the exact opposite of what I thought was wise. Instead of depolarizing the issue they have massively polarized it."
I honestly don't know why you would have thought any such thing, knowing, as we all do, that Republicans, since Newt Gingrich's "Contract With [On] America," have deliberately pushed discourse on political issues as far hyper-right as possible in order to shift the Overton Window of "normal discourse" (you know what that is, of course) as far right as possible.
That the left is starting to stake out a hard claim about assault gun slaughter should come as no surprise whatsoever -- and not just because, yes, slaughter of innocents is the astoundingly serious question, but also because a hard left position here is simply a matter of fighting fire with fire, after long, woeful learning. You have yourself, Mr. Brooks, said that even Reagan would not be recognized as a Republican today. Among other things -- to be precisely on point here -- Reagan specifically said assault weapons had no place in society. Take that, N.R.A.
The hard left claim should be criminality of assault weapon possession, with a mandatory U.S. Government buy-back -- financed by new taxes on the gun manufacturers who made them, and criminal economic sanctions against the N.R.A. (the latter for a host of reasons, including incitement to murder). After a 1-year buy-back program, possession of an assault rifle becomes fully illegal.
3
I'm open to your argument re guns, with which I largely agree, but I think on most other issues it has been the Left relentlessly pushing the Overton window left.
A decade ago, most Democrats favored reasonable border control. Today, controlling the influx of illegal immigration is racist and xenophobic.
A decade ago, most Democrats favored order in the classroom. Today, the position is that it's acceptable for students to assault teachers and be returned to the classroom to end the "school-to-prison-pipeline".
A decade ago, most Democrats agreed all reasonable measures should be taken to prevent sexual assault, but that due process should still be afforded the accused. Today, the position is that campuses across the country have kangaroo courts by which an accusation is tantamount to instant guilt of the accused, who is denied due process, who cannot confront his accuser (in many cases) nor mount a defense, and is subject to double jeopardy.
A decade ago, most Democrats supported free speech; nowadays, we're not so clear...
So there's been a lot of Overton fiddling from the left-hand side.
1
"Using elite power, whether economic or cultural, to silence less educated foes usually produces a backlash."
Sure does!
social security - medicare -integration - womens rights - and basically all progressive legislation since 1776
1
Maybe progressives are finally waging the all-fronts, total war that the GOP has been fighting for years. Through gerrymandering, voter suppression, propaganda, and the structural advantages of the Electoral College and the Senate, the GOP has created a tyranny of the minority. They hold the presidency with less than half the votes, the Senate with less than half the votes, and the House with less than half the votes (and similarly in many state legislatures, c.f. PA). They re-wrote the norms and the interpretation of the constitution to deny Obama a SCOTUS seat. And, legislatively, they deny the will of the majority on issue after issue---gun control, healthcare, taxes, abortion, etc. Only Trumps incompetence is preventing an across-the-board wipeout. Maybe this brush with disaster has made progressives realize that they can't keep bringing a knife to a gunfight.
2
Unfortunately, Mr. Brooks is correct in warning not to demean the Republican Base that have tremendous Political power.Progressives are looked upon as Anti Christ, Socialists if not Communists.This undercurrent of bigotry runs deep throughout America, & is why Trump is in power, & is why he panders to them.
1
Having Adlai Stevenson and trump in the same sentence has to be put in context: Stevenson's defense and sworn testimony of Alger Hiss who was convicted as a spy for the russians comes to mind. Even great honorable men make mistakes out of personal loyalty I guess. "Anyone who thinks will vote for you" a David Brooks kind told Stevenson during the 1952 campaign. That's not enough he replied, I need a majority. trump got a majority of the electoral college but that was enough to set us back 66 years. Interesting number.
You remind me of the one way street so many cultural debates from the right argue. They, and they alone can criticize. Did you notice the NRA after Parkland going after the students as "too emotional." And did you also notice how utterly emotional the CPAC speeches were against any gun control. The right projects all of their arguments and feelings on the left and then condemn for what they do so well. So, I'm sorry, laying back for intellectual discussions with the right is like arguing with a tantruming child. The left need not play "cool" while the right tantrums. Ever try to calm a child in a tantrum? It doesn't work until they exhaust themselves. Let the NRA tantrum to exhaustion. Anything that does that is fine with me.
Your article was tough to read, but in the spirit of progressive listening, I read the whole thing. I do continue to be amazed that the righteous conservative mindset is comfortable staying principally unmoved against the outcry of grieving parents and families in the wake of so much gun violence. Believe me, parents who have lost a child and now may see gun control in their lifetime have also lost the ability to see any of this as a victory..their lives have been irrevocably shattered and their sense of country and patriotism is utterly in ruins.
And, as I've said before in this comment section, continuing to see the cultural and ideological stance against too many unregulated guns as *intimidating* is utterly ridiculous. We are NOT the side with the guns.
1
Thanks for your article. I agree that Trump seems to stand for what's untenable-- racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, sexual assault, and more. You seem to be saying that the majority of conservatives don't agree with this, and that to associate his "base" with his ideas is somehow unfair, which I don't quite understand. You also seem to be saying that these regular folks on the right are hapless, regularly silenced and marginalized. But you rarely talk about how this silencing and marginalization happens both ways. For example, the dis-invitations you talk about come from the right as well as the left--and in fact, are more successful when proposed by the right. Just ask the Catholic priest James Martin. (And he's not the only one.) You also seem to suggest that only people on the left speak in an ugly way about those who disagree with them. But this is another problem--and I agree that it's a problem--that goes both ways. I agree that we on the left shouldn't speak of 2nd Amendment activists as backwards, gun-toting boneheads, but people on the right shouldn't speak of immigrants as criminals or as backward, illiterate people trying to flood flooding our nation with their kin. This kind of "insult in lieu of discussion" should be beneath us. Unfortunately, the president has established ad-hominem attacks as the new norm--for the right as well as the left.
But you see the "culture war" as a thing-in-itself. It is not. I was recently able to legally marry my partner of 27 years; real people are dying unnecessarily by gunfire; women earn less for the same work; climate change is as real as a heart attack; and on and on...
1
A true GOP believer from the 80's and 90's, Mr. Brooks falls back into writing about the "culture wars" a topic that was central to his political character and career development, and provides a dire warning, similar to what a parent might give to a child.
Time to move on Mr. Brooks. You devotion to Reagan is admirable, but he is no longer President. After all, nothing disproves GOP ideology faster or better than GOP control of government. This was as true under Bush II as it is today under Trump.
This Brooks statement isn't logical, and in fact it's untrue: "Conservatives have zero cultural power, but they have immense political power."
Conservatives have a great deal of cultural power in much of the country, and some of their bedrock values have triumphed. Namely, the idea that taxes are inherently immoral, that abortion should be severely restricted or banned, that unions are anti-democratic and to blame for states' financial problems.
They're losing on gender and racial discrimination, arguably, but in other spheres the conservative side is winning cultural acceptance along with political and economic battles.
“…certain ideas about gun rights, and maybe gun ownership itself, are being cast in the realm of the morally illegitimate and socially unacceptable.” “Morally illegitimate”? Oh my…
How do you define “morality,” David? How do you define the morality of guns in the face of sobering statistics? Here are just a few ways (from the CDC) to describe the “morality” of guns.
Homicide by firearm is the fifth-leading cause of death in the US.
96 Americans are killed by guns on an average day.
Americans aged 15-24 are 49 times more likely to be the victim of a gun-related murder than those in other developed countries.
America has 4.4 percent of the world’s population, but almost half of the civilian-owned guns.
I would say, yes, there is a clear moral issue involved here. When the carnage from guns is so pervasive, that REALITY is a MORAL issue that outweighs the legitimacy of gun ownership. You can play around with semantics all you want David. Call it stigmatization or redefining “certain ideas about gun rights.” But what you conveniently avoid in your argument is the reality that words – like “gun rights” – do not exist in a vacuum. Words have consequences - in this case thousands of unnecessary deaths and injuries.
Does conservative morality have a different definition of “life” than the progressive definition? There is no moral equivalency between the right to own a gun and the deaths caused because of that right. If you are suggesting there is, you are part of the problem.
1
Mr. Brooks,
By "All sorts of formerly legitimate opinions", do you mean harboring racism, sexism, inequality and willful ignorance? If so, have you been seriously wishing progressives tolerate these opinions for some greater good?
I can't do that. Never could. Never can.
If you can't turn around one of your right-wing friends, how should I?
Brooks is persuaded that the left is far more warlike than we actually are. We are working, as always, to make sure "We, the people" is an inclusive phrase. The backlash has been present since terrorists ended Reconstruction. Before that it was just the lash across the back.
On the specific issue of guns, a persuasive (I hope) argument that rarely gets made is suicide prevention not homicide prevention.
I agree that the discussion should be respectful. But I do draw a straight line from smoking becoming uncool toward a similar collective judgment that carrying weapons in public places is not normal. Actual hunting and marksmanship activities are fine, with equipment appropriate for those activities. The idea that guns are for resisting tyranny - in an age of drone warfare - is dangerous nonsense and should be confronted. Self-defense - in a private home, not in public places - seems more legitimate - but actually costs more lives. Keeping a pistol next to your bed is one of the more dangerous things you can do for yourself and your family, and should be discouraged as a matter of public health. Buybacks to begin sopping up the huge oversupply of weapons (the heirs may not want grandpa's gun collection - they'd rather have the cash) would be helpful. If we can make the society less gun-ridden, we could then demilitarize our police forces and change the way they conduct themselves. Maybe the police keep their guns, but they're going to have to show a lot better judgment on use of force than we are seeing (including with non-lethal weapons).
2
I tour the country a lot now that I'm retired. There I am at a National Park (it's legal to carry weapons in National Parks) and there's a guy with a gun on his hip in a holster. No, he's not a park official or policeman. No, we're not in 'backcountry' where a person could meet a bear or something actually dangerous. This happened at a crowded overlook full of families marveling at the wonders of nature. They guy was there with his family.
