But, who are you, David? A republican or conservative? I used to think of you as a conservative, as you define him/her. But, you recent pieces have been skirting the ongoing chaos, almost avoiding taking a stance.
5
50 years ago The Republican Party created the Southern Strategy, the conscious effort to appeal to the segregationist Strom Thurmond and George Wallace Democratic voters.
In the 1980’s the Republican Party gave us the culture wars and Reagan and the dog whistle politics of welfare queens and States Rights and created the Reagan Democrats.
In the 1990’s we got the Newt Gingrich House of Representatives take no prisoners confrontation, the Clinton impeachment, Whitewater, and Vince Foster murder conspiracy.
With Obama, they created the Tea Party and gave us the birthers, death panels, and support of the Confederate flag.
They coopted Christians with abortion instead working to get women birth control.
And all these years, the Republican politicians have been using the Reaganomics talking points of small government and tax cuts for the job creators coming from the right-wing think tanks.
For thirty five years, the rising tide of Trickle Down Reaganomics has mostly helped the wealthy at the expense of the rest.
And the Republican establishment is sick, just sick I tell you, to think of Trump representing the Republican Party.
They can’t understand how the Republican voters, who have been losing their manufacturing jobs all these years as Mitt Romney and his Wall St. colleagues sent those jobs to China, these same voters who have been listening to talk radio and Fox all these years, how they can blindly follow Trump and not listen to reason.
72
STOP WITH "COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM"!!!
Bush used the nice campaign catch phrase to get moderates...please tell me what Cheney allowed him to implement that was remotely compassionate other than the reduced Rx.
Bush must be loving the rampage of the American version of the insane King George the III. The sieve-like memories of Americans are thinking, "Dubya ain't so bad compared to the Dread Tyrant Trump."
16
I'm sorry, David, but your laying claim to some illusive GOP 'sacred space' reeks of the same condescending piety as when the your party brazenly usurped 'family values'. There's nothing sacred coming from your party now, and the family values meme would be laughable if it weren't so monumentally tragic.
44
Your history of conservatism and liberalism is so full of fancifulness that it's getting hard to take you seriously anymore. Marxism is bad, but to a large degree, they had it right. This country was founded by aristocrats who didn't want to pay English taxes, and make money employing slaves and stealing natural resources. They descended from English nobility that had achieved their riches through constant war and hyper-stratified classism. No need to be ashamed of that, it's just history. You only make sense when you go into the market-based ethology which admires the robber-barons but has no place for their occasional philanthropy.
4
David Brooks, thank you for"Republican or Conservative", a great article. On the Channel 13 Friday news You are harder to
follow sometimes. You make your point and than meander.
with respect...Jacob.
The truth is much simpler and less complicated. At this point, you can be a Republican or a decent human being, but not both. You have to choose.
33
The great experiment is over and we see the logical progression of this failed idea of "enlightened" conservatism.
Conservative > Republican > Nationalist > Facist
Conservatives and sacred space? Bonds of affection? Huh? Reagan railed against "big government" but used it in every way to advance a very destructive agenda.
David has almost this entire year written columns that are so divorced from current reality and from his own participation in the degradation of the so-called Republican ideal - that I am at a loss to comprehend it. And yes, I know that David dislikes Trump intensely. But his failure to see the downward trajectory of this party over the last 40 years, his step by step rationalizations to support Republican causes, and the patent dismissal of opposing views is akin to the proverbial frog in the pot warming up to a boil.
I now see how a population can stepwise throw off politeness, then denigrate the other, then attack those who are different religiously, culturally or who just oppose your view, and then destroy the other by exclusion and finally violence. We are living through it. I don't think that is an overstatement.
I think David is a fine and decent human being but is in denial.
There is not going to be a resurrection of conservative ideals in this century. Republicans in concert with Fox News have created a monster. There may be no stopping it unless people with actual community, faith, and affection (i.e., the Democrats) can save us.
22
I'm glad to hear there are only about a dozen real conservatives in the U.S. The post-Obama radicalized conservatives / Republicans in reality stand for tax cuts for the rich, spending cuts for the poor, worse income inequality, stronger military, exclusion of non-white/non-Christians, greater state control over women's bodies, and no reasonable restrictions on guns.
Fiscal conservatives paying attention already vote Democrat; it was Clinton who balanced the budget and Obama who kept spending frozen at the level he inherited for five years, unheard of austerity that slowed the recovery. It is Trump who has added almost 50% to the 10-year deficit trajectory he inherited from Obama.
Republicans ignore all matter of sins of their leader provided he intends to make America as white as possible. It's inexcusable and disgusting.
27
We are in a sad state of affairs when both parties have been taken over by extremists. Conservatives are extreme in their desire to mix their religious beliefs with our laws. Progressives are extreme in their almost (?) communist beliefs and their utter lack of understanding unintended consequences.
13
This is why it is a truism that there is no such thing as a "Conservative Intellectual." They can't figure out that "liberals" want the same as they do, they just want to include everyone, not just the local group. Where "conservatism" falls down is in it's instance of "conserving" the bad with the good. "Conservatives" and their representatives - the Republican Party - are rightly known for preserving mostly racism and bigotry, because they cannot figure out how to "conserve" their "values" without excluding anyone who does not look like them or follow their beliefs exactly. in other words, fascism.
34
"Republicans" as you define them have not been relevant for at least 40 years. That has been demonstrated most recently by the pitifully minuscule number of "Never Trump" republicans. That the party would fully accept a despicable person like Trump is all we need to know about what the Party's "values" really are.
But the Republican Party as I have known it for the past 40 years is utterly anti-family, anti-American and anti-people. They are only interested in Power and Money. The former the means to the latter. That's it. Nothing else matters to Republicans. And make no mistake, the Republicans ARE the Conservatives in that they carry the political banner for them. My view of Republican/ Conservatives is that they are utterly corrupt, lie constantly, are ruthless in their pursuit to make everyone follow their path, even as they are clearly in the minority of the American population. They have no solutions to anything because they care about nothing except power and money. It is tragicomic that they have branded themselves as the Family Values party and then fight AGAINST affordable healthcare, good public schools, good infrastucture etc.
Republican/ Conservatives are, above all, people who believe that everyone is on their own. Society is meaningless. Indeed, the past 40 years has proven that Republican/ Conservatives are nothing but sociopaths.
26
Brook's "sacred space" is the same kind of space that turned Atticus Finch into a saint: genteel, unquestioned white supremacy. Those days are over, as they should be.
14
Brooks has it wrong. Conservatism as it shaped the constitution emphasized negative liberty, i.e. the first ten amendments limit what the government may do. That is why many struggled to find a way that that the constitution could be used to constrain slavery. Lincoln, with others, found a formula: Slavery was local, freedom national. (Cf. James Oakes, Freedom National).
This permitted Lincoln to sign the Confiscation Acts, which were the precursors of the Emancipation. At Gettysburg, Lincoln made it clear that the Declaration of Independence created positive liberty, i.e., in the name of public welfare, the government had a positive role in expanding liberty to those denied its fruits. Note that it was FDR and LBJ who expanded that idea, opposed by conservatives then and now, who still seek to destroy both the New and Fair Deals.
24
People like David Brooks and George Will may think that they are true conservatives or Republicans. But the fact of the matter is that most of the conservatives or Republicans are not with them. They are with Trump. They identify with most of the Trump's policies, though they have concerns with his personal deficiencies and harsh rhetoric. They are ready to tolerate his personal failings as long as it is tolerable. They are ready to correct him when he goes beyond a tolerable level as in the case of separation of parents and children and he is ready and capable of correcting himself. Pundits like Brooks and Will are elites living in their own world aloof from real life concerns of ordinary people and believing in some dogmas like free trade, millionaire cuts, etc. They are still not able to swallow the fact that Trump was elected by the people without giving much credence to their pontifications. It appears that their collective wisdom got it right.
10
As an artist in my mid forties, I’ve never known the Republican/ Conservative party to support the arts as you claim (“The practical upshot is that conservatives have always placed tremendous emphasis on the sacred space where individuals are formed. This space is populated by institutions like the family, religion, the local community, the local culture, the arts...”). Cutting funding for all artistic and creative institutions is not what most of us consider support. Can republicans start discussing their party as it actually has been in the last 50 years?
