So Cory "I am Spartacus" Booker is now the 'love' candidate.LOL
He was a failure as Mayor, a liar about his drug addled best buddy and even about his Spartacus moment and he squandered one hundred million dollars donated by Zuckerberg to improve the Newark school system.
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2014/05/19/how-zuckerberg-s-100-million-for-newark-schools-actually-turned-out/
Let's get real he is a smooth talking operator with few accomplishments
12
Mr. Brooks, you are my very favorite commentator on important issues. I seldom disagree with you, but I thimnk your faith in Cory Booker is slightly exagerated. He clearly and loudly stated regarding Judge Kavanaugh: "He is an Evil Man". Really? So how does he refer to Stalin and Hitler? Just wondering......
12
Thank you, David Brooks.
David Brooks sincerely believes he is morally superior. I read him today because of his subject matter but for the most part I don't read him. I cannot stand the moralizing from a member of an immortal party. Both Brroks and Dowd need to be replaced.
7
Cory Booker is a closet Fascist posing as a progressive. His interest is in photo ops, not societal progress. Mouthing liberal-sounding platitudes and posturing like he means the people's business, he then legislates in favor of Big Pharma and other campaign benefactors. Cory Booker is no progressive, and certainly no man of the people.
9
Cory Booker loves Big Pharma and Big Insurance. Of course he doesn’t support M4A.
5
I too wish the world was a better place. Love and hugs wouldn't have defeated the Nazis and they are not going to defeat Mr. Trump and his gang of thugs. People have consistently underestimated the power of hate that Mr. Trump has unleashed. Unfortunately sometimes to destroy the rats you have to go down into the sewer.
7
Dear Mr. Brooks,
Could you kindly walk across the newsroom and explain all this to your new colleague Mr. Bouie? You would be doing a favor both to him and to the readers of the NY Times.
1
Senator Booker looked like an idiot during the Kavanaugh hearings and will not overcome his Spartacus moment. I would add that David Brooks is rapidly dissipating any conservative chops that he once enjoyed and is increasingly earning a reputation as yet one more leftie on the NYT editorial page. Group think?
6
"You don't build a better society turning yourself into a rotten human being." Don't you think that line should be directed at Trump voters?
5
Do you remember the disgusting conduct of Booker during the Kavanaugh circus for Justice of the Supreme Court?
Booker is a street fighter and will con one and all to get the nomination. Disgusting.
5
David Brooks seems to hope that it will all 'work out'. As a 'progressive I agree; we don't need to demonize the 'other side'. But we need to hold them to facts.
When Obama was elected posters displaying blatantly racist images of Barack and Michelle elicited zero condemnation from the repubs ... like the coward who spat on John Lewis or the idiot who shouted 'you Lie' or Gingrich calling Obama 'the food stamp president' The republicans needed those tea party votes .... And contorted everything to harvest votes from angry whites.
In the republican primaries Trump insulted McCain, the Syrian parents, abusing women ... His rallies garnered huge amounts of screaming attention. From the repubs? Deadly silence and a sad attempt to imitate him.
The republicans say the Mueller investigation has 'dragged on'. What about the Clinton impeachment trials, Bhengazi etc ...Much longer, far more costly.
Trump's lies have not helped his supporters since his election; he has hurt farmers and business ... HIs tax cuts generated a bit of economic growth, but he inherited a growing economy from Obama ... Shredding environmental rules will cost us in the future.
Polarization does not help, but republicans need to own their choices, as the democrats do.
And, for beginners, we need a 3rd party, an end to the electoral college, election day a national holiday.
9
The fault, dear Brooks, is not in our parties, but in ouselves...
2
Can't help with think that a lot.... A LOT…. of these glowing, pro-Booker comments are from his won workers....
Truth (to me) is, he's nothing much....
2
As long as there is Fox News, we will NEVER be rid of the right wing lunacy. Go high, go low....it doesn't matter. The Fox audience believes NOTHING but what is told to them on Fox, and that is almost always a lie. Try arguing with a Trumper....there is NOTHING you can say that they will believe. I am worried that our nation is a lost cause.
5
A compliment from David Brooks - the kiss of death for Booker...
1
Why do I feel that you can't trust anything David Brooks says because there is always an underlying political motivation to it?
But I think I'm beginning to understand. I don't trust Brooks because I'm a bad person, not an open handed, trusting person like Brooks or his black avatar Cory Booker.
And if I somehow have the feeling that Brooks is a neo-con publicist who after his yeoman work celebrating the good works of Bush II, Dick Cheney and especially Paul Wolfowitz in cleansing Iraq, "the swamp in which terror breeds," or backing Binyamin Netanyahu, or pushing the American Enterprise Institute, or not understanding that American Capitalism is the best of all possible worlds—at least achievable possible worlds— or in driving the Jewish upper middle class into the Republican Party, it's because I smell enemies around every corner. The problem is me. I'm the bad person, not Brooks and his friends, old and new.
It's not political, its religious! And I am the sinner! Thank you David Brooks for opening our eyes. And also thank you Cory Booker, for all of your lies.
7
Mr Brooks, please call a spade a spade. America is so divided because of the inhuman political ideas of the Republicans. The party leaders consider those who do not ascribe to their views as lazy, leeches if not subhuman. Such deserve to be ostracized. Any group of people so characterized would have to fight back to regain their dignity if not humanity. This is what many of the downtrodden Democrats are
2
Booker is too close to Big Pharma.
2
Hitler was downright evil. The leaders of Japan before 1945 were evil in the way that imperialist and racist empires were evil; their evil was Confederacy-level evil. We defeated these powers and rescued their people from dictatorships that were destroying their honor if not their welfare. The rescue started with ruling them but quickly shifted to getting them to rule themselves. On the way to these victories, we did not demonize Germans (we did that in World War I), but we did demonize Japanese.
The owners of Purdue Pharma represent a fantastic capitalist success story. Their money helps fund leading New York cultural institutions. They are also evil. We need to stop their evil and rescue them and their employees from their willing or unwitting participation in this evil.
We have evil politicians. The ones who pretend not to be are more evil than the ones who do not. The ones who do not see themselves as evil, pretending to themselves as well as to others, are perhaps the worst of all.
Obama tried being nice to them and tried to work with them, but it did not work. Some painted him as evil and others did not strongly dispute this portrait because it was politically successful.
Being nice to people who are openly nice, have concealed weapons, and are looking for the best opportunity to use them is not a viable strategy.
6
Booker doesn't have a chance. I'd rather vote for Amy K. of Mn.
3
I think that Beto O'Rouke makes same appeals as Sen. Booker.
1
Booker is just another empty suit with no accomplishments. Even when elected mayor of Newark NJ, supporters are hard-pressed to enumerate his successes.
We need better schools, with better ideas--which Liberals fight against.
We need more opportunity, a strong business climate, which Liberals try to undermine--because it tends to support Trump.
We need politicians with realistic ideas--not free college, free healthcare, free daycare, free jobs for those who don't want to work--or reparations paid for slavery which ended 154 years ago.
Third trimester abortion? Packing the Supreme Court? Open Borders? 70% tax rates? Opposition to charter schools? Just keep turning the Crazy Dial to the left.
Cory Booker is just another unaccomplished, self-important bag of hot air who has never lived in the real world, doesn't understand how America became a great country--and in fact, would dispute that we even are that great.
If you ask any Democrat politician if Capitalism is good or bad--and they hesitate even for a moment--you know. You just know. They are too ideologically compromised and flawed to lead this nation.
6
As a loyal mamber of the professional Republican Commentariat, Brooks leaves out the main reason for the poisonous atmosphere in current American politics, his Republican Party. For decades Republicans have been excoriating Democrats as stupid, traitorous, environazi commie pinkos and worse. It has been twenty five years since the morals- and ethics-free Newt Gingrich published his list of epithets to be used by Republicans against Democrats. In 2019 those epithets can be heard every day on right-wing nut net, from Fox Fake News to Limbaugh to Trump. Brooks cites Thomas Edsall’s column to bolster his false-equivalence claim that both sides are equally to blame. That Democrats finally became so fed up with Republican lies and attacks in the era of Trump, and have started fighting fire with fire, hardly places them in the same category as the Right. Being fed up with evil amd injustice does not make one evil and unjust, it makes you a moral human, something Brooks claims to admire. If he really cared about the current corrosive state of American political discourse he would be writing columns condemning his own party, its polical leaders, and his President. He would be calling for his fellow Republicans to stop using lie-based incendiary language against Democrats and to reign in their Party-uber-alles, win-at-any-cost impulses. Where is that column?
7
I think you are wrong.
For the last couple of hundred years the ideas of the Enlightenment were in ascendance. Logic, data, reason were driving a lot of the world.
In the last few decades we are descending into a New Dark Age were all of those things mean nothing. Look at the idiots who do not vaccinate their kids yet drive a car. They pick and choose what logic, data, and reason to use as it suits their whim.
The New Dark Age is a growing Infection in the ideas of the Enlightenment. The body has to seek out and kill the infectious invader. So does, metaphorically if possible, literally if necessary, the Body Politic of the Enlightenment.
When a couple has non reconcilable differences they get a divorce. When a country has them with another country they go to war. What happens when non reconcilable differences crop up within a country as they did in 1860?
I think you live in a dream world. Of course one would hope that people could come to an accommodation and share the space together. But, often that is just not going to happen.
Unless a complete and utterly new-different political-economic model were to come into play overnight, were are headed to tribal war of one sort or another in America.
i still didn't google what he meant by his spartacus moment. Maybe he should explain that to voters who are too lazy like me. I used to like the guy and thought he was authentic.
I agree, without even having met them, that the 15 Nebraskans you sat down with are not "downright evil." I don't think "downright evil" even exists which points to large problems with your essay. You don't define this condition which you claim those who have less kindly things to say about those who voted (and will vote again) for Trump accuse such people of. The bigger problem with your essay is that you and all those, like Booker apparently, who say we are all the same underneath--that is, decent, worthy and blameless for the consequences of our political affiliation--never describe the values and character of those who support Trump, these still lovely people who have chosen so differently than us. They're not evil, I agree--but what are these people for those of us who can not for the life of us find a justification--moral, ethical, constitutional, practical, humane, rational--for supporting this president. You are not going to vote for Trump, Brooks, and likely did not vote for him in 2016. Why didn't you? What are your values that are counterposed to those who support Trump? What is your description of those of your 15 Nebraskan friends who voted for Trump and will again--ill-informed, morally numb, uneducated, provincial, xenophobic, bigoted, ignorant, mean-spirited and vengeful? What?
2
You can and should reject the notion that "the other side is basically evil" without giving a pass to people who may be basically decent themselves but are all too ready to be led by monsters. Genuine, outright evil is a rare thing; but History tells us the worst tyrannies have always taken root, not in the evil machinations of the few, but in the complicit inaction of the many.
2
1.) It speaks to the strength of the Democratic field that such a high quality candidate as Cory Booker has gotten so little attention so far. Like his fellow Democratic candidates he would be an excellent choice and obviously light years ahead of the unqualified and unhinged Trump.
2.) Trying to equate the hate and vitriol displayed by Trump and his loyalists to a class act like Kamala Harris or someone who sticks to the issues like Bernie Sanders is specious.
3.) As for David Brooks, you almost have to pity him at this point. He is disgusted by Trump and internally wants so badly to support a candidate with morals and intelligence, yet he just cant dislodge himself from a lifetime of Republican politics. He's only realizing now that he's been hoodwinked for decades by those who spoke of family values, religious morals, the importance of the deficit, gave lip service to the inclusiveness of Jack Kemp, and obviously didn't mean a single word of it. Just do it David - it's time for you to let the world know that you have more in common with Democrats like Cory Booker than you do with mainstream Republicans of 2019.
1
We've had three straight presidents who romanticize the issues at hand. George Bush bringing democracy to Iraq, Obama saving the world as a messiah and now the lowest in Trump who thinks he can bring prosperity to our country and peace to the world by force of his (ughh) personality. Unfortunately, Cory Booker is another romantic, just a different version.
Lets try a hardheaded realist with lots of experience and political savvy at home and abroad.,for a change a la George HW Bush. I feel Jos Biden fits the bill.
1
One need only read the comments to this article to know where the hatred primarily lies in our political discourse. To the extent that Booker does not join in the sanctimonious vitriol that has become a staple of left-wing politics, great.
1
Basically, Brooks is saying that Booker would be a good president because he talks a lot about love. Further evidence that Brooks is falling victim to a dismayingly shallow sense that "everything will be okay if we're just nice to each other." Booker, friend to Wall Street and (worse) the repugnant profiteering Betsy DeVos, whose mission is life is to defund public schools and give the money to for-profit charter schools and ripoff colleges, a showboater and a grandstander... no, thank you. I want competence and character; not charisma and kumbaya. The more I see of Pete Buttigieg, the more I like him.
2
No need to react with hatred.But let's not pretend that the fascism of Trump can be countered by hugs and roses. That's the road to perdition.
1
David Brooks thoughtfully offers;
"Fanaticism is not the normal human state. Fanaticism is a disease that grows out of existential anxiety. It grows when people fear that they are being delegitimized. It grows when people are isolated and insulated from one another. It grows when you have leaders, like our president, who reduce everything to us/them stereotypes and so poison the public mind."
He takes the (NYT's obligatory) swipe at Trump. He might also have pointed out that "It" (fanaticism) also grows when the media reduces everything to stereotypes and accusations of 'racism', 'phobias' etc.
Mr. Brooks is under the assumption that the hate is one sideded (on the Trump side). If we just could rid ourselves of Trump, discourse would correct itself. Maybe so... but until a Trump supporter can walk without fear of being spit upon or called a racist for wearing Trump swag, the situation will remain the same.
2
As usual, Mr Brooks heads down a side path. The issue today, is not the candidates, it is the electorate. When the Electoral College majority believes as it does today, nice doesn't count for much.
1
I still remember the song that was playing the first time I was arrested (“Feliz Navidad” on the store radio), but who needs real-life experience?
What Would T-Bone Do?
I tend to think that a good number of Republican politicians and pundits are downright evil (or so heavily misguided that they are effectively so), but the average Trump supporter has my pity. They know not what they do.
2
Karl Marx wrote that power does not change without struggle. If Mr. Brooks and Mr. Booker think that niceness is going to make the powerful and the wannabees suddenly kinder and gentler toward the have nots, the immigrants and the other, then I have a bridge I would like to sell them. The powerful will fight tooth and nail, down and dirty and to the death if necessary.
4
Under other circumstances I would agree with Mr. Brooks that the use of the term "evil" should be used with great care and only under the most extreme circumstances. Having said that I would argue the term is applicable to the current Republican party - Trump and Congress. It is evil to be a white supremacist. It is evil to enable a white supremacist. It is evil to undermine the U.S. constitution for short-term political gain. It is evil to attempt to repeal healthcare coverage without providing any viable solution. The list goes on, but it strikes me "evil" is as reasonable description as I can think of. Of course that doesn't mean every Trump supporter is evil, they're are other explanations. But for Trump and his party it's the shoe that fits.
3
You cannot change the conversation without identifying and quarantining those who have profited from the divide. I'm not only speaking of opportunist politicians, but also of Fox News and its clones. They earn while we burn, leaving foreign adversaries a ready-made crack to widen. They need to be called on it early and often lest we forget how we got here and what we stand to lose if we're not much more careful than we've been of late.
2
Yes Warren! Especially after hearing Paul Ryan is serving Fox News. This opens up a whole new can of worms: taking sides, making us a divided country even more!
I heard Booker at Stanford three years ago and was blown away by his spiritual passion and implementation. He has a "fire in the belly" to help those in prison in particular.
1
Booker is an excellent, smart Senator, but I don't think the country is ready for a confirmed bachelor president.
1
BUT, does he still advocate a confiscatory government that "spreads the wealth" and misery equally?
1
It is certainly preferable to be gracious and kind, personally.
But it is sheer stupidity to be gracious and kind politically. Democrats have been, for the most part, gracious and accommodating as they've tried to work with Republicans. This has been true through the Carter term, the Clinton terms and Obama's 8 years. And look where it got us.
Bernie Sanders is not as you describe. One of the reasons he has been so successful is that he is uncompromising politically, but quite reasonable as a person. I am a Vermonter, in location much of the time and in heart all of the time.
Brooks has never witnessed the coalition of conservative farmers and back to the Earth hippies that Sanders brought together by respecting and speaking the truth to each facet of his coalition.
He - and several of the other Democrats - can do exactly that nationally.
2
It's certainly true that the more true-believer-like a candidate sounds, the less appealing that candidate is. We need somebody who can roll with the punches, not some fool with a preset answer for everything.
Senator Booker's outstanding credentials and altruistic beliefs in what Mr. Brooks calls his appeal to "voters' basic decency" will be overlooked in the eyes of many white male voters in my racially charged state who have become more divisive and ignited with racial animus since Trump's presidency than they had been during President Obama's time in office.
In the aftermath of Trump's election Ben Rhodes wrote in his book, "The World as It Is" that President Obama grappling with the transition mused: "Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early" and whether he had misjudged his own influence on American history.
It is naive to think that race will not play a part in Senator Booker's candidacy for president. He is running directly on the heels of an African-American president who questioned whether the country had been ready for his own historic victories in 2008 and 2012. Is this nation under Trump ready at this moment in time for another inspirational, accomplished and morally upright black president bearing the message of hope of Mr. Brooks-- "Americans are still connected by sacred bonds?"
1
The only voice that stands out to me right now is Jay Inslee. His focus on climate change makes him a candidate with his eye on how the world needs to change led by the USA. But my fear is that Bernie Sanders will once again put Trump in the WH and defeat the best efforts of good candidates on the Democratic side. And it is obvious that his supporters have no clue how easy it will be for the GOP to shred and spit out Sanders. So beating Trump is complicated by blindness to the GOP machine that lies ahead. And if people simply focus on how the GOP has supported Trump for two years it should be clear: be afraid, be very afraid of what they intend to do to keep Trump in office.
I'm very happy to hear that David Brooks approves the persona of at least one Democrat, but the impetus for this piece is just another caricature of the Democrats in general as angry folks who find nothing to praise in American institutions. That's an outrageous contention with no evidence to back it up. Indeed, if so many Democrats are running , a big part of their motivation is to restore adherence to the Constitution, to ensure a more equitable society through access to the vote, to make government function as it is supposed to, without the greed and corruption that now characterize so many agencies and departments.
Only a few of the candidates, and I'm not sure Booker is one, understand the disasters wrought by excessive corporate power. Why not give us the facts about where Corey Booker stands on issues such as anti-trust and Citizens United. That would tell us more about what we need to know to make an informed choice.
1
I want a president who can fix our economy, restore our standard of living, defend our borders, reestablish world leadership, and forge a united West. That's my presidential agenda. I really don't care the least about these fake problems of "hate" and "fanaticism" and all the "microaggression" crises the "antifada" has wasted the last two years roiling this country about.
1
If an alien who knew nothing about politics read this column, they’d come away assuming that the “president” is some sort of a spiritual guide, the voice of the people of America.
That’s only a tertiary role of the President. The President’s job is to help develop, enact, and execute policies.
Voters and pundits ought to spend a lot less time pontificating on how candidates make them feel, and a lot more time thinking about what each candidate wants to actually do in office. It’d be a shame for a primary with as many interesting and important policy ideas as this one to be settled by someone having a more winning smile or friendly demeanor.
2
It is ridiculous to consider well-meaning people with opposing (yet peaceful) political views as "downright evil", but it is not a sign how "deranged" our discourse has become that people are expressing that view. This type of view, the fear of the other, has reigned supreme in political discourse since the dawn human tribal governing. It is hardwired into homo sapiens' DNA as a positive evolutionary survival group-trait. "Liberals" and "conservatives" are just labels for two super-tribes. It takes a visionary leader, one who transcends tribal motivations, one who knows the value of inclusion in modern human society, to see things like Cory Booker does. Disagree with policy if you must, but Mr. Booker's kind of perception, one based in the love of country and all law-abiding citizens regardless of political labels, one that knows the value of simple human decency as the greatest source human strength, is the type of vision we need in our leaders now as much as we ever have.
What is needed to beat Trump is perhaps a current version of Teddy Roosevelt, with a really big, large and effective stick that works for both domestic and foreign matters.
Well, Barack Obama tried the open hand, the message of hope, and look where it got him. And since the Trump election the situation has only gotten worse. As Trump said about about the white supremacists in Charlottesville, there are doubtless many nice people among the people who voted for him and still support him. But Trump himself is not a nice person, and the Republicans in Congress may have better manners but they have no discernible principles. So Democrats should pick a candidate who can attract some support from current Trump-lovers, but who is not afraid to fight back against the inevitable mudslinging. As Leo Durocher, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the hero of my youth, once said, "nice guys finish last."
2
Apparently Mr. Brooks chooses to ignore Booker's odious behavior during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Booker was none of the attributes Brooks claims to hold in high regard during the Kavanaugh hearings.
2
Trump will pull no punches as he drags the Democratic candidate into the steel cage for a fight to the death. Offer him an open hand and he will grab it in one of his little hands and slap you with it. So perhaps Senator Booker will be able to avoid that fate by engaging the American people and ignoring the elephant in the room. I think whoever is nominated to take on our enfant terrible in chief needs to figure out how to avoid the Trump Trap. Otherwise this is going to be a long night as we descend into the madness of another four year nightmare.
45
Senator Booker is owned by big Pharma so I will not vote for him. No candidate has addressed reversing Citizens United yet and maybe they never will, but I will only support a candidate that takes small personal donations and no donations made by big money. Otherwise it doesn't really matter since our fate will be sealed.
24
I agree money haThe first bill brought forward by Pelosi’s new House was H.R.1 which completely upends big money in campaigns, supports a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United plus a ton of other anti-corruption and voting rights provisions. McConnell of course refuses to consider it. So don’t give up on democracy just yet. Democrats are are finally working to restore it.
17
@Rick
Elizabeth Warren
3
This all seems true to me. My comment may seem contrary to the heart of Mr. Brooks' column, but I always see new presidents as bounce backs from the previous one. In this case, for our next president, the bounce back I imagine in my more optimistic moments is progressing from a president ungrounded in basic decency to one whose core is unequivocally decent. As Mr Brooks describes Senator Booker, maybe we have our candidate.
33
@Dan So far, all the Democratic candidates are fundamentally decent. Make sure you look at them all before deciding.
5
Very noble sentiment, but a bit naïve. Just look at the behavior at one of trump's hate rallies and tell me how those folks are going to be won over by "love".
And as others have mentioned, Obama tried the high, positive road and look at how he was treated by the far right. That approach got us trump.
4
Cory Booker is not the great leader that David Brooks believes him to be. Booker has worked to dismantle public education.
According to Booker, the education system is the main cause of society’s problems rather than inequality and unchecked corporate power. In a 2011 speech he stated, “disparities in income in America are not because of some ‘greedy capitalist’ — no! It’s because of a failing education system.”
Public schools, Booker believes, are also responsible for mass incarceration and racial injustice. Booker has openly praised Republican leader Betsy DeVos’s organization American Federation for Children for fighting to win 'the final battle of the civil rights’ movement.' Booker claims there is“great evidence” that large groups of children “cannot succeed in the public school system.”
Public schools are the center stone of our communities. How unfair to scapegoat underfunded schools and underpaid teachers for the racial and economic problems in our society.
Vote for Cory Booker ONLY if you blame public schools for ALL of the ills of our society. He will work to destroy our public schools. I am a retired public school teacher who requests that nobody vote for Booker.
5
Booker is not the guy. His performance at the Kavanaugh hearing was really pathetic. Booker claimed to be having a "Spartacus moment" when he released supposedly classified documents; then it turns out his office requested permission to release the documents, and his office was notified that permission had been granted (apparently a number of government employees stayed in the office long after hours to review documents in order to quickly honor the request). Then it turns out that the released documents contained absolutely nothing of substance and were utterly unremarkable (they mentioned issues of race, but there were no views expressed by Justice Kavanaugh that were even controversial). Then after the story broke that the released documents were unclassified, Booker releases more (actually classified) documents in an effort to muddy the waters. Nice try.
I had previously thought Booker was an ok guy, and I'm sure he's not the worst guy in the history of politics, but grandstanding is one thing I find more detestable than just about anything in a politician. I'd rather a politician just told me he was a jerk (almost all of them are anyway), and I'd thank him for the honesty and move on. That's a big part of Trump's appeal. At least he doesn't pretend to be a nice guy.
I respect Mr. Brooks as a thinker, but he often seems to be apologizing for something. You got nothing to apologize for sir. We're all entitled to our own opinions in this ever free land.
4
@Bill
Kavanaugh's performance at the Kavanaugh hearing was even more pathetic, and look where it got him. Right onto the SCOTUS.
But I agree, that wasn't Booker's finest moment, I started to write him off since then. However, I've seen him in a couple of interviews since then and he's impressed me. He was extremely well prepared for them.
1
We need at least two strong, morally based and vigorous political parties and we could probably use a third if the Electoral College and tradition did not rig things so that a third party is very difficult to start and sustain. (That Democrats and Republicans are, in effect, written into the laws of most states is a weakness of our system almost never mentioned.) We need great debates, not talk radio shout fests.
Much of the nation is exhausted by Trump. 40 to 50 tweets in a weekend? Does he ever go to the bathroom or, as M. Dowd suggested, is he tweeting from there?
To Trump lovers, his excesses are signs he's "fighting for us" and the outcry over his disrespect for the office of president by his means and methods is just a sign that "they are all against him". "They", by the way, included the Republican Congress for the last two years that refused to give Trump the wall and refused to pass an infrastructure deal, but who's keeping count? No one of the Trump side of the fence.
We can heal. We can replace anger, distrust and name calling with something much better. At this point, calm, orderly government might look very attractive to most of the population. But, there are signs of a fatal fracture in the American contract, a fracture cheered on by AM talk radio, internet rumors, lies and fake conspiracies and, of course, by Fox Noise.It isn't going to be easy but history shows that in times of dire need, Americans together and as individuals have risen to the occasion.
2
I have been a voter for over 50 years and have always been an independent, voting for who I think is the best person for the job. I trend liberal but even if Trump espoused the liberal policies I embrace I sure wouldn't embrace him in any way. My representative to congress is a wretched human being named Mark Meadows chairman of the Freedom Caucus (freedom for whom Mark?). Do I hate him and the 59% of my district who voted for him? No. Do I hate Trump? I try not too as hatred is too big an emotion to expend on him, but it's a hard job only to despise him. I am so tired of nasty talk and screeching. In the primary I will vote for Cory Booker or someone like him. No one seems grateful for anything these days and we could all use a dose of optimism and appreciation for what we got not what we don't got. Mr. Booker if I recall correctly worked very hard for the people of Newark, not an easy job.
3
Much of David Brooks’ analysis of Cory Booker’s candidacy rests on emotion: irrational hate must be replaced with love. Easier said than done. When our founding fathers struggled to create a workable government they did not turn to the churches to make this happen. They chose the rule of law. This permits various religious loyalties, but a constitution and laws, based on their realities were created.
Today we have a more complex world. I hope you saw and heard Elizabeth Warren at a town hall in Mississippi on CNN Saturday night. I’ve never heard a politician cut to the heart of the questions asked with workable solutions based on the rule of law. We may come up short when loving, but Elizabeth Warren’s character, knowledge, and experience could lead us to the respect and use of law as a way forward.
6
Lord Brooks has spoken. Let us all bow before the Lord and kiss the hem of his royal robe. He knows what ails us. He, and he alone can fix things.
What Lord Brooks is doing is writing a vague feel good piece. Since he doesn't have Barack Obama to kick around any longer, there's an incompetent nincompoop in the White House who is supported by his party of choice, and he has no understanding of the nightmare life has become for so many Americans, he writes columns that are rebukes. I don't remember hearing Obama making threats about what would be wrong if he lost in 2008. I don't remember hearing Obama threatening and then actually shutting down the government because he wasn't given money for something HE wanted but no one else did.
I remember an 8 year stretch of no scandals, of good behavior, of a White House family that seemed to love each other and had our best interests in mind. I didn't always agree with Obama but I did trust him. I do not trust a man who fires people for no reason, who tries to use the government as his personal servant. You don't build a better society by supporting a party that has an 8 year temper tantrum and you don't support it by writing the sorts of columns Lord Brooks wrote while that tantrum was going on.
Your words, Lord Brooks, are empty. They mean nothing and they change nothing.
4
Love Cory Booker !
1
Booker’s ill conceived attempt to hand the education of Newark’s children over to the entitled since birth Mark Zuckerberg worked out real well. When he wasn’t siding up to Zuckerberg he was shoveling snow or fighting fires. What a guy, what vision!
3
Racism is ubiquitous. Capitalist greed is ubiquitous.