That's our country now. It's not just the AR-15 problem, it's the idea that we're all rootin'-tootin' cowboys who have to carry guns because you never know when you're going to come across a no-good outlaw gang robbin' banks and rapin' wimmen.
2
That last sentence sounds a lot like the threats of a coming "civil war" I see daily on right-wing sites. I don't take it seriously because Brooks leaves out the reason why "conservatives" keep losing on these "cultural" issues: they are older, and they keep dying off. Every year, some 4.5 million people in America turn 18, while 2.5 millon, mostly elderly, die. Even if they manage to block immigration, the right-wing hss less and less room to play, year by year. In the Reagan years, they could win in California. No more. Virginia was reliably "red" but no more. Soon, Texas, Georgia and Arizona will turn. Why should Democrats moderate on such issues? (Economics and national security are separate matters.)
1
Fighting fire with fire means that both sides are powerful and destructive oxidants. So Progressives are as great a danger to democracy as Trump's GOP base. The challenge for many people will be to stand up for intelligent and informed positions issue by issue. For instance, opposing sexism does not require opposing scientific research into the question of inherent differences based on hormones and their relative distribution in individuals. The moral worth of individuals is not determined by an intelligence or a genetic test; it is determined by the fact of their existence as equal to all others. The danger posed by extremists on both sides of the political spectrum is that, in their ideological fanaticism and their take-no-prisoners assault on their opponents on this or that issue, they destroy what they want to protect or promote.
"Continued school shootings could be just the thing that persuades the mainstream that conservatism is vulgar and socially illegitimate, somewhere between smoking and segregationism"
Conservatism as expressed in the House, Senate, and many state governments enables continued school shootings (or the violent bloody deaths of children to put it more in human terms), so I'd conclude that you're correct, Mr. Brooks. There's a troubling bloodlessness to your arguments, lately,
The country is just naturaly settling around progressive lines.
There is no such thing as middle ground between American conservatism and progressivism. The only benchmark to relate each other is simply the Reality, and todays conservatism is way in the wilderness in terms of pragmatic policies that would attempt to solve our problems realistically. Simply put conservatism has degenerated so badly that it does not have anything to offer. Arming teachers is the example. It is plain insanity and they don't even know that. Building trenches around public and private entities to protect wicked interpretation of 2nd is not the future our Constitution has envisioned for this formerly great country.
While saying conservatives have zero cultural power you may do well to reflect on the fact that conservatives give more financial support to charitable and other cultural organizations than do liberals as shown by past studies of the issue. Liberals seem to want to spend someone else’s money while conservatives oft prefer to spend their own.
I just have a question. If the progressives win the culture war -as you claim they might- are you afraid there won't be a place for you anymore? I'm still frustrated that you won't take any responsibility at all for what the GOP has become because I don't remember your railing against their Southern strategy or any of the other wrongheaded policies the far right got to the mainstream. Were you one of the establishment who thought you could use them during elections but ignore them after? Seems the party has reaped what it has sown. Deep down do you feel complicit?
1
Actually there is another way for Progressives to stake out the middle ground in the culture war against guns. Let’s call it Empathetic Shaming. I believe that many of us do in fact feel sorry for those who are so fearful of the people around them that they are afraid to go to the grocery store without carrying a weapon, or who are so afraid of our government that they fill their houses with dozens of military style rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition in the preparation for the day when they wake up and find soldiers and tanks in the street. The best cure for these fears may be to make them feel ashamed. If young men were ashamed to believe that they needed guns to feel strong and powerful, the psychological forces that lead to gun deaths would be sharply diminished.
It is about time we evolve a bit. The election of Reagan ended the beginning of a 1970's consensus that being a bigot was 'un cool'. I would be glad if you are right, Mr Brooks, and our culture again rejects our worse selves instead of celebrating them. It is hard to remember that 'politically correct' was a joke about our less humor endowed comrades on the Left...
Planned Parenthood, the Women's March, and Black Lives Matter are cringe worthy if you are a 1% but to the rest of us they are public health initiatives. The NRA is a public health threat, grounded in the 2nd Amendment as interpreted in the 2008 Heller Decison and contrary to over 200 years of militia based, not individual rights based reading that has armed the NRA with corporate Dollars and hoards of terrified, or paranoid, or delusional dopes and politicians who relish the opportunity to exploit them as wedge voters. Another example of a backlash that Brooks warns may be coming. The 40 % are all white men, David, because the Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, all women constitute a majority and that includes science believers.
Trump and Ryan and McConnell are the disgusting vulgar ignorant pariahs who are going to grab every last dollar for their patrons. Rubio did not look like a murderer, but a stooge for gun and fear pedlars . Brooks likes to spin narratives out of facts, like the 1% GOP meme: "class warfare". His suggestions serve to provide direaction to progressives who see through his Fog.
1
Isn't the argument here a form of what Conservatives used to call "moral relativism?" Progressives are being admonished to tread carefully lest they be construed as disrespecting the precious right to possess an assault weapon, but the morality of enacting laws that make guns designed to kill people as fast as possible accessible to anyone is not up for discussion for fear of the reaction it might provoke. We are also supposed to respect the right to "disagree" with established scientific facts such as evolution and man-made climate change, while the morality of forcing school children or govt. agencies to act on the basis of a delusion can't be questioned because the people who subscribe to the delusion think they have the moral high ground. Isn't Brooks cautioning us not to point out the obvious, that Conservatives have lost the right to make any moral claims they once had? What is this backlash that he is warning about? Is it worse than what we have now?
1
Depends which front of the cultural war you are talking about. On abortion, the progressives are dependent on the Supreme Court's willingness to strike down abortion regulations. Even feminists admit that if Trump appoints one more conservative judge, the Court is likely to overturn Roe vs Wade, after which numerous states will pass abortion regulations which can no longer be challenged in court. Pro-abortionists failed to win a law legalizing abortion under Clinton and are unlikely to win one now.
David, this patronizing paragraph says it all about pseudo-intellectualism:
"The only thing I’d say to my progressive friends is, be careful how you win your victories. It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation. Illiberalism breeds illiberalism. Using elite power, whether economic or cultural, to silence less educated foes usually produces a backlash."
Persuasion is what happens when politics happen. Progressives have chosen cultural intimidation long ago and it's gotten them nowhere other than with their own snoots. "Less educated foes" may have far more commonsense than a gaggle of Progressives. You left their antidote in your last sentence. Find another Adlai Stevenson, or Hubert Humphrey.
2
I think progressives are basically bored because they have limited power and conservatives simply want to be left alone. That is where the friction comes from at this time. Remember what happens when one wakes a sleeping dog?
1
Unfortunately, labeling the other as evil often seems to be sincere, at least on the part of the most rabid. If we continue down this uncivilized path, the only possibilities I see are totalitarianism or dissolving of the US.
1
This was interesting until David revealed he'd drunk the conservative kool-aide
'The only thing I’d say to my progressive friends is, be careful how you win your victories. It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation.'
The elites here would be.... high school students who've been shot? And liberals have abandoned using persuasion, but Republicans who literally outlawed public research into gun violence are making good faith arguments that our high gun violence rates are caused by a lack of guns, which currently exceed the number of human beings in our country?
1
Writes Brooks, "Progressives have won on most social issues. They could win on nearly everything else." Progressives need to win elections. Period. Legislation matters as it grounds and legitimizes enforcement. What's more, isn't Culture war a default position? Is Brooks applying lipstick?
Brother Brooks, I think I have your math right. Your theorem would have:
that if 60+% of the population believes in science, that makes for a culture war....
that if 60+% or voters believes that global warming is real, that makes for a culture war...
that if 60+% of the population desires stronger gun control, that makes for a culture war...
that if 60+% of us believe in a woman's right to control her own body, that makes for a culture war....
Brother Brooks, I think they call that democracy.
As to the difference between progressive democrats and trumpian republicans, I am reminded of MLK's construct comparing "revolt" and "revolution." The NRA/4chan crowd has been in "revolt," beginning with Nixon's "southern strategy." I don't know if we progressives are truly making MLK's revolution, but it certainly feels that way. And more power to the women out there driving the boat, and the young people who have focused their voice; we are all in your debt.
(MLK: “A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.” )
3
To conservatives, every progressive movement is a phony protest orchestrated by elites and/or 'hyper-polarlizing lef-wing groups' like Planned Parenthood and Move On with ulterior motives. But when the Tea Party protested the ACA, it was middle America pushing back on government overreach, nevermind that the Koch's funded the darn thing.
The point is far simpler than Brooks makes it out to be. This isn't about a culture war; this is about public safety. Shootings in public places are happening too often. Isn't it time we do something about it?
The personal is political, David. You're old enough to remember that.
Conservatives have no cultural power? What is Fox News, then? The War on Christmas?
You seem to equate "cultural power" with the conventional wisdom, and ready to assert that 40% of Americans will never adopt the conventional wisdom. But it wouldn't be conventional if it's controversial.
I somehow don't think the Parkland students belong to the cultural elite.
What you're seeing, actually, is a broad swath of the American public fed up being under the boot of the NRA and their state legislature toadies. More and more people see through the sloganeering and crocodile tears. "Thoughts and prayers" has become ironic; the phrase can no longer be uttered with a straight face.
It's pretty simple. Most people — a vast majority — favor stricter gun regulation. That majority is making itself heard. The Parkland students, unlike the kids at Sandy Hook or the audiences in Aurora or Las Vegas, are a community, and capable of speaking for themselves. They are embarrassing their elders into action.
Implicitly, they're asking a simple question: Why do you need permission from the NRA? Like I said, embarrassing.
This "Anti-Guns" social movement is similar to the gay marriage. Its been going on for a long time legitimatized with increasing ground-up social pressure. Fascinating.