27
This disagreement among conservatives reminds me of a novel by Anthony Burgess called "The Wanting Seed." Therein the thesis is presented that historical cycles alternate between Pelagianism (humans are fundamentally good, laws are guideposts, punishments are light) and Augustinianism (humans are basically evil, laws are necessary to keep them in line, punishments must be harsh). After a Pelagian period, an "Interphase" occurs as the government is disappointed by the behavior of humans, police forces are beefed up, and totalitarianism begins. Eventually the government rues its Augustinian totalitarianism, relaxes its constraints, and a Pelagian phase begins anew.
Where are the conservatives in this cycle? Where are we as a nation?
2
Mr. Brooks' premise thesis contains a generalization about liberals which is untrue.
Liberals aren't the same as Socialists. We do not see "the state" as "the one solution." Liberals see government programs as necessary when the private institutions and networks of which Mr. Brooks speaks so lovingly are failing or have failed our fellow citizens.
For example, FDR's social safety net programs responded to the inability of families, churches, communities, private foundations, and state and local governments to prevent millions of Americans from dying which came to a crisis level during the Great Depression. After the excesses of the private financial system had crashed the economy and thrown hard working citizens out of their jobs, temporary federal programs also put them back to work, in service to their country.
Likewise, President Johnson's Great Society programs responded to the continuing inadequacy of private organizations and networks, and the failure of local and state governments, to keep people unable to work from dying prematurely alone in their homes.
It was President Nixon, hardly a liberal, who signed the Older Americans Act, continuing this work to secure the safety of citizens unable help themselves, in this case who not only weren't being helped, but too often were being victimized by the family members and private institutions charged with their care. He, too, recognized the role of government in saving lives and dignity.
27
Let's assume that Trump's paramount objective is continuance of the oligarchy - rule of the 1/10th of 1% of which he is a member. Of course, he might justifiably work towards that aim if he were to convince more than 50% of the population that such is their interest as well. That's where tariffs come in. What happens when Harley Davidson has to foot the bill, or the Bourbon distillers of Kentucky or pig farmers of Iowa. Talk about your sacred space!
We'll see how those things work out. Meantime, Mr. David Brooks, how about you go to town on a replacement for the term "climate change" - we already have planetary death on the doorstep right here today with temps of minus 140 degrees (-100C).
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/the-coldest-temperature-eve...
4
David, you are not seeing the core difficulty of your understanding of conservatism. So you wish to nurture bonds of affection and community. Well it is very easy to understand the affective community as an ethnie which is seen as an extension of family. This is after all the fundamental problem of historic nationalism. Ethnicity, culture and language define the affective community from which the nation emerges but they also define an excluding group which must define itself against the other. To define the community we also define the other and the other becomes the object of resistance which can devolve into hatred.
3
Well Brooks, it's your Party and you can do what you want to, but for the rest of us, it might be a bit more inviting if your sophistry was based on something more solid.
In America, the Republican Party grew up with Capitalism and embodies many of the same traits of American Capitalism. When Capitalism has been more progressive than reactionary, as arguably, in the case of the Civil War, Black reconstruction, the trust busting era of Teddy Roosevelt, or the subsequent progressivism of Robert LaFollette et al, the Republican Party has been progressive.
When Capitalism has been more about celebrating wealth and letting the pigs at the trough sup to they're full, so has the Republican Party. And despite Trump and Bannon's cultural and class feints towards the white working class, the Republican Party continues to represent the rich and powerful and the system that sustains them. (And frankly, by and large, so do the Democrats.)
Conservativism as an ideology did not even come into the equation until the last 40 years and even then it was mostly as a fig leaf for Nixon's southern strategy and everything that flowed from it.
Yes, TS Eliot was a real conservative but I'm not as sure about John Ruskin. I guess you'd have to ask him. But regardless, whatever its pretenses, American Conservatism has always been less about ideas than a defense of the Ruling Class and the best-of-all-possible-worlds status quo it's created.
9
It is fascinating how Brooks has managed to reinvent the conservatism of the party he has supported for nearly half a century by claiming that their traditional brand of conservatism has upheld community over the individual when, in fact, their almost Spencerian social Darwinism has been the salient feature of Republican politics since the 1980s. Or perhaps he hasn't noticed that "community" only counts for Republicans when it's a white community. The most pernicious myth plaguing this country is the myth of the individual as the autonomous, self-made person whose freedom to choose whatever the hec she/he wants to choose (unless they're women or people of color) is sacrosanct, and the most aggressive proponents of this reading of the individual that erases all vestiges of the society that imprints itself upon us from the moment we are born has been the Republican Party. The myth is vital to justifying inequality, capitalist exploitation, and white privilege. Brooks lives in a strange little world in which he consistently ignores the reality staring him in the face.
22
Hungary’s Victor Orban has touted “illiberal democracy” as the wave of the future. He emphasizes tradition, religious and ethnic homogeneity, the family, and the kinds of institutions that Mr. Brooks finds “conservative.” Orban and other of today’s strong leaders often find “democratic” support for their “illiberal democracy.” Meantime, I weary of the attacks on “Liberalism,” which, in its fullest meaning, brought us the US Declaration of Independence and civil rights, ended slavery, worked for the rights of labor, of women and of those called “minorities.” emphasized the 14th amendment, and eventually elevated even those with sexual differences to the legal position of equality before the law. It worked diligently to craft a “liberal international order.” As an economic teaching it brought the most astounding growth in history. It encouraged science. It never has been against affection and neighborliness. It is, though, cosmopolitan, not parochial. That is, it realizes that we live in a world, not in a cocoon. Let’s be clear: at this moment, Trump and his ilk are NOT attacking conservatism. They are attacking Liberalism.
11
Humans are a tribal species. The key is to convince people to view their "tribe" as the people of the Nation (or the world). If they view their tribe as Republican/Conservative (or Democrat/Liberal), especially emotionally so, then "the other" will be viewed as an adversary or even an enemy, resulting in the divisiveness among citizens that we see today.
Human nature (e.g., evolutionary psychology) needs to be taught in our schools and colleges. With a better understanding of the basics of how the human mind words, people will then be better able to recognize when politicians are pandering to tribalism, not reason.
Absent an informed AND educated public (including the education I describe above), any democracy will falter.
2
Dang, I'll have what Brooks is having...whatever it takes for me to look at the history of conservative thought and see rainbows and kittens and flowers and laughing little children.
I mean, all of my life my brain, family, and friends have told me I'm a bleeding heart liberal. Brooks tells me that I've been a conservative all along. Who could possibly be against the ideals that have led the way forward while staving off the attacks of demonic forces? Not me. Boom! I'm conservative.
What? You say Brooks is living in a self-made bubble that somehow keeps conservative traditions of tyranny, eugenics, inequality, and cronyism from his view? You say that those traditions are thriving like never before, literally, like never since the good ol' USA became the preeminent power on Earth? Say all you want. I'm drinking Brooks's happy juice and joining him in the bubble.
13
"Membership in these institutions is not established by rational choice. We are born into them most of the time and are bonded to them by prerational cords of sympathy and affection. We gratefully inherit these institutions from our ancestors, we steward them and pass them along to our descendants."
Only a white guy can say this with a straight face.
17
Amen, amen, amen. I have been saying that about ‘ol dude for years now.
4
You go to war with the Army and general you've got, and you do the best you can. In this case, the general of the conservative side of the ledger is Trump. He is full of ugly flaws, but from a conservative point of view he is still far better than the candidate and a party he defeated. When it comes down to having Trump, or a leader of a Democratic party veering leftward at the helm? No contest, if you're a conservative. (If you're not, obviously, this comment is not for you).
It’s curious that you just re-appropriated a Donald Rumsfeld quote that justified an unnecessary war of choice, given to us by – wait for it – Conservatives.
Now we all have an insane President that’s completely off the rails, and once again Conservatives rally to the biggest loudmouth that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy; when this is all over, you’re going to wonder what you were thinking to support Trump, in exactly the same way many Conservatives asked themselves afterwards why they supported George W. Bush.