These statements are true. There is nothing to suggest that the only way to respond to this is through dehumanizing hatred. David doesn't agree with the analysis. He is starry eyed about the creative potential of capitalism's destructive power. People lives are devastated and something remarkable will grow out of that. Like a cottage industry for conservative columnists who will sit and listen with soulful intensity to the devastation caused and write all about it.
4
Unfortunately Cory Booker has a better chance of finding a screen-door on a submarine than getting elected against the current POTUS. The current president has been on point rallying middle-Americans to the point of frenzy...feeding off their long simmering feelings of being disenfranchised. If Booker does not come up with strategy to speak to the millions of Americans who do not respond to touchy-feely rhetoric, then his candidacy is doomed, as is that of Bernie Sanders. They will get nowhere reaching a huge part of the population who reside between the coasts and do not respond to anything approaching what they view as politicians telling them to be nice and share! The current POTUS knows that and has made it himself their messiah. A dreadful situation to be sure, but one that will not change unless the democrats put up a candidate who is not a.) a career academic or b.) espousing the need to be kind to your fellow Americans. Trump's base considers these things to be the very definition of what they DO NOT WANT! Sharing for too many is viewed as giving away their hard earned money and services. Address that and someone might very well take down Trump...continue talking to middle-America as if you know what is best for them and you hand him a second term.
One major error here: Kamala Harris might be confrontational, but there is nothing "going low" about her. No demagoguery, no lies, no schoolyard insults. She might be tough, but nobody ever complained about Trump's toughness, such as it is. It was the instant resort to lies, it was the appeals to racism and fear, the "lock her up" chants, the stupid insults instead of rational discourse. No Democratic leader has set foot in this ugly realm. (True, you might find some of it from individuals on social media. But if you are going to count what you find on social media, you'll find stuff from Trump supporters even worse than what he puts out.)
56
@John Bergstrom
"No Democratic leader has set foot in this ugly realm. "
Hillary calling roughly half of the country "deplorables" doesn't count, eh.
3
@John Bergstrom "...One major error here: Kamala Harris might be confrontational, but there is nothing "going low" about her. No demagoguery, no lies, no schoolyard insults..." My Lord Mr B, did you not watch the Kavanaugh hearings, her comments on Jussie Smollet, her faux denial of knowledge about sexual harassment committed by a top aide, and starting it all -- her affair with a married man for political gain? Sheesh, harris is nothing but "low."
1
I think Cory Booker fits the description of a well-rounded, sensible, intelligent political leader. Unfortunately, racism in this country is so rampant that many people blame everything on Obama and would easily picture Booker as Obama 2.0. And the internal strife within the overcrowded Democratic primary will be self-defeating. Why can’t Democrats learn from lessons of the 2016 Election?
19
@Jessica It's because our systems are all broken. I'm 78, and remember when Taft / Eisenhower were trying to be the Republican candidates (I hope that's right!) Anyway, what we need is a return to "smoke-filled rooms" where party leaders took into consideration the terrific assortment of candidates we have today (I'm talking Dems here, now!), and they sorted 'em out, and narrowed it down to the best two (so we can avoid the suicidal self-destruction we've seen lately). Those two had civilized debates, and we chose one as our candidate.
Unless we figure out a way to do that, we're doomed to another 4 years of Republican folly.
4
@Jessica
I agree. I like his tone, but I'm of the opinion that Trump can only be beaten by another "Trump" - and the Trump of the left is Joe Biden. Booker can be the VP, or perhaps Kamala.
@Jessica. Because Democrats are not united. Republicans know that power is the goal and they stay focused on the prize
2
While Brooker is singing Kumbaya in the election, Trump will be demeaning and derogating and lying about his birth, his mother, his academic credentials and his policies. He will claim Booker is a communist, a thief, a Muslim, whatever lies he can heap onto him. Because that’s what Trump does. He lies, and lies and lies.
Trump will eviscerate Booker and anyone else unless they punch back hard. Trump has won all his life with the Cohn strategy of hitting hard, lying, and using every dirty trick in the book. For Booker to think he can win against this evil veanlity is beyond naive. And dangerous for democracy because if Trump wins a second time he will unleash himself and his clan of money grabbers to sell Nuclear reactors (and eventually weapons) to the Saudis, and do deals with Russia to allow them to invade Ukraine, the Baltic’s and possibly Poland in return for massivefinancial enrichment. The only thing that’s stopping this right now is the 2020 election. Once Trump has that sewn up he knows there’s no downside to going full tilt to enrich himself. I’m amazed so many Americans cannot see this coming. All the signs are there for everyone to see. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear.
Sounds like booker got an endorsement.
Brooks needs to review the recent history of the republican party (since mid 1970s) and pay close attention to the gop actors in the mid 1980s. Listen to their words, study their strategies and tactics. Follow that through the rise of Fox. Then ask your self where did the hatred and vitriol come from. For a generation I have felt like a stranger and an enemy in my own country. Trump is the culmination of these bad words and downright devious and unAmerican tactics. Win at all cost and turn your opponents into enemies with lies and propaganda.
Once everyone understands the goal of the hard right which is to turn this country into a one party take all.
Then tell me how nice I should be. The republican party has shown no interest in compromise and bipartisanship. I say dump them all.
2
Cory Booker is a big tent guy alright. We all know how much truth is spoken in those big tents.
1
"You don’t build a better society by turning yourself into a rotten human being."
So true, but there are those among us that don't value the concept of building a better society, they only want things better for themselves. And they lie and steal to further those ends.
What happens if we take this argument that both sides have contributed to the malaise of our political debate and apply it to those who supported and those who opposed the nazis in 1930s Germany. Very few of us would contend there existed moral equivalence on both sides. Of course this is a completely different time or place. We know that nobody is trying to sow hate of the other based on the other’s race or religion. We know that nobody is using bald face lies through a propaganda machine to brainwash the population. We know that neither side is using the threat of violence if their power is questioned or downplaying the violence that is committed on the fringe of their cause. Or do we?
Listening to republicans---who elected Trump---lecture democrats about whom they should consider nominating is getting tiresome.
Mow your own knee high grass. Then you can talk about our lawn.
1
Too bad he was a lousy mayor of Newark and is a lackluster Senator .. Do any of our many posters ever watch c-Span?
He is calculating (I will give him that). He has a plan and he is sticking to it. I wonder if he still own the house in Newark -- the one he never lived in?
We like mediocrity in NJ (I own a beach house) ..... Remember Senator Menendez was reelected.
I'm beginning to like the mayor of south bend.
3
@GT
"...the house in Newark -- the one he never lived in?"
Ha, is that true? Stupid me fell for the Politico article from right after he announced.
Hannity, Limbaugh, Fox, ... the force of propaganda is being underestimated. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google Search, all easily manipulated by unscrupulous scurrilous influence peddlers.
The pollution of our minds, the spreading of “alternative facts”, a “reality” based upon he serpentine recesses of the brain ...
And conducted by a misshapen dotard, a marionette of bonkers billionaires, who cannot read, cannot count, cannot remember, cannot spell, and cannot stick to a plan.
David sees the symptoms but has not identified the cause.
1
"After Trump?" There is only one issue up for discussion for 2020--how to get Trump out. Bringing a slingshot to a knife fight probably won't do it. I am sure Kamala, or Elizabeth, or even Bernie or Joe, will mellow out once they have won. But get the blighter out first.
1
From my observation post it's the progressive left, as demonstrated daily by MSNBC, CNN, this Newspaper, and several other mainstream media outlets, that exhibit the most virulent hatred toward the President and toward the people who voted for and support the President.
2
I can only say with a great sigh of relief, thankfully there is SOME decency & cohesiveness in our discourse. To say that I am exhausted, since I began to see all of the disrespectful, combative conversation on Facebook back is the early 2000's is a grand understatement. We,as Americans, are capable of uniting to achieve peace & a greater prosperity if we use our brains, engage our souls, & lift ourselves out of the ratings & greed based baiting.
1
I just don't understand. David, did you not watch the Supreme Court hearings? The unproven accusations, the grandstanding and arguably the worst pretender of everyone involved from both sides.
You dedicated a column to this -- really?
39
It's an empty gesture unless you can also put forward policy positions that both sides can find acceptable, if you can't do that then the dream will be short lived. You have to be able to draw actual centrist votes and not just hold out the olive branch.
OK, I concede. I love Rush Limbaugh and hope to be his friend.
1
I think Mr. Brooks should worry and write a little more about the Republicans and less about the Democrats. At least until after the primaries after which by all means give us your opinions on the candidate.
But I suspect I know the reason for your subject matter. Your party has no interest in what you have to say.
Cory Booker seems just so contrived.
4
Mayor Pete is better, in my opinion.
1
Booker might need something more in his platform besides stacking the Supreme Court.
If you want premier examples of fighting violent hatred with non-violent, even loving strength, think Ghandi and King.
And if you want another patriotic optimistic and good-hearted candidate, consider Colorado’s former governor, John Hickenlooper
To answer the question in the headline, I want an iron hand in a velvet glove.
I agree in the sentiment that a civil and respectful tone and moral core values should be among important characteristics for any political leadership position, let alone President of the United States. However, I also feel it is important to emphasize how important it is to be for a set of principles and values not simply against someone else.
It seems to me that so much of the current discourse is about what we should rise up against and not enough about what we should advocate for, what are values ought to be, what policies we should pursue, and how we should implement those policies.
1
It's worth considering where this modern era of political rancor begins. I vividly remember turning on Rush Limbaugh after G.W. Bush was installed as president in 2000 and hearing him exalt his listeners to "salt the earth" to get rid of Democrats. . . and ridicule Jesse Jackson for preaching tolerance. I could go on. FOX news commentators have been telling their listeners that Democrats and liberals are sub-human for decades now. Limbaugh, Hannity, and their ilk have poisoned the well.
Hillary was correct. There is a vast right wing conspiracy to destroy her or any Democrat who dares to challenge the GOP.
2
Mr. Brooks, either your Road to Damascus conversion experience to Democratic centrism is complete, or you missed your chance to be a rabbi or minister "with a pulpit" as the saying in ecclesiastical circles goes.
Of late it is all bluebirds and rainbows about moderate Dems. Considering the alternative on the hard right, including the feckless Republicans you have called out for policy betrayal and toadyism, I'm not surprised.
I do not know enough about Sen. Booker's history but now you have me interested. I did know he works across the Senate aisle when he can whereas Ms. Kamala H. seems to work on giving Republicans heartburn with that carefully constructed hauteur.
Beware the angry "let's burn down the house" and "fire with fire" comments here. Many are genuine (sadly from my point of view) from the left of the Party. Others are GOP and/or Russian sock puppets eager to push the Democrats as far left and as choleric and confrontational/nasty as possible. The latter is Trump's strategy/hope.
I don't think either Sanders, or Harris are in danger of becoming "rotten human being(s)."
Both of them (and Warren) have the sense of real outrage that seems to me the only sane response to an administration as dangerous to our country and the world, as this one.
Cory Booker, for all his appeal, seems more concerned with being appealing, than being outraged.
My outrage is still at 11, and I want candidates who share that feeling.
We are in a fight for our lives.
2
People have broad ideological and psychological differences, and that will not change. However, throughout recorded history there have been common standards of morality accepted by most everyone. Religion has played a positive role in the past, but today the combination of religious/secular differences and the broad influence of the media has led us to the current destructive contemptuous stage. What is needed today is a concerted effort to promote a) adherence to the age-old common standards of morality, and b) the acceptance of our ideological and psychological differences.
1
“Patriotism is love of country, and you cannot love your country unless you love your fellow countrymen and women.”
That sounds, to me, like a lot of propaganda. Does patriotism require me to love my fellow countrymen and women *more* than I love people in other countries? In any case, I don't see why acknowledging that other citizens' interests are as important as my own, that they have no less dignity and worth than I do, requires me to love them. Maybe I'm really picky or idiosyncratic in whom I love, but that doesn't mean I owe any less consideration to the others.
Always excited for another David Brooks op-ed to add to my "Conservatives tell Democrats what they should do as if there is any reason they should get a vote, or even be presumed to be acting in anything like good faith" file, right behind former ALEC PR flak Ashley Pratte's Biden-pushing op-ed from last week.
I didn't vote for Trump because I like him, nor because I "wanted a brawler," nor because I don't like Democrats or liberals or anyone. I voted for Donald Trump because too many babies have been killed as a logical entailment of a materialistic total world view.
If the "cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be," then human beings are just bags of molecules moving around in random fashion, with no meaning, and without purpose. So killing some for the convenience of others is without moral import. So Trump... for the judicial appointments... just might forestall more and worse entailments of a purely materialistic view.
If you outlaw abortion people will still get abortions.
I like Booker, but who I really like is Pete Buttigieg. Before you reject him out of hand, I urge you just to take 30 minutes to look at YouTube videos of his CNN Town Hall with Jake Tapper, or one of his community events in Iowa, or even his time on Morning Joe. Buttigieg is smart, engaging, funny, and a natural--and he makes a great case for why his brand of leadership is needed. He has executive governing experience as well as military and foreign policy chops. Please don't write him off because of his strange name or supposed lack of a chance. Buttigieg has a lot to offer, and I hope we see a lot more of him.
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@Ira I totally agree with you that Pete Buttigieg is a real gem just waiting to be plucked. After only about 10 minutes of the CNN Town Hall event both my wife and I looked at each other and said "that's the guy we need". He's such a breath of fresh air after having had to endure Trump and all of his cronies. Pete brings such a level of intelligence, insight, humor, smarts, ideas, curiosity and true leadership ability it's hard to believe. I've never gotten involved in any political campaign in my life, but I'm convinced I need to do whatever it takes to help Pete reach the White House.
16
@A. Axelrod Thanks. I like his case for a change in generational leadership (and I say that as a 55 year old). Very bright guy, and so likeable. He explains things without coming across as us-vs-them, or scripted, or arrogant. I hope the word spreads and he goes far.
10
@Ira I couldn't agree more. Intelligence and decency in spades. More impressed each time I see/hear him.
He's the antidote to Trumpism.
9
I agree with Mr. Brooks and I have liked Cory Booker's approach. But we Democrats should not go back to the "centrist" approach. Tinker on the edges so to speak. We do need universal health care, we do need gun control, we do need a compassionate immigration policy. Mr. Obama tried to install elements of Republican policy and see how that worked. We don't need to hate the other side; but we should aggressively go for the policies that uplift our nation.
1
David Brooks asks "How do you answer hatred? How should you respond when your political opponents assault you with insult, stereotype and contempt? That’s the moral question we all have to answer during this election campaign." He could just as easily have said about the 2008 campaign, about the 2012 campaign, about Barack OBama's entire presidency. He could have asked when Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and, for that matter, most of the Republican Party and their allies at Fox News deliberately stoked the fires of division, hatred and bigotry.
And how did President Obama respond? With unfailing grace and character. He continually appealed to the best us in us, and the Republican Party -in the logical extension of the Southern Strategy first introduced by Nixon, and then honed in Reagan's campaign kickoff in Philadelphia, MS and attacks on "welfare queens," refined by Lee Atwater with his Willie Horton ads - finally responded with Donald Trump.
I like Corey Booker, although he is a tad too centrist for me. But seriously, Mr. Books, why should we expect anything different this time around? I don't despise Republican voters in Nebraska or anywhere else. I do, though, detest far too many of the men and women they have voted for,and I do despise the policies those men and women have enacted that have harmed the most vulnerable of my fellow Americans and often caused harm to other countries.
4
Didn't we try the Kumbaya approach with Obama, only to have it used against us and thrown back in our faces by Mitch McConnell? Obama was pretty centrist, and had experience bringing opposite sides of the political spectrum together. And yet, he was instantly branded a Socialist, accused of not bring born here and therefore not really an American, and constantly accosted with rudeness and disrespect ("YOU LIE" comes to mind, as well as other instances).
Mitch McConnell refused to even have a hearing for Merrick Garland, which in essence threw the constitution out the window. How to you deal with someone willing to do that?
I do see the appeal of trying to come together. But time and time again we do that, only to have it thrown back in our faces because Republicans in congress fight dirty. Every single time. When do we say "enough" and actually start to fight for what we want and believe in? When do we finally get tough?
Cory Booker is a good person, and I think he would make a great president, like many of our current candidates. If he wins the nomination I will happily vote for him. But I haven't decided which candidate I like best, and what strategy will be the most effective. (Centrist vs Lefist, "Love" versus toughness.) All I know is that every time we try to play fair, they fight dirty, and as long as Mitch McConnell is in the Senate, that will NOT change.
7
@Heather
Booker is not my choice, but he is more experienced than Obama was. The Democratic National Committee needs to learn to chill and let the primaries run their course.
Obama was straight up inexperienced in government and in governance - not yet qualified for the job. But the DNC began seeing starry votes in their eyes in 2004 and jumped the gun -fully intending for Obama to be the first (half) black candidate for the presidency and hoped for winner in 2008.
1
Maggie, why do you think the DNC had anything to do with Obama beating Clinton in the primaries? He got more votes than her and won by the rules in place at the time. He was far from perfect but he got mor done than any. president since I became an adult in the 80's.
1
President Trump has been compared to a doctor with terrible and ugly bedside manners. He states you need to lose 30 lbs and denigrates and insults you at the same time. But his advice is right. It would be great if a candidate could state that certain of Trump's policies [not all] are in order but that this candidate will take these policies forward in a more kinder and gentler way. But politics doesn't work that way, so opponents become villains and provide the sensational news upon which the media thrives in order to attract viewers. The media, with its celebrity politics, made Trump and may destroy him but the same method applies to all who dare seek the presidency. It's nasty business.
1
@Tim Goldsmith: Nope. He's a doctor who ignores you, then looks out the window and tells you your neighbors look dangerous, you'd better build a wall... then sells you a bottle of snake oil on his way out. And, there aren't any "kinder, gentler" Republicans in the wings, at this point.
There are evil human beings. Trump is "downright evil." I have a very hard time reconciling the notion that good people, or people who claim to know and follow the lessons of Jesus, can support him.
5
“[A]fter Trump, Americans yearn for a moral cleansing. You succeed politically when you appeal to voters’ basic decency. So far, Cory Booker is the candidate who has placed the biggest bet on this latter argument.”
Amy.
1
@Stephen Chernicoff: Realistically, there isn't a single Democratic candidate who isn't appealing to voters' basic decency. Brooks' column wrongly equates Harris' toughness and Sanders' enthusiasm with the lies and demagoguery coming from the right. It isn't fear-mongering to recognize that there is something terribly wrong going on the the White House: even Brooks mentions it discretely.
That said, Booker is a fine candidate. My guess is that Brooks picked him out among the Democrats for being really low-profile. A Republican might feel awkward supporting one of the leading Democrats...
1
@John Bergstrom:
Sure, Booker is fine. As a Bay Area Californian, I’ve admired Kamala Harris since she was San Francisco district attorney. Sanders I’m less enthusiastic about; but basically they’re all fine with me.
Having said all that, I think Amy Klobuchar would be the best candidate the Democrats could run. She’s reliably liberal, but in a pragmatic way that makes her less vulnerable to the right’s scare tactics over “socialism.” She comes on with a “Midwestern nice” manner that will appeal to voters weary of the vicious tone of our politics. She benefits from the unmistakable political current favoring female candidates, and would energize those frustrated by Hillary Clinton’s failure to become the first woman president. She’s from the upper Midwest, a region crucial to Democrats’ chances in this election. She’s likely to run strongly in neighboring Iowa. Put her on a ticket with a running mate like Booker, and it’s hard to see a candidate who’s a better fit for what Democrats need in 2020.
Do the people in Nebraska object when Trump scapegoats and dehumanizes whole groups? Evil becomes banal unless you name it and fight it openly. To do so will mean we hurt a lot of "good" people's feelings along the way. To fail to do so is worse.
4
Booker better find his moment now, because he will fast lose it when the primaries begin.
The people who voted from trump and his ilk are not evil, just ignorant, in that they vote again and again against their own best self and group interests. Mitch Mconnel and many (not all) republicans in stage and federal legislates are as low as you can get. Selfish, self interested, ..party before country, power before compassion. running for office is not like being an inspirational figure like Gandhi or King. and those of us who know about, and admire Obama, will tell you,,,he was good with the political "knife" even as he spoke upliftingly.
2
Booker is yet another rhetoric spewer, viewing himself as the protagonist in some Oscar-bait flick with little scrutiny for his own actual political accomplishments. He seems like a nice guy that genuinely cares, but also like a "coached up" corporate executive that virtue signals with righteous lip-service, all while lining his pockets with big Pharma dollars.
He had a true opportunity as the mayor of Newark to do something (although not sure any politician could really change that place), and instead he used it as a platform to make a documentary and boost his image. The left seems increasingly concerned with style, rather than substance, and Booker understands this well. He's a good politician, but I have no idea what he honestly stands for.
3
But the fight isn't Democrats against Republicans. The fight is hard-working people against Russian troll misinformation, corporate dark money in our elections, gerrymandering and disinformation in our media. That's the fight.
6
@RCJCHC Well, when you map it onto the population, it comes out Democrats against Republicans, as it happens...
The elephant in the room that this piece carefully dances around is this question: are any of these negative views actually true?
Does truth not matter to Brooks? Should true beliefs be lumped in with false beliefs?
It's clear why Brooks does not want to even consider the truth in his analysis. The truth is utterly damning for Republicans and "conservatives" in general. Brooks would have to confront his own complicity.
Why does Brooks appeal to Democrats to unilaterally disarm? Why doesn't he address the hatred his own side has fomented? If he did that, I would respect him. But this piece is just another in a long line of "conservatives" blaming the victim, demanding that the victim solve the problem.
1
On this one I agree with Brooks. Obama won with a message of hope and his greatest achievements include saving the economy from total meltdown and expanding access to affordable health care for tens of millions. Trump ran on a message of hate and his achievements are a massive tax cut for the ultra wealthy, undoing anything Obama did that he can undo, and giving aid and comfort to white nationalists. Obama showed that Americans will elect a person of color to the highest office. We need the former, not the latter. I believe Trump symbolizes the dying gasp of reaction to the birth of a new nation inclusive of all races, genders, ethnicity and religions (including atheists) -- a true American rainbow. I hope our next president returns to hope and progress and away from hate and reaction.
6
@Norbert Prexley
Americans and the American attention span have devolved since the 1980s. Republican or Democrat, Americans would rather be entertained than informed, the latest unicorn or carnival barker will get significant media time and thus votes...without any serious challenge on platform, ideas, domestic and international policy.
2
I want a Democrat who can win the Presidency, and drag the House and Senate along. I also want that person to have the vision to see the depths with which the current GOP has dragged our country, and is willing to break and repair all of those perversions, and do so BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
Raise the number of Justices and other jurists to negate those installed by Trump and those who benefitted with the GOP’s conspiracy with Russia to interfere and change our election. Raise the number of Members of the House to the ratio that existed when it was capped, and maintain that ratio at each census. End all gerrymandering for House districts. That will reduce the impact of the electoral college disparity.
Then propose an omnibus Amendment to the constitution that addresses all the wrongs foised on us by the McConnell/Trump junta.
3
I think Amy Klobachar exhibits similar character traits also.
3
Hoping that Mayor Pete formally announces. I think he too will stand for decency and healing.
1
@Jonathan B
Klobuchar/Buttigieg.
But you'd have to first deal with the same ol' Bernie Bros. AND the far left race industry.
1
Remember when President Obama crosses the bridge with Amelia Boynton Robinson in the wheelchair? This is symbolic.
I finally got to cross off walking across the Pettit Bridge from my bucket list last year. It was a beautiful day for me, really, awaiting so many years, one of my very best.
No matter who crosses, let us rejoice John Lewis and the original marchers. We honor them, forever.
4
David, you site survey data and make vague references to Democratic campaigns that call Republicans "irredeemable," but I know of no Democratic candidates who speak this way about Republicans. This is a completely fabricated argument and another example of conservatives unfairly scolding Democrats for "behaving like Trump."
We have one candidate in this race who is dividing the people--and he tweets from his perch in the Whitehouse. When I see the Democratic challengers on S-SPAN or in various interviews, they all take the high road, hardly mention the president, and instead propose serious legislation and policies they think will lift up the middle classes and the disadvantaged.
You know, stuff like breaking up some large/tech monopolies, leveeing new kinds of taxes on the very wealthy, increasing spending on infrastructure and education, enacting stricter gun legislation and implementing stronger environmental laws.
I understand that some do not welcome these ideas, but can you ask the nice folks in Nebraska to give you their opinions about these proposals? It would be nice if the media would quit stoking phony us v them animosities and get the citizenry to consider the issues.
2
I hail David Brooks as one of our best. Never miss him on 'The News Hour'. Once met him on the escalator at Union Station and all I could do was beam my praise and thanksgiving for the grandeur of his moral/political sagacity. BUT COREY BOOKER!?
Mr. Brooks, did you not see and hear him attack Kavanaugh in the Senate Hearings---both he and Kamala were tooth & nail. I think--but does it matter?--Corey & Kamala deserve one another as arch attackers. Perhaps on this coming week's News Hour, my best columnist will persuade me otherwise--at least somewhat.
Brooks had no problem with the rotten tactics used by his candidate Bush in 2004, when the GOP demonized LGBT people in order to get conservatives to the polls. Now he seems to be saying it would be wrong for Democrats to do the same sort of thing his party did. Does this man have no shame at all? Apparently not.
So, during your pleasant luncheon in Nebraska City, did the subject of Nebraska under water come up? I'm interested in knowing what the 15 who shared a table with you think about the climate debate and the disasters it seems to stir up.
3
"Do Democrats want the fist or the open hand?"
That's easy, Mr. Brooks.
Someone with more substance and accomplishment than this lightweight platitude-spouter living in Wall Street's pocket.
3
I sure hope David is right about this one, that fanaticism is not the normal human state, As for Mr. Booker, time will tell.
‘I write this to you from Nebraska City, Neb., just over the Iowa line. I just had lunch with 15 locals, many probably Trump supporters and some probably not. But it didn’t come up. The idea that any of these good people are “downright evil” because of some political affiliation is ridiculous and a sign of how deranged our discourse has become.’
These good people may not be “downright evil”, but they may be unreflective and uninformed “good people”. They may be conventionally “good people” of narrow sensibilities. The consequences of the actions and decisions of such people are often virtually indistinguishable from those flowing from the actions and decisions of their authoritarian and malevolent leaders.
2
Condescension is not attractive. Everyone has one vote.
If you criticize either party for past actions, you are on the wrong first step. Stop the blame game. Get off social media and stop watching those talking heads on TV. Write your Congressperson. Tell them that greatness, like our Constitution, is built upon compromise and that if you folks could get along better the country would truly be great again.
David Brooks never drops in for lunch with Democrats in Brooklyn, or Santa Monica, or Austin, to discover that Democrats are actually human. No, like every other conservative "observer" he drops in for lunch only with small-town Republicans to prove that *they* are human.
He admires Cory Booker not because Cory Booker is smart, or ambitious, or has good ideas, but because Cory Booker--in David Brooks' eyes, anyway--is tame.
And what could make a Republican happier than a tame Democrat?
And, conversely--and importantly--what could make a Republican sadder than a fighting Democrat?
1
After singing the choir for neocons and just plain old cons on the right for most of the last 20 years, Brooks is the least qualified person is the world to preach restraint to me on the left.
I am not "turning myself into a rotten person" by advocating humanist social and economic policy. Nor, by advocating that we must destroy the republican party, root and branch. Brooks, and people like him, have made this necessary by facilitating a man like Donald Trump occupying the Oval Office.
1
Excellent piece Mr. Brooks. Alas, neither it nor Booker offer any solution for overcoming the fundamental differences between the values and political beliefs of the Left and Right, all of which fuel their lamentable hatreds of each other. I don't doubt that the many or even most of the guys I see on TV wearing MAGA caps laughing at Trump's vulgarisms and cheering for his racial, ethnic and religious bigotries act as kind and decent human beings in their hometowns. I'd be happy to shake the hands of and become friends with them, but only those who repudiate the beliefs that my conscience tells me are simply unacceptable in any civilized, moral universe,
Of course I will continue to "play nice" and otherwise live in a civil manner with those I have profound moral disagreements. To do otherwise with our political adversaries is a prescription for civil war. But one is not a "rotten human being" merely because he or she refuses the handshake of someone whose values are abhorrent or otherwise profoundly at odds with one's conscience. Indeed, one becomes rotten internally by befriending those, for example in my case, who are racists and anti-Semites.
Frankly, I'd prefer our leaders and politicians to start acting on their consciences on a consistent basis rather than via the deceitful compromises they make. There's nothing inherently wrong with compromise, but when it's made at the expense of a one's principles, it worsens the rot within the body politic.
What stands out for me is that Senator Booker's thoughtfulness.
Booker's comments made during the Kavanaugh hearings seem to contradict the argument here. Following that incident I have always seen Booker as the face of the antagonistic grandstanding Dem.