In a country were 30K people are killed by guns every year the NRA is much large than any terrorist group. They are public enemy number one.
Extremist, a.k.a polarization, politics is essentially nihilistic. However, by definition, extreme reactionism is self-limiting while progressivism is contradictory. So the latter has indeed a leg up against the former. But not by much. Perhaps this is the dark side - misunderstood it may be - of Hegelism. Instead of thesis and antithesis beget synthesis. Extremism will eat itself inside out even after it vanquishes the external foes
Back in the 60s, NAACP did not confine to black folks. In theory, it still doesn't. However, for all intent and purposes, the national org is just that even if pocket of the progressive states still boost a plurality
The problem is that people are too obsessed with purity and some complain are mission drift. Obviously, there are all sort of pitfalls. A synthesis of mediocrities remain mediocrity, not excellence. But 'compromise' is not a dirty word.We are not talking about one sided advantageous compromises. Republicans complain Democrats refusing to "compromise" but in fact the former want to latter an unconditional surrender
To danger these days though is not even ideological. Both Trump and the Republicans are pressing their luck. The former is using outrageous behavior to cover up while the latter allow Trump to run amok so long as they are getting what they want. Sadly, the latest tariff talk - my theory is just a sleight of hands - might bring the world to the brink. Culture wars, trade wars, cold wars, real wars. The cockroaches win!
1
I take myself to occupy the political centre, and I genuinely enjoy reading articles by Mr. Brooks, but he seems to suffer from a common delusion of moderate republicans. He tends to imagine that the extreme left is equal to the extreme right. By any measure, and not recently, Republicans have drifted far more to the right than Democrats. To my eyes, Democrats have ceded ground on things like trade, leaving Republicans to differentiate themselves ever more desperately on extreme stances like those they take on guns and the environment. You need only look at Republican stance changes on the environment and science in general over the last several decades to see the drift of Republicanism to the extreme.
So while I appreciate Mr. Brooks' efforts to make politics not be about trying to win culture wars, I think the situation he describes of making more and more stances intolerable, which I myself have witnessed, pales relative to the efforts of Republicans to make stances like the gun control or efforts to curb global warming intolerable. In my view, those stances are far worse than efforts to stop people from holding views that are against something like affirmative action. Whatever you think of those efforts, they are aimed at resolving a long history of racial conflict. Efforts to stop any action on guns or climate change? I don't think they're in the same spectrum.
3
"If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society they will mount a political backlash that will make Donald Trump look like Adlai Stevenson."
There's long been a cultural divide in the US. Recall the divisions that prevailed during the McCarthy era, George Wallace's tenure, and the Vietnam war. In all of these episodes the opposition ultimately prevailed. In so doing it left behind opinions about each event that have now become mainstream. I suspect that sooner or later, but not overnight, reason will prevail on a view of rational gun control that does not threaten confiscation but, rather, affords greater safety. The current NRA stance will not prevail chiefly because it clearly leads to a less safe society (e.g. there is no 2nd Amendment right to run around with an AR-15).
And by the way, I remember Adlai Stevenson, I voted for Mr. Stevenson, Trump is no Stevenson, and Trump will never look like Stevenson.
4
It is not a good idea to give throwaway one-liners any credibility. Brooks is just a perverse individual who has to pump up the argument.
The infamous American communist, well known in New York's salon circles of the 1920s, set off for Moscow after the Bolshevik revolution. When he returned, many were eager to hear he witness. He replied, "I have seen the future."
David, like so many conservatives and their new companions of Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, nationalists, and misogynists, are stuck and mired in the past. They misread change. They improperly identify its factors and properties, they mislabel its substance, they are mystified by its content and context. Marx, once the philosopher of the future, would have called them "vulgar."
David is right, America's current dilemma has two parts: the cultural narratives of the political economy and the state's power to administrate and regulate the world's largest public treasury. Trump's narratives of blame, shame, defame, and kill awakened a national sense of horrors, stirred by his lies and infantile fantasies. His narratives suffered losses after initial attacks on civil liberties, safety nets, women, and freedom's history. His words and wild logic awakened a strong resistance who know democracy's risks, who exhibit the private courage needed for self-governing, who demand the right to self definition through political solutions that are non-extreme.
What David ignores is the new extreme deliberately sets out after each mass student shootings to establish a conspiracy they themselves manufacture! Pushing back on them will have few political consequences!
5
"Conservatives have zero cultural power" Really? Try living in the deep south for the past 30 years where "liberal" is a dirty word, and "Democrat" values are about killing babies and letting dirty old men in the girl's bathroom. Conservatives have been "silencing dissenting behavior" for years where I come from, even within their own party (see republican primary races). Progressives are finally standing up for themselves and using the tactics employed by conservatives and fox new for years...demonize the opponent.
And yes, it is ALL ABOUT THE GUNS. People don't kill people nearly as much as guns kill people.
433
I think Brooks is confusing the backlash against guns as a general change in the culture wars. Guns are their own issue; people are fighting gun proliferation because it is a threat to their lives.
4
Yes! Liberals, Progressives, whatever you want to call them, have found out the hard way that the only way to stop the unrelenting loosening of gun-related laws and regulations is to take a hard stand. How to you address an issue that is absolutist and completely polarized on the NRA side with fuzzy touchy-feely what can we do to make you comfortable on the other?
More and more guns with higher and higher capacity magazines and thousands of bullets are being concentrated in fewer hands, and they are extreme, absolutist and hyper-polarized. And they are single-issue voters. It is now well-proven that the only way to address this is to fight fire with fire.
1
Second, progressives are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior. All sorts of formerly legitimate opinions have now been deemed beyond the pale on elite campuses. Speakers have been disinvited and careers destroyed. The boundaries are being redrawn across society.
In this paragraph, David Brooks takes glee that progressives are no long liberals but fascists.
Brooks says that "progressives are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior." I couldn't agree more. That's what turned me away from the Democratic party. In my heart I am still liberal, because I still cherish those beliefs that used to be consonant with Democrats, but I am dismayed by the tactics used by the left to bludgeon and quash any dissenting opinion. It's funny; I became a liberal precisely because I have such a visceral fear of cultural intimidation and witch-hunt tactics, and now I see my worst fears coming to life.
4
And conservatives do not the same thing?
So tired of being told to respect gun owners. What about respecting my right to go to the movies, banquet, club, school and anywhere else with the fear that someone has access to military caliber weapons. Gun control will not happen until cops stand up and say that they don’t want to face such weapons, because that is what they are —weapons. Conservatives like a democracy when they can control the levers of power, but heaven forbid the majority have a difference of opinion.
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When I go to the movies, etc. I am not that worried about someone with military calibre weapons. Statistically, the odds are just so small. I actually worry about all the people sitting alongside me with loaded handguns. And it's not the concealed ones that bother me most. It's the open carry. What I can't figure out in this current discourse on gun control is this fact, which would get us closer to talking about the 38,000 gun deaths per year (let alone woundings), isn't any part of the dialogue.
1
I don't believe that voters trust Republicans on the gun issue more than Democrats. It's unfortunate that more Republicans are in office because I believe most voters want more gun control.
2
Thank you! Mr. Brooks laments the lack of respect shown by so-called "elites" for what are patently vile and reprehensible views. I'm pretty sure that showing that kind of misplaced respect, over the course of decades, is what's allowed us to get into, and stay in, the mess we're in.
2
The gun industry is the only one I know of that sells a product to the public whose sole feature is that it can and does kill many very quickly. Even opioids don't go that far.
7
And be sheltered from legal liability. Just like the nuclear power industry, except with no redeeming value.
1
Progressives may well win. They deserve to. But if they don't, here's why: an angry minority, claiming victimhood, will strike out against "elites" and "tyranny". And guess which side has all the guns! Another civil war is brewing. I don't think it will ultimately happen, necessarily, but it has been brewing for some time.
3
The Left still has fire and arson.
The ongoing brutal domination of one race by another (via police violence and mass incarceration) in racism, sickening sexual violence and outrageous reproductive oppression of sexism, criminal transfer of wealth from poor to rich in the tax bill and opposition to the safety net, and existential threat of climate change due to abject failure on alternative energy - these are not merely "cultural" issues, they are very real moral atrocities! So too is the fact that anyone in this country has access to a weapon that can murder scores of people, including elementary school children, over a few seconds! Period, no debate.
What is actually happening on the progressive left is a welcome descent into simple, righteous moral stances that the conservative right simply can't counter because it has no moral leg to stand on. Given the spiritual bankruptcy, corruption, and threats to democracy and rule of law embodied in the White House and Republican leadership, thank goodness the left isn't overthinking everything and is simply playing the part of the prophet calling us all back to what should matter most - our children, our planet, our social contract.
5
A welcome descent? Welcomed by whom? Many of us would prefer the complex rational arguments and thoughtful compromises that might lead to lasting, intelligent legislative victories to what you accurately describe as "simple, righteous, moral stances."
I agree that those who want gun control must change their tones overall, and how they perceive 'the other side', overall.
We need to recognize that the majority of gun-owners are very responsible and not 'gun nuts'. They don't all drink moonshine and live in trailer parks or even worship Wayne LaPierre for that matter.
We can have all the speeches we want at the March 24 rally in D.C., but we can't simply preach to the choir. How do we CHANGE some minds? We need to talk about how the 2nd A was written, and when. We need to talk about the idea that the 'greater good', as determined by the (majority of) The People, trumps individual rights. We regulate owernship of cars, the operating condition of cars, and the manner of use of said cars, in numerous ways. Why should weapons be any different, especially ARs and bumpstocks (weapons of war)?
I urge everyone, especially those who live in states where the gun debate is more complicated, to try and have a true conversation with someone from the other side. It MUST start with 1:1 conversations in the real world...where we first try to get to know our fellow neighbors, our fellow Americans. And THEN we can start talking about the details, asking each other why we feel or think the way that we do. It should not be just about winning the argument at the time. We cannot just yell back and forth at each other, for this will turn the other side 'off'.