Conservatism is dead. The altar you’re worshipping at now, my friend, is xenophobic nationalism championed by a narcissistic tyrant that doesn’t understand or respect the rule of law or the Constitution.
8
How much of Trumpism was inherent in the Republican Party before Trump? This is an essential question for Republicans who do not like Trumpism.
5
The Republican party of Lincoln was very great. They embraced social change and the undoing of an entrenched institution, slavery.That party is worth returning to.
At the outset of our country the church was not an independent magnanimous institution that could be utilized for public good. It was lethal to those not well connected.The church played extremely corrosive roles in France, Spain, Russia and other countries. Conservatism is dead wrong when they think that this institution belongs within government itself. We have seen many times that when state and religion collude they do so to the detriment of both. It's the separation that's kept religion strong here. I used to stay the same about the state, but that's up for grabs now. The church's embrace of trump is very weird.
8
There is not a single member of the Tea Party / current Republican mainstream/right wing who could articulate this definition of conservatism or its foundational principles. Even if you thought it was an accurate articulation, to which I do not stipulate, it is an argument that none of those it describes could possibly make. They don't see their movement as having this philosophical basis.
10
One of Brooks' best columns. So sad that it has come to this.
1
In the 20th century the Republican party has become the party of the rich trying not to conserve but to add to what they already have. To make the wealthy wealthier, they discovered they could appeal a huge swath of white skinned Americans. Cleverly using code words, starting with Nixon and ending with Bush they managed to lock her up, her being virtually all of the southern or South America. Throw in a few rusty belts from the mid-west and, voila, you've got a President elected to cut taxes, start wars or keep them going, prevent women from having abortions...etc. ad nauseam. All of this was cleverly wrapped up in a corset with with a picture of the American flag. Suddenly Trump has performed an exquisite volte-face. The whole 20th century charade was exposed tout court. The self proclaimed Party of Lincoln (may he rest in peace) was exposed tout court, finding themselves with unanswerable questions. (1) To be or not to be Republican? (2) To be or not to be Conservative? To take arms against the slings and arrows of Trump or???
6
There was a time when the Republican party did stand for conservative principles. That stopped in 1968 when it became win at any and all costs. Especially the costs to ideals and principles and ethics.
The republican party has become the American fascist party and has been doing so for this past half century. And it has received much boosting from the pens of Kristol, Schmidt, and Brooks. You so called conservative pundits have sainted Reagan, who put the "southern strategy" on steroids (and opioids); and you sat by while t rump ran his con on US.
I am glad that you seem to be coming around to the truth that voting for republicans and against democrats is going to lead to the end of our democracy.
For that I will give thanks.
15
Mr. Brooks should have titled his opinion piece "I Have to Choose".
9
Many people only begin to see the flaws, biases, superstitions, and limitations of their education in "sacred spaces" when they leave home to attend college. Those who don't go on to college usually retain their flawed and limited view of the world. Such people become Republicans and conservatives. How can one see a Trump voter as anything other than ignorant or stupid?
16
"....the flaws, biases, superstitions, and limitations of their education in 'sacred spaces'"
Quite wrong. It is college itself that indoctrinates
flaws, biases, and superstitions such as political correctness.
Not stupid; not ignorant; there are examples all around you. It's something else. Tribalism may be a worthwhile word for it. Key is that these people are not "lessor" in any sense, including education and intelligence. That's an easy wrong explanation; They are just tribal.
3
Conservatives may have gravitated to the GOP of Mr. Brooks' father because they had some affinity to some of its policies, like support of religion, free trade, global leadership and fiscal responsibility, but the GOP has always been about making sure the rich get richer while the poor and working classes get just enough to be sure they will not revolt. Back then, all conservatives voted Republican, although not all Republicans were conservative. Today, the goals of the GOP remain the same – – the rich get richer still and and finance the GOP's grip on power so it can con the working class into believing that Republicans actually care about their well-being. To con its voters, the Republican Party now happily embraces protectionism, isolationism, fiscal irresponsibility and the most profane public figure imaginable as its leader. Mr. Brooks is naïve to believe that Republican Party would ever be so high minded as to aspire the ideals of conservatism or any other identifiable philosophical tradition other than a simple naked power grab.
14
Too simplistic and negative. My family has always been Republican -- for over a century I'd say, and didn't have any interest in helping the rich. They just wanted good solid "conservative" leaders who didn't experiment with social and economic programs.
1
"If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experiencd Patriots to prevent its Ruin." -- Sam Adams, from a letter to James Warren, Oct 24, 1780. Who cares about a trifling debate among self-proclaimed "conservatives"? Stop writing about irrelevant controversies, Brooks. The course of every American patriot is true and and simple: do everything to oppose the vain and aspiring demagogue now in the very highest seat in government. Oppose all who support Trump, which now turns out to be every Republican politician. Save the country now and worry about your precious party later.
26
Philosophy is important; It shapes humanity.
It's sickening to continually see conservatives steal liberal movements. Now the Enlightenment, according to David Brooks and Roger Scruton, was influenced by conservatives. The Enlightenment was a movement that rejected medieval, religious scholasticism. It rejected the value of religious belief especially institutionalized religion. The Founding Fathers, Madison and Jefferson especially, hated institutional religion because it was barbarous. Now conservatives are laying claim to rationality and critical thinking. No one would ever see the conservative movement as an intellectual one. What conservatives do is claim credit for some movement that makes them look a lot smarter than they are. Donald Trump is the conservative's conservative. You guys need to own it.
18
Not true; The logic would lead to Fascism being considered conservative. Quite the contrary.
1
Today's Republican party is in the same position as the Whigs were in the 1850s. Time for a change. Interesting observation made by Stu Rosenberg last night on PBS. His analysis of poling data shows that fewer people are identifying as Republicans to the pollsters which is resulting in the high approval rates among a smaller pool of self identified republican supporters of Trump. While his approval rate across all voters is down. If fewer people want to be associated with Trump's Republicans they can register as independents or Democrats. I doubt many long term republicans want to register as Democrats. If that is correct the number registered independents or registered non-party affiliation should be rising. It is time for a new party made up of the middle---the disaffected Republicans and moderate
Democrats who are fast loosing their party to the extreme left.
1
The Republican Party became the party of market fundamentalism over the past 30 years. Really?
Allow me to quote two leading figures of the Republican party of the 1920s:
The business of America is business (C. Coolidge).
Prosperity is right around the corner (H. Hoover).
8
I remember after the election seeing a CNN Town Hall which featured Bernie Sanders speaking with a group of Trump voters. It was fascinating to see how many were nodding in approval with what Sanders had to say. He seemed to connect most intensely on those points which spoke to the decline of community and the importance of the bonds between citizens. The reality is that communitarian strains run through both the left and the right. The next great leader will find away to bridge the bruising blue left tribal conflict and create a new coalition. However, I fear that we won't be ready for that until we beat each other up some more.
7
Brooks is right that the 18th Century European Enlightenment along with the 13th Century Magna Carta informed our Founders. The Bible was a reference at best to address individual freedom under our man-made social laws. Notice David Brooks omits the social significance of liberal education, public and private. Once that is taken into account for the purpose of an informed democratic electorate, Brooks' bottom-up institutional claim is not very valid. He has the cart before the horse.
Einstein once said Common Sense is everything one learns before they turn 18 years of age. You know, that is the growth period when a patriarchal family unit tells you what is right and wrong with the world. I know our family and community laid that on me. I think that is a true understanding of how we learn.
Brooks also makes no mention of the loud and bold Conservative attack on our institutions of higher learning for that very reason.
3
Is Burlington Vermont deep red? Just asking, I don't know but I do know Salt Lake City isn't and I assumed he was saying one or the other was. If so David has a bad case of "flyover" syndrome.
3
Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington.
That should answer your question.
2
Yes, I did know it wasn't but given how off Mr. Brooks was about SLC I was being a little sarcastic. Kind of odd singling out two very liberal cities as examples of what he thinks of as a foundational principle of conservatism.
2
.