2
People who voted for Donald Trump knowing at the time what we all know now are reprehensible and beyond the pale. They are okay with all the bigotry and hate he stands for. He and his supporters have hijacked the Republican Party. Having said that, Job One is to evict him and his kind from office. If Senator Booker is the man, so be it. Republicans per se are not bad people, nor are true conservatives. Trump is neither of these. True Republicans need to take their party back, and until they do so, their party is not welcome in my book.
Mr. Brooks tries to make a conciliatory argument, and fails yet again. The deranged discourse did not start with the Democrats. It started with the Republicans, when Mitch stated that the goal for the Senate Republicans was to make Obama a one-term president. The derangement started when the SCOTUS decided to cast their votes in favor of obscene wealth buying politicians, and because that wasn't enough, they also decided that we really needed to do away with the voting rights, because really, why should voting be protected in a democracy? This discourse had already turned bloody when donny won the Republican nomination. Are the Democrats bringing a knife to this fight? You betcha! Because the Republicans are entering the arena with armloads of AR-15s. Do we consider every republican voter "downright evil"? Probably not. But when they side with the evil again and again simply because the evil comes with a republican hat, what choice do we have? You want to build a better society? Dare Mitch to make voting easy. Dare him to pass gun legislation. Dare him to side with democrats in rooting out corruption. Mr. Brooks conveniently does not talk about how greedy and power hungry Mitch and the rest of the Republicans are. He only focuses on what the average democratic voter is doing and thinking. For him, the more he tells the democrats how to behave (high ground is somehow an option only for the democrats?), the less he has to account for his party. Enough!
2
By disengaging from the anger Booker gets to be seen as acting like the leader we want, Booker has spiritual maturity - meaning he does not contribute to the damaged behavior by adding more damage. Booker detaches with love from what obviously is dysfunctional among our politicians.
I also like Booker's charismatic speaking ability, he has inspiring strength.
1
I think unrepentant apologists for social and political decline and ecocide would be generally inclined to call for moderation and mercy in their prospective political opponents. What is needed - however - is genuine champions for the protection of democracy, civilisation and life on Earth, not more "Republican-lite" centrism that will only lead to the subsequent election of another Ronald Reagan - sorry I mean another Donald Trump - only worse. Kid Rock for president?
I've no desire to see David broken but I would like an apology for his whole past career. "I was misguided. I was mistaken. Movement conservatism is bunk. I am sorry." I wish he would stop acting like the Koch brothers put money in an account of his every week. I've no doubt he was ever better than to be associated with the likes of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. Peace.
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for your thoughtful column. I hope that the 2020 Democratic convention will be as unifying as in 2016. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders debated respectfully and, in the end, acknowledged the other's contribution to their party's platform. I look forward to a productive discussion between many talented Democratic candidates who are reaching out to Republicans and Democrats alike. As you note, Cory Booker is a leader promoting a positive and hopeful 2020 election. Hats off to him!
Cory Booker is still on my short list (along with Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris). One thing I do agree with David Brooks about is that the only real way out of our national predicament is to have a leader that appeals to the best in us, not the worst. We also need a can-do attitude that says we CAN solve our problems if we can just generate enough intelligent, innovative ideas. We have to work together to help ALL of us.
3
I think Mr. Brooks is spot on. I also think he spells out what most American voters crave -- so it could be that the right moral approach for the health of our society will also be the most politically successful one. Incidentally, Mr. O'Rourke is also running his campaign with this same premise and would appear to have secured more traction with voters and contributors than Mr. Booker.
I hear you, David. I really do. And I’m not unsympathetic. Quite the contrary.
But I’m afraid the volatility of our current moment is beyond the point where it’s redeemable by messages of love and kindness. Believe me, I’ve tried love and kindness with family and friends who are MAGA supporters, as well as with fellow progressives when speaking about MAGA supporters.
There is no love and kindness on the MAGA side, at least not in my experience. And while virtually all of my progressive friends long for love and kindness, many don’t seem willing to show any toward the other side. Though, in all candor, it’s hard to blame them, given MAGA’s preternatural penchant for hatred.
Now I have little doubt that those 15 Nebraska City locals are good people. And I have no doubt that our discourse HAS become deranged. But that’s exactly my point: it’s become so deranged that it seems we’re on the road to if not civil war then a highly combustible state of affairs that just won’t end well for anyone.
Yes, you would think the American citizenry would acknowledge this derangement and would begin acting to defuse tensions and hostilities.
Yes, David, you would think.
3
I don't think we are 'coming out' of our dysfunctional funk. I think we are still heading into it. I expect that we will all be swaying back and forth in this over the next 20 years. The only thing that could break my belief that the rancor will continue on in its own abysmal way is if, say, the Millennial generation were to collectively exercise their numerical strength at the polls to force a change in thinking and direction.
Whether hand or fist, it will be fastidiously manicured.
This is as good an editorial as the one you published 13 years ago urging Barack Obama to run for President. I pray it will be as influential.
Once again, M. Brooks implies moral equivalence because roughly equal numbers on each find the opposition morally abhorrent. But one side justifies ineffective public policy behind an onslaught of lies and obfuscation. This is moral turpitude, and so is endorsing a President ,who is the avatar of dishonesty and mean-spirited cowardice,because he stumbled onto two Supreme Court appointments.
But let’s have this contest on a playing field of honest exchange of ideas, and real empirical information, devoid of hatred, and genuine democracy. Which means getting rid of or vitiating the Electoral College, without which the Chief Dissembler would never have won.
1
Dear Mr. Brooks,
The use of the word "ubiquitous" strikes me as a bit of a straw man, an hyperbole designed for argument, not edification. But replace that word with "pervasive" to describe racism and "capitalist greed" and ponder how it fits. I mean, with the latter I must ask, Really? Greed is kind of the point, yes? And as for racism, ask any black man, 15 to 25, if he feels directly or indirectly the effects of racism every single day. Ask Cory Booker. And then ask if that is a political argument or a moral one. And which side you are on.
2
When I read the comments it crystallizes a lot of what Brooks is talking about.. The moral and intellectual superiority of the left is just as bad imo as the repugnant bigotry and of the right. Both sides think they are better, smarter and that the other side is the one out of touch. I believe both are equally out of touch. When I hear aoc I hear a lot of dt in her, same with some of the othe reladical left vs radical right. Both sets of policies won't work well over the long term either. I for one long for a moderate of good character and I could care less what party affiliation he or she is. Pipe dream probably.
3
David Brooks' assertion that "hatred has become the defining emotion of our political life" may very well be true, but he erroneously attributes that sentiment to all the declared Democratic presidential candidates other than Cory Booker. Nothing I've read or seen leads me to believe that, say, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke, or Jay Inslee finds Republicans "irredeemable" or "downright evil." Objecting to the excesses of capitalism and decrying racism doesn't mean that, say, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or Kamala Harris is "going after" the other side "with full viciousness." Once again, Brooks devotes his column to righteously rebutting an obvious untruth.
1
Having read most of the comments and agree with the greater majority of them, I have come to a conclusion about the politics, not the politician. If Obama were a white man, the Dems would have won the 2016 election in a landslide. His politics were corrupted by the GOP because of his race which was looked upon by them as "guilt by association".
3
The use of "religious categories" is okay--but if you really do plan to turn the other cheek, do it as personal witness, not as policy. The age-long dilemma of those who follow quietist beliefs is that the world quite often responds, not with reflection, respect, and behavioral change, but with renewed advantage-taking.
Please do consider the rapacious actions of the Congress during Mr. Trump's first two years in office, look at the jurists who are now on the bench, the mediocre and self-serving (as well as unqualified) agency heads in place, and consider the profoundly troubling acts of supremicism that we have seen.
Then test the value of wishful and rhetorical statements like "the correct response to hate is love," and "Love means that I see you...I see your worth...I see your dignity," and ask what they really mean in the context of politics, and how they can be translated into effective action for social good.
I'm no Nietszchean detractor of Christian precepts as "slave" values--but I'm also no dishrag member of the polity, ready to content myself with vague and passive response to civic ills. If your destiny is my destiny, you'd better be prepared to clean up your act, because I will invert the order of that statement, and drag you, kicking and screaming, into the light of day. Plato's philosophers were charged with nothing less than that in tutoring benighted cave-dwellers, and that's good enough for me.
1
I am a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump. I am not alone. If the Democratic Party and media elite 'stick-it' to Bernie or Tulsi I will probably vote for Trump again, reluctantly though. However, I do trust David Brooks' opinion and will give Cory Booker a serious look.
1
"Roughly 20 percent of Democrats and 16 percent of Republicans say that the world would be better off if large numbers of the other party died.'"
Yeah, but the National Science Foundation's "Science and Engineering Indicators 2014" found that 25% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth.
The point is, there will always be a minority of people who have extreme views. I look at those figures and think roughly 80% of Democrats and 84% or Republicans say the world would be worse off if large numbers of the other party died. Those are the people that I would expect to have lunch with in Nebraska City, Nebraska.
3
I am again astounded by David Brook’s naïveté. Loving your country doesn’t mean loving every countryman implicitly. Cory Booker may elicit tears of rage and may be an absolutely decent human being but to assume that you go high when the other person goes low is such a cliche. There is such a thing as middle where intelligent discourse takes place. If somebody watches Fox News it is difficult to shake them out of the bubble. When logic and reason are replaced by devotion to a mendacious news channel there is little hope that a counter argument is even heard. Table thumping, fist in the air rhetoric may be the only way one can get the attention of the Fox denizens. I still have hope that reason prevails. Sincerely,
Vikram Jayanty
1
Another thing to think about regarding Cory Booker is where he lives. Yes, his family had some good fortune and he had many advantages as he was growing up and being educated, and he is putting those advantages in good use. But he chose to live in the slum and face life there. He does not speak from an ivory tower. One of his neighbors said “When we didn’t have hot water, Cory didn’t have hot water. When we had mice, he had mice ... It’s different when you see the poverty, the drugs, the murders. When you can’t look away. It changes you.” https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/01/cory-booker-president-2020-profile-newark-projects-224539
3
I like Cory Booker. I'm not set on a candidate at this point as should all people. I am against the reelection of the current President.
Cory has a clear message and conviction. We need a way to bridge the great divide between left and right. That divide I think was created and not the truth. Americans are better than we deserve by our current politics. We need to own up to that and came back from the cliff. The pandering to divides has led us here. We need a President with a better message that unites!
5
President Obama tried to unify this country with policies like universal health care and a willingness to accept compromise in an effort to achieve egalitarian objectives like improved treatment of immigrants. And how did that work out? Hmm, eight years of Republican obstruction, Birtherism, a stolen seat on the Supreme Court...and now abject Republican complicity with the malign behavior of an overtly corrupt occupant of the White House. Apparently the “let’s do it together” approach wasn’t working. Sometimes you have to fight for your principles.
5
Excellent article by an objective and perceptive thinker.
I also like Booker's philosophy.
Well said, Dave!
Living in Iowa I have had the privilege of seeing some of the candidates in person. I've also been watching most of the town halls on cable TV. What I hear is candidates talking about policies that make our country more fair and address the deep disquiet that citizens of all stripes feel. I've yet to hear one of them excoriating Trump's supporters. And, with only a few exceptions, they aren't wasting their breath on Trump himself.
Here's an invitation, Mr. Brooks. Get out of your own head for a few days. Put on a disguise and come to some of the many small candidate gatherings in Iowa or New Hampshire. Mingle with the crowd. You'll hear voters who can't wait to get rid of Trump. But the biggest cheers you'll hear will be for policy ideas aimed at making America better.
7
I understand the notion that you cannot always take the high road when you are dealing with a low life, but this is not the moment in our history for that kind of posturing. If Trump is appealing to people's lowest impulses, we need someone to appeal to our higher ones.
The hatred is arising from both sides. The party that champions tolerance is becoming increasingly intolerant, even of those within their ranks who are not being obnoxious enough. We will not get anywhere by demonizing the other side. I applaud Brooks and Booker's call to refrain from engaging in a battle of wits with their opponents. I would welcome an exaggerated expression of high minded idealism and civility to counteract the obscenity of our current discourse.
5
The politics in this country have evolved into an "us vs them" mentality. The person whom I blame for the current discourse is Gingrich, the original bomb thrower. Trump does the same but with less intellect than displayed by Gingrich. But attempting to destroy ones rival in the political arena with lies and innuendo is not something anyone should admire.
Trump is a pox on our political system. No longer are opponents just considered as someone with a different point of view, but are now considered enemies in Trump's world. From petty nicknames for rivals to accusations of the media as enemies of the state, and slandering a dead hero, John McCain, Trump has led us into the abyss of politics.
We need to remember the words of the late Senator when a woman at a campaign rally accused Obama of being an Arab.
McCain politely, but firmly corrected her saying Obama was a decent family man with whom I have differences.
6
Thank you, David Brooks! Finally, here's a voice of reason based on a hopeful outlook for mankind. It's difficult for me to think mankind should survive its basic, hate-filled instincts; but love might just be the answer. With love comes hope. That's the ingredient we need now.
2
Ideas, good ideas win. Look beneath the surface and you will find them. It takes work. Hate is easy. Love is hard. Getting a long is beautiful. In life you can have it all.
2
What a heartwarming, elevating article! If only Trump, McConnell et al had even 10% of the grace and intellectual outlook of Obama , Booker and others of their ilk.
9
@semmfan: Do you not see that your post betrayed your hatred of those you do not agree with?
If Mr. Brooks is for Cory Booker I'm not.
WE THE PEOPLE do not want anyone the "conservatives" promote.
The media is gushing about all the money being raised by O'Rourke, Sanders, Harris and others. Sure. They make BIG money off political advertising - including Mr. Brooks.
Do not vote for anyone who is raising BIG money in the pirmaries. Find out what candidates' core values really are. Not what they gush. What are their actual policy plans - no side-stepping.
We have a fabulous group of democrats running to be OUR President of the United States of America. However, corruption and greed do not have any party affiliatioin and the Koch brothers don't care who they buy.
WE must all keep our heads and vote for 99.9% of us - not the celebrities the media chooses.
2
Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand boast that they are members of Congressional Bible study groups. That's a worry.
What do they expect to find in their research? That the Bible, despite what it says plainly in black and white, doesn't really mandate slavery and the slaughter of the Amalekites?
2
Endorsed by Brooks? The kiss of death.
5
Biden-Booker 2020
3
No. No. Enough with false equivalency.
The Evangelicals were NOT “..under siege...”. they were just angry that their world view no longer implicitly dominates gathering country.
The democrats/Left have only recently begun to hate the Right/GOP, after decades of unending abuse and anger from the Right.
We saw the Right work systematically to discredit and invalidate elections that we won. We saw the Right slander Obama and Michelle. We saw them call the Speaker “...Nancy Piglosi...”.
We saw heavily armed Right winger go to towns hosting Obama events in 2009. We saw the Right disrupt town halls. we see Right wingers walk around with Assault rifles over their shoulders in order to “...schoool...” the responding police on the Second amendment.
We saw Charlottesville and heard the Right chanting “...Jews will not replace us...”.
We saw and heard all these things. we have had enough of it.
13
@Lefthalfbach YES!
@Lefthalfbach Why didn't you have enough with Orlando, Ft Hood, San Bernadino, Boston???????
The kiss of death.
2
I absolutely love this piece. Mr. Brooks, you strike again.
1
Thank you, David Brooks.
3
The path to Democratic victory is emulating the Obama doctrine: When they go low we go high. And Booker is the very embodiment of that strategy. He's articulate, passionate, and sincere and it's difficult not to like his respect and appreciation for the other side of the aisle. The 2020 election will be determined by the 20 percent of voters between Trump's base and the progressive left. Booker has a lane and I am hoping he's nominated. We need a Cory Booker to heal the horrible chasm Trump has created.
4
Patriotism. Hope. Gratitude. I'm fine with each of these messages and find them more appealing than what I'm hearing from some of the other candidates mentioned. But in campaigning and governing under these messages, you have to ask the obvious question: Would Booker be better than Obama? Why would I ask this? Because they sound a lot like the messages that Obama excelled in delivering. I can't see anyone better at it than him. And the result of Obama is Trump. I feel like we need something else.
4
I love Cory Booker's energy and optimism. I love his true big tent approach. I do not want any more candidates that put down the other party, attack people for imperfect speaking and disparage in toxic terms anyone with whom they do not see eye to eye. I have watched a segment of the left evolve into mirrors of Trump supporters over the past few years and the self righteous rage, inability to listen to someone with whom they disagree and willingness to villainize those same people truly scares me for the future of our country. I want a big warm "hug" from Cory Booker who seems to genuinely believe we can all work together to make it ok. I'm tired of shouting - I want positive, hard working, decent energy! I think Booker and several other Democratic candidates possess that. Booker is my favorite among them.
266
@Dana
"Booker is my favorite among them." Take a closer look at the candidates. There is more to being President than just giving "big warm hugs", or pretending to do so. Ask yourself: where does the money come from? (in plain English: who is paying him/her ?).
22
@Dana - You want a big warm "hug".
I want a competent President.
23
@Fran This sounds like the opening salvo of an anti-Booker smear campaign. If you think he is in cahoots with big business and the banking industry, say so. And, then support it with fact. Innuendo is dirty politics.
5
I would challenge the apparent conflation here of Kamala Harris with reactionary emotion. She clearly advocates a viewpoint with reason. While that viewpoint is strongly at odds with that of Trump, it does not come across as purely reactionary, it comes across as reasoned advocacy.
350
@Nick
You beat me to it. Douthat, the great philosopher, calling Kamala Harris' emotion 'reactionary' is utterly ridiculous.
13
@Nick
Kamala Harris is entirely political expediency.
Following the leadership of the most powerful CA Democrats, Harris was an enabler of the incredibly lax regulation of PG&E, whose poorly maintained equipment was responsible for the Camp Fire
4
She may not be emotive, she may be reasoned, but she oozes disdain.
3
Mistrust, callousness, animosity and outright hatred have always been with us. President Obama captured the need to heal with his 2008 campaign and speech on race in America.
Trump has magnified the dark forces, considerably. We need a new president in 2020, who will again speak to the better angels of our nature. In the meantime, we need more leaders who, like Booker, will use their prominence to be a sharp contrast with Trump and who will remind us of what we might be.
375
@NM -- esteemed daughter,
Mr. Brooks says he admires the qualities of patriotism, hope and gratitude in Cory Booker. Lest we forget, the author was not as charitable towards Barack Obama during his presidency. Obama possessed these three virtues and many more, yet Mr. Brooks was never a fan of our first black president.
Now, after two years of authoritarian rule and a civil war festering just below the surface of an unhappy America, maybe the author now appreciates just how much better off the country was under our 44th president.
President Obama, more than the current Oval Office occupant, saw America's potential for greatness and always appealed to Americans' better angels, while his successor can only see what's wrong with America. He's injected a malevolent serum into the country's mainstream.
37
@NM. How did that hope and change work out?
7
@silver vibes
Great to hear from you, my friend! Yes, the parallels between Booker and Obama are pronounced and it raises a question of why Mr. Brooks did not regard the latter as highly as he does the former.
Perhaps the strange era of Trump has made him more attuned to what makes a good leader. It’s also possible that he has become disillusioned overall with the GOP and is less partisan. Whatever the case may be, I will be magnanimous and offer him a seat back at our table. Here’s hoping that this is the first of many columns which will influence the country well for 2020.
Thanks, as always, for what you wrote.
15
He's a good leader, and I like his direction. Democrats shouldn't be afraid to be patriotic and patriotic people should be afraid to support a democrat.
1
When there were 17 Republican candidates for president, how many of them did we hear preaching love? All touted their Christian faith and several quoted the Bible but as I recall they used "faith" as code work for their commitment to anti-abortion and anti-gay policies. And which of the 17 quickly rose above the pack in the primaries to become the nominee? The most un-Christian, un-loving one of all. Now Mr. Brooks holds up one Democratic candidate among the many for his righteous words as if to tell us to back away from any candidate who is too "divisive," too demanding, not "nice" enough. For the record, the very foundation of Bernie Sanders' campaign has been love of neighbor and stranger, bringing together all who struggle and strive for a better life regardless of race, creed, and gender. In the real world, love has to wield economic and political power. Love has to take action. In the world, love is radical and yes, divisive.
3
Why do you keep trafficking in false equivalence, David? Kamala Harris's prosecutorial style is the same as Trump calling Mexicans rapists and saying there are good people among the Charlottesville neo-nazis?? It used to be that that kind of language got called out and ended political careers. Now it is flourishing - among a small, but vocal segment of the population. Pushing back against them is not fanaticism. It is sanity.
3
With this endorsement from this columnist, Sen Booker just lost the nomination.
@gusii - I don't know about that - I am pretty liberal and this is the first column that got me interested in Mr. Booker-because everyone always focuses on him as a black liberal male, I hadn't seen his excellent education and reasoned thinking on issues before this. Thank you, Mr Brooks.
4
Cory Booker seems to me to be a fine candidate, if the dictum "nice guys finish last" wasn't so persistently true in American politics. Cory comes across as so nice, in manner and speaking voice, that it's hard to imagine him winning a general election against a more hard-edged, more charismatic Republican candidate—even possibly Donald Trump. As did the Fascists and the Nazis, the Republicans have purposely created a political world of fear, xenophobia and antagonism, and I don't see even ex-Trump independents being overcome by a wave of apparent niceness and kumbaya from a candidate. Jimmy Carter is the exception that proves the rule, elected in a fit of sanity and reason, but failing in the tough world of public perception. And like most Democrats and many pundits Mr Brooks forgets that most major decisions are made on an emotional level, and only then rationalized by objective policies and facts. To beat Trump, Democrats need a candidate who comes across as the toughest, most capable, most dominating person in the room. Cory Booker's compassionate charm too often comes across as borderline wimpiness—which is the last quality I'd want in a candidate charged with putting Trump back in his golden tower.
1
Say "Boo!" to a bully, and watch him run away.
With all due respect to you and Senator Booker spare us the Martin-Luther-King-Lite speech about us all being brothers. So too were Cain and Abel.
I can't speak for all Dems, Dave but this one want wants the fist. After seeing our courts packed with crazies and two Democrats denied the presidency who won the popular vote in just this century, and our tax code gutted to favor the super rich and health care denied to millions and the rich buying their kids way into college I say ENOUGH! Let's rumble.
5
I hear you, Mr Brooks - but it seems like you're just not seeing the Republican Party we see. In order to have the votes to get elected in 2016, the Republican Party formed an unholy trinity, welcoming flagrant racists and neo-Nazis to the mix with tax cut/deregulation enthusiasts who have no qualms poisoning our air, land and water and exacerbating climate change when it makes them money - and the longtime garden variety closeted racists/don't ask don't tell crowd who can't speak out against the neo-Nazi crowd because they have an uncomfortable amount in common (topics like nationalism, for example)
I'm glad that you had a good lunch-and I know many nice people who are conservatives- but since Trump was elected, those nice meals have ended up in very ugly discussions that do need to come out- because when they start spewing hatred about 'underrepresented minorities' taking spots from their white children-when they start getting angry at the simple idea that everyone should be able to go to the doctor - when they fume over the idea of a $15 an hour minimum wage when that's still poverty level - it's not such a nice lunch anymore, is it?
3
1000 times yes.
David Brooks appears as Dorothy looking for a rainbow and the pot of gold, a panacea to right the ship and create a Noah’s Ark bringing us all together. Corey Booker is not the one despite the rose colored glasses of Mr. Brooks. Mr. Booker’s snide elitist remark of the imperfect yet genius founders speaks volumes. His inclusion of the unnecessary adjective imperfect suggests he is otherwise removed from that distinction.
That is where it all heads south of ideal. The revisionist perspective of one way thinking and subsequent vanquishing of all past leaders as less enlightened than the regressive mindset of the present Democrat polemicist is absurd. In reality, David, as you may have briefly encountered with your lunch date with the locals is that we all get along just fine until the news media blares otherwise. Perhaps you should get out more often, drop your NY Times elite pretense, and you would see a world of much greater harmony and respect than that presented by your professional colleagues.
1
Yes, seeing how the ultra-wealthy have stolen this country leads to “existential anxiety”.
Seeing White Supremacist rhetoric being embraced by the president, even as right wing extremists massacre innocents.
When you’re very existence is threatened, you grab a heavy object and hurl it as hard as you can at your attacker.
(That wasn’t a metaphor, just what people do, according to coverage of the heroes of the NZ attack I read earlier.)
2
The blathering, bleeding and speechifying never ends. These politicians and journalists should be paid by the word. We’d all be rich!
MLK Jr. said it best: « Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. »
1
Summing up.
Mr. Brooks wants the high road and proposes Cory Booker. Some suspect Mr. Brooks is having an et tu, Brooksie moment. Me, too.
Mr. Brooks leaves the lower East Side and mingles in the Nebraska of the movie of the same name, has another but very different epiphany, and concludes these good salts of the earth are to be bonded with. Do they feel the same? Some don't think so. Me, too.
Mr. Brooks other NYTimes colleague recently wrote that Mr. Trump urged his "tough guy" police, military and biker followers to act "tough", an exhortation at once patently revealing and perfect from a coward with bone spurs. Some think you don't let the Trump type, the Koch type, the Ross type and the Devos type et al treat everyone else as serfs, their sharecroppers. Me, too.
Mr. Brooks, please do a column soon on where you were in 2016 and where you'll be the day after the election in 2020. Or a column on why the Trump and Trump family and Trump minions outrageous mendacity isn't impeachable.
2
David, please read Nancy MacLane's book "Democracy In Chains" and then re-write your article.
Got my "David Brooks For Corey!" bumper sticker primed and ready. Dang, that should really help the Booker campaign.
"How do you answer hatred? How should you respond when your political opponents assault you with insult, stereotype and contempt?" I thought, "Hurrah! At last, an opinion piece in the NYT sympathetic to Mr. Trump and all the unfair treatment he gets in the liberal media!" Alas, no.
1
People are animals. All of us.
Brooks is unfair to animals, just as many columnists are unfair to Neanderthals, who were admirable upstanding people.
I love him. It's totally irrational. He may well be full of it, but I'll buy it anyway. I love that he's from much maligned New Jersey and that he walks the walk and lives modestly in Newark. I love that he's a vegan. I love that he testified against Jeff Sessions. But i'm not gonna vote for him. I don't love his donors, i don't love his Pharma vote, and i wanna know what happened to that $100 mil that Zuckerberg forked over for Newark schools.
I'm really starting to dislike Beto O'Rourke, he really seems to be coming off as a flaming ditz. Unprepared, unfocused, lazy and unprofessional. All i can think of is - this is the guy the Dems want to put against Putin, the Saudis, and Kim Jong-un?
So my question for Booker (and maybe for you too, Mr. Brooks) is, do you think peace, love, decency, brotherhood, and rainbows is going to work when it's time to play hardball?
Dunno. The Sessions thing might have been a bit of grandstanding, but still there was some spine involved.
1
It was very discouraging to see the rather casual acceptance of Omar's antisemitism within the Democratic Party as normal and acceptable people who self identify as "progressives".
3
How do you answer hatred?
Love one another. Call each other friend, desire the best, forgive the worst, and when you fail, begin again.
1
The Dems taking political advice from David Brooks? Things are even worse than I thought.
1
Oh, yeah, Barack Obama went after the heartland and evangelicals with full force viciousness. Yep. That's what happened; that explains the backlash. No wonder those people are so upset. Why didn't I see it before? How is it I never noticed what a horrible person Barack Obama is?
Another "oh, brother" column by David Brooks.
4
Corey never met a camera he didn't like.
He's a fraud.
6
The GOP obstructs Obama from day 1 in an intentional and deliberate scheme to oppose good government, and then lurches on like Remora fish as Trump's mindless, snapping jaws trash everything, but it's the Democrats who need to make choices. Why bother reading this stuff?
3
Unfortunately for Senator Booker, the American working people do not have the luxury of electing another feel-good, corporate suit who will inspire them with speeches while they continue their downward spiral into abject impoverishment . . . . What has happened to our country's politics? There is almost no Peace movement, the Labor movement has been largely destroyed and an openly racist American President is talking about how the military, the police and the biker gangs (!) are behind him. Is this a time to stop the struggle? . . . Middle class liberals of conscience, I understand how you might consider Socialism bitter medicine--but it is the only antidote to Fascism.
Why does Brooks find the need to throw shade on Harris and Bernie?
Neither has engaged in anything equivalent to, say, Jim Jordan or Trey Gowdy—whose rabid, bullying style at the respective Cohen and Benghazi hearings attempted to demean and dehumanize their interlocutors.
Harris merely insists that questions be answered, while at the Kavanaugh hearings, Sen. Klobachar showed massive restraint towards the contemptous snark (“Do you like beer, senator?”) of Kavanaugh.