1
"We need to talk about the idea that the 'greater good', as determined by the (majority of) The People, trumps individual rights."
This is one of the scarier things I've ever read. I can think up a whole bunch of ideas that trump individual rights for the greater good that would send the left howling.
Our Founding Fathers were pretty bright.
1
I must ask Mr. Brooks...what is an "elite"? Please define specially. It seems to me that this has become just another label with half truths about those to whom this label is being applied. With his intelligence and thoughtfulness, I expect better of Mr. Brooks.
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"If progressives can cut what’s left of the conservative movement off from mainstream society, they will fundamentally alter the culture war.”
Compared to what? The Republican party of Donald Trump has already done the heavy lifting.
2
In a real fight you have to acknowledge that A: You ARE in a real fight, and B: You need the will to win by whatever means necessary.
As a moderate liberal I long ago realized that we are in a real fight. Bring it on.
4
You surely know that there's no such thing as a moderate liberal. You must also realize that the fight you are talking about is a fight that liberals have no chance of winning. "Bring it on", that's funny as you fools yelling "resist".
Progressive are (should be ) better at silencing behavior. This reflects in the current woes of the Democratic Party and their results at the polls, where they did not fight back against the republican party. Which in turn effects our current political decisions and policies Example: Mitch McConnell's no vote for an Obama Supreme Court justice appointment.
Continued school shooting could be just the thing that persuades.....
I think that most american's have had enough and stating publicly so:
"Enough is Enough."
Nevada 58 dead 851 wounded - In ten minutes fired more than 1100 Rounds... TEN MINUTES No it's not just a school
Think about this -would you want and allow this in your country?
I am an American and weather one is conservative or progressive the feeling is changing and is being supported, finally perhaps for the first time for legislation. I want both sides to set an agenda of their concerns wishes and desires; want them to sit down in Washington and to work on the issue(s) on the Federal level.
I do not want Second Amendment rights taken away, but want to see legislation, prohibitions, regulations.
Start with Brian Mast's(Rep. Rep Florida and NY Times Op-ed) suggestions...would be a very good starting point.
2
The NRA blocks efforts to control the international trade in small arms. Instead of supporting rational measures to protect our children from mass murder, they do the opposite.
What would you call that?
5
Indeed we can become the victim of our own success. What get lost in this heated debate is this one salient point: What are you willing to live with? Can reasonable people on both sides of this debate come to an accommodation that they are willing to live with. Some examples like others stated; expanded universal background checks, outright ban of assault weapons with a grandfather clause, prevent convicted felons and those declared mentally ill from possession firearms? These ideas are merely a starting point. Yes, I own a glock 22, served three tours in Iraq, and a liberal.
1
Over the last two decades, I've watched the most extreme elements of conservatism deliberately move the GOP away from the center, in no small part by stoking hatred of institutions like government, higher education, and public services––all demonized as cesspools of "liberal fascism." But Brooks ignores all of this, and frames our current political divide as a "backlash" against the culture war imposed by liberals. It's a gross distortion.
Take the example of gun laws. Liberals have been unable to pass even the most minimal changes in gun regulation, even as mass shootings have become more frequent and deadly. And yet Brooks asserts that conservatives have "zero cultural power"? And paints liberals as the ones who won't bargain for modest gun laws because they want total victory in the gunfight?
Brooks's argument is the intellectual's version of the cruder claim among gun rights propagandists who claim that liberals want to invade people's homes and confiscate all of their guns.
5
"The students from Parkland are being assisted by all the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups: Planned Parenthood, Move On and the Women’s March. The rhetoric has been extreme."
While you didn't go so far as to call the kids "crisis actors," the rhetorical effect is the same. Somehow these students who lived through a mass murder are the dupes of the left. Their thoughts and emotions are their own, their reason impeccable, and their passion worthy of our support. All our support.
When my daughter's school was recently locked down because of a threat of shooting and the police were able to arrest the student planning it, the conversation at our dinner table didn't need any assist from Move On to call out the divisive stupidity of current gun legislation.
Extreme rhetoric is the result of extreme lack of action. Marco Rubio may not himself be a mass murderer, but he has enabled mass murder. The NRA has transformed over the past 70 years from a law-abiding, pro-gun-control organization to a political king maker relying on fear mongering to reach its goals. They used to be about safety. Now they really are about terror. The measures Ronald Reagan thought reasonable and logical, they rail against and hold the rest of the country captive. We really are terrorized by their policies.
Stop blaming the messenger, your side has lost its moral compass.
11
Newsflash to David Brooks: The progressives won the Culture War starting in about 1400, when the Renaissance took root in Italy. That was Round One.
Round Two was the Protestant Reformation, also won by progressives.
Round Three was the Scientific Revolution - a progressive victory as well.
The Enlightenment followed, and the progressives won again.
Oh, there have been some conservative triumphs, such as slavery, but they eventually were overturned.
This plutocracy we are currently suffering through is just another conservative hiccup. It's been going on since about 1980, but 38 years is a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of history.
Conservatives are like dinosaurs. They just don't know they are extinct.
9
The progressive movement is not attacking all conservative positions, just the ones you yourself have characterized as extreme and unworthy of support. On these issues, most of America agrees with the progressives. But those who have invested in the elected Rs do not. And there is the battle.
2
Irrational gun lovers (ANYONE should be able to buy and carry ANY GUN they want ANYTIME without restriction or regulation) are and always have been ABSOLUTISTS on this national health and safety crisis. And its progressives who should worry about polarization!?
4
David, no one wants more children to dies senselessly from gun violence. David, no one wants the poor to lose their health insurance and die while causing more illness due to contagious diseases spreading. David, no one wants our air, water and soil to become more contaminated equaling more death. David, no one wants more preventable catastrophic storms due to climate change. David, no one wants more war and suffering and more death because of war. This is NOT CULTURE WARS. This is a war to define our American culture. Who are we? What do we expect from our leaders? Why have we been blessed to become the most wealthy and powerful nation on earth? How should we respond to the world? What should we expect from our allies and what should they expect from us? This is about a war against the forces of darkness - selfishness, greed, envy and power. We battle against these forces, "that threaten to undo us" as the hymn lyrics suggest. By God's grace, we will succeed. For as my Dad used to say, "Might doesn't make right, but right can be very mighty, especially when it is in line with the Almighty."
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Boggles the mind to imagine Donald Trump looking anything like Adlai Stevenson.
Behind the progressive movement is the "Organic" movement. Corporations are becoming more "organic," public schools are becoming more "organic," even professional sports teams are becoming more "organic."
What do I mean? Appealing to the natural tendency for decency and kindness, being fully connected with one another, being purpose driven toward a shared mission, being vigilant in keeping one another engaged, and modeling good behavior. It has been shown that a more organic corporation is more sustainable, that schools (kindness projects) reduce behavior problems and increase academic performance, and that sports teams that are more organic achieve higher levels of performance.
In the sports arena, gone are the days of the player making a mistake on the field, being taken off the field and exposed to face-to-face shaming. Now the player is removed from the field and comforted by the coach and surrounded in support by fellow players.
The organic movement is emblematic of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Me Too, movement and the anti gun movement.
Despite Mr. Brooks statement to the contrary, the preponderance of evidence indicates the majority of Americans are in favor of gun legislation. They recognize that the correlation of more guns to more gun violence makes a strong argument for legislating stricter gun control. It is not a cultural elite, but rather an elite minority that is preventing gun control legislation from happening. Mr. Brooks fails to explain why continuing to provide NRA members with discounts is, in itself, a reflection of elitism. Similarly, the Georgia House post hoc denying Delta the tax cut it had promised seems a blatant act of blackmail. That act appears to smack of arbitrary use of power, leaving aside why the tax benefit to Delta was granted in the first place.
Mr. Brooks conckudes by making an outright threat that not kowtowing to the hurt feelings of NRA supporters will lead to a right wing backlash that will make the current Trump regime look like an angelic hayride. How are any of his arguments an appeal to reason? Rather, Brooks' Is reduced to using the Republican strategem of threat and intimidation: bend to a wrong headed policyl or suffer an even worse fate. I think I'll take my chances with standing to principle, rather than face the slippery slope of deleterious compromise. On the contrary, history shows that calls for appeasement trategy are opposed to reason will actually be the determining factor leading to even greater calamity.
2
Excuse me, but the MAJORITY of people would like universal background checks, a law that allows family members to take the guns from someone they suspect is a danger, and probably a ban on assault rifles. The MAJORITY of gun owners do not belong to the NRA. Gun owners who belligerently insist their rights take precedent over the MAJORITY are being told to can it. We are tired of being pushed around .
3
If, as you say, the majority of people support gun control measures then why have this majority not elected representatives who will accomplish this? I see three possibilities; either A) the majority does not support these measures, or B) the majority does support them but find other issues more important, or C) the majority does support them, finds them important, but are too lazy to vote for the candidates who will implement them.
If you are tired of being pushed around, DO SOMETHING about it rather than talking it to death.
Mr. Brooks, the answer to the question posed in the title of this piece is contained within it: the reason progressives win the culture wars is progress itself.
2
"The tribalists in this country have little interest in the opioid issue." This is instructive. Why might this be? Is it the simple expression of the basic libertarian value of freedom, and "live and let live (or die, as is the case with opioids)"? I have no interest in the opioid crisis because your problem with opioids doesn't affect me. And if somehow it does (in the form of your robbing me for drug money, for instance), I want to have a way to protect myself from your failure. Simple common sense.
1
"Conservatism is now less a political or philosophic movement and more a separatist subculture that participates in its own ostracism." I'm not sure that conservatism was ever "philosophical." It seems to me that they became a cult when they distinguished the true believers from the in-name-only crowd, and furthered this slide by willfully ignoring empirical evidence in favor of maintaining their rigid ideology.