Mr. Brooks makes a number of entirely valid points, but what he doesn't understand is that conservatism resides within the Republican body, and Trump is the cancer that has metastasized to all parts of it. Every vital organ is infected.
And when the disease becomes that pervasive, even amputation does not cure it, because so much of each organ is infected, there's too much cancer to be successfully excised. You amputate so much of a kidney, for example, that there isn't enough of it remaining to function.
.
8
So many old school conservatives and Republicans got so used to losing that they cannot bear the stress of winning. The Trump Administration's policies such as reducing regulation, strengthening the military, reducing taxes, stopping illegal immigration and acting from a position of strength are traditional conservative policies. The only difference is that Trump is succeeding while the establishment Republicans failed. Conservative columnists such as Mr. Brooks who made their careers in the mainstream media apparently preferred to play the role of the tolerated opposition under past Democratic Party administrations and are now upset about Trump'S abrasive style and the fact that they have pushed aside.
2
Corporate interest has destroyed the "local"...just look at the downtown of any small American city and you will see empty stores, unemployment and unhealthy people eating food from the fryer. Burlington VT. may be a nice place but it is an exception. Drive through the south and midwest and you will see nothing but physical and economic depression. We need a cultural revolution in this country that powers back on things like shareholder value and encourages social participation, healthy living, tolerance and empathy. As a small city southerner and democrat I look at 'liberal' New York and Los Angeles as purveyors of media and financial poison pills that are undermining democracy and foisting unattainable life-style options on an increasingly bedraggled populous. The fact that a New York con-man and rapscallion like Trump has made such a splash in the South is an indication of how much rot has set in. Granted, the leadership down here has generally been dubious throughout the history of the Republic, but now it has totally abandoned the best interests of the majority of its citizens. America is the most materialist society on earth and that point of view has gotten us where we are today. Republicans, conservatives, democrats and liberals have all bought into the basic framework which is unworkable if we are going to have a decent society. Time for America 2.0
14
“The Republican Party became the party of market fundamentalism.”
... and Biblical Fundamentalism and Second Amendment Fundamentalism and Originalist Fundamentalism...
27
A group defines itself by what it is not, using sterotypes, generalizations to understand 'the other' and usually more so to understand themselves and see where they are within the group hierarchy. Usually hostility is directed inward, and referred to as 'social climbing' or in the social psych world 'ingroup hostility' to make gains. When people leave the group - both good and bad that is a toxic flag. I see mostly outgroup hostility and droves of independent and moderates leaving their party affiliation. The republican base is down 2% since 2017 a gallup poll finds. Tangentially, we are only a two party system. When I joined the workforce, the CFO of a major retailer warned us - you write your bosses name on the bathroom wall - it might as well be yours too. With this idea of interdependence moving from individual to national system level, the degradation of the humanity/civility of the Republican party has meant that we are all suffering. We really do need the Republican party to become stronger in its ideals and leadership. Politics is as mentioned here a sport. And when I played tennis, the game was only as good as my opponents ability to turn back the ball. I think Republican, Democrat, Independent we are all capable of doing better and for our Democracy it is a must. In 2018, save the two party system and vote out the Republicans, its their only hope, our only hope to maintain democracy for the next two years under this administration.
8
"Conservative" is a brand--in the past it meant anti-monarchy, reason, consent of the governed, Enlightenment, free individuals, social contract--
Except--"individuals emerge out of families" and polities--"order comes first. Individual freedom is an artifact of that order."
See Plato's "Crito"--Socrates pre-execution discussion--he says the polis is like his parent; he has a duty to obey--and not escape.
Not even to avoid an absurd death sentence? The unstated--but glaring point--is not all parents are worth obeying. "Honor thy father and mother" presumes they are honorable. "Due respect" is a tautology and a double edged sword.
So too any polis--blind patriotism (the etymon of 'patriot' is 'pater'--father)--"My country right or wrong" almost guarantees it will be wrong.
Yes "freedom" without government is nonsense--since your freedom requires the unfreedom--enforced constraint of everyone else preventing inference.
But the goal of brand marketing is blind brand loyalty--permitting changing the product garner market share. That applies to Ford, Chevy and Dodge as well as Catholic, Republican and Conservative. Today's Republicans are a travesty compared to Lincoln's party.
And today's "Conservative" is precisely the "Free-from-government"party. That almost guarantees political control transfers to mega corporations. It means Corporatism--Feudalism updated--moneylords replacing landlords.
Nice try--you are a white knight of the Feudalists.
7
There were in Ward & June Cleaver's Mayfield no blacks, no poor, no Hispanics, no Others - as DB well knows yet again omits from this latest paean to the mythical Conservative Homeland.
9
I am just sad to say conservative or not today there is only Trump and rest in GOP do not count , unfortunately the white population just loves Trump ( overtly or covertly ) and his obnoxious behavior.
Rest just gave in and left. yes "Left the GOP " to really become into Trumps party.
Sadly Russia cannot be ignored ( remember what Trump said just a month back about letting Russia Back in as there was no reason to keep it out of G7 ) .
If you are in GOP today you are a Russian "stooge" as is evident by the sophisticated Russian operation still in place june 2018 and no patriotic Republican has tried to break that mist yet. Just plain sad!
3
We need all the help we can get to overcome the corrupt electoral process that allowed the Republican Party to grease Trump into the Oval Office with Russian help. If conservatives, even lifelong Republicans want to join in the effort to restore democracy and sanity because Donald Trump- the face of the Republican Party- has proven himself to be a lying, incompetent racist, then more power to them! They will be putting country ahead of Party.
4
Mr. Brooks: It is YOU who has a choice. Walk your well-paid talk. Either continue to preach to the converted, or take some of your salary, buy space in small conservative newspapers, and reprint your essay where those who need to see it, do!
5
David don't forget Spinoza!!!
2
This is the so called fiscal conservative who suggested on PBS newshour that Dems should “just give him the wall.” Wrong on so many levels. Waste of money, for one - appeasement and enabling of evil, second - third, it won’t end there! It will just encourage more evil. Stand and fight! Stand and fight! Stand and fight!
6
I would like to add the town of Calistoga to David's list of nurturing communities. We are Hispanic, Anglo Saxon, African American and Russian. We work together to support our industries which are wine and hospitality. This past year we built a Boys and Girls Club, fifteen years ago a community swimming pool. Twenty years ago we bought land to provide playing fields and a Veteran's Memorial. We have two Russian Orthodox churches, Baptist, Catholic, Jehovah's Witness and Presbyterian. We are politically diverse but eventually come to a good decision. Who could ask for more.
4
Trump can't be all bad. He's had a positive effect on David Brooks, which is quite a feat in itself.
4
Mr.Brooks is a conservative but reasonable and logical pundit. I am a liberal Democrat but loves to read his op-ed and listens to him in radio and TV. Republican Party has undergone a radical change since Trump won the nomination. Today the Republican party is Trumpist Republican Party which is a white supremacist, KKK, NRA and Isolationists combination. This party was created by the FOX TV and Rush Limbaugh. Trump joined this new hateful Republican Party by starting Birther Movement with air support from FOX TV. The Republican Party under the leadership of Ryan and McConnell gave tacit support to Trump and slowly lost the control. 16 good proven Republican leaders lost to once Democrat characterless converted Republican with the help from FOX TV and the right wing talk radio. When good people keep their mouth shut or tolerate the wrong , the result is Trump in White House.
7
Too much complicity by republicans to save your party ! Republican have turned it into a fascist party and looking the other way when Trump and his administration edicts kidnapping children from their parents and interning them. Many of these children will never be reunited with their parents because of Trump’s bungled and horrific policy. Then, there is the tariff wars against our allies while the Trump family enriches itself with China. No, the Republican Party needs to be completely dismantled to be able to start over and become the Republican Party of Ike !
3
What would Brooks know about being anything other than a dyed in the wool leftist? Just like McCain.
1
Sorry David, the choice as I see it is not so simple. It's not Republican, Conservative, Democratic, Liberal, or even one I have longed for, "None of the Above". It is right or wrong.
As a lifelong liberal Dem ('60/JFK) the one thing I can agree with any of the aforementioned is their stance on Trump: Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down.