The most you can accuse Bernie of is a certain self-righteous speaking style. Elizabeth Warren? She stubbornly insists on fact-based arguments, and displays a patient professorial/educator’s style. Kristen Gillibrand, at last nights town hall meeting seemed on the verge of tears as she shaked with emotional empathy for military rape victims—demanding, not that the perprtrators be castrated, merely that they be brought to justice. Go down the rest of the list: from Grandpa Joe Biden to cuddly Beto, there is nothing remotely resembling the toxicity that starts with Trump and festers unchallenged, by his GOP supporters.
Yes, I would agree that far too many of my liberal friends have become twitter and FB trolls. A liberal troll and a conservative troll are equally annoying.
I feel sorry for them and advise them to please get off social media. It has victimized them and all of us.
But I dont see anything that resembles the zero-sum destructiveness championed by Trump.
5
The Trump base is most certainly NOT the opponent of Democrats and Independents. Indeed, even the Republican Party is not. The opponent is the collection of dark, moneyed forces that seek to thwart democracy and tilt all the power to them. They recruited and bought those shallow, small men to serve their purposes in Congress. Think McConnell. And they have manipulated the ill-informed, the evangelical, and the poorly educated to vote against their own best interests. I call these dark forces “extreme capitalism”. THAT is the opponent for Democrats and Independents and people of good will. And that’s also why Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the arch-enemy of this dark force: they have exposed what’s really going on.
3
I'd like to take that better-angels course of action David Brooks recommends. But my sense is that the Democrats' past readiness to seek compromise has actually been a factor in enabling the Republicans' march to madness. At this point, I don't even recognize responsible conservative thought in their leaders. They've stepped into a world of consensual delusion, unanchored to facts. They're more at war with reason itself than with Democrats or our NATO allies.
My fear is that, until their irrational behavior has caused some undeniable catastrophe for our nation, they won't have reached their "what were we thinking"moment, after which reasoned discussion may once again be possible.
2
I'm not sure which democratic candidate Brooks is thinking of when he speaks of "fighting fire with fire" and being vicious. Warren? Sanders? Harris? Biden? Klobuchar? Which of these candidates has insulted political opponents, incited violence, defended racist groups or positions? Which one lies routinely, foolishly, unnecessarily? Which has denounced the media and demanded loyalty oaths? Which has bragged about sexual assault and been credibly accused of it repeatedly? Which has ever plumbed the depths of ignorance and stupidity where Trump lives? Which has defaulted on loans, bilked contractors and clients, defrauded customers, and profited from it all? Which is almost certainly guilty of tax fraud and conspiracy? Which of these candidates couldn't be allowed to talk to federal investigators because he or show would certainly commit perjury? Fight fire with fire? really?
5
He's just another politician with an appealing approach. His Spartacus speech was an absurd and typical grandstand.
2
I too spent time with a lot of folks while on a road trip thru Trump country and fully agree that these folks are not evil but, the allow themselves to be manipulated by right wing propaganda via Fox News etc.
2
I don't know where Booker will end up, but, agree with this go high strategy---such an approach would throw Trump totally off message. Trump is at his best when trading insults---and even if a Democratic candidate was good at it---in the process he or she will, as Marco Rubio found out---make themselves look small--This is Trump's advantage in a talking trash debate---voters in general and his base accept him for what he is---they expect him to talk trash--so what. But the same low bar standard will not be applied to an opponent who goes down the trash talking road. Besides, the public, at this point, on both sides of isle, are sick and tired of daily Mad Max reruns---they are yearning for morning in America.
What does it say about us as a country that there is actual debate about who is electable enough to beat Donald Trump? It has nothing to do with people being "evil." It has to do with basic decency and minimal intelligence. It is ludicrous to entertain the idea that Trump is a better choice than anyone. At least the fear of re-election ought to ensure a tidal wave of opposition at the polls.
4
Want to like that rap, but he's such a player. Poses when the cameras around as a black middle class working hero with a smile but actually he breaks bread and hangs with corporations and Big Pharma and fat cats all the time. He's beholden to big money and old school cash. Nothing wrong about optimism at all, and he's smart and can likely (?) debate and laugh off Trump. But once he's in, it's more good old boy politics updated to included some women and minorities but same old same old.
It's "funny" how Republicans can seem to have no bar low enough to which they'll stoop, fanning fear and hatred, and yet somehow they control all but the House, and that was lost only a few months ago. They control most state houses as well. So this idea of fear and hatred not being a successful strategy just doesn't match reality David.
It's "funny" too how so many conservative pundits caution the Democrats to not take the low road, or fight fire with fire. Why is that? Are they really offering help out of kindness and concern? Or are they simply trying to get the Dems to continue to fight with one hand tied behind their back, while "winning" the high road?
While I would love to see civility and respect and bi-partisanship return to politics, I think it's crazy for the Democrats to play Charlie Brown to the Republican's Lucy as they continue to pull the football away time after time. We all know what Einstein's definition of crazy is.
I admire Mr. Booker, and look forward to hearing more of his platform, but sooner or later he's going to have to step into the ring and throw punches. I hope for his sake that he knows how to.
I believe Bernie, and Liz have the right temperament, in tune with the voters who themselves are angry and fed up with the status quo. We're done being patient, and waiting for the wealth to "trickle down" to us. It's long past time to rock the boat, and spill its cargo - the wealth sucked up from the working and middle class for decades.
3
While the polls indicate that some people on both sides believe the other side is evil, there's no indication that any of the declared candidates, except possibly Bernie Sanders, thinks that those on the other side are evil. After all, he thought that Hillary Clinton was evil, which is an indication that he's prone to hate.
It's likely that some Democratic candidates think that donald trump is evil. I certainly do. Anyone who would taunt a despot who had threatened the US with nuclear attack,with every indication that the despot either did have or would soon have the capability to successfully attack our west coast states or even non-coastal western states is evil. A man who sexually assaults women, and buys an organization so that he can see teenage girls unclothed and brags about it is evil. I think his supporters are either greedy or racists or naive or just not very smart. I'm sure that there are people in the Democratic Party who fit those descriptions, but we don't have nearly as many members who don't question our leaders or believe anything we're told. People who are greedy or racist can be considered evil in some cases. Whether trump supporters fit that description have to be considered on an individual basis.
My problem with Booker is that he was a mediocre mayor. Why should we believe that he would be a successful president?
Before I can support Booker, I need to understand what happened with Newark schools and the $100 million Zuckerberg contribution. That was squandered! What does that tell us about his leadership skills?
1
I am a connoisseur of vaguely-sourced journalism, and would like to nominate Brooks' statement (paraphrased here) "I had lunch with 15 people in Nebraska and NO WAY were any of them evil" for the inaugural Andy Awards.
5
I wish I could think better of the people who continue to support Donald Trump no matter what outrageous, unethical, racist, or nasty comment he utters or tweets. I wish I could 'understand' the people who continue to support the POTUS who always sides with, and believes, the dictator despots instead of our intelligence agencies. Unfortunately, I am at a loss as to why good people support a man who only cares about enriching himself and aggrandizing himself. Those "good people" on the right have no defense to debate the merits of Trump's administration. They simply choose to turn a blind eye to the damage he inflicts on our country.
6
Republicans POLITICIANS are irredeemable, as they are either motivated by hatred, contempt, racism, or xenophobia or they have given up principles to support Trump. Republican voters may not be bad people, but they are irredeemable politically as they have been conned and convinced into supporting Trump and the other irredeemable Republican politicians.
2
David Brooks, your comments, as always, remind me of who we are as human beings -- albeit easily caught up in "the war". To the Democratic candidates: keep it simple! "I will never lie to you" followed by simple declarative sentences on what you stand for as well as what Trump has shown that he stands for. i.e. "I'm concerned about the rise of white nationalism, Trump refuses to speak out against it."
Jeb Bush spent $130 million in 2016. When Trump insulted him & his family he was like a deer in headlights. Later he said he didn't want to dignify the low level of Trump's discourse. In fact none of them knew how to respond to a bully. They all lost and we got the worst, most dangerous potus in our history. We can't afford to lose again, even if it means beating him at his own dirty game.
3
False Equivalency 101. Starting with Newt Gingrich and his Contract on America the Republicans have been demonizing the Democrats, making the word liberal a dirty word. And Trump is the epitome of that mind set, actually encouraging violence against his political enemies. So Brooks' solution for the Democrats is to turn the other cheek. But sorry, I can't hear what Brooks is saying over the chants of "Lock Her Up."
7
Talk is cheap. Have your car break down on the side of road in a place where nobody is like you and see what happens. Some fellow American is going to stop and see if they can help. I work with Trump voters and we completely disagree on many points. All of them work hard and I'd feel perfectly safe leaving my wallet on the lunch table or my car doors unlocked.
There is such a vast difference between what the media presents, it being in the business of working up a lather, and how life operates on a daily basis, that it's worth pointing it out. In the Editorial Board piece they are talking about how oh my gosh violent video was not controlled! This is a sub-theme going on behind our backs, the media is noticing that it cannot limit what people see & think anymore like in the good old days. They'll talk about controlling "bad" information, but what they really want to control is you. (No ability to leave a comment on that Editorial Board piece btw, hmm no kidding.)
I mention all this because here we have some lathering on a marginal candidate who just a middle of the road Democrat that the media understands. Thing is, he's irrelevant. People want change to the left and we are going to get it.
1
Again with the both sides argument.
I don’t hear Democrats hinting at civil war or degrading fellow citizens the way the Republicans do.
Patriotism is fine but declaring yourself the masters of the world has been a little much.
Religion is fine if kept in its lane but used to justify exploitation and war on the ‘other’, Middle East, Korea, Central and South America, disgusting.
Love is not always the answer but humility is.
1
No, Republican voters are not, in general, "evil" - if by that we mean something like 'knowingly and deliberately harming others to please or benefit themselves'. The ones I know fail the 'knowingly and deliberately' prong of this definition.
So they are not evil people, merely bad people. Intellectually bad, for embracing conspiracy theories and rejecting sound work in environmental and economic science because it conflicts with their preferences. Morally bad, for letting their own paranoias and preferences about government harm other people. It is the vitriol and spite in the tone so often used by conservative media -- which one must assume, is speaking to its viewers, appealing to them by saying what they feel, but usually decline to say -- that makes them seem positively vicious; not merely bad but evil.
By all means, we must have an 'ambassador' candidate, a Democratic presidential nominee that calls to red America to join with us in community and reject the xenophobia and zero-sum politics of Trumpism. But that doesn't mean painting over the intellectual dishonesty and selfishness required to support Republican policies. We all need a leader who calls us to be the better versions of ourselves, who unites us by upholding our founding ideals. But such a leader would move the whole country left, however fractionally - because Republican policies (as distinct from voters) are not merely bad, but evil.
3
“Some people believe that fire can be fought only with fire. We’ve got to face the world as it is. If the other side is going after you with full viciousness, you’ve got to find a leader who can do the same to them. This is a knife fight. We need a brawler.
This is the argument white evangelicals made in deciding to back Donald Trump. We’re under siege. He’ll fight for us.”
Sir,
I respectfully submit that the above statements are your opinion, and have no basis in fact. I am a “white evangelical,” and I certainly did not make such a judgment, nor did I support such an argument, nor does any other “white evangelical” with whom I am acquainted.
It is these kinds of statements which contribute so directly to the hatred that each side feels for the other side.
I also know lots of Democrats/leftists. None of them thinks that I am a racist bigot because I believe that socialism is a worse choice than capitalism for lifting people out of poverty.
If you continue to make such statements, I will hold you in part responsible for the vile epithets we now routinely throw at each other. You owe me an apology. I do not vilify Leftists, though I think they are terribly misguided. And I expect you not to vilify me.
Civil discourse and factual argument only, please.
1
@Kathleen880 How many people in this country live in poverty? A conservative estimate is 39.7 million which is about 1 in 8 of us. If poverty is honestly a concern of yours then it should be clear that the way this country practices Capitalism is failing.
Adam Smith, the originator of capitalism, wrote extensively about the inherent failures and pitfalls of his economic model on society and this country has fallen into many of them. He hoped to create a system that benefited all and championed many of the ideas you and others label "socialist". The system currently in use manifests a perverted form and needs to be reworked to benefit more than it currently hurts.
Christ spoke a lot about the poor and our responsibility to care for them. One needs to move past altered definitions of ideas that close one's mind to possibilities and understand that intentions are what matters. For example, Conservatives believe the status quo or what was is preferable to a progressive change which can mean that Conservatives have no problem with the number of poor in this country. That doesn't make Conservatives evil, but, like Christ, I believe there is more to be done for those of lesser means.
When oh when will it stop? Republicans, Brooks among them, made arguably the worst choice ever in history for president. So why in the world does Brooks have the extreme audacity to offer advice to Democrats? Stop, just stop.
3
Is anyone else getting tired of all the commenters who immediately reject anything Brooks says? It seems that because it comes from Brooks, an avowed conservative, it's suspect at least and vile at most. I'm afraid that this is in part a knee jerk reaction to all the nonsense Trump spews, but folks, please, let's not make the same mistake the opposition makes--blind allegiance to our side and knee jerk rejection of anything said by the "other."
1
@susan It's not a knee jerk reaction to anything Brooks writes. We've been following his opinion pieces for years and we know what he writes. It's not substantial. It's not meaningful. It's superficial and it's trite. There's no there there.
Corey Booker is an embarrassment to New Jersey and America. I cringe every time he's on TV. Recently he said on TV he wished Paul Manafort would die in prison. For cheating on his taxes? He gave Jeff Sessions an award when he was Senator. He spoke at Jeff Sessions confirmation hearings and said he is a racist.
Democrats have some terrific candidates to defeat Trump. It will not be Corey Booker.
1
Another Brooks column, probably #1187 by now in which he uses the tired rhetorical trope of either-or dualism to frame an issue that is more complex and fraught with ambiguity. It's about the AND David, and knowing how to blend both ends of your cherished spectrum to achieve desired aims.
Oh come on David! Talk about false equivalence! None of the democratic candidates are railing against any part of the electorate. They are exposing the inequities in our society brought on by the Republican Party of Donald Trump. It is that party, of which you are a member, which has unleashed class warfare, and your attempt to place democrats in the same boat is disingenuous. You are the party of Fox News which is so hateful in its philosophy, that it’s own “correspondents” are being imdicted by their on venom.
I do not hate my brother who voted for Trump, nor do I hate anyone of that persuasion, but I sure believe they are misguided. How does one confront that issue, by singing Kumbaya together? Of course not. You make the case that the country is on the wrong path by addressing income inequality, moral corruption, climate change denial, educational, scienctific and infrastructure investment, voting rights, etc.
I recall Barack Obama extending his hand in attempt at bi-partisanship only to be met with vitriol. To this day I have relatives and friends who refer to Barack in the most despicable manner, yet laud the virtues of Trump. There is little room for accommodation with that form of ignorance. I believe the soul searching needs to begin within the Republican Party before you cast such a wide net.
5
No, I don't want moral healing - I would prefer a candidate fight for free health care for all, free college, lower taxes for the middle class, higher taxes for the grotesquely wealthy, less military spending - instead of hogwash sentimentality like “Love means that I see you, I see your worth, I see your dignity,”
2
Cory Booker sounds like another Obama, and has the credentials to be president. Brooks should follow him so we can find out if he is indeed what I hope he is.
1
To all these conservative pundits who say we (the left) need to be reasonable and open-minded to the right, I say start with Fox News and then get back to me. You have plenty of housecleaning to do on your own side!
After Fox, you can move on to the sanctimonious Evangelicals the Republican Party has been cultivating ever since St. Reagan.
I remember hearing you once say (during the Bush years?) that the Left will always feel frustrated in the US, implying that there was no place for us in this country. Well, Brooks, those days are over, and we happen to be a lot more open-minded than you might think. The Republicans, however, have a lot of soul-searching left to do - it hasn't even begun!
3
The reflexive drum beat from conservatives is to advise liberals to be more open and compromising.
Liberals have compromised for decades, while conservatives immediately occupy the ground liberals have ceded—then demand more “compromise”!
Cory is a phony political animal. Don’t fall for his sincerity, it’s dishonest
1
Your claim (20% of Democrats believe that Republicans “lack the traits to be considered fully human — they behave like animals”) is vague: are they referring to all Republicans? or to the white nationalist component no national Republican leader has the spine to denounce?
As for your endorsement of Cory Booker, are you now a registered Democrat? Or, is he the candidate you, a Republican, want Democrats to nominate?
Here's a thought: let Democrats nominate whom they want. While Republicans figure out who can run against Trump in a primary. Then let the voters decide.
1
"How do you answer hatred?"
By finding those who hate and making a public spectacle of their hate. Ostracizing and public spectacle are far more powerful than prison.
As one who supports those who hate, David, who are you to offer advice on the subject when you are only on the side of hate? Republicans OWN hate. It defines Republican motivations. Republicans spew hateful venom - like your president and ALL republicans still support the venomous person.
Yesterday, I read the reporting about Democrat members of the House meeting offsite to try to resolve their differences on Israel. The report said that they shared the stories of their persecuted ancestors. Some had Jewish ancestors, some Moslem.
My question is this, whatever happened to separation of Church and State? I'm glad that they are trying to get along with each other but they should be spending their time talking about climate change and economic inequality and, you know, like, laws which is what their jobs are.
Thank you for this reminder.
"Putting literary phrases in the place of scientific knowledge and the liberation of mankind through 'love' in place of the emancipation of the proletariat through the economic transformation of production"--these were the fatal errors Frederick Engels saw Ludwig Feuerbach and the other progressives of Germany in 1844 were making--and the progressive backers of Senator Booker of 2019 as well, apparently. . . . When Socialist ideas once again become known by our people, it will not be necessary to theoretically re-invent the wheel before every going out. . . .
Corey Booker is a good, decent man. I'd be happy to have him as my neighbor.
But the last time we elected a good, decent, reasonable, humane, conciliatory man, Mitch McConnell spat in his face for 8 years.
And that was before President Donald Trump - who's thrown off any cloak of decency the GOP pretended to wear before Trump throttled their party into submission. Now the GOP is Trump's "blue wall." They'll dance with the devil - hatred, bigotry, misogyny, crypto-fascism, blatant corruption & crazy lies - because they tax cuts & packing the judiciary.
Donald Trump spits in the face of kumbaya. Remember "birtherism"? Don't be fooled about the Republican Party. They'll do Trump's bidding as long as they get what they want. They aren't coming back to "American values" anytime soon.
The GOP's behaved badly before. Voter suppression, race- mongering, gerrymandering, red-baiting, swiftboating, veiled threats of violence, sending thugs to scare away voters, refusing legislation to protect us from Russians hacking the election.
Under Donald Trump, expect all this to go nuclear. Expect Trump to lie & make threats that will curl our hair heading into 2020.
Trump will likely fabricate a lie about the Democratic nominee that will make us gasp in its horribleness.
We need the smartest, bravest, toughest person we can find to battle what Trump will do to them. It will be personal.
This is America now.
Face reality.
We can't nominate someone Trump will carve to pieces.
3
It is time for Brooks to look unflinchingly at the party of the President and call a spade a spade. The Trump Party employs a nihilistic approach to facts and the truth and has gone so far as to declare truth tellers to be weak, or enemies of the people. In the face of such an onslaught on America's higher principles and values we ought not be afraid to go wherever the truth leads us. It is sure to be in the opposite direction of the current administration. If restoring our nation requires that we implement some realpolitik in our words and actions then so be it.
2
I would ask people to look at Booker's resume and realize the man is a Rhodes Scholar, has a Doctorate from Yale Law, played football for Stanford University and has actually run into burning buildings to save peoples' lives.
He worked for social justice while in law school, and while being mayor of Newark. He is the real deal.
Judge the man on his merits and his qualifications. If we'd done that in 2016, this country wouldn't be in such a mess.
4
I live in Arkansas as a liberal. I have bit my tongue till it was bleeding, I have turned the other cheek till I had whiplash and a sunburned looking face, I have been lectured regarding my faith as insufficiently conservative, I have been called elite for the temerity of having a college degree, I have been accused of being a baby killer. I live in a state where an operating principle of the Republican representatives is to make life for POC and the poor as miserable as possible. I’m done with nice, coddling the ignorant is not going to move us forward, it is time to leave these people behind and get on with it. I don’t need to have a “listening tour” with them to try and understand their “why’s”, but it sure would be nice if y’all would excoriate republicans to do so.
167
@tjcenter - I'm sure you have suffered from conservative invective. But the true model for we liberals must be Dr. martin Luther King. He too had folks on his side who were 'done with' turning the other cheek. But I believe we MUST continue our WORK of bending the future towards justice and freedom. It is not done by FIGHTING - it is done by WORKING. We canNOT vanquish people, we MUST change their minds! And that takes WORK NOT war!
16
@Peggy G
Peggy - unfortunately hate is a delicious and enticing feast. And it has been carefully seasoned and baked by forces we ignored for too long. I'm not interested in changing minds that can't be changed. Who said they should be?
I've come to the conclusion that one party in this country is not fit or able to lead us into the future. And they are not.
23
@tjcenter
I also lived in rural Arkansas for 10 years. We retired there to live out our old age in a warmer climate. The thing that stands out that I found to be true is that no matter how long you live there, you are a newcomer. They do not welcome or want newcomers. A lot stems from jealousy that we come down there with our pensions, build better houses than some of them have, and talk differently.
The only difference between AR and FL is there is more of us than there of them, so you don't encounter the dislike as often.
10
When Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to allow Medicare bargaining power for pharmaceutical pricing only 2 Democrats opposed: Booker and the rep from Delaware. In a political environment in which authenticity is paramount, no doubt this will come up and be an Achilles heel.
1
After spending a lot of time with Catholic nuns who have gone to prison for actions against nuclear weapons, I have learned there are many faces of love. Sometimes love is confrontational, passionate, contrary, defiant, but it is always respectful.
Having perverted decency into political correctness, we have lost why we were even striving for decency in the first place. Some took it as losing their right to express themselves freely, while it was always about respect and understanding that certain words/ phrases/ ideas had aspects that caused others pain. Decency was sacrificing ones right to use a word in an attempt to show the damaged person a modicum of respect and in turn all gained respect.
Right wing media has reveled in disrespect - targeting others for derision and pointing out any perceived slight as a grand conspiracy of contempt toward them. Love cannot be sown in that tainted earth and expected to grow.
Though I do not think Bernie is the ideal candidate for this cycle, his speech at Liberty University is a model for how we as a country can move to understanding which is needed before any love can be expressed. Without understanding love can easily be misinterpreted and manipulated. A hug can impart love but it can also be seen as an invasion.
Can the Right allow Cory to explain himself and his intent without immediate nullification and derision, I cannot say. He's black, speaks well, from the east coast, is liberal... what odds do you give him?
1
This is cool. A way out just possibly, is to forego the conditioned reaction to refute, revile, discount and condemn others. We all reside on this getting smaller ball and where it goes and we channel it, we all have to ride. We seem unable to control the environment on the little ball but can maybe make the human condition more respectful and productive. Since we can control one little thing, respect may be it. Supporting happy traveling thru space and decorum is aspirational. Mr. Booker may be a good conductor, all aboard.
1
President Obama took the high road, and tried to meet the Republicans in the middle, and what did it get him? Unwavering opposition. Dialing the negative rhetoric would be a good start, but Republicans have moved the country so far to the right since the '80s, that Ronald Reagan would not recognize it. We also need to hold our ground against the rising tide of plutocracy which is threatening our Democracy.
4
Cory Booker has no real chance at winning in the General for two reasons. His enthusiasm in Smearing Justice Kavanaugh and his embracing of the Green New Deal. Either is enough to make him un-electable, the two together means he has no chance, unless he is angling for the VP slot. Americans used to think carefully before publicly smearing another American. Wonder why Booker thought it was ok to do today? I guess he asked himself 'what would Spartacus do' and then acted accordingly.
1
Well here you go David, for you and all the other candidates. Spring break 2019 in the Midwest. Six guys, four in college, two who struggle to stay alive in the real world, head to Texas for a weekend to attend a charity disc golf event. (They are all high school buddies and I’m sure they are havIng a blast, disc golfing their way home in parks along the way.) A couple of the families make it all possible — I used points for last night’s stay in KC. This morning, all of these incidental charges come rolling in on mom’s credit card. Charges that have been refunded, but will take several days to appear. Why is this? They did this to me once when I carried only a debit/credit card. I returned home and couldn’t buy milk. Why, in the days of electronic banking is this allowed? And why does the consumer have to deal with it?
Sometimes the fighting is necessary to bring needed change to the public's attention. Must we always wait four or five generations, maybe more, to see individual rights respected?
One can't imagine, for example, that without gay activists' ACT UP and Stonewall, we'd be where we are today on AIDS prevention, gay rights, gay marriage. One can't imagine that without Occupy Wall Street that wealth inequality would be a major electoral platform leading to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I would even argue that the violence perpetrated against blacks during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the violent images of the Vietnam War we saw on television, and, more recently, the horrendous examples of police brutality we see today, the unrest in Ferguson, MO, the sexual violence perpetrated against women giving us #MeToo, all have had the needed effect of visibility to promote change.
It's unfortunate that violence is part of human nature, and I have never condoned it, even when it was for a cause I believed in. And there is a distinction between peaceful protest and crime and violence for sure. But sometimes--sometimes--it's the fist that makes the headlines and, eventually, when the brawl is over, society's healing moves us to a better place.
1
I appreciate Mr. Brooks and his call for unity, acceptance, and bipartisanship. However, what happened when the previous president said, "We are not a Red States of America or a Blue States of America...we are a United States of America"?
What happened was Mitch McConnell made calls to make Obama a one-term president. What happened was constant legislative obstruction by the other party. What happened was the Speaker denied Obama's right, constituionally provided, to appoint a Supreme Court justice, Merrick Garland? What happened was the mention of "death panels" in the discussion about the Affordable Care Act.
And the "decent people" about which Brooks spoke wanted the WH back, wanted their SCOTUS picks, and wanted to rid the world of Hillary Clinton and the stain of a black president. How, in the context of these facts, do you achieve unity? It seems naive to ignore these realities.
9
People are what they do. Who can know what is in a stranger's heart? We can only know people through their actions and a vote is an action with moral consequences. So, while no one is evil merely because of party affiliation, if you do support candidates or parties who pursue policies that promote racism or grotesque income inequality, what does that make you? Whether you personally put your own foot on the neck of the downtrodden, or merely vote for people whose policies have the same affect, you have made a moral choice. And yes, it's the wrong one, if not evil.
3
Honestly - at one point I found solace in these columns but not so much anymore. My 'sacred bond' as an American does not include wanting to see the 'other side' wiped out as Carl Bernstein noted.
1
I vaguely remember a story about a knight in shiny armor who charmed the ladies until he took his armor off. Emaciated, malnourished, he appeared as a man of no substance. "Morning Joe's" conversation about 45 and his weekend "Twitter Storm" revealed an equally empty man of no substance; a vessel of vengeance. Senator Cory Booker comes across to me as a man of substance. As mayor of Newark he came to a burning building before the first responders and rescued people trapped inside. At the time it probably was not the wisest act, but it was a courageous act. I cannot envision 45 doing the same. Most likely he would have fired the fire chief for getting to the fire after him and blamed them for the harm the victims suffered. All said, American voters are a fickle lot; good people who choose ignoble persons for the noble office of POTUS. Is 45 in the WH solely because his armor was brighter and shiner than Secretary Clinton's resume of public service?
3
Booker has a nice campaign slogan, but there are two problems with it.
First, it will never fly with the Progressive guard that is now driving the primaries. We need to fight, fight, fight, hate, hate, hate, doncha know?
Second, coming from the man who thought he was Spartacus just a few months ago, it sounds disingenuous.
My guess is that Booker is aiming for the VP slot, which he may well get if Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar or Kirsten Gillibrand get the nomination (as unlikely as any of those are to do so). Which is very un-Spartacus of Booker.
1
Ah, The Love ! Yes, the beautiful Love that Cory " Spartacus " Booker showed during the Neil Gorsuch Confirmation Circus was so pure and beautiful !
Truly, A Man For All Seasons !!!
1
I have to agree with the several others who noted Brooks's imperfect and frankly, lazy comparisons between Democratic candidates. I believe there are many of us who see fine qualities in many of the front runners (Warren, Harris, Sanders, Booker) but I doubt that we are overly concerned with the question of being too "combative" come November of 2020.
What is clear is that we do not need another Hillary Clinton but rather someone who can exchange fire with fire. What sort of alchemy will work is anyone's guess but I do know one things about Bernie Sanders and that is that he can wipe the floors with Trump in a debate.
While I find Booker eloquent, poised, informed, passionate, you name it, I don't honestly know if he has that same killer instinct. At a certain point, things will get nastier and we're going to need to be able to discard the conciliatory mantle and bare our Democratic teeth. Like it or not, that is the only language that certain Republican voters understand. With our democracy at stake, fighting fire with fire is the only option.