Maybe this is fair, or maybe this is unfair, but it is interesting, and maybe should be asked. When you look at the most deadly mass and therefore famous shootings, Columbine, Aurora, Orlando, Newtown, Las Vegas, Parkland, they all occurred in heavily blue counties. If this is about a culture war, or even tribalism, why do mass shootings happen in areas that are blue on the electoral map? Is this really a problem of conservative culture?
Not to pile on, but the areas where gun violence produces the most fatalities one day at a time, are almost exclusively heavily blue areas. Maybe that is why red America isn't nearly as alarmed-it is not happening in their hometown and they are not killing each other. If you live in a blue city, you have a much different reason to be alarmed. But one should note-assault style rifles are not the weapons used in these other scenarios, which are more deadly in the aggregate and way more common. There has been no town hall on that, that I can remember. But these crimes don't threaten progressive whites, nor do they play into their insecurities or prompt their imaginations when it comes to their own children's futures.
Your information is incorrect. Aurora Colorado is one of the most conservative cities in the US represented by Mike Coffman, who has the support of the NRA. You cannot use the electoral map to see conservative communities effected by gun violence.
It is gerrymandered to protect a republican seat. That district is bordered by blue on two sides, which is why I went with Adams and Arapahoe counties, and that takes out gerrymandering. H. Clinton won those votes handily.
Brooks forgets that their are less educated and people in poverty who vote democratic and consider themselves progressive because of their situation. Clearly, after this tax bill that gives a permanent tax cut to the rich, the GOP has proven it is not the party of the less educated or less fortunate. Brooks is out of touch on this one. I usually can get behind most of his articles but this one fall's well short.
"Conservatism is now less a political or philosophic movement and more a separatist subculture that participates in its own ostracism."
For separatist subculture, read "tribe" and Brooks is onto something. From the John Birch Society heyday to the Tea Party reaction, conservatism has long given shelter to its own brand of extremism. That extremism, reflected in the unmoored politics of Donald Trump, has been in the ascendant since Barack Obama became President and unhinged American conservatives.
Mr. Brooks denounces Planned Parenthood, the Women's March and MoveOn as "hyperpolarizing," yet fails to admit that the same could be said for Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos. Any political movement has its self-limiting side and that of conservatism is in plain view.
Why the change? Perhaps it's most likely to be the view from the other side of the trigger, the prospect of imminent demise at the hands of a heavily-armed classmate that famously clarifies the mind.
It may be that time will change Donald Trump's mind which, to quote James Joyce on the weather in Dublin, is as "changeable as a child's bottom." That, in turn, could bring the blue tsunami to pass in November. If so, it will be less of a progressive victory that a result of well-deserved self-immolation by conservatives.
I have watched Fox News and listen to Rush Limbaugh for 20+ years. I have heard Bill O'Reilly's and Fox News' culture war rhetoric, their attempts to deligitimize progressives without push back from the Left. Progressives are tired of being called unAmerican. We are fighting back. Conservative say that my values are not American because I value the rights of my LGBT brothers and sisters. That my values are not American because I am not a Christian, or more pointedly an evangelical, a conservative Jew or Catholic, I am not American. That I'm 'against the Second Amendment' because I want reasonable gun restrictions. That rural America is the 'real' America and 'urban' is not. Conservatives cry about protests against their speakers at colleges and university campuses. And yet students at Liberty University were required to go to pro-Trump rallies and faculty at Catholic universities have been fired for taking positions at odds with Church doctrine. I used to respect conservatives and think of them as people of good will but with different values. I no longer do. Their support of Trump and Roy Moore and McConnell's Supreme Court seat theft, destroyed my belief in their good will or integrity. They want to impose their retrograde vision of America on me. They want to put guns in my neighborhoods; keep my daughter or wife from getting an abortion; my cousin from marrying her girlfriend; and are silent when the President encourages racism and violence. They want war? They got it!
3
If we can win victories through aggressive cultural crusades, then I'd like to add to the debate on gun control because there is more about gun limitations that has not been covered recently in the media. If an AR-15 is allowed for self-defense under the 2nd Amendment, then why not The M3 Carl Gustaf? If one believes they need a M3 Carl Gustaf to defend themselves, they should have it, right? Right?
The M3 Carl Gustaf
“The 15-pound guns, which soldiers hold just above the shoulder to fire, were previously only issued to Special Forces. The Pentagon has decided to make the Swedish-made Multi-Role Anti-Armor Anti-Personnel Weapon System (MAAWS) standard issue. The guns, which are equipped with a night-vision scope that runs alongside the massive barrel, will allow soldiers to ‘fix and destroy enemy targets day or night at ranges up to 1,250 meters.’ The weapons . . . are classified as recoilless rifles, but look more like rocket launchers - and pack a similar punch.”
Excerpt from, Big guns: Army soldiers to get powerful new Swedish-made tank-stopper, 2014, Fox News, Perry Chiaramonte
We currently DO have limitations on weapon ownership partially based on what is safe for our communities. I've yet to see a good argument about why someone needs to own an AR-15 other than it is their 2nd Amendment right. How would an AR-15 owner feel when their neighbor had an M3 Carl Gustaf? Yeah, it's like that.
1
Insulting a handicapped reporter in front of a national audience was the deal breaker for me. The shame I want to heap on him for that despicable act has nothing to do with educational level, income level or culture. It's about what values we as a people espouse and what leaders we look to to carry that torch.
3
Mr. Brooks is correct, but instead what he describes is the result, much like a virus, which if successful will dominate or kill the host. The virus is the predominate forms of media and dissemination with the Times and entertainment industry as leading examples. Media controls the message and how it is presented. Educational outlets join in that approach as they get their ideas from the media. The media in general have been very open about absolutely endorsing a progressive liberal point of view which started with that position being announced and taken in the last election cycle by virtually all of them. It was obvious before, but they admitted it and announced it as a stated goal. How else can you explain certain hot button issues occupying so much time or attaching blame to the NRA? The media have generally been politically progressive and liberal on balance. (I'm well aware of the exceptions, but being somewhere around 80-20 on liberal v conservative tends to actually make Mr. Brooks point since in claiming to report the news, they actually instead construct it.) They told us who would win the last election cycle and were wrong so proceeded to attack. That can't be an accident when a certain group occupies the high ground, the means to sell the view. There is lots of proof--start with Oprah and Trump. That was roll your eyes laughable, remember? Either of those media created Dodos as President, ha! Oh--we have one of them in and one in the wings.
1
It's educational to see how wrongheaded the right has become in trying to analyze what's going on to the left of them. Planned Parenthood is not "one of the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing" organizations. It is a nonprofit which runs medical clinics that provide health care, birth control, and, occasionally, abortions for women who can't afford them elsewhere. It's polarizing only because the right wing has made it so, through the same senseless, non-negotiable opposition to women's reproductive rights as it has shown toward gun regulation.
Your article goes on by cherry-picking individual instances -- someone called Marco Rubio a mass murder and the NRA a terrorist organization, a right-wing speaker gets disinvited from a college -- and claiming those represent the views of the entire liberal and progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Can you please at least argue honestly and from an informed position?
2
The only way to “win” a (culture) war is to choose not to have one.
David, you seem to have abandoned asking anything of conservatives.
At this point I think the kids at Parkland, who do not operate within your set of assumptions, have something sane to offer. The need for reasonable gun law is there. I'm with them. I don't think their motivation is to "isolate conservatives into some subset", yadda yadda, I think people want their kids to have a childhood without massive PTSD, without weird people like Dana Loesch screeching about guns, and without fortresses for schools.
I think your time would be better spend actually addressing the Dinesh D'Sousa, Sean Hannity, Franklin Graham extremism in the GOP.
5
"Fear the backlash" if you push for the common good (or even talk about it).
David, you swung and missed again. The "backlash" is what we are living with already, a deplorable, catastrophic reaction to a good man with the wrong color skin attempting to do good for the country.
Using guns as a "culture war" stand in ignores the simple fact: they are not signifiers, not abstract concepts or benign arguments, they are concrete, real-world, life-ending weapons of mass destruction, instruments of death justified by irrational fear and an Alice In Wonderland reading of the 18th century culture's 2nd Amendment by an industry that profits off fear and death.
Your hallowed centrism and civility is now reduced to "Beware criticizing deplorables because they may become even more deplorable"?
1
Are terrorists and mass murderers morally worth getting discounts from corporations? Yes, I guess, from AMERICAN corporations, where the land is owned by corporations and murderous thugs who lead those organizations supporting the said terrorist organization. Or an entire state legislature (or many such), an example of which is the Georgia state legislature: the entire body a group of mass murderers in cahoots with the said terrorist organization.
I think it is safe to say terrorists are morally abhorrent.
I didn't expect you to say so, David. You have led these terrorists from your perch for the past so many decades.
It’s not a war, Mr. Brooks, and not helpful to call it one; it’s civil discourse. And maybe the reason progressives’ ideas have prevailed more often than not — on civil rights, choice, climate change, and gay marriage — is because progressives are more often than not on the right side of justice. Take assault rifles and gun control: profits for gun manufacturers and fun for hobbyists versus lives seems a pretty easy moral equation. Conservatives may wield outsize political power due to tactics, e.g., voter suppression and gerrymandering. But ideas can be delivered directly to hearts and minds. And one other thing: no one is suggesting casting aside 40% of the electorate. That’s another difference between progressives and conservatives. Progressives condemn the bad idea, not the person.
3
I think maybe there should be discussion of where the term of "culture war" came from. It was a German term ( Kulturkampf) referring to Bismark's attempts to cut Catholic influence in the new German Empire. It was picked up by 1970 abortion lobbyists to create the impression that all of their opposition was led by sinister religious leaders. ( Of course nobody was upset that the civil rights movement had religious leaders; it was just an excuse to bash the abortion reform movement)
"The people pushing for gun restrictions have basically done the exact opposite of what I thought was wise. Instead of depolarizing the issue they have massively polarized it."