Trump's hate, his demagogy, his utter disdain for not only regular order and due process, but any order at all, any sense of decency, any adherence to the rule of law and rules of proper etiquette and decorum, which dictates my choice.
We have reached the great divide. Trump is the reason for engaging in what I believe is an unavoidable Second Civil War. This time it's not about Slavery, something all of US are now against. This time it's about right and wrong. I believe Trump is wrong, dead wrong, so wrong he presents a clear and present danger to himself and the Republic. Trump is out to destroy the two plus centuries experiment of democracy.
Trump is a vile racist misogynist. He is a sad excuse for a human being. I disliked this braggart from the day grabbed onto his Daddy's coattails, crossed the East River from Queens to Manhattan. He was an egotistical blowhard then. Nothing has changed, except as he's aged, he's gotten worse. He's been on a downward spiral since he's entered his senior years.
My choice? As ardent Hillary supporter, anyone of the 16 other Republicans who ran would have been better. Is that clear enough?
DD
Manhattan
10
I hope David is working on a similar analysis of Democrats/progressives.
2
Yes, then he can be wrong on one hand, and the other.
2
"Conservative" is a brand--in the past it meant anti-monarchy, reason, consent of the governed, Enlightenment, free individuals, social contract--
Except--"individuals emerge out of families" and polities--"order comes first. Individual freedom is an artifact of that order."
See Plato's "Crito"--Socrates pre-execution discussion--he says the polis is like his parent; he has a duty to obey--and not escape.
Not even to avoid an absurd death sentence? The unstated--but glaring point--is not all parents are worth obeying. "Honor thy father and mother" presumes they are honorable. "Due respect" is a tautology and a double edged sword.
So too any polis--blind patriotism (the etymon of 'patriot' is 'pater'--father)--"My country right or wrong" almost guarantees it will be wrong.
Yes "freedom" without government is nonsense--since your freedom requires the unfreedom--enforced constraint of everyone else preventing inference.
But the goal of brand marketing is blind brand loyalty--permitting changing the product garner market share. That applies to Ford, Chevy and Dodge as well as Catholic, Republican and Conservative. Today's Republicans are a travesty compared to Lincoln's party.
And today's "Conservative" is precisely the "Free-from-government"party. That almost guarantees political control transfers to mega corporations. It means Corporatism--Feudalism updated--moneylords replacing landlords.
Nice try--you are a white knight of the Feudalists; for tips?
4
Where are the examples of the type of conservatives you laud running for election to Congress this year? What candidates running as Republicans fit your idea of real conservatives?
Your column strikes me as pedantic and a copout. Instead of irrelevant columns like this when are you going to leave fantasyland and deal with reality in 2018? You should have done what George Will did -- urge Americans to vote for Democrats and throw the Republicans out of office. What's your idea, leave wrong-headed Tea Party Trumpette Republicans in office until your fantasy of a resurgence of "real" conservativism offers a slate of candidates that have a chance of being elected?
I live in the here and now. Take a REAL stand in 2018.
6
I am sure Trump supporters have their personal reasons for hating their neighbors, like the South hated the North in the Civil War. To me this shows a lack of taking responsibility for one's actions and a complete lack of civility. Blame someone else, anyone else, for your problems. Everyone makes his own bed.
3
I find your commentary refreshing.
Republican or Christian; self-identified Christians must choose.
3
Uh, just choose BOTH!
Oh boy what would my GOP friends do if they didn’t have the word Conservative as a label for the Republican Party, That word has some kind of magic that turns the GOP into some kind of institution that cares about what is good and right, and nothing to do with destroying our planet our middle class our economy our allies and yes the so called shinning city upon a hill.
7
"Rather, individuals emerge out of families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nations. The order comes first." -- "Emerge out of"? For the multitudes of our forbears who emigrated from the villages Poland and Russia, and southern Italy, and Ireland, they did so as individuals in order to ESCAPE their "families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods, and nations."
5
Let's talk about "Sacred Space" incorporating slavery, bigotry, and just plain bullying (the 'Bully Pulpit' will never be regarded the same way again). There have long existed such perverse elements within the umbrella of Conservatism that can only be described as despicable.
6
If Mr. Brooks is using Salt Lake City for his example of a "deep red" community, then I guess he's never been there. It, like most US cities, is a blue dot in an ocean of red.
9
To me Brooks describes the 'sacred space' as an idealistic utopia. It's just not reality.
2
Brooks conflates Enlightenment ideals with Romantic ideals. He should have a look at his Enlightenment writers, particularly Kant.
1
Another feeble screed to justify the rule of the poor, who are poor because they are poor, by the Rich who are rich because they rule and rule because they are rich.
"Conservatives said we agree with the general effort but think you’ve got human nature wrong. There never was such a thing as an autonomous, free individual who could gather with others to create order. Rather, individuals emerge out of families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nations. The order comes first. Individual freedom is an artifact of that order."
I suppose that David does not see or understand the inherent and unavoidable absurdity of this statement. This point of view was manufactured by the Rich to ensure their continued Royalty. It is a concise statement of Ann Randism
4
Brooks, in his usual fumbling, fuddy, duddy way, has outline the basic problem of contemporary Republicanism. It's not about traditional conservative beliefs, it's about unquestioned loyalty to a sociopathic leader who insists he is infallible and demands to be worshipped at all times.
How anyone with any sense of integrity or decency, can not be appalled by the current Republican party is beyond me.
13
If this is true conservatism you might have to establish a new party.
The "True Conservatives, designed by Brooks" or something like that.
1
You can be a conservative or a Republican, but not both: I hope that the folks who write the scripts and the chyrons for cable news pay attention to this. Mr. Brooks: this column could be the beginning of a deeper dive--why not follow up on this topic with four or five more related columns before moving on to any other topic?
1
"...conservatives have always placed tremendous emphasis on the sacred space where individuals are formed. This space is populated by institutions like the family, religion, the local community, the local culture, the arts, the schools, literature and the manners that govern everyday life...
Conservatives fought big government not because they hated the state, per se, but because they loved the sacred space."
Yeah, and the Civil War was really about states rights. Conservatives don't hate the state per se, they hate paying taxes. Dick Armey explained it many times when he sneeringly described much of what Gov't does as 'the transfer of wealth'. In addition to ignoring the fiscal conservatism and tax aversion that animates much of the conservative movement (at the state level as well btw), the conservatism David describes conspicuously fails to address the needs of those for whom those sacred spaces have failed or do not exist. Not all families or communities are loving. The limits of communities in being able to address the needs of their people can be seen in the quality of locally funded public schools, infrastructure, and public services. Communities with a dearth of financial resources - either public or private are unable to give a hand or a job to those who need it.
Private spaces work well for people who have no need for gov't resources. People who think the private sector does everything better are the ones with money to pay people to cater to them.
6
I believe it is absurd to claim that the Republicans became the party of Market fundamentalism. The Republican Party became, and is today more so than ever, the party that worships, and seeks at all costs to our nation and society, pure political and economic power. Principle has for decades been leaking out of the party and in the last ten years the leak has turned into a torrent. The election of Trump through the Party for a loop, and it took less than a year for the Party to throw in the towel and completely prostrate itself to the President. It seems to me that the only Republican leaders exhibiting even a shred of integrity are leaving or are already out of government/politics.
It’s about power, David, as an end in itself. Concern for the sacred places? I don’t see it.
10
david,
Where is "liberty" for individuals in your "sacred spaces"
Brooks once again fails to acknowledge the ugly downside of conservatism -- its tendency to support institutions and attitudes that are corrupt to the core, such as slavery and racism. This lack of accountability runs rampant through conservatism, both historically and in contemporary society. For example, it took the Southern Baptist Convention 150 years to issue an apology for its role in support of the "evil institution."
How long will it take Trump supporters to apologize?
3
My problem with Trump "Conservatism" is that it makes some people feel like they have been given permission to be mean. I can't tell you how many social interactions I have, either been a party to personally, or seen in which people are just plan rude and mean. It's a sense of "me-ness" that creates animosity to everyone else. And it is happening because Trump has given his approval. "Old Fashion" Conservatism has been forced to the back of the room to make way for the Elephant.