1
@DC See the documentary "Street Fighter" on netflix, about Senator Booker's run for mayor of Newark, NJ.
I'm all for taking the high road, but just what "sacred bonds" connects me with people in Alabama who support Jeff Sessions or Texans for Ted Cruz or the 70% of West Virginians who think Trump is even a greater gift to mankind than sliced bread or government cheese? Sorry Mr. Brooks, but I have NO sacred bond with them. In fact, I only want to be able to beat them at the polls and limit their influence on how I live my life.
422
@ManhattanWilliam The Founders would respond along the lines of "If we don't hang together, we shall surely all hang separately."
That's as close to a sacred bond as exists in today's world. The fact that you don't see it is a sad indictment of our disintegrating culture.... and your last sentence is the death knell for America.
"Repent!" is what a prophet would cry.... We are "One Nation under God," as it used to say on our coins.
4
Booker is alright as a personality. Personally, he's little too establishment for my tastes. Also, like all New Jersey politicians, he's got a worrying amount of baggage. We could do worse but you better be careful before you bet the pot.
I find it odd to bring up Bernie's "indignation" in the context of Edsall's opinion though. First, I'll reiterate: I think there are some flaws in that survey. At the very least, the results will varying wildly depending on how the survey was administered. I read the methodology. The authors didn't specify.
However, let's take the survey as accurate for a moment. More partisans hate the other side than every before. They view their political opponents as "evil." Bernie's indignation has nothing to do with how you feel personally about voters on the other side.
His indignation is directed at a "rigged" system that promotes injustice both politically and economically. As Democrats are quick to point out, Bernie is not actually Democrat. His criticism is therefore fairly directed at Democrats as much as Republicans. Bernie's indignation is non-partisan.
By trying to associate Bernie's attitude with a completely unrelated survey, I'm inclined to dismiss the entire argument. Maybe Brooks has a point. However, he undermines that point with his own factionalism.
1
This column, in sync with much America’s “thinking” to-day, basically provides two extreme and opposed solutions about how to deal with whatever disturbing situation there would be: one involving aggressive confrontation; the other reconciling compassion. This is unappealing at many levels, including that of reason. Were it only that simple! No wonder “we” not only don’t get along but are in constant turmoil. Has the view that there’s a time and a place for “the this” and for “the that,” become obsolete from arrogance? or just unpopular enough to be conveniently forgotten? And if the Bible is a source to indicate the way for authentic living, it ought to be fully appreciated rather than “cherry-picked” in order to conform to some preferred argument.
1
Please include statistics about the opinions of people who identify as Independents, rather than Democrats or Republicans. Independents are a larger group than either of the others. I suspect you will find that they as a group are largely moderates and that their inclusion in the numbers will show that the pervasiveness of hate, for example, is considerably lower than this piece suggests.
1
"He agrees with many of his rivals on policy, but he argues that how you behave is just as important as what you propose."
Booker is more inspirational than most of the other candidates. I think he's got it that voters yearn for more than policies that will benefit their specific class, but above all they seek class in their leaders.
Over and over, I hear and say myself, we have to return to common decency. This president has brought out the worst in humankind, and amplifies his message until there seems to be a global roar of hate and violence.
It's not that Booker isn't a fighter--he is. A few months ago, he was a guest on the Rachel Maddow show, who, by way of introduction showed clips from his time as Mayor of Newark.
Can't shovel your driveway? Booker to the rescue. Can't do this or that? Booker shows up to lend a hand.
He has a history of just wanting to get the job done, any way possible--with or without his political opponents.
Now wouldn't that be a nice change from what we have now?
20
@ChristineMcM I like him a lot. Smart, compassionate, reasonable.
1
the only way Trump doesn't win re-election is if the stock market falls sharply from its near record levels. That's the only measure that Republicans look at. If they're no longer making money, his base will waver
3
@Gordon. Perhaps you should notice that the economy is the number one issue with ALL voters instead of just offering your personal opinion.
I’m for living wages, affordable quality healthcare, and free or affordable education for all children and adults. No one left behind. But, I never knew they called it socialism? I don’t think it was called that when my parents were young? I think they just called it a decent life?
59
@rebecca1048
I think they called it America!
5
“Living a decent life” is what I grew up calling it. Call it that, or socialism, it’s what republicans want— only for themselves.
4
Its not either/or - we can love the people, but fight what they do. We cannot continue to let a handful of ultra-wealthy people destroy democracy by feeding hate, fear, and bigotry to a large number of our fellow citizens. Everything starts with election reform.
11
Until now I have had little impression of Cory Booker but today read the Wikipedia entry for him and am more favorably disposed. I recommend reading it as part of candidates’ evaluation.
6
The most important question raised in today’s column is “whether you believe that our evolutionary roots sentence us to inevitable tribal conflict and the only choice is conqueror be conquered.” That question is, I believe, at the core of what distinguishes current Republicans from Democrats, and it should be asked plainly of every politician as the foundation for their values. It is exactly this belief in our fallen nature that motivates Jihadists, whether Christians or Muslims. It is this belief that is used to rationalize efforts to either convert or kill the person who does not naturally belong to one’s tribe - whether that tribe is defined by race, religion or ideology. It is this belief, either made explicit through some form of discourse, or left unconscious, but having no less power, that determines whether a person votes out of fear or hope. What seems obvious upon reflection is that the answer could be that our evolutionary roots may drive us toward tribal conflicts, but that as humans we don’t have to accept such conflicts as inevitable. That is the hope upon which American idealism is based; the hope that through recognizing our basic equality we can learn to overcome such drives and the need for such fear. For Democrats the reduction of tribal fears is achieved by acceptance of our differences. For Republicans, the reduction of such fear is achieved by eliminating, or perhaps changing, those different from us. It’s really that simple.
7
For the record I am a liberal democrat but I believe that we are better off when people of different ideological beliefs come together to make decisions and look for solutions. I don't want only liberals making decisions. The problem is that we no longer agree on what is reality. How can we come up with solutions to climate change when the other side doesn't even acknowledge that it is happening? I don't hate the other side, some of my family and best friends are supporters of Trump and the republicans, but I can't discuss politics with them because we live in two different worlds.
28
If we divide each other we are doomed. It's pretty simple. There will be no future to our republic if we are at each others throats, if we cannot live, love and respect each other. We desperately need this healing message and to teach it to our children.
Mr. Trump's m.o. is a recipe for disaster, and he is dragging us into the gutter.
17
Sorry, but I missed the sentence where Republican David Brooks leaves his party, becomes a Democrat and votes for Cory Booker for president.
You'd almost think Brooks had nothing to do with the Republican Party for DECADES before today and that his endless anti-Democrat columns of yore didn't create the sordid environment that made the election of Donald J. Trump possible.
Republican amnesia/hypocrisy is more predictable than death and taxes.
20
@Ed
This is unfair. And I'm a life-long Democrat.
7
@Ed Republican party has changed. Brooks has that right, too.
1
"You don’t build a better society by turning yourself into a rotten human being."No, you don't but you don't drive out a completely rotten human being and his thoroughly rotten Congressional enablers by turning the other cheek.
Trump and his supporters have forsaken love for hate, respect for their fellow Americans who dare to choose a different path with rage and condemnation.
The Democrats' effort to restore democratic norms and values, inviolable voting rights for all Americans and to build a more just, equitable and kinder America socially, economically and institutionally will be turned into a war by Trump and his supporters if they have their way.
If the better angels of our nature have any chance of surviving, Republicans must endure widespread defeat in 2020, including the devil they foisted upon this nation. It will take a lot more than love to combat unmitigated hatred.
The Democrats stand on the right side of history on this one. Republicans do not.
17
Cory Booker coined the perfect term when he called Trump's latest attacks on McCain "moral vandalism". His dwindling MAGA loyalists may turn a blind eye/ear to these disgusting behaviors but America has weathered enough of Trump's vitriolic hatreds, lies and corruption.
Aside from Trump being his own worst enemy; investigative journalism by the Fourth Estate are constantly airing ugly truths about Trump. Sadly this rube is president, but probably not for much longer. Trump's unhinged tweet storm this past weekend sure seems the action of a guilty man desperate to escape justice. Between the honest Democratic-led House investigations, compared to the GOP-led shams, and Bob Mueller special investigation, Trump destined to be indicted and/or impeached shortly. As the old expression goes - Good riddence to bad trash. That day cannot come soon enough.
We The People shall let democracy and justice ring loudly at Donald J. Trump Sr.'s expense. Even if he is not indicted and/or impeached, each day filled with more unhinged rantings makes any hope of re-election implausible. When will Republican Congressional representatives and voters realize that Trump is irreparably damaging the GOP? Why won;t they challenge the man for his obvious and foul public behavior. He never could and never will be presidential as his clownish mocking of that very expression at his silly rallies has proven.
4
@Question Everything Stop with the We the People nonsense when you are just speaking for yourself. And the Fourth Estate is not exhibiting investigative journalism - they are merely writing opinion pieces. McCain had no qualms about passingly on the dirty dossier. And let’s not forget the Keating loan scandal.
1
I find Corey Booker an extremely attractive candidate. If Hillary Clinton had named him as her vice president she might have won the election
10
@Molly K. "I find Corey Booker an extremely attractive candidate. If Hillary Clinton had named him as her vice president she might have won the election."
This brings tears to my eyes for what could have been.
Dare I hope we won't miss the electoral boat this time?
Everything I read or see or hear about or by Booker thus far continues to convince me he is the best candidate for POTUS, and I am a woman who hoped I would live to see a woman in the White House.
6
Morality has no place in politics. Throughout history, it was virtuous people who made the worst tyrants: the Puritans, the Communists, the mullahs in Iran. Because they believed that they were good and their enemies evil, they had no scruples unleashing violence against those they saw as less than human. And because they were pure and dedicated, they truly believed in their ideas. The problem is, these ideas were wrong. Good people who embrace bad ideologies are far more dangerous than bad people who believe in nothing and only want to line their own pockets. The latter may destroy individual lives; the former destroy whole societies. Give me a grifter over a true believer any time. Trump’s only redeeming quality in my eyes is that he is not an ideologue. Unfortunately he is also stupid, which is why he is doing a lot of damage to the country, but nothing compared to what a true believer, whether Pence or Sanders, could do. The most dangerous fallout of Trump’s presidency may be precisely the virtue-signaling that has taken root on both sides of the political divide, so the Republicans call the Democrats “baby-killers” and the Democrats yell about “babies in cages”. And with all this baby-talk, real economic and environmental issues are not addressed. Any candidate who frames the debate in moral, rather than political, terms won’t have my contributions or my vote.
@Mor "Morality has no place in politics." Perhaps it is time to take another look at the definition of "morality". It certainly does not apply to any of the violations you have cited, but morality holds the best definition for what our leaders should be practicing.
6
You left out Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Václav Havel, and Jimmy Carter. And that’s just a few from one half-century.
There’s a difference between moralistic and moral. Compassionate leaders don’t become tyrants.
2
@Rick Papin There is no absolute morality. It depends of what you believe in. Consider an anti-abortionist who believes that fetuses are children. She is willing to sacrifice her time, money and effort to protect babies. Isn’t it admirable? Except, of course, fetuses are not children. Or what about a Muslim friend of mine whose son succumbed to radical Islam, left his job, grew a beard, refuses to shake hands with women? My friend is heartbroken but insists that his son is a good, pure, idealistic boy, and I know he is right. Except this young man might at some point become dangerous. My step-grandfather was an admirer of Stalin until the day he died. And yet he took good care of me when I was a child. Personal morality is not a defense against extreme and dangerous political positions.
1
I've been studying the political posts on Facebook and it seems that the left will poke fun at the intelligence and morals of the right, but those posts from the right are mostly racial and xenophobic. I guess I see the right as "downright evil".
4
@Gerard Iannelli
I used to believe that the left and the right mostly agreed on what was moral and what was wrong. We agreed that lying was wrong, breaking the law was wrong, making racist comments was wrong, using political office to enrich yourself was wrong, flattering despots and dictators was wrong. In the Trump era those on the right have dropped all defense of right over wrong and now only defend Trump.
1
Ha! Hey Democrats, turn the other cheek - and get hit with the other fist. And, as progressives already know, Booker is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street. Brooks speaking highly of Booker tells you just one thing - if you’re middle class or poor, run as far and as fast from Booker as you can.
2
I can get behind this. Red Letters, not red meat.
It’s another sermon from the pulpit of the Reverend Brooks. It’s not a jeremiad, but a gentle turn-the-other-cheek entreaty to brotherly love. That’s the answer; it’s not complicated – it’s, well, magic!
Brooks hits every cliché in the Edmund Burke canon of conservatism: “sacred bonds…Patriotism…religious…grace, faith, sacrificial love…love your neighbor…Gratitude…inheritance.”
Yes America - we need a “moral cleansing” and a healthy dose of old-fashioned “decency.” And how do we get them? Well…um…this is where I get a little confused. Are we just supposed to give ol’ Mitch McConnell a big hug? Smile and give white supremacists and the NRA a friendly wink? Do we hand out flowers like the hippies of the 1960s – peace and love? And we should just talk to the decent folks who voted for Donald Trump – they’re just confused. We can win them over with love.
I have no doubt many who voted for Trump are, at heart, decent people. They’re just afraid, and vulnerable. But they’re not the real enemy. The real enemy is much bigger; it’s the institutions that manipulate those people: capitalism, the Koch brothers, politicians, the obstructionist Republican Party, the NRA, and the Churches those confused people go to that fill their heads with nonsense, and abuse their children.
It’s easy for Brooks to talk to people in Nebraska; they have his same conservative values. But love isn’t going to cast out their fear – only jobs, healthcare, and good schools for their children will.
19
Like Brooks I also recently spent time talking to Nebraskans. They were friendly until I told them I was from California. Then they viewed me as the devil incarnate. Eventually I began to lie and tell them I was from Seattle, which seemed to make them much happier. I don’t want to view Republicans as evil, but given their prejudices about and hatred of me simply based on where I live, I don’t think Booker’s well intentioned and noble approach will get very far. Obama tried this approach, too, and got nowhere. The problem isn’t with both sides. The problem is a radical and hate-filled GOP.
12
I don’t blame them for being skeptical of a California, a state that politically has gone off the rails. Even the common sense notion that those in the country illegally should be deported is viewed as some weird form of racism out there, rather than basic law enforcement. I stay as far away from that state as I can, but to Brooks’ point, it would be counterproductive to hate people for where the live or their political party.
2
@DRS
Okay, so a state that won't kowtow to a wholesale rounding up of people who are here only because the Chamber of Commerce and Republican legislators fought immigration control efforts for decades because they wanted a steady stream of cheap immigrant labor is 'going off the rails?'
Sorry, hypocrisy is hard for this patriotic American to swallow. When the Central Valley agricultural industry says: "okay, we won't ever again hire an illegal farm worker never never never" then we can have a conversation about where the railroad tracks are.
2
Can another African American be elected President? I hope so!! Booker looks great! But hyper racism has taken over the Republican Party and Fox News beats that drum every day! And a very sizable number of Republican voters still believe the “birther conspiracy” championed by Trump. And a sizable number of Republicans are totally convinced that Trump’s Wall is a matter of life and death for White Americans and thus essential to preventing “evil” persons of color from replacing White majorities. Will those who stood out the last election or voted third parties be finally convinced that we cannot afford another four years of Trumpism? We shall see.
2
It’s pathetic to see David Brooks pleading for everyone to be nice to each other when he looked away from the evil within his chosen party for so long. Which side were you on, David, when the Bush administration was rallying for war in Iraq? Didn’t that give us Trump? How did you respond to the selling-out of our government by people who nurtured and contributed to your career because it suited their narrow personal and financial interests? Didn’t that give us Trump? And now you present yourself as a Man of the Common People, hanging out with mostly-white folks in diners and asking, Rodney King-like, Why Can’t We Just Get Along? Give me a break. It’s going to take a lot for me to see this enthusiasm for equanimity as anything but a self-serving wish to remain heard.
2
This is the same Cory Booker who accused Kavanaugh of being evil - the same Cory Booker who announced his Spartacus moment. Spare me the open-hand candidate schtick.
2
@Chris He did not call Kavanaugh evil, that's what Kavanaugh said in his unhinged response to being called out for something for the first time in his life. He said the fight against Trump's nominee was a "moral moment" because we've seen the Supreme court roll back individual rights via rolling back voting right gains, elevate corporations to be equal to God's children, "but now what's at stake is to full roll back these ideals, for people to have the power to marry who they love, access to the ballot as their neighbors...There is so much at stake here"... and "You are either complicit in the evil, you are either contributing to the wrong, or you are fighting against it." The wrong, as he stated yesterday regarding Trump's "moral vandalism" is Mr. Trump himself and the Koch/Federalist Society vision of libertarian rule via conservative justices...That's what he was referring to. Listen to his press conference...The "Spartacus" moment was definitely hyperbolic and a misstep in language, but he did the right thing in releasing the documents because the GOP committee refused to do it's job. This should have been the biggest scandal in Kavanaugh's elevation to the SCOTUS.
Great column! But I will believe you mean it when you have the decency to recant your praise of Rush Limbaugh - prime mover of the hate brigade on the right (there are those on the left too, I agree) whom you called "a good Republican who just wants to win"-- probably (hopefully) without bothering to listen to the venom he spews 3 hours each weekday plus weekend reruns to the thousands of mostly rural radio listeners who delivered Trump his electoral triumph. You cozied up to Limbaugh when he delivered the Tea Party Congress - how did that work out for you? But he is firmly in that 20 percent of haters you cities your column - but to you he;s just a "good republican'. Come on David, even a brilliant man like you can make a mistake in judging character. You and the rest of the GOP have been reaping (with Trump) what you have sown over the years giving a pass to Limbaugh and Hannnity and Savage (who BTW called for Obama's assassination on air), Levin and the others who call for the incarceration of all liberals on the ground that they are all mentally deranged, but won't support laws restricting gun purchases by the truly mentally deranged. Lie down with dogs, you Get fleas - but you can remove them by for once taking these enablers of the Trump hate speech I still hope you genuinely despise. There truly is no 'immoral equivalent' on the left/Democrat/progressive side quite like these buzzards of the airways. BTW stay tuned for the hit job Limbaugh will do on Booker.
7
"You don’t build a better society by turning yourself into a rotten human being."
No, you don't but you don't drive out a completely rotten human being and his thoroughly rotten Congressional enablers by turning the other cheek. Trump and his supporters have forsaken love for hate, respect for their fellow Americans who dare to choose a different path with rage and condemnation.
The Democrats' effort to restore democratic norms and values, inviolable voting rights for all Americans and to build a more just, equitable and kinder America socially, economically and institutionally will be turned into a war by Trump and his supporters if they have their way.
If the better angels of our nature have any chance of surviving, Republicans must endure widespread defeat in 2020, including the devil they foisted upon this nation. It will take a lot more than love to combat unmitigated hatred.
The Democrats stand on the right side of history on this one. Republicans do not. There is no equivalency between the two parties.
3
"How should you respond when your political opponents assault you with insult, stereotype and contempt?" This is a question President Trump must think about every day, because no president has ever been attacked so readily and so personally. The idea of blaming him for the attack in New Zealand is as absurd as blaming President Obama for the police killings in Dallas during his time in office. Most attacks, of course, are based on falsehoods. One expert was the late Senator McCain who peddled the notorious fake dossier on Trump's alleged sexual antics whilst in a hotel in Moscow. So, those willing to destroy their own reputations by spreading malice know no limits. You are so right, David, that this is ridiculous and destructive. For people of my generation coming of age in the 1970s, this sort of vicious, mindless hostility is nearly incomprehensible. That nearly an entire generation of journalists has sullied their profession is shocking. Now we learn that Reuters conspired with Beto to hide dirty secrets from his past to help him defeat Senator Cruz. We learned too that journalists hid photos of then-Senator Obama meeting with the notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan in the hope of protecting Obama from the charge of anti-Jewish hatred. The sleazy behavior of the press knows no limit but worst of all has been their highly destructive charge against Trump that his behavior undermines the 1st amendment when all he wants is to attack fake news.
@Kelle Thanks for the well-written thoughts. Agree with nearly everything you say.
More like Beto finds his moment - $6.1 million funds raised in 24 hrs.
1
Not impressed at all with this guy. Not an intelligent thinker. Limited experience. Appears narcissistic. Anger management issues. Poor speaker. Would not vote for him. Maybe should stay in local Town government. Running buses and water treatment plant, etc. Not presidential material.
@rich williams He was never in "town" government. Newark, where he still lives in a marginalized community, is not a town. He's a US Senator who has reached across the aisle, much to the consternation of some, and actually gotten stuff done...but I guess that's unpresidential in your book. Here's a list of some of the bills he co-sponsored which seem to be focused on making life better for his constituents and the rest of the country. https://www.congress.gov/member/cory-booker/B001288
Corey Booker's decision to live in a troubled Newark housing project , Brick Towers, for nine years, and then choosing, while mayor, to live in Newark's drug and gang plagued South Ward, is the single most impressive fact about any perspective Democratic candidate. Stanford tight end, Yale Law, Oxford, burned while rescuing a woman from a burning building, patrolling Newark with his mayoral security detail till 4 a.m., fill out a dispositive resume. Booker's disingenuous, hubris packed, "Spartacus" analogy, and his cozy ties with Wall street interests raise questions in some minds, but the fact that he was targeted for assassination by New Jersey prison gangs, and publically criticized by Clarence Thomas, validates his gravitas.
8
Cory Booker is a voucher charter school advocate/pusher and very much in the pocket of Big Pharma. He is a smiling face with a fist full of money. He is no friend to the common person, but pretends to walk among them. He is an enemy of public education.
2
If you begin from a position of love, there are only so many roads you can go down. “Hate cannot drive out hate,” the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King jr., said, “only love can do that.”
“Love your enemies,” Jesus commanded.
The one organizing idea in the axial age was to love your neighbor as you want to be loved, or some variation thereof.
Mr Brooks! How did YOU answer the hatred, the insults, the stereotypes and the contempt hurled by your party at President Obama? That is the moral question that YOU must answer. the chances of YOU fessing up? Less than zero.
5
Mr. Brooks last sentence is certainly true as has been demonstrated by rotten human beings across history. While the history books will have a lot to say about Donald Trump, they cannot say he turned himself into a rotten human being. The record is clear that he has always been one.
3
"The idea that any of these good people are “downright evil” because of some political affiliation is ridiculous and a sign of how deranged our discourse has become."
The republican party (and many democrats) engineered the Iraq war. It was illegal and built on lies, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians died. But you know, David's right, we need to cool it with the name calling.
1
I'm a Democrat, and I agree with Brooks: demonizing the opposition is not the answer. It will be a disaster, in fact, leading to years of continued acrimony and hate. Many of my Democrat friends are of the same opinion - though we all know some who are not.
For me, our strategy has to start from the realization that Trump's victory in the last election was the culmination of years of Democratic neglect of its core working-class base. You can blame Russian meddling and Comey's incompetence if you like, but the election shouldn't even have been close. By ignoring the debilitating effects of job losses, by offering platitudes in the face of fears about the future, by assuming Hollywood and high-tech can be persuasive to everyone, we opened a door big enough for Trump to drive a Mexico-made truck through.
Now is our response to be that Trump voters are merely idiots and racists to be denigrated and despised? Far from winning, this will double down on the strategy that lost the Democrats the White House and Congress in the first place.
The next president needs to be a healer and a uniter.
1
If Sen. Booker starts holding campaign events at white evangelical churches and manages to convince their congregants that Trump's approach to politics and to the issues that bedevil our nation is just plain wrong, I'll put him right at the top of my preferred-candidate list. If he's unable to do so, perhaps we can send in a guy with even greater potential- namely a hirsute Jewish bachelor in his early thirties who hangs out with other young men, has no visible means of income, befriends criminals and prostitutes, endorses the payment of one's taxes and preaches peace and love (and, especially, love for one's enemies), I suspect He'd be hounded right out of those churches (particularly after being unable to present proof of His legal alien status) but...who knows? Miracles have happened.
5
Oh how I wish Al Franken could somehow be the nominee!
With his acerbic wit and deep knowledge of the issues, I’d love to see him on the debate stage, with straight face, appear to come at Trump with open hands, only to slap Trump silly. Trump seethed when Obama & Seth Meyers tore him a new one, but Franken could do it without Trump even realizing what was happening.
I’ll never forgive Kirsten Gillibrand for being the first and loudest voice calling for Franken’s resignation, without even the ethics investigation Franken himself practically begged for.
I’m fine with whomever is the eventual nominee. Unless it’s Gillibrand.
8
@Bill in Yokohama
Totally agree. Franken would have been a great presidential candidate. I simply can't stand Gillibrand. I'd be happy to vote for any of the other women or men now seeking the Dem nomination.
2
David is on the wrong track here, thinking our problem is divisions amongst us. No, our problem is rabble rousing, propaganda, Fox, Trump, Limbaugh, Hannity, ... all funded by a clique of crazy billionaires fanning the flames and striving to emasculate government to the point that it is unable to do anything, and their Oligarchy prevails.
The power of propaganda most recently was demoed in the days of Goebbels and the rise of Fascism. Today it is even stronger due to the web’s wildfire spreading of gossip and malicious untruths. Augmented by Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, ..., run on business models that cannot correct their pernicious manipulation by unscrupulous parties.
Yes we are divided. But until this amazingly successful brainwashing machine operated by a handful of bonkers billionaires is dismantled, many among us will live in a “reality” of “alternative facts” and paranoid subconscious. Beyond common sense, beyond argument, cocooned in a mob, rallying to their Messiah.
7
Booker's advocacy of reparations is a fatal flaw in his campaign. It makes him unelectable.
The suggestion that Bernie Sander's "indignation" and Kamala Harris' "prosecutorial style" are in any way the moral equivalent of Trump's rabid babbling is not only insulting to them, it perpetuates the crudeness you pretend to be criticizing. If you refuse to distinguish intelligent & clearly argued positions with which you may disagree from Mr. Trump's gushing sewer of lies & fascist manipulation you certainly cannot claim to be upholding any meaningful standards of discourse.
11
How very odd, this bi-weekly compulsion, among Times' right-wing columnists, to advise, full of heartfelt concern, the Democratic party primary voter.... And from the same pundits who would happily vote for Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, and do their worst to doom the Democrat.
Of course, the appeal to self-declared Republican "moderates" of a sanctimonious Wall Street courier like Cory Booker to is obvious. Anything, but the horrors or Warren or Sanders!
But as counselor to Democrats? These guys? Beyond parody....
4
Brooks and Booker are right. But until Republicans (especially the Republican leadership) and Brooks recognize and admit that most of the virulent hate arises from Republican-oriented right wing white supremicists/bigots/racists and from completely ammoral right-wing "pundits" dominating the likes of Fox and 80 percent of the nasty side of social media, the divisions in this country will only grow.
This is not a condemnation of Republicans in general. Probably, or at least as a hunch judging by the Republicans I know and who I call friends, most Republicans/ conservatives are in the same thoughtful vein as Brooks himself. But until the leadership (Trump, the right wing ideologues in the House and Senate, and those pundits--and I'll bet Brooks knows this full well--who use hatred, bigotry, racism, and outright fabrication, for the purposes of growing and inflaming a fan base and to make gobs of money), explicitly dissavows, disowns, and condemns this behavior the fault lines in America will only deepen and widen.
And yeah, the left wing needs to behave with dignity and civility. Getting into the gutter solves nothing.
181
@Chip Steiner An excellent comment, Mr. Steiner, but as for my Republican friends and relatives, they ignore the fact that the Republican Party platform has long been based on greed and xenophobia, and Mr. Brooks often writes around those unacceptable shortcomings without facing up to them. He is paid to support the GOP, and that's what he does.
21
@Chip Steiner
who knows /
after 76.9% americans feel like trump trauma victims there maybe room for cory booker at the top?
2
@John Q: I don't disagree with you although Republican support of less regulated capitalism isn't necessarily just greed-motivated (competition does foster innovation and creativity) and fear of the "other" isn't unique to conservatives. And Brooks is no different than left-wing columnists--they all get paid. I think it is safe to say, although I don't know Brooks from Adam or Eve, that he has an open mind but with more faith in capitalism and less faith in social democracy. Seems to me a happy medium could be found with him. Not so the likes of Cotton, Bannon, Stephen Miller.
4
Max Boot admitted that perhaps there was always something wrong with conservatism and that perhaps Trump should have been expected.
Despite his criticisms of Trump (only when pushed), Brooks remains a Republican conservative; embracing reparations (for the wrong reasons) and now Cory Booker who, as a Black man, I am a little suspicious.