We have been attempting to be understanding of gun owners, especially families with hunting traditions, for decades, and all we have gotten is NRA-money pouring into our elections, stealing a Supreme Court seat, and the risk of slaughter in schools and churches.
The terrorists (those who oppose sane laws to protect us, thus leaving us terrorized), enabled by intransigent Republican obstruction, have polarized the debate for decades and, so far, have won.
Enough.
1
Leftist elites...elites, elites, elites! Look around and you will see the elites are the GOP in power. They control the horizontal. They control the vertical. The extreme right has been emboldened by Mr. Trump, and they now have overpowered Republican politics and agendas. Is the left supposed to be calm, cool, and deliberative while the Administration goose-steps it way to shredding the safety net, freeing up religious extremists, and taking us back not to the Fifties, but to the Confederacy? Many people considered Dr. King too intense for showing and encouraging too much emotion in his cause. Well, give me some of that emotion any day in response to Trump and his cozy, rich, deluded minions.
417
Perhaps progressives did not achieve victory in some sort of cultural competition, but are right about the issues. People evolve and grow, societies learn more and change beliefs and practices. Progressive ideas reflect this progress.
1
It may also simply be the case that in morality issues the left is most often correct. The history of the world can be viewed as a slow but study expansion of empathy to which the conservatives are always the last to sign on.
482
Conservatives join the change-train last, because they are conservatives. It's what they do. We need that in our society; we often need it in charge Constant change is tiring and tends toward anarchy if pursued long enough. Of course, the opposite case, where change is stymied at every turn, creates pressures that are far worse. We're in one of those times now, and change is past due. We should all hope we achieve it before we self-immolate.
1
When one sees the extent of the emotional reactions to the latest mass shooting among high school students, not only in Florida but all over the country, it is clear that the issue is now not only about gun control. It is dawning on these young people that our government is dominated by lobbyists and money. Their outrage is for the lack of democratic process that happens when corporations and big money have a stronger voice in legislation than the public. What is the NRA but the lobbying group of the gun and ammunitions industry that helps them become wealthier by increasing gun sales? I think the scales are falling from many young peoples' eyes as to who really has power in this so-called democratic country, and it certainly is not them!
The culture wars would not be seen as "wars" if the people's ideas of how to live, how to govern, could be brought into being by the democratic processes and principles we in America are founded upon, rather than the distortions in thinking of corporations as citizens and money equalling free speech.
1
In my lifetime, which began in 1950, every major liberal political movement has eventually prevailed and proven to be the correct course for our country. The fight for racial equality, what percentage of the country wants to revert to the Jim Crow era? Ending the Vietnam war, how many think that fight was worthy of the sacrifice in blood and treasure? Women's equality, should those gains be rolled back?
All of the above changes came to be because people marched in the street. Sane firearm laws, now viewed as the liberal position, will happen when we the people march in the street.
Any bets on how this liberal position will be viewed in a generation or two?
600
Mindy makes an excellent point. All of the disputes she refers to were tribal in nature. They were not resolved by gentle conversation and mutual respect. We forget that we had to fight and defeat those who defended the status quo. That is our history. And the history of this country.
4
The big difference is abortion. Roe vs Wade has been challenged from the very beginning. States are constantly passing abortion regulations, and it is court challenges, not popular opinion, that block the regulations. Supporters are terrified that Roe vs Wade will be overturned and that they would have to face conservatives on a level playing field.
1
It must be nice to claim every worthwhile thing for your team after the fact. JIm Crowe was supported by Democrats, who also made up the original slave owners. Equality was a northern and Republican cause. Vietnam? Kennedy and Johnson escalated it to the level of war, and their man, Robert McNamara, was the engineer. You confuse liberalism with leftist and recent party shifts. The idea of every individual having economic freedom and self-determination predates this country's founding. I think it is a symptom of today's tribalism that the best our our heritage and traditions and the fruit they have born are now being revisionistically co-opted by one point of view.
2
David, why do you imagine the NRA advocates the sale of military grade weapons plus less stringency of back ground checks, while the majority of members advocate stronger back ground checks as well as removal of assault weapons from the marketplace?
2
In the end it will likely, as usual, all be about the money.
Yesterday the NRA-heavy Georgia legislature voted to strip Delta of its $40 million jet fuel tax break in punishment for the airline's retraction--in effort to remain neutral on gun control in the wake of the Parkland massacre of school children and the teachers who tried to protect them--of a modest NRA discount. Last night the NRA met with Trump and somehow convinced him to reverse his stance--just yesterday--to "stand up" to them.
Citizens United made certain it doesn't matter that 97 percent of Americans want stronger background checks for gun purchase, it doesn't matter what "cultural" stance the majority of Americans believe is "right" in some ultimate sense with respect to guns--or anything else, for that matter.
You really think "stigma" will sway politicians? Not when the big money all goes the other way.
3
In your last paragraph you use the term “less educated” in place of “conservative.” That conflation is so deeply entrenched that it’s almost impossible to respectfully disagree. When facts like climate change, and sensible regulation of guns and predatory lenders are polarizing matters of debate then detente seems impossible.
1
The "culture war" is about more than guns. I don't see how a "culture" that is hostile to family, hostile to heterosexual marriage/relationship, hostile to any kind of commitment or responsibility, including parenthood, is going to last very long.
4
To "me":
Speaking as a 67 year old, white, heterosexual, happily married, parent of two smart, successful, happily married, heterosexual-sexual children who, like me and my wife, support equal rights, sensible gun control and a list of other progressive, forward-thinking issues, I think you're way off base. A bit off in right field, perhaps?
I'm not sure where you get the idea that those who share our(my) sentiments are hostile to the things you list but I would suggest that you, yourself are listening to some hostile voices, and I don't mean left-leaning, progressive ones.
@Michael: Thanks. I find it hard to answer folks like 'me' with gentle chiding. You have done so.
Brooks is correct, but only as it pertains to the culture of the northeast and west coasts--a culture that is very different from the culture in the south and middle America. True, it may not be socially acceptable to wear an NRA pin or have a pro-life bumper sticker in Washington, D.C. or New York, but it is perfectly acceptable in Tennessee, Georgia, Nebraska, etc. I very much enjoy reading Brooks--especially on cultural and social issues--but I fear that sometimes he is too insulated in the culture of the east coast to fully understand the cultural differences that exist across the country. The sad result of the liberal culture war is that it just further divides the country into red and blue. Purple is an endangered color in politics, and it shouldn't be. I would love to see Brooks hit the road for a month or so, drive across the country, meet with folks, and hear about their cultures. I volunteer to be his host and tour guide in East Tennessee!
3
I ask: In the same way that the rights of the unborn are a topic of moral debate, shall we open the debate with a concern over the rights of the already born? Do unregulated guns pose a threat to human life?
2
The Parkland students, as with all kids who experience the horrors of gun violence, are not warriors in a culture war. They are traumatized victims of abhorrent violence who have exprienced in their young lives, things that should only be seen on a military battlefield.
They are an inspiration. They have looked past their horror and grief and said enough. They speak a horrible truth to people like Mr Brooks. They say that they are the ones who pay the price for your culture wars and that price is too high. Do something!!!
4
Progressives win for a very simple reason: We represent the future, you the past.
We had great teachers showing us what went wrong; you.
7
Has David Brooks really listed Planned Parenthood as a "hyper-polarizing left-wing group"? An agency which delivers essential life-saving health care to low income people not otherwise served in many communities? If so he has just lost all credibility as a conservative voice outside the realm of Franklin Graham and Dinesh D-Souza.
9
Mr. Brooks, you need a vacation or more sunshine. These dreary columns without a point are a fine contrast to the angst and drama taking place in other parts of the NYT and media as a whole, but in a few short days Spring will be here. It will no longer be enough to say "This is so, but on the other hand, this is also so".
Time to take a side, Mr. Brooks. We are all sick and tired of the political mud wrestling Trump is inspiring as well as participating in. One cannot be an observer of politics without getting splashed with mud so man up and give us a column with one opinion, please.
I suspect as a Republican--you are still a Republican?--you have reached that point in the grieving process where energy is gone, food no longer has tastes to tempt a declining appetite and, well, I won't mention all the side effects of this stage of the grieving process for a Republican party which no longer exists.
Popular culture is a difficult topic for people beyond a certain age to speak of or engage with. The progressive voices of the Democrats are certainly not at the DCCC, but CPAC was the GOP culture at its loudest. Winning against the CPAC culture is needed to preserve democracy in the US so it must be done with vigor and intensity despite the risk of political backlash. Your caution about "elite cultural intimidation", Mr. Brooks, seems self-serving at best as a Republican.
The "Culture War" is unlikely to be "won". We are still fighting the idea of slavery in 2018.
3
While centrist Democrats complain that young people don't vote enough, millenials are busy changing cultural norms. You may think they are looking at kitten videos all day, but actually they are talking to people worldwide and learning the true meaning of tolerance. Not tolerance of hate and bigotry and terrorizing the other, but the tolerance of letting people be who they truly are instead of trying to force everyone to conform to some twisted Old Testament view of the world that discounts what Jesus said to find passages that back hate and violence.
It may be that these young people are a little too idealistic , take it a little too far, and rudely shut down speech that should be politely criticized. But they are fighting against people that use direct and brutal violence in their terror campaigns. While the media treats white supremacist, anti-lgbt violence as the work of lone gunmen, fake-christian right wing terror groups foment actual terror campaigns that result in murder regularly. Church shootings, school shootings, assasssinations of abortion providers, running over peaceful protesters, on and on. Right Wing terror has killed far more Americans than Muslim terrorists. There is no moral equlivalence between the fascists and the anti-fascists. PC is sane cultural norms.