6
Really Mr. Brooks, all this fiddling while Rome burns...
4
Keep hoping Trump hasn't burned the Republican party to the ground and replaced it with Father Coughlin and the KKK. It's a vain hope, but I guess nobody can take hope away if you really, really want to believe.
3
David sees the problem as a drift away from the individualism central to conservatism toward what he calls “market fundamentalism”, a focus on economic growth.
In this emphasis upon “isms” David is led off into the weeds.
The central issue is not any “ism”. It is rabble rousing, incitement of the reptilian subconscious brain and subjugation of rationality and fact-based assessment. The inflamed id has no room for “ism”. It runs far below the “ism” level.
To restore reason and reassert the conscious mind the clatter of disinformation and division from the propagandists on Twitter, Facebook, Fox TV, talk radio, rabid pulpits, internet trolls, bigoted blogs, ... all that ... must be arrested.
Stop the noise. Stop the fear mongering. Stop the slurs, the fakery.
Stop the brainwashing of America by the Mercers, Wilks bros, Koch bros, Uihleins, Sinclairs, Adelsons, etc., out to convert the USA to a banana republic!
Then we can get around to which “ism” is best.
9
G.O.P. = The Grand Obsolete Party.
3
The question is whether you have nostalgia for families and communities or you support and "conserve" them. Regarding the former, we have seen how Republicans have hollowed out the red states of middle-America, long before Trump came along. Regarding the latter, look to Scandinavia.
It is ironic that you pick Burlington, Vermont, where Bernie Sanders was mayor as an example of your kind of town. Its city council-mayor is composed mainly of Democrats and Progressives. It should show you the way out of your pondering, but having read your column for a long time, that is highly unlikely.
4
You make some good points David... and you make some points that are just too esoteric to process. You are correct in your point that a serious divergence took place in the conservative movement when it became conflated with "the market" and the soulless nature of markets.
Somewhere along the way conservatism stopped really focusing on communities and community based solutions and started to tell people that they needed less government (which was mostly defined as less taxes and less business regulation, yet greater regulation of certain social behaviors) and that less government would mean more freedom for the market to solve problems of social and economic injustice. For what it's worth, I think our liberal institutions have followed suit, with the exception that liberal institutions have at least recognized and attempted to revisit the actual social problems from time to time... Conservatives are still promising market solutions to non-market problems.
In closing, I believe in no natural law at work in matters of social institutions. The arc of history has been bending towards social institutions that recognize the rights of the individual because for many reasons, people's well-being has been on the rise in parallel and in conjunction with them. That doesn't mean rational thought itself will prevail and ensure the arc continues. We know that societies from time to time unravel. It's not what comes first that matters as much as what comes next, and last...
4
The nation is the greatest "sacred place" of all. Local communities of whatever kind, such as envisioned in this article, cannot flourish without its protection and support.
For that reason, I find the fundamental objectives of the Trump Presidency compelling. What's more, I've never considered him a Republican. And for those who may have forgotten: Trump was a Democrat for a considerable length of time.
To appreciate the importance of a principled nation to the prosperity of local communities, consider the case of religious minorities in Israel.
In the Middle East, not being a Sunni Muslim means than your church, temple, or mosque may be bombed or that you, your family and friends may be gunned down. Israel, so maligned otherwise, is the only nation in the regional where Western tolerance make it possible for a mosaic of minority communities of faith to safely flourish.
"The practical upshot is that conservatives have always placed tremendous emphasis on the sacred space where individuals are formed. This space is populated by institutions like the family, religion, the local community, the local culture, the arts, the schools, literature and the manners that govern everyday life."
Whoa! Ginormous error in your logic there Brooks.
The so-called "conservatives" of today seem to ignore that these institutions like family, the local community, the local culture, the schools, the arts, and the rest depend on stability that is provided by Government acting as curb on free-for-all capitalism and the survival of the richest, and on a social safety net (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, foodstamps).
The so called "conservatives" of today are not conservatives. They don't want to conserve anything. They are reactionaries, oligarchs, and psychopaths.
4
By the time I read this Op-Ed by David Brooks, 1072 commentators had already weighed in. Quite likely, someone else has already raised the point I want to raise, but the following text stood out to me.
"They both fizzled because over the last 30 years the parties of the right drifted from conservatism. The Republican Party became the party of market fundamentalism."
I would say it isn't just the last 30 years. Also, as you allude to later, the Republican Party had become the party of hatred. In particular, it became the party of _racism_. By now, even if Republicans don't see themselves as such, the impression abroad is that the Republican Party has become the party to which the racists gravitate. The market fundamentalism just serves to exacerbate the problem. That is a terrible association for people to have in mind, but that is what is.
"At least he understood that there’s a social order under threat."
When you use a sentence like that in any context referring to Mr. Trump, the question that naturally comes up is, just what social order you are talking about that is under threat? Is it the fear of white extinction, as Paul Krugman wrote about? Is it the fear that white people have begun to lose their grip on the levers of power? I suspect you had something else in mind, but for the reader your idea (quite valid, by the way) got tainted by the context in which you introduced it.
7
Unfortunately Brooks still believes the original lie of "conservatism," that it is the king who makes you free.
Conservative thinkers in the Age of Revolution could see that arguments that were sustaining monarchy were losing badly, so they were desperately searching for excuses to keep kings and avoid democracy.
Just like Republicans now, they were just making up stuff to try and stay in power.
This is what conservatives really believe:
Might makes right. Winners win and losers lose. If you help the weak and powerless, than you have gone soft and need to be replaced by someone willing to make the hard choices. If we have to sacrifice 5,000 U.S. troops for oil company profits in Iraq, so be it. If we have to lie to do it, so what? I don't care, do u? Only the opinions of the richest and most powerful matter. Everyone else needs to work harder and shut up. It was that way under the king. It was that way under Reagan, and it's that way under Trump.
Everything else is just propaganda.
I appreciate Brooks'moral journey, but he needs to catch up with reality soon.
The left believes in communities. The left believes that by helping each other, we all get ahead, that there is objective truth, and that the search for this truth requires evidence and logic, that the law should be based on this search for truth and justice, not on the whims of strongmen, that we need to take care of the Earth, not just dump pollution on poor people, into the skies and into our water.
Peace.
9
Mr. Brooks, I believe you have to choose...just for November 2018 and November 2020...to be a democrat. Then you can go back. We are experiencing something awful that only a huge wave of intelligence and reality can change. So, change. And then, vote.
8
Conservatives, progressives, communists, socialists, liberals, libertarians… they all have their arguments. But none of them makes sense if corruption can’t be contained. Democracies, in theory, work because everyone is supposed to live by the same rules. But rules can be gamed.
One thing we see again and again is that as forms of government age, there are individuals who figure out how to game the system. It’s not the flaw of a government that bring it down. It’s corruption.
Right now, political theory seems irrelevant because our system is corrupt. That’s why someone like Trump could become president, and that’s why we’re at a loss to fix what’s rotten. Unless we curb corruption (an endless undertaking), it won’t matter what flavor of “democracy” we have. The big winners will always be the most corrupt. It’s just a race to find more devious ways to game the system.
9
The fundamental fallacy of Brook's argument, that "order" must proceed individual "liberty", is evident in the ultra-conservative views of rural and Southern Americans. America's conservative nirvana is not the peaceful, ultra-civil Vienna opera populated by over-educated, elitist snowflakes: It's the Hobbesian world of the Wild West and the Southern plantation system - where "might makes right" and individuals violently exploit the environment and vulnerable persons for private gain. That's your American conservative heritage, David.