The one thing I will give conservatives is their ability to think ahead of the curve and by the time the rest of us arrive from the past to the present, the conservatives have already undermined the future. Example: Conservatives were well ahead of everyone when they sought to control state governments and legislative reapportionment. Now, controlling the two senate seats of small population states will probably give them perpetual control over the Senate where judicial appointments are made.
Brook’s advice to Democrats follows the historical path of conservative strategy—they suggest “intelligent” paths for Democrats to follow and we do.
Sander’s claim to be an “independent” while only feeding at the Democratic trough is much easier to untangle than Booker’s claim to “decency.” Something is wrong especially since the approval comes from Brooks.
3
@Peter P. Bernard
Great phrase Peter, and lately all too true: "by the time the rest of us arrive from the past to the present, the conservatives have already undermined the future."
False equivalencies has become Mr. Brook's manta. He cannot seem to write an article criticizing Trump and/or Republicans without expressing the same parallel among Democrats. There are a lot of good people supporting Trump who have been grossly misled after years of watching Fox News, but the haters, Neo Nazis, etc. are also there. To paraphrase, 'Trump may not be a racist, but many of his supporter think he is a racist.' Where do you find a Mike Pence, Jeff Session, or other cabinet appointees among Democratic candidates running for president? Yes there is a lot of anger among Democrats, but where do you find voter suppression, climate change deniers, hatred of immigrants, ongoing policies supporting billionaires, etc. There is a lot I like about Cory Booker, but he is tied too closely to Banking and Wall Street which will never allow me to support his candidacy of president.
139
I agree with your observation that Mr. Brooks often deals with false equivalencies, but let us remember that he is an establishment Republican and an op-ed writer so that is part of his skills set. I further offer that Mr. Brooks picks Cory Brooker for his praise because Brooker's views most closely align with Mr. Brooks' own. It is to his advantage and that of the Republican Party to heap praise on a weaker Democratic candidate this early in the race. Their hope is to elevate a lesser candidate of the opposition so that their Republican nominee (most likely D. J. Trump) has a better chance of winning in 2020. Watch for many other pundits to play this game as well. It's what they do.
22
@Mike M. - I disagree with most of Brook's columns to some degree, but I believe he writes from his heart. I would be willing to bet the farm - if I actually had one - that Mr. Brooks would vote for Booker over Trump in 2020 if that were the choice, or at least abstain.
6
@MT In 2020, if Cory Booker is running against Donald Trump, you will "never" support him? Realy?
9
Very well articulated. I have many Trump voters as friends, people I respect. They voted out of patriotism, in the belief that the US would be much better in the long term with smaller government, less overreach (regulations), a more conservative judiciary and a government that backs the rule of law (immigration law being one). While I disagree with their conclusions, I respect their viewpoints.
Their vote for Trump was a calculation that the short term evil he embodies is worth the long term gain of his legacy: Judges from the Federalist "club", strong enforcement of immigration laws, lower taxes forcing smaller government, roll back of executive decisions which the legislature didn't approve, private health insurance.
Just because we don't agree doesn't mean we don't have mutual respect. I think Corey Booker does indeed represent this line of thinking as Mr. Brooks points out. I"m not sure I agree with his policies and so I'm not sure he'll get my vote (I'm leaning towards Pete Buttigieg if he runs). But I love the ideals portrayed by this opinion piece. Thank you.
1
After reading your column, Mr. Brooks, I ponder: if these people who elected this President are normal, like you and me, going about their day, then why did they make a pact with the devil? I hold them and the rest of the GOP responsible for the situation we are in right now. The carnage from an autocrat, the destruction of democratic institutions, the insults, the divisiveness.... We need to turn the page on this presidency. We need to repair ourselves and the voters from Nebraska to Florida need to help us. Do you think they are going to see the light of day? Do you think they want to repair their country and be opened to new ideas? I would like to believe it and so would many Americans who have been living this nightmare for almost 3 years.
7
After reading Mr. Brooks' editorial and the comments, I wonder if some of the people who wrote them read the same editorial that I did. I don't believe that Mr. Brooks is saying that Cory Booker is not a fighter. My take is that Senator Booker knows how to combat a thug like Trump without vilifying his followers. One of the greatest needs of this nation is to restore civil discourse. I believe that a majority of Americans are sick and tired of divisive politics, and would see someone who wants to unite us as a great improvement over what we have now. If Trump and his minions--those who are not under indictment-- want to engage in character assassination and all of their other bigotry, that does not mean that the Democratic nominee must sink to their level. That would be a fight we cannot win. Mr. Booker or whoever the nominee is can combat the ill-tempered tweeter-in-chief with sound reason and substantial policies, of which Trump has none.
As for Senator Booker not being a fighter, as mayor of Newark, he went out on fire calls and once rescued a woman from a burning house. That is the kind of fighter we need, not a blowhard bigot who couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag. I think of these two men are on the same stage, a majority of Americans will see who is the right choice for President, and he won't have to crawl down into the Trump slime pit to prove it.
8
Thank you, good thoughts to add to the mix. Too early to commit, almost too early to even talk about the next election, but thanks, I'll think about Corey Booker with a little more hope.
6
Are you kidding? You seriously suggest that any of the Democratic contenders comes close to trump as a rotten human being?
Of course I'll take Cory Booker if he becomes the Dem nominee, but I won't necessarily prefer him over other candidates that you don't deem to be as nice.
Speaking of "nice", the last nice GOP president that actually did some good for the people was Ike, and even he blotted his copy book by furthering Richard Nixon's career. The other nice ones (especially Saint Ronald) set about reversing the New Deal and enriching their rich benefactors at the expense of the middle class and the poor, even as they smiled genially at their victims.
22:05 EDT, 3/18
11
Amen. I do believe we need to remember that of the 60 million votes that Trump received almost half of them were not for him but against Hilary
I would wager that Trump does not have the backing of all of the Republican voters either.
I do not belong either that all Republicans are evil or that all Democrats are good.
So maybe if we start from that premise, we can start having civilized conversations and outcomes.
2
Greed may be ubiquitous but so is classism as we saw in the scandal of ultra rich parents buying seats for their children which they have always done but now it is more evident through blatant bribery. Trump too was gifted a degree otherwise he wouldnt have made efforts to conceal his grades.
1
Sorry Mr. Brooks, but this sounds remarkably similar to the president’s comments after the violence in Charlottesville, that “there are good people on both sides.” People obviously are complicated and motivations can be hard to pin down, but at the very least, Trump supporters are not particularly bothered by the president’s blatant racism, his disregard of common decency, his vile lies, or the cast of criminals he surrounds himself with. Democrats won’t change anyone’s mind by insulting them, but the truth is that hard working, church going family members are enabling a man who boasted just last week that he has the support of the military, the police, and bikers and that they could get very tough. “Good people,” Mr. Brooks, are capable of horrible atrocities if they’re not stopped.
12
"You don’t build a better society by turning yourself into a rotten human being."
Mr. Brooks, you extol Cory Booker as the open hand. You're forgetting recent American history. You can't have banished President Barack Obama to the distant past so quickly. In all of his eight years, he was the "open hand" that sought dignity and opportunity and hope for all Americans. It was Mitch McConnell who slapped away that hand. For eight years. Perhaps it was because with naturally "rotten human beings," those beyond any moral/political redemption, that McConnell wields the knife in a fist that has been closed all of his life.
Senator Booker hasn't anything like realistic chance in my estimation. He is a decent human being, by all accounts; he is intelligent and diligent. But President Obama was all those and more. How did America improve under his leadership from a racially-divided McCoy-Hatfield dynamic? It could be fairly stated that the McConnells on Capitol Hill won.
Thomas Edsall's column should be widely read. Americans though, in this era of Donald Trump, have drawn lines in the sand and dare anyone to cross them. And, yes, our politics will have to change before our laws do.
Your Nebraska farmers are probably Trump supporters; maybe not. You didn't tell us how they viewed Senator Booker. That would have been illuminating.
Nebraska went for John McCain in '08 and Mittens in '12. The "open hand" of Barack Obama was ignored. Our divisions are going to separate us forever.
8
Who is going to pay for his campaign: small-donation supporters, or "big" donors? Details, please.
" The idea that any of these good people are “downright evil” because of some political affiliation is ridiculous and a sign of how deranged our discourse has become. "
Sorry, but if these good alienated people support a leader or party who is destroying our nation, they are entirely worthy of our contempt. I say that as a Republican.
Being nice, civil, and spiritual are all great qualities. But what we need is an honest rational citizen who will FIGHT to remedy the devastation wrought by the Orwellian nightmare this nation is enduring during the plague of this administration.
We need substantive intellect and the righteous unbridled outrage of someone fighting for the soul of their nation. Because that is what the situation demands.
7
"Booker uses religious categories more naturally than any other candidate: grace, faith, sacrificial love, the command to love your neighbor as yourself, the awareness that love has a redemptive power to cast out fear."
David, while she may not be a politician, Marianne Williamson is a declared candidate for the Democratic nomination. She speaks this language every bit as well as Cory Booker, and if you (or anyone) devote a few minutes looking over her website (marianne2020.com) or listen to any of the many media appearances she's done, you'll be stunned (in a good way) by the depth and breadth of her savvy on the issues.
"You don’t build a better society by turning yourself into a rotten human being."
Yes, but the question is whether one can get elected with the positive qualities of a Booker-like candidacy? Or even get nominated. Would the Nebraska City 15 that had lunch with Mr. Brooks support Mr. Booker for anything? I have my doubts, decent though they may be.
Hatred seems to work better as an election elixir than love and potential leadership.
Personally, I'm still trying to figure out what Corey Booker was doing as co-president of the Oxford l'Chaim Society.
3
One need not view your "good folks" as thoroughly evil to conclude that as long as they get their "facts" and emotional cues from Trump, FOX, Limbaugh, et al, they are immune to persuasion and thus, for now, irredeemable politically. If we can win while being nice, fine; if it takes being tough, so be it. But make no mistake, we will not win because our niceness attracts a significant number of Trump fans who were won over by it.
2+2=4 and that's grand vs 2+2=4 and that's a problem is a basis for discussion; 2+2=4 vs 2+2=5 makes discussion pointless.
9
When you start comparing politicians like Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris to Donald Trump and his sycophants as if they are equal threats to truth and equitable governance you are guilty of journalistic malpractice.
The question at hand is not whether war is our permanent state - whether our evolutionary roots sentence us to inevitable tribal conflict and the only choice is conqueror be conquered - but whether Americans are willing to confront the country's original sins - the enslavement of Black Africans and the genocide of Native Americans - in order to facilitate a more perfect union.
Joining the fight against white patriarchy via "condemnation and attack" does not make one "a rotten human being;" in fact the reverse is true.
12
Most of the divisiveness is the result of marketing - mostly on the part of the GOP because they are better at it - using wedge issues to define us and divide us. And using them to define the party: one party takes a position and the other must take the opposite.
But that has been going on for a long time without the sort of hatred we have today.
And that, David, is something to look into, because that hatred is orchestrated using very effective propaganda, and it is orchestrated internationally. It is orchestrated by the likes of Steve Bannon and far right wing propagandists; it is supported by such people like Putin. And it is Fascist. Honest to goodness, no Godwin's Law, it-really-is-happening, fascism.
We have put off fascism before, as we shook off communism, but it took FDR and his political allies to do it.
I wish Cory Booker all the best, and think he is a very good person in a realm of less than wonderful people.
But who do we have who can pull off what FDR did?
7
Fear and hatred is America's political catnip. It cannot seem to get enough of both. Trump is not its only salesman, but he is our chief trumpeter of fear and hatred right now.
We have had others before, and they do not all wear white dunce caps. They have demonized Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, Catholics, Muslims and Socialists.
The question is how to respond and as of this moment no one has found that combination of voice and fact, the kind Joseph Welch had in 1954 when he asked Joseph McCarthy "have you no decency, sir" that will put the snake back in the box -- until next time.
There are a number of good prospects. We are looking and waiting, but he or she has not yet emerged.
1
Booker may be all those things, but his advocacy on behalf of charters and vouchers, and that he mentions that he worked closely with Betsy DeVos, his ideological twin, means he should not be president.
We don't need another enemy of public education in the oval office.
3
I get it, David Brooks. But after seeing all the despicable power plays work, how can we continue to have the hope that calls to the “better angels of our nature”, which President Obama embodied despite years of partisan obstruction, will have any success?
Obama went high, the GOP went low, and it worked for the GOP. Just a few examples: (1) McConnell’s famous primary goal during an economic meltdown to obstruct to make Obama a one-term president, which caused a total failure of bipartisanship at a time it was desperately needed, poisoning our politics, (2) Boehner’s refusal to bring the bipartisan immigration bill to a vote because it would have passed (and the country would be so much better off today), (3) McConnell’s refusal to give Merrick Garland,a moderate, even a hearing, leading to the packing of the Supreme Court with ideologues determined to take women back to the Dark Ages of back alley abortion, (4) the sham “investigation” of Christine Ford’s claims and the rewarding of Kavanaugh’s shameful display at the hearing with a seat on the Court (27 years later the Clarence Thomas strategy of anger againl worked to assure a woman’s testimony was treated as inherently false and to shut down a fair inquiry). The examples are endless. Heck, Trump won by going (being) low.
After all the going low has been used to bulldoze thise who go high, how can we have any faith that going high will matter?
6
Mr Booker is an opportunist waiting to cash in on his ethnicity and cavalier attitude ( yes I Am better)
Has no noteworthy accomplishments in the political arena, but uses his willingness to rally the folks for his own benefit, can one name something he has accomplished that has benefitted all the people vs a few and of course himself. Just loves to be photographed in the center of causes,
1
Remember the scene in the movie "Gandhi", in which the title character is asked if his tactic of non-violent witnessing confrontation could work in a Hitler-led Germany?
Gandhi, if my memory served, replied "Not without defeats."
So it seems here. It is false equivalence to claim that the Democratic/progressive side of the aisle is as virulently hateful as the Republican/reactionary one, as the former certainly debates whether to meet the fist with the open hand or not. The latter side doesn't debate that at all.
I think most of us on in that former group would much prefer calm, reasoned, respectful dialogue and negotiation. But we also realistically recognize that to this point, it has led to some disquieting defeats. And we are afraid, given that we don't trust the other side to have the best interests of anyone but a small cadre of rapacious oligarchs at heart, that a few more such defeats will lead to a situation in which we won't even be able to negotiate, because we'll be under someone's heel.
I suspect that a lot of the right feels this way, too. But, as I said in another comment box yesterday, I wonder what they think "libruls" are going to take away from them, except maybe for some excess firearms; it seems "libruls" want to give them some stuff, like health care and education and clean air and water.
In sum, then, at least one side wants to try to maintain democracy--the other is quite willing to forgo it. Given that, can the open hand approach work?
2
Corey Booker called supporters of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court "complicit in evil". Not very conciliatory to me. He's more of the same.
Fist please. And so far Bernie is the only one that measures up. Democrats will never win with an olive branch and a moderate tone. So fist please and keep them swinging.
1
You succeed politically when you appeal to voters’ basic decency.
Well, Spartacus was eager to destroy Brett Kavanaugh for partisan political purposes. And show off doing it.
Wow. Booker, huh?
What do you think Obama did?
I don't hate republicans and I don't think they are evil.
I think human beings are blind to the ways they are complicit with social systems that occlude human flourishing for ideological and contingent reasons. And by occlude, I include 'oppress', 'dominate', and 'exploit', etc. They are also blind to both how good they have it and how they are being used by power like pawns.
I also think developing the sensibility of fallibilism is key for coordinated action in the political sphere. Trumpsters and individuals of certain progressive schools often talk as if they know for certain they are absolutely right. it is possible to be a person of deep convictions and strong character and still recognize those convictions may need to be revised.
However, as far as strategies go for addressing our problems, a meta-postpartisan appeal seems stupid.
I like Booker, though I wish he were more open to a health system that didn't profit off people's sickness and bankrupt families with health bills.
But republicans ate Obama's postpartisan lunch.
Until Republicans show some signs of the ability to compromise, they themselves keep their fist clenched, and those are the hands most important to shake. Until they unfurl it, I say bring the a clenched hand. But always, fallibilistically, with enough circumspection to let up and pull out a 'terrorist fist jab' at the last minute.
1
Watched Sen Booker's interview on Hardball tonight and he came across very well. His name recognition is not high right now, but once the debates start he will rise quickly.
The media seem to be pushing Amy Klobuchar ( I have no understanding as to why) Francis O"Rourke (favorite of the chattering class) and Biden- the former Senator from the Corporate fiefdom of Delware. They seem determined to push a so-called "centrist" and Senator Booker is who they should be pushing.
He is too centrist for my tastes, but would be the best pick of the corpoprate Democrats. His Achilles heel is the Senate thing- they become enamored of the institution and are afraid to call out stupidity, avarice or cowardice in the club.
4
@David Gregory
Agree. If, against my better judgement, i'm going to vote for a corporate Democrat, it's going to be Booker. No to O'Rourke, Harris, Klobuchar, Gillebrand, Hickenlooper, and Uncle Joe.
Preaching love is great, but when reporters go on a tour of Booker's Newark they will find a place where most Americans would not choose to live.
1
(Disclaimer: I don’t hold Booker responsible for this presentation of his alleged views.)
Wishing that political opponents were dead can justifiably be described as hatred. Saying that we must urgently act on climate change, or that the current political, social and economic structures of the US are systems if oppression cannot be. This attempt to define everything outside a very narrow discourse comfort zone as “extremism” or “fanaticism”, and consequently to disqualify it all - Muslim ban equals consumer finance protection equals kids in cages equals green new deal - is the oldest trick in the ruling class book. You don’t have to be a Marxist to understand that the power to define what can be discussed without sounding shrill or fanatical or extreme or angry is the most crucial power the ruling class (<— class, not backroom conspiracy to be clear) wields.
There is hope though. There is hope because cracks are showing in the dominant ideology. This article doesn’t read nearly as obvious and convincing as it would have in 1998. What newly emerges of course, if anything except chaos, is unclear and frankly right now, one must worry. But keeping the lid on is no longer a viable strategy, even if it were desirable. These are times a stand must be taken. Not hatefully, but firmly.
1
How can you write this after 8 years of OBama, David? Obama was a good man who believed his opponents were good men. He believed in compromise--his health plan was, after all, originally a Republican plan. He was intelligent and knowledgeable. He was a better Cory Booker.
And while he managed to very slowly get the economy out of a Republican disaster, it is hard to say his administration was a success. You can say this was because of Republican obstructionism, but the fact is that an attitude of goodwill to all and compromise simply did not work with fanatics and hypocrites. Examples of this are the loss both houses of Congress, the failure to pass jobs programs, the fact that ALL of the benefits of the improvement in the economy went to the Rich, and the inability to rally the country over a theft of a Supreme Court seat. The proof of the pudding is that after 8 years of appealing to voters' basic decency, we got Donald Trump.
So as for Cory Booker, been there, done that and no thanks.
5
I'm not all together sure their love of Trump really isn't just a hatred of liberals who have appeared to look down on the right much like elites look down on laborers.
The need to be perceived as better than others seems to supercede the brotherhood pushed by progressives.
The knee jerk opinion of the right is to be against any and all progressive policies but when implemented would not want to give them up. RE: social security, medicare, medicaid, and abortion. I don't know why many progressive politicians don't use this more in their speeches. Common social policies will unite both the left and right.
1
The GOP “base” was cultivated for decades by conservatives who required a constituency oriented to the simplicity of Fox News coupled with the oxymoron that is reality TV. Before they realized what was happening, their reliable voters were off the reservation and Donald J Trump came a callin’. The problem was of course that the base actually believed the rhetoric and when DJT showed up, transparently unprepared for anything but a middle school level dialogue, he was speakinga their language. I don’t hate trump voters. I don’t think they’re evil people. I may even have a modicum of compassion for them. But their willingness to accept and defend easily disprovable hogwash led to the worst decision the country has made in my lifetime. I’m not yet ready to kiss & make up.
1
Democrats want ...stronger public schools. So I guess when it comes to Booker and his close ties to charter schools, we want "the fist".
2
David Brooks, the Party of Trump has become a disease that represents an existential threat to Jeffersonian democracy in America, and until you have the courage to denounce it in biblical terms and fight with fist or open hand to deal it a defeat so humiliating that it gets forty years or so in the electoral wilderness to think about how to be better, you have no moral authority to preach to Democrats about why they should fight fire with sweetness and light.
3
I wish I didn't know of Booker's patriotism or religion.
We suffer under a man who is so patriotic that he squeezes the flag against his body. So religious that to him, prayer means to allow hands to be laid upon his anointed body.
We suffer him because of the most loudly and outwardly patriotic and religious people in the land.
The symbols of the cross and flag mean worse than nothing in politics.
Out with it: how are you going to treat the poor, homeless, and incarcerated in America and what policy about the famine in Africa?
Shhh! Not another spiritual story that has been vetted by a team of pr consultants.
Say your flag is in a secret vessel of your heart, a place of meditation and constant growth, and that if you bragged of it in a political contest, it would vanish from your being.
That your spirituality is so deeply private that there are no words.
And be quiet.
These hollow symbols, and to what purpose they have been used, has been a constant violence to our discourse, throughout my 64 years.
Have the dignity to be silent and have something real to show us.
1
It's nice to be positive, but the presidency isn't just a pulpit. Ask Jimmy Carter.
1
A nod to David's knowledge of the Carl Sandburg poem CHOOSE:
"The single clenched fist lifted and ready, Or the open asking hand held out in waiting. Choose: For we meet by one or the other."
1
This is the first column that Brooks has conceded, albeit with baby steps, that Trump supporters wanted a leader who was a "brawler" because it was going to be a "knife fight."
The problem is that they still think this is a fight unto death. Do you remember those opposing abortion standing in front of hospitals and doctor's offices screaming at the women who were seeking abortion? Do you remember that these so-called protesters threw bombs and, in fact, killed a doctor, Barnett Slepian, in upstate New York?
The reason I bring up these examples is that Trumpsters still think that they are in a knife fight and are ready to resort to violence. And Trump has been egging them on, often openly with no attempt to disguise his calls for violence.
Given his rabid fanatic base of supporters, I wonder if Cory Booker's "they-go-low-but-we-go-high" strategy will appease them. Do they not know that their candidate won the election, over two years ago?
I am all for 'showing-the-other-cheek" but I also wonder what these fanatics will do to my face. I am afraid, for me, for you, and for our country.
2
Come on Mr. Brooks -- why do you quote data so precisely when you are much better versed in human themes. Is it really 41% or 20% won't give the opposition humanity?!?
I'd think fanatacism is not a natural state since it's just sort of exhausting and cooperation is what makes humans so successful.
Corey Booker is the candidate with the most potential to create a more harmonious America... Hope He Wins
Well, Brooks’ endorsement is all I needed.
Anyone But Corey, (or Trump) 2020.
3
Just one more sissified right-wing comment that tries to make good people of Dumpf supporters. Maybe these people are not "downright evil", as Brooks puts words in the mouths of progressives, but they sure are horribly misguided. Their ignorance and acceptance of "evil" makes them complicit.
5
Your article highlights how the kinds of questions interviewers/pollsters ask end up defining the debate - I don't believe hate is the defining emotion of our time and clearly neither do you
1
David, I like that Cory is a vegan. I think that it says something about his approach to life. Of course, Hitler was a vegetarian - so maybe it doesn't say as much as I would like it to.
The issue with Booker will be the style of capitalism he supports.
I am not a socialist. I'm with Team Warren. I want a strictly regulated capitalism in which we see people as the profoundly amoral actors they typically become once great sums of money and power are involved.
I fear that Booker, however, is more comfortable with the permissive capitalism of the past.
We've conducted an experiment here in America over the past 4 decades on what happens to a society when it pretends that wealth accumulation is all that matters. The results are in, and they are reflected in the fierce populism of our times.
We need to now embark on a new experiment - an experiment in bubble-up economics, in a mixed capitalism for the rest of us. I don't know that Cory is the person to lead that experiment.
What's good for Goldman Sachs isn't what's good for the vast majority of Americans.
We should feel no need to smooth over the harsh feelings and rhetoric of the moment. We must instead ruthlessly instead identify the authentic source of these feelings, the diversionary tactics that were employed in an effort to distract us from the systemic looting of a nation's wealth by a tiny minority.
If Booker isn't up to leading that fight, then I'll still be happy to sit down and share a meal with him.
2
I have no idea what's going on in the minds of people from Nebraska. The corn grows? The cows and pigs get fatter? Pardon me, I'm a city boy.
Maybe there's a little problem with soybeans because of some politically-motivated-attention-getting tariff absurdities from Senor Trump. Attention from whom? The people in Iowa and Nebraska? They are the Trump supporters, no matter what Trump does, and what he does is not "civil." He spews condemnation and attack. And those Nebraskans don't know which side their bread is buttered on.
And these salt-of-the earth Nebraskans - that Mr. Brooks loves so much in his half-baked opinion pieces - have no idea what's going on in our country, in Washington D.C., in London (Brexit), in New Zealand (murder), in Saudi (murder), in Syria (murder), in Turkey (tyrant), in the Philippines (murderous tyrant), in North Korea (nuclear war).
If we left the complexities of modern life, divided government, poverty, disease, Russian interference in our elections, global warming, pollution, consumer protection, and foreign policy to the Nebraskans (and Mr. Brooks) we could have a very civil conversation about how the grass is growing while we breakfasted on some succulent ham and very fresh eggs at the local diner.
2
Democrats want the fist, when needed, and the open hand, when appropriate.
Democrats want a leader who will consider them, first, in an effort to recalibrate the equilibrium between the uber-wealthy and the rest of us.
Democrats want a leader they can count on not to take corporate money and then be obliged to consider its source, first.
Democrats want a leader with the vision, courage, and honesty to not only clean up after Trump, but see to it that a Trump can never again be elected.
That's isn't an order Mr. Booker is likely to fill.
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren't Looking
https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
3
Cory Booker was picked out by Wall St. either at Stanford or Oxford as the perfect light tan guy to give them a potential eight years of solid Dem neoliberalism, rather like Obama actually. So Booker was boosted into the Mayor's office in Newark, then into the Senate from NJ. Now he's one of several horses Wall St. is riding--Biden, Booker, and the preppy Beto, especially--to do all in Wall St's power to keep the party safely neoliberal, in the Clinton mold, and to block the noxious "progressivism" pushed by Bernie and his various vague imitators far behind him in the polls. The MSM is, as always, totally on Wall St's side, so it's no shock that the Wall St. Republican Brooks is now pushing Booker. Last time, Bernie won the white Dem primary vote outright, and was only stopped by Wall St. and Hillary by their lying smear that somehow Bernie was less on the side of blacks than Hillary. This time it will be more interesting, since Biden, Booker, and Harris will be splitting the SEC black primary vote, setting up the distinct possibility that Sanders will sweep the white vote in these primaries, since who votes Dem in the South except for young progressives? Note that when CNN and MSNBC, the fake "progressive" network made a huge deal today over Beto's getting $6 million in his first 24 hours, MSNBC didn't even mention Bernie's $5.9 million, all from small donors. Instead, they tried to amplify Beto's haul by contrasting it with other leading candidates with much less money.
Yes, Booker is extraordinarily principled. And that is rare. Love of the other cannot merely be a strategy to win a fight, something to try for a while to see if it works. love has to be a fundamental life commitment, even when it appears not to be working at all. Love means sacrifice, and not many politicians today care for that. I hope Booker keeps his principled leadership that points to a better way of civic discourse and a generous view of the common good. I also see such qualities of love and generosity in Pete Buttigigieg. I hope you write about him soon.
Agreed. Behavior that dismisses, denigrates and delegitimizes any individual or group leads to nothing good.
So why does the media do exactly that to the hundreds of thousands who protest against medical mandates, whether they are vaccination laws, GMO rubber stamp approvals, fluoridation policy or 5G and wireless expansion that aims to bombard EMF into every corner of the globe? Each issue is distinct and has scientific evidence supporting their positions, but media vilifies them all with the same divisive tactics.
IMHO: Hillary, who already had the moniker "Bride of Monsanto," lost the election when she quipped, "I support vaccinations and fluoridation, too!" These are two separate camps with separate science - but both attacked with vicious alienating rhetoric. DNC may lose again in 2020 if it doesn't wake up to the everyday angst of those of us struggling with government mandated poisoning of our families.
1
Those "good people" who support Trump are - by and large - evangelical Christians. So much for love thy neighbor.
When I heard Cory Booker say that he attends Bible study every week with Sen. Inhofe, I decided it was too much to digest.
He may not be a "when they go low, go low" fighter but we don't need any more "turn the other cheek" types either.
4
Well said, David! I'll have to take a closer look at Booker going forward. While it is appalling to have a significant percent who think their opponents should die, 20% is still a small minority. That means that a full 80% don't think that way.