A far as legislation goes. Democrats should concentrate on subsidized education, healthcare, infrastructure and taxing billionaires to win the vast majority.
Invest in workers to win.
4
As a nation, with regard to the NRA, we are at the point we were in 1953 when Joseph McCarthy was told, "I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency?" That was the moment he was finished. Unfortunately, hatred and cruelty never completely die, but when they emerge with the strength we are witnessing today with Donald Trump, the Republicans, the so called conservative movement and the evangelical Christians and their enablers, such as the NRA, Americans forcefully stand up and say we have had enough. In the past we have successfully chased the evildoers back to their caves from whence they came to allow our better angels to lead us to greater good. That is all that is happening now. Our institutions are failing us miserably. We need to teach these shameless destroyers of America a lesson. We are doing that. We will prevail and we could care less about hurting their feelings, Mr. Brooks.
6
I made a comment containing that same quote. We've reached a tipping point on guns. Even gun enthusiasts are standing tall and not hiding behind noxious NRA rhetoric. Enough is enough.
I like it when people from AZ and people from MA can agree on something.
I am a veteran, gun owner and concealed carry permit holder and I believe guns should be far more regulated than they currently are. I hate the NRA and would never join such an evil organization. We need sensible gun laws in this country and we should have a complete ban on assault rifles. Arizona has a chance to go blue this election cycle for the first time in decades.
I have an 18 year old daughter who is a high school senior. The most salient aspect of the newthink sensibility about guns that her generation is espousing is more visceral than any other I've seen in my lifetime. They are not arguing a position. They are acting against a threat from their basic and genuine sense of self-preservation. They have figured out their lives are at risk from assault weapons and that no one in power demonstrably in the past three decades has done a single thing to shield them realistically from this direct threat. They will not stop, nor will their successors. The own the future, and the future is legislated gun control.
763
Not until the conservatives in our current leadership die off. To them human life is secondary to making money. They have a proven track record of selling off the safety of the American people for profit. I hope your daughter survives the GOP long enough to see real changes to our insane gun laws.
3
SEMARI: If a lone gunman entered a McDonald cafe and began shooting up the place, am quite sure that if you and your family were present, you would be most grateful if there were someone there with a concealed carry permit to defend you and other customers.There are at least two sides to every argument. In states where concealed carry is permitted, crime rate rarely goes up, but inevitably down.Daily life is getting more, not less dangerous, and you never know. Did the cartoonists at CHARLEYHEBDO suspect that they would be the victims of mujahideen, unleashing a fusillade that resulted in over 10 deaths?Jewish schools, synagogues, senior centers and cemeteries are guarded around the clock in every major urban center in France, and many "Francais d'origine juive" who have lived in "la belle France " for decades are now contemplating moving to Israel. 1 news item to be fully explored concerns the Promise Program which involved doling out millions of dollars to schools and police departments to persuade them to artificially keep crime statistics low for reasons which need to be elucidated.Incidents in high schools reflect badly on the principal and his subordinates.That might account for MSD's reluctance to report the bizarre, threatening behavior of the shooter which commenced long before he actually carried out his mad fantasy.
Please give your daughter a big hug or hug-equivalent from me. You go, girl!! (and parent(s).
The threatening tone of Mr. Brooks' last paragraph is an intriguing insight into the mind of a conservative elitist. To have it in the context of a piece on gun control along with the use of the word separatist is disturbing. Don't worry, Mr. Brooks, your signaling will assure your safety when the armed mob comes rampaging through your (gated?) community.
2
The problem is that ivory tower intellectuals like David Brooks believe that most people care about political labels.
Do you know what percentage of Americans have consistently thought out political positions?
15%
Having said that, when you look at the majority position on almost any issue, the progressive position wins. Conservatives HAVE to lie - "they're taking away your freedom" - because this is NOT a right wing, or even a center right, or even a moderate country. On climate change, universal health care, education (free college), gun control, and (at least some restrictions on) abortion, 60% is the minimal number (as one commenter mentioned - 97% support for stronger background checks).
David, go back and look at your parents again. They were liberals. Not so bad, eh?
now, look in the mirror and see if you can bear it -
you're a liberal.
Get over it.
The gun issue has reached a tipping point, just like the McCarthy days and the question: “have you left no sense of decency….” It has all gone too far. Enough was enough then; enough is enough now.
I’m a standard Massachusetts Democrat. As I’ve said many times in these comments, I have relatives who hunt. They enjoy hunting; I enjoy the meals. My friends understand that our garbled group of words called a Second Amendment does assure some right of gun ownership. All these reasonable, rational people want responsible gun ownership in this country, that’s just how it is. Not a single one of them thinks an AR-15 is an appropriate weapon for civilians. Every one of them thinks all firearms should be registered. The NRA will not accept this because they have their own agenda, and we’ve become a country where lobbyists and big money are in control, not Americans. It’s sad, pathetic, and obscene.
We don’t want to take everyone’s guns away. I don’t know how to make it any clearer.
And--the Women’s Marches are polarizing? This old lady dragged her bones to those marches because she sat in an engineering office with privileged white males like you fifty years ago. Little has changed in that sexist landscape, in case you haven’t noticed. If women hitting the streets and saying enough is enough is too much for your fragile male ego, if you think the needs of humans who make up half the population are ‘fringe,’ then, Mr. Brooks, you are as lost as the NRA.
5
Meanwhile the "progressives" in Hollywood will join together at the Oscars to ban guns and put the NRA out of business. Never mind the fact that the majority of the movies include and promote nothing but gun violence.
You aren't going to win any culture wars doing that!
1
David is finally hearing the alarm clock. He has been in a deep sleep through most of the last 20 - 30 years. Welcome to the real world Rip, a lot has happened since you went to sleep!
(It is conservatives, not liberals, who keep guns from being dealt with like opioids.) Rubio wrote the following on Twitter: "The debate after #Parkland reminds us We The People don’t really like each other very much. We smear those who refuse to agree with us. We ... celebrate arrogance and boasting, and worst of all we have infected the next generation with the same disease." ... Sounds like you, no?
David Frum had a hilarious reply to this: "He's sweating." He then said something very true: "This would be a much more powerful comment if it had been elicited by respect for others rather than - as so obviously the case - pity for himself." Even were your tactical advice to be heeded, the result would be the same. Why is it you never recommend the mollification of LIBERALS? This will provoke no bigger reaction than anything else "liberals" do.
After so much carnage, we've little time for talking, not with deceivers, nor with fear mongers. GOP voters are against liberals, not gun control. They'll calm down once they see communism isn't a result of banning assault rifles. Empathy? Maybe a couple of mass shootings ago, but not now.
The divide on assault weapons is fake: a product of propaganda, which you should be lacing into. I'm not a progressive. This isn't about "taking guns." This is about common sense and sanity. Cultural and legislative change can happen quickly. Gun-law loosening is a result of fear. It means little. We can win on this nationally; so full steam ahead.
2
David, that was brilliantly spoken. I agree and I am an independent voter. Democratic arrogance is no better than Republican arrogance.
Good Lord-that last paragraph sounds like a threat. Most Americans want sensible gun reform- nothing elitist about it.
3
Sadly, I think this American experiment has failed and it's time cut our losses. I'm completely willing to let those 40% go and have their own country; the rest of us will start our own America with our own solutions for out of control gun violence, out of control magical thinking through religion, and out of control corporate power. Have fun, 40% - we'll see you guys at the next Olympics.
Too bad Grant didn't surrender to Lee at Appomattox. So you'd need a passport to go to Disney World. As someone who has lived in the South the southern states would be a third world country if they were on the own.
@Michael and @Jeffrey--I'd love to make it happen. They'd be even happier about it than we would be. Win-win.
David Brooks: have you lost your mind?
It's not those who want to put an assault weapon in the hands of every American to preserve freedom and for protection who are "hyperpartisan" but those who are organizing to return some measure of sanity to American society and to prevent barbaric gun deaths of innocent American children, women, and men??
Whatever happened to honest reasoning and common sense?
3
I’m taken aback by David’s article. Rather than focus upon the good that could result from gun control, he is alarmed that support is increasing. Why is David alarmed? Because he sees his Republican party on the wrong side and is afraid that Dems will profit from being on the right side!
Tut, tut.
2
Brooks overlooks Conservativesocial and cultural ostracism on the South of Democrafs over the last decades in all but a few enclaves. One expression of this has been the stage that "It's not respectable to be be a Democrat anymore."
When did wanting to stay alive become a partisan issue ?
2
When it collided with staying free.
A school shooting every day is still better than 330 million people living in tyranny.
"The only thing I’d say to my progressive friends is, be careful how you win your victories. It is one thing to win by persuasion and another thing to win by elite cultural intimidation. Illiberalism breeds illiberalism." As a independent-minded progressive, so right.
Van Jones, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Cornel West, and others on the spiritual left might also agree... Allied feminists as well?
“Noun: terrorist; plural noun: terrorists
1.
a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
What about the spread of “lawful” violence and intimidation made possible by bought political loyalty? What else but “terrorist” would you call an organization that spreads fear and conspiracy to achieve it’s end goal?
So Mr. Brooks is concerned about a backlash from conservatives. What are they going to do that they haven't done?
Conservatives have given us the "Culture War". They have vocally and violently attacked abortionists and those seeking to end their pregnancies. They have taken guns into public places. They have supported those who stand against our government. They have called liberals treasonous for their political beliefs. They have stolen a Supreme Court seat, driven up medical costs and driven down coverage, threatened Medicare and Medicaid. They have told us this is a Christian nation and taken unto themselves American Nazis, white supremacists, anti-semites. They have driven up debt. And they have played politics with all of it.
Now Mitch McConnell announces we will not see any gun control from Congress...and find that Trump's visible support for it one day was taken away within hours.