8
Once again, Mr. Brooks bails... Will he ever say with conviction, "This is where I stand...", and then demonstrate how he will act upon whatever stance he takes? Trump did not spring forth fully formed from the mind of Zeus. He is the end result of where the Republican Party began in the '80's under Reagan, which begat Gingrich, which begat Bush/Cheney (Compassionate Conservatism? Please), which begat the "freedom Caucus", and so on... We say that it's the Trump Party, but the truth is, Trump's policies are in lock step (except for the wacky tariffs and some aspects of foreign relations) with Republican policy... They just don't like his "style' or his "unfortunate choice of words"... Dog whistles overlooked become overt racism unchecked. Every time the last two Democratic presidents compromised with the Rep's on policy they were excoriated for being socialists and the Right just dug in deeper and became more reactionary. The Republican Party started on this slippery slope when they embraced the Neo-Goldwater Reagan as their god (remember we used to laugh that "old Ronnie was running again") and became a Reactionary force in America animated by the fears of the 60's. That's when true conservatism started to wither... Now, it's dead.
6
People who will fill seats in legislatures everywhere, ostensibly Republican, now brand themselves as "conservative." I'm seeing that label more and more on billboards, lawn signs, and campaign literature. Makes me wonder why, when I go to the polls, there is no one with a "C" following their name. They have all magically transformed into "R."
2
Brooks:
Conservatism = order before individualism
Liberalism = individualism before order
Ok. Interesting. But this is miles away from the practice of conservatism and liberalism on the ground. I think too far away to be of much use.
Here's a more standard take which has more explanatory power:
Conservatism =
* fighting to conserve the current social, political, and economic arrangements;
* longing for the arrangements of the idealized past;
* resenting those who have gained by recent changes in these arrangements;
* resenting those who attempt to change the current arrangements.
Liberalism =
* not being afraid to analyze the current arrangements and name those arrangements deemed to be inconsistent with fundamental principles such as fairness and equality under the law;
* not being afraid to change the current arrangements in an iterative manner in an attempt to mitigate the worst aspects of the current arrangements;
* resenting fat cats and fear mongers who resist change out of narrow self-interest
11
Brooks writes: "Rather, individuals emerge out of families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nations. The order comes first. Individual freedom is an artifact of that order.”
No wonder Conservatives so quickly embrace Authoritarianism. Those social constructs (family, religion, etc.) that “come first” are by their very nature hostile to individual expression. Just ask any gay person coming of age in a Conservative/Christian community... in that case order comes first at the expense of the individual.
That aside; when 90% of Republicans support Trump they’re two sides of the same toxic coin but nice try distancing one from the other...
7
In the pedantry sandwich that Babbling Brooks is prone to, he says, "In their different ways, communists, fascists, social democrats and liberals tried to use the state to perform many functions previously done by the family, local civic organizations and the other players in the sacred space."
Well, in case he didn't notice, the "sacred space" has been left vacant. We can debate why, but the family and local civic organizations have been hit hard by the forces of modern society. Long hours, long commutes surely are part of it. Two earners are requisite for any kind of middle-class life in these United States these days. And Robert Putnam and others have noted about the decline in civic organizations in "Bowling Alone", etc.
So, what we had, until recently, was a government of the gaps -- trying to deal with mom living in California, and grandparents in Florida. We need more government of the gaps because we have allowed financial survival to make us all migrant workers without community. If you're lucky you can stay put and enjoy your "sacred space". Give me a party that at least TRIES to recognize the forces at work and attempts to deal with them through public policy. To this date the only party that at least tried were the Democrats and the Democrats of today have a job to do to persuade Conservatives and others that good government can and must do that.
12
Well said.
4
David, your explanation of the core beliefs or foundation of conservatism (as you see it) is very illuminating and helpful. You put it wonderfully, and it will provide me with a context with which to analyze conservative statements or positions. Thank you.
4
As a young woman many many years ago, I began to notice that any time there was a choice between the economy and democracy, economic considerations always won out. Today we are reaping the consequences of not protecting our democracy and its institutions. Our government has gone belly up to money and unchecked power. Trump is merely enjoying his unchecked role, despite his being ill-informed and, as a former Trump assiciate said the other day, "He is the meanest person I have ever met."
4
Mr. Brooks would have us remember that conservatives value families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nation. Well, they often value hierarchies too--Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre and Franz Metternich all knew a good pecking order when they saw one and were horrified when the hierarchies were endangered.
Current Republicans (ie, Trumpians) see the disappearance of a pecking order that privileges whites. Why else target with such viciousness those immigrant groups that, on average, commit less crimes than other Americans?
2
The next election is a battle between liberals and illiberals.
The Democratic Party, as currently constituted, endorses policy based on a liberal political philosophy founded in principles of liberty and equality achieved through progressive action. In the age of Trump, the Democrats are the true conservatives in that they fight to preserve the current domestic and international liberal order.
The Republican Party, the party of Trump, endorses an illiberal political philosophy, based on power and liberty concentrated in the hands and wallets of the few and the Trump. These dastardly ends would be achieved through regressive action.
I am a liberal. How about you?
3
"Conservatives fought big government not because they hated the state, per se, but because they loved the sacred space."
Conservatives have NEVER hated the state when it benefits them directly -- especially when it ensures their hegemony.
They only hate the state when it benefits the less fortunate -- or women, or minorities, or gays.
6
"The Republican Party became the party of market fundamentalism."
Yes, that is true. The Republican Party is now the party of unregulated cut throat capitalism, Wall Street and corporate welfare, i.e. corporatism supported by govt subsidies in the form of govt contracts, tax subsidies and weak govt regulation. Why? Because of legalized bribery of Congress and the Presidency facilitated through unlimited, opaque 'campaign contributions' from agenda driven Billionaires and Corporate America. The US Supreme Court has been the handmaiden for this gross corruption of the democratic process (Citizens United and its ilk). The 'Gilded Age' has been reborn as the 'Solid Gold Age'.
12
David,
With your comment that "Market fundamentalism is an inhumane philosophy that makes economic growth society’s prime value and leaves people atomized and unattached. " it seems you have not just left Trump but also Paul Ryan and Margaret "there is no society" Thatcher. I look forward to more ruminations on this vein.
A pity you didn't come to this realization sooner.
8
Great respect for Brooks as a political and humanity observer, and forgive me: But the Republican party we have now has been predictable for decades. Where has he been? Why on earth has he not been as perceptive as I and others have been in seeing the logical path forward. Perhaps hyperbolic on my part, but to me it's been like the path of a cancer over years. If you catch it early you have a chance. But those who should have caught it earlier, like Brooks and many of the never Trumpers, did not. They've sat back for years and theorized, stroked their beards, occasionally tut tutted.
And here we are. An American tragedy. A cancer fully realized and a tumor who proceeds beyond, seemingly, all reach or hope of cure.
3
These theories are interesting, but they ignore why Trump got elected. He read a book by Ann Coulter and decided it was important to secure the border.
3
My goodness, how lofty a version of conservatism is imagined. This idealized version of conservatism is almost as disjointed from the historical reality as conservative policies are from the facts of the fields they are applied within, which is a chasm of cognitive and policy dissonance. Conservatives so often frame themselves as the heroes of all that is true and good philosophically in our traditions, while liberals frame their purpose as acting heroically on behalf of constituencies less fortunate in our world right now at present. I wonder, which one seems to be most about the community orientation and all that romantic rhetoric you are lately so oft to idealize, Brooks ?
3
"Conservatives fought big government not because they hated the state, per se, but because they loved the sacred space."
Conservatives hate big government because it taxes them to feed the poor, provide public education, etc. Appealing to 'sacred space' when millions of our compatriots need help is a phony rhetoric. Somehow Northern Europeans, Canadians and others managed to build more humane and sustainable (!) societies. We should, too.
2
Perhaps the most well stated analysis of the current situation I have read! Kudos, David!
"Burlington, Vt., is doing it, and so is Salt Lake City. I find beautiful communities in places that consider themselves deep blue and places that consider themselves deep red."
I mostly share Mr. Brooks' vision of communitarianism. But let me set at least one thing straight, just in case there is confusion. Salt Lake City proper is not deep red. It's pretty darn blue. Provo is red, or whatever.
1
At a 90% approval rating, Trump is the most popular president among republicans in recent history. (Bush was briefly up there after 9/11.) Brooks is trying to resurrect a pseudo-movement, the "never-Trumpers", that is apparently being promoted by mainstream media, even now.