I am old enough to know that different way of operating and thinking is possible. My Dad, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, used to say things like "Democrats don't understand the economy," but that is a very, very long way from thinking that they should die or were evil or un-American. In my lifetime, the Congress could work across the aisle, individuals could disagree vehemently in a debate then go for a drink as friends.
Were those days perfect? Far from it, but their was more of a sense of a shared purpose and a shared vision; more of a belief that one's opponents were also citizens who cared about their country and wanted the best for it.
6
You’re looking at this wrong. It is our teachable moment, we must not lose it! NOW is the time to learn.
As a classical (Non Trump Era) conservative Republican, I disagree with multiple "progressive" platforms of the Democratic Party, that said Corey Booker reflects a pragmatism and a return to intelligent debate and argument without debasing the other side and yourself. Lets see where this goes and how he performs over the next 16 months but if he holds true to his ideals I will be proud to call him Mr. President.
10
When and how did politics devolve into such madness? Of course, people ultimately are the source of this hatred but 30 years ago this level of toxic political hate did not exist. One did not lose friends over differing ideologies as one does today. What has changed? The internet, social media, and 24 hours a day of political propaganda disguised as legitimate news on both sides of the aisle has fouled our discourse. In 1989 it was easy to tell opinion from commentary but today that is not the case. Today, ideology for profit is the norm in media and hatred is the by-product of that commerce. The media is not the enemy of the people but the media and social media have made us enemies of each other.
13
The Cory Booker described in Brooks' editorial is not the Cory Booker I saw in the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. There, Booker abandoned any reasonable behavior, and took on the role of "attack dog" in a highly partisan event. (Remember when, unlike all other members of the Committee, he even refused to honor the chairman's time limits?!). So, in short, I'm not sure Brooks presents a true picture of Cory Booker.
8
@Alan Apparently, we watched different hearings; either that or Senator Warren just gave you a raise.
1
@M. Bennett I guess you forgot his Spartacus moment when he hoped to reveal "secret" documents.
1
I believe that the most important message here is to have an election based on substance and humanity. Right now, I'll vote for almost anyone who is not Trump, but I do agree that we have to bring civility back. The Party of Trump, which is certainly not the party of Lincoln or Reagan, is turning our country into a land not much different than the warring Middle East where you have one sect fighting and trying to eliminate another. The nationalists who have taken it upon themselves to eliminate the citizens they hate are this countries Taliban. Let's wake up and start thinking about what kind of country and people we want to be.
7
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
I held views almost identical to "Manhattan William" of "New York, NY" back when I lived in "New York, NY."
Moved to Greenville, SC not long after 9-11(Jan, my wife, was working a few blocks away when the towers were hit, and we agreed at that point, "enough is enough" - to quote our next president)
As "Manhattan William'ed" as I had been, I was stunned to discover that, you know, really, if you're in a coffee shop filled with 30 Greenville residents, you can't tell just by looking which are Rush/Sean addicts/Trump-true-believers and which are Bernie Bros.
And before you rush in for an easy "win".... no, you can't tell after talking to them, as long as you don't bring up political issues.
As much as it pains me to say, about this, David Brooks is correct.
6
@don salmon
I've been to Greenville--it's dynamic and booming economically. The infrastructure is in great shape which I noticed as I was sitting in an unexpected traffic jam because it was a Friday night and everyone was driving around going to restaurants, which were quite good.
Greenville does not represent the desperate decaying rural hinterlands that cling to Trump because they hate Democrats and especially liberals.
I have always been someone whose philosophy is trying to reach out across the aisle, and I surely honor Cory Booker for doing so. What I can't understand is this article trying to place Bernie Sanders on the opposite side of that agenda. Bernie Sanders has proven for a long time that he is more than willing to talk with people with all kinds of political views and discuss issues with them, listen to them, give credit to their wishes, urges and criticisms. He has shown that he empathizes with them and explains to them without any partisan prejudice what his ideas are to fix their problems. There have been a lot of Republican leaning voters since Bernies first run 2016 who attended town halls with him and experienced how sincere, modest and clear he approached them, listened to them and answered with empathy and issues-orientated. It's really not fair to suggest that Bernie was any different from Booker when it comes to their decent manners and communicational philosophies. But I for my part see a big difference between them when it comes to the political substance, where Bernie has a decades long record of fighting for social, racial and economic justice and for our environment, sticking closely to his principles against all odds and being ridiculed. I believe him very much when he says, that his campaign is not about him but about us. I don't see anything in Booker's political record similarely principled and all for the people, not the corporations.
10
Clearly Republicans want the fist given their high approval ratings for Trump. Gandhi and Mandela were great leaders using the open hand power love to create change. Were they alone? In my opinion, the British and the Afrikaners would never have changed without the militant Sikhs and the ANC. Of course, the USA is not colonial India or S. Africa. We are not at war but we do face serious challenges and tremendous differences in how to meet them. So, yes loving open handed leadership is needed. Also, supporters who will do the hard and at times unloving work to make progress.
4
Not surprised that Brooks like Booker. While mayor of Newark, Booker was a backer of charter schools (so was Obama), a device dreamed up by conservatives to circumvent teacher unionism. Until I hear Booker renounce charter schools and say something positiveabout teachers, their unions, and public schools, I'll pass on his candidacy.
28
@Alex Levy Obama did NOT back charter schools.
1
I agree Cory is a good man with a human message, but policy matters too. his policies of guarenteed income of $46,000, Medicare for all is too radical for me.
2
When one side dehumanizes large groups of people, this isn't a both sides problem. The problem is that Republicans demonize, mistreat, and steal rights away from LGBTQ people, Muslims, Mexicans and other Latin Americans, other people of color, wimen, and other minorities. all of Cory Booker's well-intended but ethereal rhetoric will not change the fact that one of our two political parties is part of an international white nationalist movement.
36
American intellectuals should read the history of the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War.
3
When we do not know someone we disagree with we tend to demonize them. The only way to counter that is with grace and the willingness to engage and listen.
10
Booker is the most qualified to be a leader. In the end, that is what our President should be. Sadly, that is not what he American people are looking for. Barack Obama is simply too close in time. The backlash too fresh. I remember how Nixon was elected in 1968. It all seemed so unlikely. Trump will only lose if Democrats give a little bit of turf back to those who scolded them in the last cycle. The motto should be "how's that working for ya'". Just don't expect too much. True, Americans may not be "downright evil", but they are awfully impulsive just before getting in the ballot box.
5
I admire Cory Booker but I would prefer that he try to win my vote with concrete proposals rather than with “love.” Give me the meat and potato proposals that I can hang my hat on rather than feel-good efforts to enfold all Americans in his arms. He has the knowledge, smarts, and experience to do this.
Tonight I watched Kirsten Gillibrand’s town hall meeting in Michigan and was impressed with her knowledge of the issues, her can-do proposals and many Senate accomplishments over her time in office, and her no-nonsense approach. Ok, she talks too fast, but she has a lot to say. In her words I felt a breath of fresh air coming in from smog-filled Washington, and a sense of relief that she, and some other Democrats running for President, are reminding us of their commitment to initiatives that will improve the lives of the 99% of us. If you’re listening, MSNBC and CNN, please bring us more town halls with Democratic candidates interacting and answering to real people. After all, this is a job interview and we all are the prospective employers.
11
Thank you, David Brooks. This is an intelligently organized, quietly powerful, both intellectually and emotionally convincing statememt
8
"This is a knife fight. We need a brawler.
This is the argument white evangelicals made in deciding to back Donald Trump. We’re under siege. He’ll fight for us".
You just admitted that the popier-than-the pope and oh so pious Evangelicals directly contradict the teachings of Jesus.
Ergo, Mr. Douthat, when I am in "midst of everyday life" in one of the trumpiest states in the nation, West Virginia, fleeing the stifling heat and humidity in our area for a few weeks in the summer, I never discuss politics and keep conversations with others by talking about sweet nothings, e.g. the weather, the beautiful views, the last golf game we played, etc., etc.
3
I like his approach but I would also like to know about his policies. We cannot afford all the “free” stuff most of this rounds Democrats seem set on proposing. We need actual solutions to issues by competent people. We have had two years of incompetent government hopefully we can begin to change that in 2020.
1
@Kevin Don't worry Kevin. Booker voted with the Republicans to keep Rx prices as high as possible. There will be little "free stuff" if he is elected President.
6
We’ve been giving ‘free stuff’ to corporations for ages. We call it tax cuts, stimulus, job creating. And we have learned from years of this misguided belief (a belief that benefits the upper echelon) that trickle-down does not work. But trickle-up does. Every dollar that goes into the pockets of middle and lower income people (the vast majority of Americans) is a dollar that goes directly back into our economy. And long-term government investment in healthIer, more educated citizens not only improves the lives of our citizens, but their renewed ability to contribute to society by being healthy enough and educated enough to do so, directly benefits the bottom line of this country.
17
@Lynn Every dollar that corporations pay in taxes comes from the pockets of their customers; they simply collect taxes from us and pass them on to the IRS. Got it?
I agree that the pretension of looking down on "deplorables" and the hatefulness in tone of wishing others would just die are destructive to achieving any semblance of dialogue. One must, however, on occasion call something what it is. Crude and destructive language and behavior from a nation's chief executive have no place in public discourse, and not to say so is to capitulate and be complicit. Witness the moral and ethical failure of the current minority in the House Representatives and majority in the Senate.
After calling such behavior out, however, I wish we'd just move on to fixing health insurance, addressing income inequality, repairing infrastructure, and restoring hope in rural America. Is this too much to ask of candidates?
18
I am looking forward to hearing more from Mr. Booker. He seems intelligent and caring, but his economics are not clear to me. He seems more tied to the corporate world and the Democratic elite than I would like, and I find it interesting there was no discussion about this in the column.
Personally, I do not need to hear more of the "brother and sister" routine, and I could do without the religious bent entirely. We try to do good because it makes us happy, and that's enough for me. I will not be happy until everyone is happy, but it's difficult to see yourself in others, though, when you witness things like a Trump rally or Charlottesville, etc. Trump wants to crush you and turn you into an appendage that serves and honors him, alone, and there are a lot of people who are willing to do just that. Given the reality, given the level of hatred, it seems terribly naive to believe that it can be undone by good thoughts. It requires action and some of those actions will be fought tooth and nail.
Quite frankly, I see this article as a play for a more conservative Democrat that will somehow lessen the fear of the wealthy that they might have to cough up some of their money.
8
Our next president is going to need to invest in science. It starts with appointing individuals to Agriculture, EPA, CDC, NASA, Interior, Agriculture, Justice, etc. who have real competence. We have entered an era where our next steps must be to return our planet to the conditions of at least 100 years ago while keeping our advancing technology. We can not keep using our atmosphere, oceans, rivers and soil as if they are dumping grounds or waste pits. We must educate our children as well as we possibly can. Team leaders must see fellow employees as a vital resource that keeps maturing and growing and learning.
On a large scale we must develop plans to make it possible for individuals, couples, families to integrate into new plans that reduce pollution and to accomplish community goals. Our medical systems must be available to all in a fair and equitable manner. Some individuals must have access to mental health facilities and possibly better medications.
We need construction codes that can withstand environmental stresses even fire much better than our current standards. Flood zones need to be observed. Engineering standards need to be raised and regularly reviewed. Soil movement needs to be better recognized as the warning sign that it really is. We do have major volcanic zones particularly in western North America.
These are real issues that need to understood so that we are not so easily surprised.
7
@Tlaw I'm an agricultural scientist (retired), but mentioning agriculture TWICE? And not mentioning NOAA, the USGS (what do you propose besides monitoring the Yellowstone caldera? When it goes, don't worry about the rest), the NIH, NSF and other institutions seems a relative aberration. But yes, science and technology can and must be used to resolve many of the world's crises.
1
In the Declaration of Independence, the brilliant young Thomas Jefferson originally wrote "we hold these truths to be sacred," but the older, wiser Benjamin Franklin, knowing that the Founders were creating a country born out of Enlightenment secular reason and reasonableness, not the religious doctrine many Americans had fled England to avoid, change the wording to 'we hold these truths to be self-evident.' Thus we Americans today are specifically not connected by sacred bonds, but rather self-evident bonds of reason and self-governance.
It may seem like a small edit, but there is a huge difference between a 'sacred' founding document and a self-evidently reasonable one.
The founders also specifically rejected the idea that the church should be the center of political life; there was more than enough hopefulness available in the here and now. By filtering Booker's message and identity through primarily religious filters, Brooks has watered it down and focused it toward only a sub-set of Americans.
Regarding the idea that we shouldn't regard good people as pure evil - well, none of the Democratic contenders hold such a simplistic world view, and neither for that matter does anyone who made it past paragraph one of this column or this comment.
21
As an ex-Jerseyite I’ve like Senate Booker for a long time. He’s smart and he’s good. He didn’t have to move to Newark he’s from upper middle class Bergen County. He walked the walk. I wish him luck.
7
Booker is a throwback that embodies true American values. If progressives are smart enough to vote for this guy in the primaries, he'll get my conservative vote in the general. Sadly, I don't hold out much hope of that- he's not a socialist firebrand .
10
@Rob I agree with everything you said - except none of them are “socialists”.
I would like to congratulate Mr. Brooks on his successful recovery from the coma he appears to have been in from 2008-16. The notion that what is needed for politics is simply more love and respect and ill-defined high road antics is belied by the fact that this exact same rhetoric and tactics were used by Obama, and got him exactly zero respect from either the GOP or its base.
27
@Alex Which is why a Republican like Brooks is suggesting it.
3
Mr. Brooks, thanks for this thought provoking article. I need to give Booker more attention. From this he sounds like he has great potential.
I believe that balance is needed. Approach "the other" with sword sheathed, shield at the ready and right hand open.
6
The Democratic primary: so many choices. What does it all mean? Like Brooks, I'm glad to see the positive-vision-of-America camp on board. Trump has made us all feel corrupt and unworthy. Maybe it's time to turn the corner.
First, Booker; now Beto. In the Age of Trump, an affirmative vision won't be an easy sell. But if an endless season of anger is to be averted, it may be worth another try, especially in the absence of any kind of clear national policy consensus.
Of the two, Booker seems the more solid on the issues. Beto is a style looking for some credible substance to pour into the vacuum. Maybe he will find it, maybe he won't. It's still early.
Booker's biggest problem will be overcoming public cynicism and fear. People warily question whether any politician who comes on like he does can be genuine. They are afraid of being fooled -- again. His moving into stark downtown Newark housing is dismissed as an act, not evidence a true commitment. But he is still there. Most of his critics likely would not last two weeks in the same neighborhood.
It is also curious that the African-Americans who seem most politically marketable to whites do not trace their African origins to the American slavery experience. We have already had one president with a Kenyan father and now another leading contender with a Jamaican father. They must somehow come across as culturally safer. But if further racial healing is to be on the menu, maybe it's finally time to opt for the real deal.
6
There are too many good candidates! I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it is true. Booker, Harris, Warren, Beto! I wish we could elect all of them. But therein lies our problem. The vote for decency will be badly split. I’m now loosing sleep over the huge number of really good people running against One really bad one. It’s like a Seinfeld episode.
7
I really don’t need politicians talking about love. Just make things fair, honest and functional.
27
@Thomas Fair and honest are two of the attributes of “love”.
1
Cory Booker was impressive today when interviewed by Chris Matthews. His quick thinking, command of the issues, and willingness to not dodge the tough questions will make him make him a formidable candidate.
10
If Booker can maintain consistent positions he will do well. He was a good administrator in Newark. He’s smart and charismatic. The challenge is that he floats positions between audiences, telling all of them what they want to hear.
He’s got real potential. Let’s see how he fares in the scrutiny of a primary campaign.
1
I applaud Cory Booker's, and in turn David Brooks's, optimism about people and our political parties, but I think the pessimists are actually right, just as Lincoln was right in 1860 - the South had to be subjugated to get rid of slavery, and they still haven't given up their racism 150 years later. The Democrats actually tried the Booker open arms strategy, willing to see the other side's viewpoint, for 8 years under Barack Obama. But Obama achieved big things as President in spite of Republicans, not with Republicans help. If you want to know how today's Republicans are going to approach a president who works to unite the country, we already know the answer to that question - how they treated Obama. There are undoubtedly good Republicans, millions of them, and I count David Brooks among them, but they have little or no voice in their party today. It's all Trump and McConnell and those of their ilk.
42
No matter who is elected, trust in the U.S. is gone out here in the real world. After the moves of Cheney Inc for 8 years, Obama had brought back respect and trust in the U.S., but it is now evident that one election can wipe all of that out in less than two years. Treaties gone, agreements nullified, extremism rampant IN America. TWO YEARS only. Who would trust us now?
31
@Martin I can tell you that the Europeans I know do not trust America, and not only those. Read almost any European newspaper and the opinion polls. America's approval rating is in the toilet. It is no wonder that the US State Department's warning about doing business with China, especially around the 5 G issue is not heeded by the Europeans. Why should they? The US under Trump preaches every man for himself. Every country for itself. God help us to survive two more years of the man's hatred and narcissism.
4
I'm 63, and my summary of the Democratic Party in my adult life is that they've been too corporate and haven't looked out enough for the lower and middle classes; and they've been run over by a party whose goal is not to govern well, but to win.
Being smart, "centrist," and expecting the other party to cooperate to govern, has not succeeded.
It's led to economic disparity and no confidence in government to change it--resulting in the loss of Democratic posts from city to state to federal.
And it's led to being overrun by the Republicans--in gerrymandering, the undone Supreme Court appointment, and overall dysfunction in government.
To change those decades-long trends, will not take a horrible or immoral person. It will take charisma, enormous intelligence, and force.
Patriotism, hopefulness, and gratitude are fine qualities. Mr. Booker might well embody them, and others too.
But the one to lead this change must not only know what the voters want, but be committed to it. Must know the issues and the political process inside-out. And have the strength of conviction to push through for change.
These are all strong, positive qualities. I hope the Dems put forth a candidate who embodies them, because such a candidate is most likely to succeed.
17
Thank you David, I remain hopeful. I remain that way because it seems to me, that most Americans are essentially decent. Perhaps we just need leaders as good as our people.
8
@michaelr1 Yes, most Americans are decent, but most Americans are not Republicans and Republicans run this country.
1
It was not always this way. Arguably Lee Atwater launched vicious politics. Citizens United put the final nail in the coffin of one man one vote. Campaign last too long; costs outpace reason. Political parties intent on self destruction. In 2016 the parties produced the two most flawed candidates in single election in modern history.
Leadership matters you need look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to be convinced a man void of principle and disinterested in learning belongs in real estate not politics. Mr. Booker has a point how you act, how you treat others is just important as policy. A national embarrassment fails overstate the cancer on this Presidency.
8
It would be great if Cory Booker could get us to see the better angels of our nature. However, the reality is that the best presenter — the best showman — gets the American vote. Which is sad. Cory still comes across like a precocious 15-year-old and Trump will eat him for lunch. It’s too bad Trump’s advantage in gravitas comes from too much fast food. But no matter where it comes from, someone’s got to give this guy his “have you no decency” comeuppance. If it could be Cory, then go for it.
9
We don’t need someone who talks about love and patriotism and raises our self-esteem. In the face of an increasingly sick, narcissistic president and his Congressional enablers, we need someone who has a plan to rebuild an America that has been torn down and humiliated.
This requires more than an appeal to our emotions, no matter how heartfelt and sincere. We need someone who can stop the insanity and undo the Republican plan to rob our citizens, destroy our health care and pack the Supreme Court with conservatives.
Cory Booker has passion, but it feels hollow to me because I’m not hearing how he’s going to subdue the conservative quest for greed and power.
On the other hand, candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been promoting plans that elevate Americans not by uplifting rhetoric, but by restoring wealth and dignity to ordinary people. Evangelical zeal is fine, but it won’t increase educational opportunities or provide health care.
The fanatics have had their day. They promised to drain the swamp, and then filled it to overflowing.
This isn’t the time for uplifting rhetoric. It’s time for action.
89
@gemli
Bernie and Warren can't win a general election.
So far, there doesn't seem to be a Democrat who obviously can win the general election.
Possibilities: Biden, Beto, Harris, Pete Buttigieg.
Pete Buttigieg is the smartest of the bunch. He's intelligent, calm, sane, positive, hardworking. He's a veteran. He knows about business. He knows how to accomplish things.
Pete Buttigieg.
4
@gemli
Spot on!,
5
@fast/furious - I do agree with you on Buttigieg. He's the real deal!
1
Cory Booker notwithstanding, the Democrats may have found the issue which will ensure the reelection of Trump in "Medicare for All".
Representative Scott Peters from San Diego is a liberal Democrat, not a Conservative,
who has been reelected 4 times to the House.
Most Democratic Representatives are in the same boat as Peters.
He is representative of the average successful Democratic Congressman.
He is against "Medicare for All" at this time for very practical political and economic reasons.
All the national polls taken indicate when all the tax increases are taken into account most American voters don't want Medicare For All right now because indications are it would seriously adversely affect millions in terms of costs, taxes, and the medical care that most American voters are now getting.
Freshman Congresswoman AOL, for one, is in favor of Medicare For All, but her Congressional District is extremely atypical of Democratically controlled Districts.
Her District in the Bronx and Queens is so very Democratic and has probably never voted GOP.
The vast majority of Democrats represent Districts represent Districts much more Republican or purple than AOL's District, and they can hardly afford to follow AOL's lead if they want to have any hope of being reelected in 2020.
AOL, from an extremely left District, can be fatal to Democratic chances of success in 2020.
4
From this comment, it would seem that AOC is running for president, or perhaps she, not Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. I thought she was just one of more than 220 Democratic House members and too young too be POTUS. The primaries have not even started and yet just the mere mention of Medicare for All by SOME of the candidates is enough to decide that Democrats will lose the election. Even before there has been a chance to debate this and any other ideas. Would it improve their chances if the Democratic candidates started chanting "Build the Wall" instead? (I assume you meant AOC, not AOL, btw)
3
I think you meant to (repeatedly) say AOC, not AOL.
People see injustice and they hate both it and the people who seem to be committing it. But we don’t agree about what is just and unjust. This is why decision making should be pushed to the most local level possible instead of trying to come up with one-size-fits-all policies in Washington.
3
David Brooks — The three specific traits of basic decency and moral cleansing that you cite for a political candidate — patriotism, hopefulness, and gratitude — to which I would add a fourth — civility — are, in my opinion, best exemplified in the candidacy of not Cory Booker, but rather Pete Buttigieg. Mayor Pete gives me even more inspiration and hope than the generally likeable Senator Booker.
19
@Scott Lewis Well said! If Pete Buttigieg were to get a fraction of the media attention that's being lavished on Beto O'Rourke, I think he'd quickly be counted among the top Democratic contenders.
2
@Liz Gilliam I agree. I think Pete can and will make a significant and positive impression to a large audience on a debate stage — not only during the Democratic primaries and caucuses, but if he were ever to receive the Democratic nomination, during the general election campaign. There’d be an almost blinding contrast with Trump on every character metric — intelligence, articulateness, humility, honesty, civility, moral decency, mental stability, likeability, patriotism, military service, and uplifting unifying leadership. These enormous differences of virtue would be laid bare, on full display for all to behold.
1
New York is not an early primary state. I will pick from those who are left when the primary gets here.
In the meanwhile, I'll probably donate a few bucks to a few candidates. That can also wait as I get to know more about them.
I am confident that if Cory Booker has said two mean things in his entire life and he gets the Democratic Nomination, they will be the central theme of Fox News, Sinclair, and every other right-wing outlet throughout the election along with massive distortions of both his record and his character.
Nice column. But in the end, it is about something that doesn't matter. In 2020, only two issues should matter to Democrats. Can the candidate win? Can the candidate govern if s/he wins?
Cory Booker would certainly make a better POTUS than Trump and many of the other Democratic Candidates. But his success reviving the Newark economy will be painted instead as a failure of both law and economics. Can he win?
8
So we should vote for the best preachers? Spiritual teachers and religious leaders have been promoting love for a long, long time with, at best, mixed success. People need healthcare, decent housing, childcare, education, a stable, livable income, a secure old age, personal safety. and clean water and air. If everyone loved everyone, nobody would go without any of that and we wouldn't need government. I like inspirational sermons but I can and do get those from many sources. From my elected government representatives, I'm looking for actions.
28
I feel no need to decide who I'm going to vote for now. I want to see how things shake out in the next year. A lot can happen in 20 months. We might even become a kinder nation. Trump might be impeached as he deserves. McConnell might be forced to leave office. Pence might divorce his wife. And the GOP might develop a collective heart and some compassion for 99% of us.
23
@hen3ry
When pigs fly.
3
Thank you for writing this glimmer of the pathway to normalcy.
13
"The disease is in our context and not in our souls. And that context can be changed with better leadership."
It seems almost perverse to qualify Mr. Brooks' point. But tragically there are moments in history when even leadership that harbors "malice toward none and charity for all" is unable to reconcile differences over the principles that define us as a nation. The issues that divide us today may not rise to that of whether we can "endure half slave and hand half free" - but one cannot help thinking that whether we continue to be a nation of immigrants or a nation that is the possession of those born on its soil is pretty close to being definitional.
Excellent. You've articulated very well a "lane" for Booker; Something very special about him. I'll put him on my list. Another person who is in that lane seems to me to be Beto. My favorite is Elizabeth Warren. Her lane is determined competence. When you think about it, it's been a long time since we've really had a solid competent president!
25
@Publicus
Indeed. Warren has a special advantage, which is that of racism. She has tested her DNA and claims she is about 1/1000 native American, surely more than most, and that qualifies her to be president . . . . or something.
So, DB would have progressives oppose the Republican Party in 2020 with with peace and prayer? The open hand can work only if folks understand that the closed fist is not far behind, is more powerful than their fist and that they stand to lose far more by not compromising. Republicans correctly viewed their prior bad behavior as essentially cost free. Until progressives are prepared to change that calculation, it will be just more of the same.
6
@DE Independent,
That was not Gandhi's message, nor Martin Luther King's. The bad behavior of Trump, his family, and his supporters is already running out of air.
2
@Charles Becker Maybe they're running out of air in CA wine country, but not so much elsewhere in the US. Ghandi/MLK took a very long view, which is laudable, but look what happened to them. How would Lincoln or FDR have fared using that approach? Sadly, that's where we are now, and good intentions won't change it.
At the time of the American revolution Dr Samuel Johnson the leading conservative intellectual tried the open hand. His 1775 letter to the American Congress Taxation No Tyranny was attempt to explain the responsibilities of the citizens to their government and the responsibility of the government to its citizens.
His chief liberal intellectual opposition was Edmund Burke who is considered the object of the Johnson barb, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Dr Johnson wrote the only English Language dictionary of the 18th century and gave meaning to English poetry and prose. I find it very Newspeakish that 265 years later conservative means the exact opposite of what it meant when Dr Johnson defined conservative.
Cory Booker is the exact definition of conservative when conservative was officially defined in Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Even for this democratic socialist real conservatives are extremely attractive candidates but I am a Canadian and John Diefenbaker, Joe Clark and Kim Campbell were conservatives and Americans have some truly evil conservative leaders in and out of politics.
11
Evil is intentionally doing others harm for your benefit. Evil is not a force, it is a choice. We bandy about terms that have lost their meaning, having been perverted over time. We have also lost what it is we are actually fighting for.
This country was founded on the belief that people were able to decide for themselves and their fellow citizens the best course of action to establish and protect their inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It stated that all men were created equal which is far more complex than can be described here. But our disagreements do not start with the best way to achieve these lofty goals but instead have devolved into questioning motive and intention.
I believe that it is only through love that we can find true meaning and happiness but sadly we cannot start here. There has been too much disrespect or perceived disrespect that we must deal with first before any talk of love can be believed or trusted. Personally I believe Trump has committed true acts of evil (child separation, Trump University, etc.) and daily disrespects others without consequence. His followers see no problem with this but that does not make them evil in my eyes. I can and have loved them to the best of my ability but that doesn't change their belief in him and his actions. It is only through knowledge that truth can be revealed and that is what I want to find in a candidate.
Love in this case is sadly not the only answer.
11
@Lucas Lynch
Then you must find President Obama evil also since he too practiced child separation and gasp! Drone strikes on civilians.
My point is, be careful where you throw stones...
1
It's the America this voter recognizes at long last! Look at the photo, and it's our true Nation again, linked as one union under the banner of The Statue of Liberty and Freedom.
The Golden Rule has been scarred but it never broke under the pressure of this administration. Hatred has never visited here. What has been lacking is a sense of Joy.
Mr. Brooks has been right in the foray and much closer to what could happen if we did not keep a cool head and warm heart.
'We need a brawler'...'this is the argument white evangelicals made in deciding to back Donald Trump'. These must be the believers in the Brutality of God. Our current president will always fight for himself first, and then look around to see if he can help. Self-Survival is human's strongest instinct, and he has been up against a wall since he tweeted in indignation that the turn-out for his election was the greatest in history.