American conservatism is a movement empty of all ideas save promoting the wealthy and punishing everyone else. This is where the libertarian philosophy inevitably leads.
Mr. Brooks says ostracizing conservatives will lead to, "a political backlash that will make Donald Trump look like Adlai Stevenson." He wants us to be respectful because otherwise they will become even more dreadful. He wants us to be nice for fear of their wrath.
No thank you. I choose to call evil evil. I choose not to live in fear.
Mr. Brooks has been wringing his hands over the stereotyping of Trump voters and their intolerance. He implores us to try a little empathy and understanding. Yet he paints progressives with a broad brush and distorts our concerns and motivations in the same way that he accuses us of misrepresenting the other side.
1
David Brooks you always seem to be warning liberals about a backlash.
I think for the first time in a very long time they are finally doing things right.
I have a different take - democratic losses under Obama came because Democrats refused to fire with fire, had no equivalent to Fox News and an apathetic base.
1
A simpler explanation for the success of some so-far very limited gun control initiatives is that the bubble has finally burst on the NRA. Their myth that gun control advocates were going to take Pa's huntin' rifle away is no longer the image people have in their mind's eye. Instead it is the lone gunman with an automatic rifle killing children. The NRA is finally now seen by most as another lobbying group supporting ridiculous sales practices that are harmful to the public interest, and they are increasingly paper tigers (maybe cardboard now, but soon paper mash). Once the bubble bursts they are gone as a major political force, outmaneuvered by high school kids and their parents, and the rest of sane America. Goodbye!
As for culture wars and shouts of illiberalism -- an exaggeration best left to political hacks.
2
Mr. Brooks, while I recognize you continue to “bridge the gap” in this society, I am so TIRED of hearing the “elitist” reference. ENOUGH!
Just because I do not want 20 little children riddled with bullets so badly that their horrified parents could not view their bodies; and 14 teens shot up on Valentine’s Day in school; and over 50 country music fans running for their lives while a maniac is mowing them down - I am an ELITIST! Enough!
The NRA and the Gun Owners of America are reaping profits or arming up for some imaginary invasion- REALLY!
I am NO ELITIST and neither are upwards of 70 to 80% of the country who wants this insanity stopped.
Enough with playing nice in the sandbox. This is one mother, grandparent, aunt and friend will fight like a crazed mother bear to protect her loved ones. And guess what Mr. Brooks, there are millions more standing with me and millions of amazing millennials with us.
1
This reads like the schoolyard bully saying to one of his prey "remember who's keeping you safe around here"... You tell progressives to worry about cultural backlash from the right. In the meantime, Trump passed a trillion dollar tax cut for the rich to be paid for by cuts to the poor and conservatives are pressing SCOTUS to put one of final nails in the coffin of labor unions. Backlash? Progressives are under frontal assault. You can't see it, because you like the tax cut and think the unions deserve to die because they haven't been talking nicely enough.
1
You misread much more than you realize. What's happening is the delegitimizing of a bankrupt, corrupt, and false version of morality: the pseudo-Christian right (much of which is actually a heresy by any traditional notion of Christianity) has shown itself to be immoral and often nothing more than a more polite facade for racism than white hoods. And more recently, it's become a haven for those wishing to pretend that cruel economic policies like gutting food stamps and Social Security are grounded in Christian principles.
When GOP leadership embraced the Southern strategy in the 1970s and the Moral Majority in the 1980s, they set themselves on a path that has invitably led them here.
1
Liberals did not delegitmize conservatives. They did that to themselves. Just consider the NRA. It was once a group like US Golf Association, or the American Bowling Congress. a place where like minded people could explore their interests, get a magazine with topics of interest etc. Now it is an extreme political organization that openly advocates arming oneself to fight the government and liberals. They put themselves outside the pale and the republicans who in thrall to the NRA should share their fate. Across the board the republican party has moved so far to the right and has employed tactics to maintain its power that the only effective response is to attack them for what they now are, traitors to the basic american creed fo majority rule and minority rights through constitutional government.Throw the bums out every one of them.
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2 days after your last column warning progressives to be more polite, the CEO of the NRA made a widely covered high profile speech in which he actually described Democrats winning a majority in Congress or electing a president as "seizing control of power." In the face of such perversions of and threats to our system from the "conservative" side of the debate, your concerns are laughable and your advice is absurd. Progressives can be illiberal, no doubt about it, and there are risks of such behavior but compared to the threat, you are worrying about a misquito bite while an anvil is about to drop on our collective heads.
Have long said you gotta make guns like smoking. Legal, and a personal choice, but not what the cool kids are doing. Although - what's the vaping version of shooting a gun? A slingshot?
As smug and overly nice as I find you, Mr. Brooks, I find your columns illuminating as they force me to evaluate and articulate what I really think and believe in relation to your themes. It's a good to be goaded to clarify one's attitudes, even if the process is irritating. And I think you fight fair which lessens the probability of reactionary responses. It can inspire a real discussion.
Back during the 2016 presidential campaign, Brooks discovered that he was out of touch with American and went on a road trip to try and reconnect with the common people. He needs to do it again, because if there is one thing for sure, the rising wave of activism on guns isn't a culture war. It is about saving lives and not living in fear. Wake up, David.
The culture is changing, albeit at a glacial pace with fits and starts. Gun fetishism, like smoking, overt racial discrimination, groping, religious hypocrisy, and environmental abuse will not disappear entirely. However, they and the other accoutrements of booboisie cultural conservatism will be consigned to low class. People who cultivate these things will be regarded as toothless losers. Class discrimination with all its power will continue to thrive, in our society based as it is on acquisition. Progressives are beginning to notice that it’s more powerful than moral outrage.
There will be a place for philosophical and political conservatism as elements of American thought, if and when honest conservatives abandon their fealty to the booboisie. If not, they join the slavers and Whigs.
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OMG
"Winning the Culture War"...
How about just calling the prevalence of assault rifles out for what it is?
A ridiculous result of a corrupt political system that has actively deconstructed the possibility for reasonable and responsible reform.
When the political system fails as completely as ours has (driven to extremes by sensationalism and partisan gasp-and-click-generating journalism), we've sown our nation's mindscapes with frankenstein seeds of discord.
This is not a "culture war" that plays out along predictable and wonk-friendly lines - as you might wish. It's an upheaval borne of desperation and dying. You pen your column from a comfortable seat - while teen-agers and families grieve. Chaos is what the GOP has been bought and paid for... and it reigns. Good luck gaming it out as a culture war correspondent. How about taking a moral stand instead and joining the real battle - not just for hearts and minds but for substantive change, protecting our kids, and stopping the sale of these perverse tools of death? Not much intellectual capacity required - just simple and persistent effort is the order of the day. Add your voice to those calling for an assault weapons ban, but taking it a step further and use whatever credibility remains in your portfolio to actually help people, instead of idle speculation on "culture war".
You are sociologically confused, David.
You trot out that tired old saw called the "CULTURE WAR".
Well, it's not.
The Core Value of the Institution of Culture is "non-codified novelties and traditions". It can be anything from a recipe to infibulation to a garage band to skiing. The point of the Institution of Culture is, is that it is NOT the Institution of Law.
Don't blame this on Trump.
Trump is a blip, here today, gone tomorrow.
Unlike the rest of the Republican Party, Donnie doesn't have a clue what he wants for "Laws". But Ryan knows what he wants: Poor people off health care. Pence? A theocracy. The Kochs want all regulations gone. Oh, and all the money.
The fact is: What cons want for Laws, is NOT acceptable to Progressives.
Segregation? Inequality? Sexism? Racism? Ignorance? Illiteracy?
Not me!
Now, about the kids: The Kids are doing fine.
They know what they want (gun LAWS) , they know who to go to to get it (Rubio, Scott), and they know the timeline on it (from 'now' to 'the end of time'). This is their Vietnam. They know they are right, that others have been right before them, and, that others who come after them will be right, too.
Now, about that 40% being "exiled".
No one "exiled" anyone.
The Republican Party CHOSE to remove itself from decent society.
They made that CHOICE 40 years ago when they destroyed the Equal Rights Amendment, stripping out over 50% of the populace from the Constitution.
THIS is what DEMOCRACY looks like.
This is a WAR OF LAWS!
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Yes Mr. Brooks, something bigger is going on. As in many earlier instances, hard-right conservatives have drawn battle lines and self-marginalized behind them. I suppose your attitude in showing some reactionary respect would have been OK we'll negotiate fair housing, but let's not fight miscegenation laws; gays shouldn't have to endure beatings in the street, but they can't expect us to share institutions like marriage with them; women could compete for high-powered jobs, but who men actually hire and what they pay are their decisions based on whatever criteria they like. But no, those uncompromising progressives have always insisted on the whole package. Can't we retain just some insults to human dignity?
And now it's guns. Imagine, mass killings nearly every week and over 30,000 gun deaths a year, and those nasty libs want to make it embarrassing to continue supporting the guns-for-everyone-everywhere-all-the-time lobby that keeps those deaths rolling in and profits from them! Why can't they show a little respect?
The NRA is a blood-soaked, murderous organization. Any company that partners with it should be boycotted. Its "A" grade Congressional supporters should be voted out. And yes, individuals should be embarrassed to admit to being members. Let's hope for total victory and sensible gun laws at last.
"Conservatives have zero cultural power"
How does a conservative writer in a national, globally distributed, newspaper keep a straight face as he makes this claim?
Then again, all I have to go on is the icon in the by-line. Maybe he's actually splitting his sides...
Think back to the Civil War. The North of free people ended the reign of the disgusting South, a majority of whom were slaves, then think back to the Civil Rights movement of the 60's when Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia governors stood in the schoolhouse doors to block minority rights and proclaimed "Segregation Forever." The present gun mad NRA voters, mainly concentrated in the same loser states are sure to lose again because Americans are basically good and smart and they will not tolerate this scourge of gun massacres continuing without action.
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