Now. Cory Booker is correct in defining 'Patriotism', and if you don't like this Republican Party, or Democratic Party, as the case may be, you can recognize that there are good fellow countrymen and women walking in our midst.
Mr. Brooks, have you ever attended an event where a knife comes out and it takes a strong hand to dismantle it? I hope not, because it requires time to feel steady again.
The word 'Fan' comes from Fanaticism, and this admirer of your work, thanks you for this exposure of when people let their baser nature take over and become a Mob.
See no Evil.
3
I like Cory Booker. I like his experience as a mayor who has government experience running a troubled city. He is walks his talk. He is intelligent without being condescending.
I’m not sure who I will vote for yet, but I think someone who has run a city or state and has some experience at the federal level is also important. I think most Democrats are going to have similar policy stances, so the ability to turn policy into action is key.
The bottom line is that the Republican Party obviously wants to fight with a fist. Trump and Steve King’s twitter feeds feeds over the weekend make that clear. Who ever runs will need to be strong enough to handle that without allowing him/herself to lower themselves to that level.
I’ve had enough of policy and pronouncements by Twitter.
37
James Madison once said "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
I'm liberal and I've lived most of my life in liberal areas of the country, on both coasts and in the middle. My liberal neighbors are not angels and neither is the person staring back at me in the mirror every morning. My outnumbered conservative neighbors are not devils. I'm fine with that.
Madison went on to say that "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary"
I've never seen a politician Mr. Booker included, liberal or conservative, I thought might be confused for an angel. The Democrat I will vote for President will not be an angel. I'm fine with that too.
What I want, what I demand, is that American politicians believe in an inclusive democracy and the constitutional checks balances that Madison and others laid out and refined over time.
I don't hate GOP politicians (OK, there are a few). I just don't believe that Trumpism is compatible with American values and a party that has embraced Trumpism no longer deserves to govern.
I don't hate Trump supporters. I don't want them to die. But I wouldn't mind if they sat out the next few election cycles. I don't expect them to be angels, but I do expect them to take their responsibility of citizenship seriously. And they blew it. Bigly.
167
When considering the academic data that Mr. Brooks cites regarding how Democrats and Republicans view each other, it's important to remember that these groups together are estimated to comprise only 60% of Americans.
The remaining 40%, while they may find one of the two major parties less objectionable than the other, feel no allegiance to either "team"--despite the best efforts of some pollsters, pundits, and state election laws to impose on them a partisan identity.
I believe it is these Independent voters (and candidates) on which hope of transcending tribal politics in our country largely rests.
8
The argument reminds me of deficit spending: The Republicans decry deficit spending when Democrats are in power, but once Republicans are in power, they throw deficit concerns right out the window. So, too, when Democrats are in power, we have to all work together? I think Republicans have gone too far this time.
26
Sen Booker is a likable guy, more so than Sen Warren*, but you get the feeling that he is likable - or fierce, like when he was at Kavanaugh hearing - because he is ambitious. He knew, perhaps not unlike President Clinton, he is going places even when he was a mayor.
While I don't mind my next president to be someone who is a pragmatic middle of the roader, I also want s/he has the moral fiber to do the job, to be the president of both the left, the right and especially the middle. Is Mr Booker the person, I don't know yet, but he is no Clinton, let alone President Obama.
* I have voted for Ms Warren twice as my senator but I will not support her presidential ambition
6
Well I don't agree that both democrats and republicans have a problem accepting the the basic goodness and sincerity of the other side. Its a republican thing all the way. The republican brand has become all about demonizing democrats and even "moderate republicans" such as yourself. The John Birch society has become the mainstream in the republican party and mainstream republicans have no interest whatsoever in dialogue, reason or any other method of finding common ground. What is so incredibly mystifying is that so many of these people cannot even begin to explain or comprehend what the core agenda of the republican party is all about or why they themselves are so vehemently opposed to democrats. So no, I do not agree or believe that this is a two sided problem and I certainly don't buy it for one minute that a strong clear message from a guy like Bernie Sanders is out of line.
28
@Joe
As a 2016 Bernie Sanders supporter myself, I entirely disagree with your analysis of the Republican Party and the Democrats.
Socialism without responsible Capitalism has been a recipe for disaster in the 20th century and Democrats seem hell bent on reviving it for power even at the expense of our foundation documents. Why else would the Left be so determined to take away free speech away from Americans? What’s with this relentless hounding of the Left when people disagree with them about legitimate issues such immigration?
I think people forget that Trump won, incredibly, over the odds against him because Hillary was a rotten candidate. You can pretend all you want but the Clintons and their Foundation are corrupt. Doesn’t mean that Trump is great, just means that people are signaling that they want better in Washington DC. I don’t think Trump is evil incarnate but I do think he is just another stupid, self involved billionaire that believes money makes them a clever or good person.
That has evil aspects to it but look to your Democrats also with their slurping up of corporate money.
ANY politician who puts his greedy interests or his class interests above America as a whole, on both sides of the aisle only deserve contempt. There are plenty of these
1
@Joe
As a 2016 Bernie Sanders supporter myself, I entirely disagree with your analysis of the Republican Party and the Democrats.
Socialism without responsible Capitalism has been a recipe for disaster in the 20th century and Democrats seem hell bent on reviving it for power even at the expense of our foundation documents. Why else would the Left be so determined to take away free speech away from Americans? What’s with this relentless hounding of the Left when people disagree with them about legitimate issues such immigration?
I think people forget that Trump won, incredibly, over the odds against him because Hillary was a rotten candidate. You can pretend all you want but the Clintons and their Foundation are corrupt. Doesn’t mean that Trump is great, just means that people are signaling that they want better in Washington DC. I don’t think Trump is evil incarnate but I do think he is just another stupid, self involved billionaire that believes money makes them a clever or good person.
That has evil aspects to it but look to your Democrats also with their slurping up of corporate money.
ANY politician who puts his greedy interests or his class interests above America as a whole, on both sides of the aisle only deserve contempt. There are plenty of these creeps on both sides of the aisle.
Mr. Brooks, this feel good column is all well and good. I know we all need to get along to accomplish anything for our country. I know that many of the mid country people are fine and reasonable. President Obama tried to work for the good of the whole country. Remember Mitch McConnell, he of making President Obama a one termer and when that didn’t happen he worked really, really hard to block anything, anything at all from being accomplished.
Mr. Brooks, please ask every candidate that you interview how they will deal with McConnell either as majority or minority leader or hopefully the leftovers of the Republican senators. How do you confront obstinacy and work with it?
64
I want to like Booker, and in many instances I do, though he hasn't always practiced what he preached calling anyone who supported Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to be "complicit in evil".
I really try hard to give candidates the benefit of the doubt. I hope he can keep up a positive, not-revolutionary messaging.
The numbers Brooks' references that were reported by Thomas Edsall are, obviously, not good. Then again 15 to 20 percent of people of each party (considering most don't belong to one) is quite small.
Journalists and readers would be put at greater ease by not interpreting 50+1% Think X as remotely consensus or something that should be immediately pursued.
Thankfully, we have governing institutions that require us to build consensus before moving forward on big national decisions.
6
I don't trust in politicians who have a habit of quoting out of their version (or anyone's) of a bible. Maybe quoting a Greek or Roman philosopher might work? Maybe Socrates, "I drank what?"
6
I like Booker. I like Warren. I like them all. But there is no "wrong way" to beat Trump. Every way is the right way. Compassionate victory, tough victory, lukewarm victory, I don't care. I feel like Lincoln when he was told about General Grant's shortcomings: "I know he is far from perfect but he will *fight*." Give me a Democrat who can fight and win and I'll back them.
288
@Cal Prof - And when told that Grant drank to excess, Lincoln replied that he'd like to give his other Generals whatever Grant was drinking. Assume you've read Chernow's wonderful biography.
23
@A Boston: Yes I've always been a Hamilton guy (even when Jefferson was deified), and Chernow gave him the bio he long deserved. After that I'll read anything by Chernow. I did read the Grant bio and loved it.
3
@A Boston I always liked Lincoln's asking McClellan if he could borrow the army from him.
I want someone who is qualified, intelligent, politically savvy, and someone who, unlike the current occupant, has some humility.
15
Yes, we can not "build a better society" by morphing into "a rotten human being." And yes, Senator Booker is right on when asserting that "....you can not love your country unless you love your fellow countrymen and country women." But this is no time to sing kumbyas. Our nation is in both a societal and political crisis. There is love, but there is also tough love, a tenet that so many of us parents had to live by in order to raise ethical, moral, and responsible children. We are at that point now that we must exercise this tough love. I personally have a difficult time fully accepting those of my relatives who are climate deniers, fanatically pro-life while being ironically pro-guns, anti-health care for "those freeloaders," anti-immigration/Muslim, and so on. Yet admittedly I do not call them "evil" because I know there is good in them. However, I will not be silent in my opinion that what I just listed above is in fact the antithesis of love and compassion. In the end it has nothing to do with political ideology or arrogance and pride. What it is all about is following a universal moral code more powerful than the bible itself.
50
If Corey Booker gets the nomination running like David Brooks wants him to, he will lose, and he will deserve to lose. When will the Dems realize that politics has life or death consequences and act accordingly?
A lot of us quite rightfully realize we're fighting for our lives here, not to win some contest over who can reach across the aisle more.
I remember when Booker was the darling of the 2012 DNC. Funny how quickly politics change – he is utterly irrelevant now.
62
@O
If David Brooks "peddles" Cory Booker, that is one more reason for me to vote for someone else. Irrelevant both of them, Booker and Brooks.
3
@O
Booker, like Obama, talks a good game but I have no doubt if there was a financial crisis during his watch he'd do exactly what Obama did, give away the store, because that's at root, where his true loyalties lie. Booker was a Goldman Sachs favorite and I'm sure he still carries his membership card. What short memories people have.
2
Excellent points and i am challenged, as perhaps we all are, to have the discipline to be proactive and not reactive; to listen to each other with the intent of understanding.
11
Did Barack Obama not embody the virtues that Mr. Brooks is extolling here? How did that work out?
Having said that, I am fundamentally in agreement with Mr. Brooks. 'An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.' That doesn't mean that progressives must back down; it simply means viewing the 'other side' as human and worthy of basic decency and respect. Of course, this becomes increasingly difficult when the other side espouses people like Trump, Steve King, and Fraser Anning for their cause.
79
Obama won a second term- so not clear what your point in the comparison is.
1
@Santa
Virtues? Obama played at it and fooled a lot of people. Obama pretended to be center left and made a sharp right turn that got us, in part. Trump. Booker may actually believe in the virtues and live them (how would I know, Obama fooled me, and made fools out of a lot of us), but I don't hold out much hope for Booker. Then again, the rest of the Democrats look like a family gathering of crazies that are doing everything in their power to elect Trump. Is this really the best this country has to offer? Probably, sadly, I guess so. Then again looking at the leaders of the rest of the world there seems to be a lot worse and not much better, but what do I know?. Is it too early for a Scotch, or too late?
1
@Santa I believe 8 years in the White House is how it worked out for Barack Obama.
2
Mr. Brooks: Donald Trump has taken over the Republican Party. He espouses everything I have handed all of my 71 years. I'm all for trying to reach middle America, and I think Democrats need to promote policies that will help turn the decline of the middle of America. However, I think that many of the people who live there have been brainwashed by the right-wing propaganda machine, especially Fox News, to promote Trump and his fellow traveler Republican politicians. As the saying goes, Trump could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and 35% of the country would still follow him. They don't care how crooked he is. They don't care if he conspired with the Russians. They are ready to drink his kool-aid. The Republican politicians are happy to look the other way and to cover for him.
Democrats should promote policies that will promote prosperity in all areas of the country. Infrastructure can bring help to the distressed parts of the country. We need to become the best promoters of sustainable energy, not the country that Trump wants. We need to promote better farming practices that provides everyone with organic ans sustainable produce, instead of promoting chemical companies who poison the land and squash any farmer who wants to use not use their seed and chemicals. We need to promote investment in areas that have been dependent on coal and other fossil fuels so they can develop economies based on sustainable energy.
33
Thanks for this column, David. I haven't paid much attention to Cory Booker but now I will. I vote for the open hand rather than the fist. Some people, including many readers who comment here, equate strength with being tough and think that this is only way to "win" against bullies and haters like Trump. Fortunately Booker knows better. Like Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandala. True strength doesn't come from hatred. Let us learn our lesson from this dreadful President and not sink to his level. I am personally heartened by the new crop of Presidential hopefuls in the Democratic party, including Booker, Beto O'Rourke and Marianne Williamson
20
In the past several weks and months, at the age of 82, after a life of working to develop civilized conversations, along with being involved as a white man in African American institutions and churches, I find myself bewildered and discouraged.
Looking back I can \ say that I thought the 1970s and late 1960s were full of conflict and racism and were beyonjd repair. But now the divides are so great and divergent, I don't know if we will ever survive this call-out-culture. I don't want to give up, but there doesn't seem any hope of forging a civil dialogue that brings us together. I hope Booker can help, but we may be beyond the point of reconciliation.
18
Although I am eager to see how the primaries play out and will support whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, at this point, my vote goes to Elizabeth Warren. She is a fighter, but she is not fighting Republicans per se, she is fighting to save a capitalistic system from itself. She is fighting for all Americans to have a better life (except perhaps for the sociopathically greedy, who have a great life already but refuse to admit it). She clearly sees the problems and has sensible solutions. I'm also partial to Jay Inslee, since he is fighting for something I still inexplicably care about, human survival on this planet. After 8 years of Obama, I am not so interested in people disinclined to fight for what they believe.
45
Like it's my favorite thing in the world to be lectured by a man whose party elected don trump. A party that still supports him in huge numbers. David talks about how divisive the president is without ever mentioning who voted for him. But he does manage to throw out some statistics that put Democrats in the same bed. Now there's a familiar theme from David.
I've also noticed how hard he is working to to get us Democrats to find a nice moderate who wants to work with Republicans. Because you know all the Republicans really need is some moderate who is willing to do everything they say and then call it bipartisan. And just because his party has shown zero willingness to work with the other side doesn't mean that we shouldn't right?
379
@Jenifer, a lot of great replies here but this is the best analysis of this disingenuous column
2
Sure, the people of from Nebraska City, Neb are good people. They should not be seen as the "devil". However, I do not look at those good Americans to determine what I think is going on. I see a small cabal of billionaires who have very clear goals. First, was to open the political process to their enormous sums of wealth through the Citizens United case. Then, they were able to install their minions in our government to carry out their will. By this pathway, they have been able to completely ignore the will of the American people on issues such as climate change and health care. This article is like Trump saying there are good people on both sides after Charlottesville. Let's stick to the issues and evaluate them honestly. It is way past time to drop the argument that "they all do it".
204
"Do The Republicans want a Fist or Open Hand"--- a question you, Mr. Brooks, might have considered asking during the 2016 presidential primary, when you, sir, stayed quiet while the "Fist" gradually emerged as the candidate.
186
The upcoming election is not about who is the nicest guy. This election must be about issues, and what's best for all our people. The very real fight for the soul of this country isn't about demonizing voters, it's recognizing without compromise that progressive policies are critically needed for this nation moving forward. And it's politicians like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard who best exemplify the moral strength of character to shepherd America through the 21st century.
15
@nero
The "moral strength" of Tulsi Gabbard? That's new to me. I thought she was the one who changed her positions drastically in order to become acceptable as a candidate. Did I confuse them with someone else?
@Fran : I find Gabbard to be a refreshingly consistent politician.
Cory Booker grew up privileged and sheltered from the reality of growing up while black and poor in urban and rural Amrerica. That he turned to public service aka politics was an act of noble humble humane empathy.
But Cory is a politician. Booker is not a humanitarian. Cory is not known as one of intellectual crafty original thinker and strategic members of the Senate. Booker is no Lyndon Johnson nor Ted Kennedy.
What does Cory Booker stand for and with as his first and second priorities nationally and internationally?
And like most Americans Bookers patriotism is limited to rising to sing the national anthem and saluting the flag at sporting events.
Booker's hopefulness is limited to winning the next election.
Being grateful while black African Americans are twice as bad off on every meaningful positive socioeconomic, educational, health and housing positive measure lacks the revolutionary fanaticism that the most loyal and long suffering base of the Democratic Party deserves and needs. Not because of their color aka race. But because of their condition. Triage instead of homage.
25
@Blackmamba
At the intersection of race, class and gender are always present. Mr. Booker has not escaped class, as hard as he's tried. It's a rare American who has.
12
@Blackmamba
Don't think anyone is forcing him to remain in beautiful downtown Newark. And yet he does. Although granted, he's no longer in the projects where he first lived for 8 years after law school.
1
I look forward to listening to Senator Booker on the campaign trail. This is a time of listening and thoughtful choice for all of us. In no manner shape or form did I enjoy or feel any sense of pride in the last Presidential campaign in either direction.
12
I understand what Mr. Brooks is saying in his second to the last paragraph since I live amongst numerous Trump supporters. They don't generally follow politics and have no interest in hurting anyone. They generally want life to be fair and for people to earn their lot. Their support of Trump is based on misinformation about Clinton and discussion with other locals that does not make sense. To see my fellow rural Americans as evil will not solve anything. At most group gatherings I don't talk politics or religion because it ruins everything. How can Dems get through to these people?
Cory Booker likely won't get through to my fellow rural Americans but he also won't get anywhere by demonizing them. His approach is correct. We can get back to a civilized political discourse if we treat all people with respect, even when we don't understand them.
47
@Anthony
Is it your advice to treat these Dumpf supporters "with respect" even tho they don't deserve any respect.
What is there to respect about them? They put this awful person in power and continue to support him.
@lin Norma I treat Trump supporters with respect every day because the reality is that doing otherwise gets us nowhere. I don't have to agree with them but I use evidence and peaceful discourse to make arguments. Senators and Congressmen must do the same. If we can get our leaders to be civil, that will be quite a start.
@Anthony
Cory won't get through to your fellow rural Americans because he is black.
1
Setting aside any genuineness that might exist on a personal level, his embrace of ideas like the Green New Deal disqualify him. No serious thinker can support such juvenile day-dreaming. I would also like to believe that he cares about inclusion & fairness for people like me but his demeanor as a politician does not reflect this. Somehow, I don't believe any of these Democrat candidates care about people like me. Few of the Republicans do either.
5
David Brooks wrote: "Do Democrats want the fist or the open hand?"
My first thought when I read this subtitle: "Huh? Democrats in 2020 must choose between receiving a knuckle sandwich and an open-handed slap? Wow. That's quite a daring and unexpected political metaphor coming from Brooks! I gotta get popcorn and read this column! This is going to be good!"
Then, sadly, I read the full column with deflating excitement.
For a brief second, I assumed this might be a truly nuanced and courageous column by Mr. Brooks. I imagined I was about to read an insightful piece exploring how Democrats in 2020 will be in a difficult complex situation and, "in the midst of every day life," they would have to accept that compromises must be made. Life is not perfect. There are no heroes, only humans. Politicians are flawed, et cetera.
Instead, Brooks wrote a very different column: He presented the reader with a false binary choice ("fist/conflict and open-hand/peace") despite warning about the dangers of false binary thinking ("good vs. evil"). In sum: Despite the topic of his article being about avoiding logical fallacies, he resorted to a logical fallacy. So close . . . and yet so far.
If Brooks played 3D chess, he would insist on removing the Z axis in order to fully explore the possibilities of the game.
42
There are several Democratic hopefuls who have a sunny disposition. David Brooks should not put blinders on yet.
The country has elected sunny Republicans, at least on the outside: such as Reagan, and both Bushes. We learned of the nastiness that they allowed their surrogates to unleash.
So, please allow other Democratic hopefuls to have their day, in addition to Corey Booker.
68
There are many who continue to employ false equivalencies, but David Brooks remains the Grand Master of them all. Equating Kamala Harris' and Bernie Sanders' rhetoric to Donald Trump's repeated advocacy of violence is like comparing Barack Obama's conciliatory orations to the rank hate speech of Steve King. How long can conservative pundits give hatred from the right a free pass? A long, long time.
571
@Eric Caine
One of the strongest memories I have of the 2016 election was the "Bernie Bros", and the way they'd savagely attack anybody or anything that disparaged their Dear Leader---and how Bernie did nothing at all to distance himself from it or to make it clear that that was not acceptable behavior.
So in the absence of any repudiation of such behavior, what am I to expect from Sanders? That his corps of thugs becomes his volunteer enforcer squad if he gets elected? No, thanks! And maybe Mr. Brooks' equivalences are not so false after all.
That having been said, I'm entirely happy to grant forgiveness for past sins in light of true repentance, and Sanders' policies are at least in the right ballpark. But he's got some work to do to convince me that he'd be an improvement over Trump when it comes to keeping civility in civil society.
23
@Eric Caine
Conservative Republicans have had to twist their souls into pretzels for years to stay in the party that supported the Iraq War, Paul Ryan's plan to stop providing free breakfast to hungry poor children and Ron Paul saying if you don't have medical insurance it means you should die if you get injured. The Conservatives have danced with the devil of allowing people to be hurt or die of neglect or stupid wars for decades. They were always much closer to Steve King than to Corey Booker. Giving hatred a free pass isn't as big a leap for them as Democrats would like to think it is. Paul Ryan wanting to deny free breakfasts to hungry children wasn't in any way a decent humane policy but Conservative Republicans loved Paul Ryan.... Paul Ryan was no Donald Trump but in what world is wanting poor children to go hungry to build their character not sociopathic thinking?
36
@GH
I remember seeing Bernie Sanders on Bill Maher years ago. He was rude to everyone but especially to women. A true sexist, dismissive of women as he was to Hillary, and that's just the beginning. I agree that his followers were uncivil and they continue to be this year.
10
If only this were true. We tried going high when they went low, and here we are, with a president diametrically opposed to everything American. We need someone who is going to fight for us, not someone who will just be polite and hope that the votes follow. Clearly, that not only does not work but also empowers your opponent.
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Take the high road is not for me. As soon as Trump and his followers see their opponent taking the high road, guarantee, they'll see it as a weakness and unleash a withering barrage of hate filled rhetoric.
This upcoming election is a fight for our Democracy and we need to fight, everyday, day after day, month after month until we win the Presidency.
The phrase "Show No Quarter" comes to mind.
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They will hurl a withering barrage of nastiness no matter what.
Winning votes is not a fight.
As David himself laid out in one of his early columns, both the political parties have bases that are totally realigned. It is hard to see how a simple approach of "I see you" or "dignity" as David defines can get at the core set of problems when family members can't even discuss politics any longer based on where each member lives.
Senator Booker's approach as applauded by David may help address the racial divide somewhat but where we are now, the politics has become the new identity that trumps everything else.
5
While I am not a Christian, I have read the Gospels. The main thing that comes through to me is that Rabbi Jesus taught his followers to do all they could to support those in need and the least among us. He taught that the rich have a special duty to provide for those who need help.
A large segment of those on the other side from me politically is the Christian Right. They seem to support programs to take from the poor and give to the rich by cutting anti-poverty programs and cutting taxes for the richest among us. To me, this seems to be the opposite of what Rabbi Jesus taught his followers, yet the members of the Christian Right claim to be followers of Jesus. This is what has consistently troubled me about their politics, and I would love to hear an explanation from members of the Christian Right.
I am glad that Cory Booker is trying to start a dialog with conservatives. We need dialog. Too much of what I see supported by conservatives seems too inconsistent with the teaching that many of them claim to follow, and that is a big part of what I would love to see explained in the dialog.
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@Sans Souci Christian Right is not a monolithic bloc except for one issue and that is abortion. Supreme Court and overturning Roe v Wade has been the rallying cry. All you have to do is look at folks who voted for Roy Moore. No dialog with this bloc will do any good.
Other factors such as race, gender identity (LGBTQ), and hatred of federal government are some of the other factors that drive some other blocs.
Republican Party and some of the Libertarians (who don't care for the values) have successfully used this coalition (value play) to drive their agenda against redistribution.
Some of the secondary value issues can be addressed through the dialog but now the coalition has shifted somewhat and rural folks primarily in Mid West where race has not been a major factor have joined since they feel left behind. It is this new coalition that has put Trump in the White House.
Social changes have occurred too fast but people on the right are adjusting to it. We need the right voice to speak to the folks who feel that their traditional identity is being threatened socially and economically.
8
@Sans Souci This conservative will gladly have that dialog when the left stops trying to expropriate more of my AGI that they don't already forcibly take. Conservatives by the way tend to be more charitably inclined than liberals and this conservative would gladly given even more away if government stopped vacuuming up my money for far less worthy causes.
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@Once From Rome
Actually, that stat about conservative charity has been definitively debunked.
When you exclude donations to one's own church (a church that often preaches hate and destruction of the "other" - so much for the Christian meaning of charity, which is about love [agape], not money) it turns out that liberal charity is far more than that of conservatives.
15
With the Republicans having now shifted far to the right, there appear to be two completely different visions of what kind of country the US should be. On the Democratic side the vision is for a country full of all types of people who are tolerant of those who are different and a government that is secular and fully democratic. On the Republican side the vision appears to be a country of white Christians that is authoritarian and patriarchal. It is hard to see how Cory Booker or anyone else can bring these two sides together. Given the existential threat of climate change that must be addressed immediately you would think Americans could at least agree to work together on that and it would be a way to bring the country together. But the Republican side is out of reality and for the most part denies that climate change is occurring or blames it on nature rather than on humans. I don't know how the country can get together when about a third of the country is stuck in the right media ecosystem and constantly absorbs propaganda and avoids the truth. I think the best thing to do is to counter that is improving institutions that are dedicated to the truth such as newspapers, magazine, libraries, and colleges and universities. We can't do much about the Fox News and Limbaugh crowd but we can do a better job of providing the truth for those who seek it as way of preserving democracy in the face of attempts by the right wing to undermine it.
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Indeed, David, this would be a welcome path and welcome candidate. So far he’s my first choice.
I recently met several Trump supporters and found we had so much in common and enjoyed one another’s company- but as for Trump himself I cannot say the same.
Looking for the right person to deliver a high road “ have you no shame, Mr Trump” moment. Might be Cory Booker.
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Today's polling: CNN, the frontmost fighters in the media's war against the American President, admits that 71% of the voters credit Trump with the great situation for workers.
Get those people to vote the way that poll reflects, and both houses of Congress might have unstoppable Republican numbers.
We'd have to thank the progressive media for that, of course.
The way the media kneeled for Obama and his secrecy brigade, never asking the first question irritated thinking voters. This made-up war against Trump re-solidifies his voting base daily.
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@The Observer
My observation is that only very old people take polls while the watch Fox news.
Younger people don’t take polls OR watch Fox.
I guess we will see what happens in 2020, but the 50% of the population who didn’t like either candidate enough to bother voting, might be the deciding factor.
7
@The Observer Here is a fine example of the Trumpist mentality. The post is tendentious and fatuously accusatory, relying on schoolyard taunts. Woing high won't sway such a mind, but nor will going low. We need to reach those who are more open to reasoned discourse who nonetheless were taken in by Trump. Civility is essential.
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@The Observer So how do you explain 2018 then?
You see what you want to see.
Mr. Brooks, I would agree that patriotism, hopefulness, and gratitude are admirable traits, and applaud Senator Booker for espousing them. But much of what has led us to where we are at this point in time can be attributed to vast income inequality and lack of response from politicians who legislate to the benefit of the corporations who fund them and thus do not respond to us, the so called "little people".
One concern I have about Senator Booker is just this - the amount of money he takes from the pharmaceutical, and other, industries. How can an individual politician serve two masters?
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Broken record (remember those?). The people Mr. Brooks met in the center of the country. Most are not evil. In fact, on a personal level, they are proably a lot nicer than I am. The trouble is that, either because they are poorly informed or afflicted with misplaced fears, they vote for meanspirited conmen and support policies that hurt themselves and the country. This makes them complicit with bad stuff.
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@arp - Very possibly true.
Approaching them as a good person to a good person, may be the only way to engage them in a dialogue in which they can be exposed to better quality information that allays their misplaced fears.
I firmly believe that the FIRST step is to encourage them to express themselves freely, and to LISTEN respectfully, to what they have to say. Understand their concerns at an emotional level. Ally with them. Then gently guide their focus towards better solutions to their concerns.
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You missed the point of this article. Your presumption that you know better than the people David Brooks met in Nebraska is exactly what he’s taking about, just in a milder form.
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@J Jencks
I know people like this, and I agree with you to a certain extent. BUT, they are people after all, and the sort of people who support racists, demagogues, and violence generally have a chip on their shoulders or are suffering from deep self-doubt. You can be as nice as you want with them, and you can walk on egg shells, but you'd BETTER BELIEVE that their well-developed antennae are extended to the max to pick up some inkling of how you feel. If they think you are different than them, then you will be their enemy.
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