Here Brooks claims that Trump supporters are tribalistic, viscous and hateful. If you accept this tired (but potent) narrative you might want to examine your own tendency to swallow predigested news provided by corporate media, in this case (especially if it makes you feel good about yourself.) If I still worked at a university and lived in New England I might have gobbled this up, too. But now farming in Trumpland, I'm directly exposed to these "deplorable" individuals - and they are simply NOT as they are widely portrayed. (Politically, I remain left of Bernie...) Krugman's recent article using an unrepresentative photo of a single Trump supporter displaying textbook human aggression is actually a textbook display of news propaganda.
Democrats need to regain their objectivity, re-acquire a distrust in the Establishment (even if it happens to be on the left) and our many intelligence agencies and examine self-interested motives that may underlie our abandonment of the working class.
2
I would have said radical individualism that leads to "vacuous tribalism."
2
I don’t think many traditional conservatives would recognize Brooks’ fantasy conservatism. In his revised history of conservatism Brooks conveniently ignores the conservative giants like Edmund Burke and Russel Kirk. Further, Brooks cherry-picks the conservative principles he claims embody true conservatism, while side-stepping many of its most salient and pernicious beliefs.
Both Burke’s and Kirk’s conservatism are a template for social engineering grounded in rigid principles of moral and social order. Burke believed in “a divinely ordained universe and a providential conception of history,” and similarly, Kirk in an “enduring moral order.” What this means is that conservatives have reserved the right to moral authority for the Christian God and themselves – same thing.
Both men believed in a “natural” social order which, for Burke, meant that the lower classes should be tolerated but never in power. Kirk addressed this in his “principle of variety” claiming: “The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and … before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.” So much for democracy and “compassionate conservatism.”
Throughout his conservative principles Kirk emphasizes again and again “prudence,” “custom, convention, and continuity,” “prescription…in things established by immemorial usage.” In other words, live in the past; resist change and modern realities. Sounds very much like Brooks.
4
Very thoughtful essay. Would DB's wailing, which is what it is, about the almost defunct GOP, fall in deaf ears or would it (hopefully) make some Republican political leaders rethink their approach to #45?
1
If there are any conservatives in the present day Republican Party they are either lost or cannot be a true conservative. Makes sense to me.
7
Those "terrible socialist" countries like Denmark, Canada, etc. give their citizens health care.
And they do it for half the cost per person the US spends on health care.
And we have places in the US with infant mortality rates the same as Botswana.
In fact, all the other first world industrial countries provide some form of universal health care.
On the other hand, the US wins on billionaires and inequality.
4
I sure hope you will be the opinion leader for the emerging Republican party. I am a democrat although I live a very conservative life style of the sort you describe. It is that life style that I think the Democrats protect or at least giving me the choice.
But if these values are common to both of us, that would be great and only policy would separate us, not fundamentals.
My one worry is deep attachment to community could describe racist communities as well as diverse ones. Can you help me with this?
1
"arts, the schools, literature" Not this republican party, certainly not in the last 40 years.
15
This column makes me wonder: what do conservatives really believe? What do they want? And how is it different from what liberals believe, and want? From what I can gather, conservatives want to preserve the old order, the old aristocracy. Liberals want to more to the new equality. the new democracy. There is nothing more threatening to the old order than a liberal democracy, with its 'radical individualism'.
3
There are two ideological strands that has led the Conservative movement to the edge of this cliff. The first is, as Brooks recounts, the ideology of market fundamentalism, the second Brooks leaves out - Christian Fundamentalism. By roping Fundamentalists into the GOP, the party acquired an army of fanatical, gullible and obedient footsoldiers. By combining the two kinds of fundamentalism we get a corrupt moral vision of "makers and takers" where only the "makers" are seen to have moral legitimacy. The move to Trumpism - the smashing and trashing of moral and institutional norms is step three.
"What makes a movement Fascist is not ideology but the willingness to do whatever is necessary - including the use of force and trampling on the rights of others - to achieve victory and command obedience." - M. Albright.
18
I realize the Op Ed page of the NYT is not the ideal place to find serious political philsophy, but I do expect something more than a naive regurgitation of the world according to Frank Capra.
In the dire 1930s, it wasn't the glories of conservative communitarianism that put electricity on farms, it was the TVA. It wasn't those conservative glories that prevented mass starvation, it was the CCC and the WPA. It wasn't those conservative glories that lifted the elderly out of pauperism, it was Social Security. A generation earlier, those conservative glories were powerless against Morgan and Carnegie--anti-trust laws stymied their predation.
Conservatism is the assault by the strong on the weak, using God, Tradition & hierarchy as its deadly weapons.
25
you can say conservatives don't hate the state or the government. but I have ears. Try listening to them. They hate government, but they also will do anything (I mean anything) to be a part of it and soak up its perks. The so-called conservatives are the same today as they were in Nixon's time. They despise Americans and worship the rich.
13
Brooks is offering a fence around which we Americans should gather. I’m willing to walk up to this social sidewalk but, I’m not willing to talk or argue with people who will not acknowledge facts and figures. The damage Trump has wrought on this country is far beyond the immediacy of his actions while in office - the damage rests with his followers who have a total disrespect and disregard for our traditions and aspirations. I’m willing to engage in civil conversations but I’m not willing to sit through bitherism etc, masking as a serious debate about who is American and who should be here... No. thank you.
11
David insists on seeing the issues as cerebral when they are not. Rabble rousing is built on inflaming the id and suppressing the rational. To return to sanity requires squashing the huge propaganda blitz run by the bonkers billionaires running the GOP Congress and the Trump machinery.
5
If "the next conservatism will be built on new alliances" maybe it's time you take on some of the old ones, namely Fox News. Many comments here are citing Regan as the beginning of the end for the GOP. There's truth in that, but it seems the Right didn't become truly toxic until Fox came along with it's win-at-all-costs, all-lies-are-justified, fear-mongering, racist, tribal 24-7 anti-democratic propaganda machine.
The Murdochs want to sell their company, sans the news division. This is the perfect time to take aim and fire at the most destrctive force in America in my lifetime.
7
Just wanted to agree with you wholeheartedly, Amanda M. Your little icon is right in as well. (for artfulness and effectiveness) I can't understand why only 3 people have agreed.
2
David keeps returning to his conviction that we are looking at principles and traditions. We aren’t. We’re looking at rabble rousing, mobs,
hysteria, pushed by a huge propaganda machine running pulpits, TV stations, papers, web sites, social media ... ubiquitous divisive brainwashing.
The id is not to be conquered by ideology, David, but by disassembling the noise making machinery and putting its billionaire backers on full display, in bright lights.
Perhaps then reason will be able to reassert itself when primeval impulse recedes.
3
1) "Free individuals get together and contract with one another to create order."
2) "The practical upshot is that conservatives have always placed tremendous emphasis on the sacred space where individuals are formed. This space is populated by institutions like the family, religion, the local community, the local culture, the arts, the schools, literature and the manners that govern everyday life."
What Brooks totally misses is that the creation of the government of the United States and individual states is the direct result of comment 1 above.
Next he fails to acknowledge that the creation of these government institutions places them squarely within the confines of comment 2 above. The fact that Brooks fails to include government as part of the "sacred spaces" is the fundamental Conservative conceit that is destroying this country.
Reagan doubled down on this conceit by making government the enemy of the people. Newt Gingrich and Lee Atwater made war on government the operating principle of Conservatism. George W. tried to dial that back, only to be crushed by the militarist and economic rapists within the party.
Trump, made hatred and abject insanity the governing principle, which history shows results in totalitarianism.
The Republican Party must be destroyed.
5
Quote, "First it was the abstract ideology of the French Revolution, the idea that society could be reorganized from the top down."
What? Are you serious? There has never been a revolution that was more down up.
The deputies, all 900-odd of them, in the Estates-General, the Assembly and the Convention were elected in almost one hundred "sections" of France to create a government that represented the people. Among the deputies were bakers, lawyers, priests and "ci-devant" titled landowners. Arguments were enormously reflective of the various constituencies.
It was only after the violent events of August 10, 1792, that the representatives, on behalf of their constituents, decidedly turned away from a constitutional monarchy to a republic. What followed was the Terror (as per Robespierre, You cannot have a Revolution without a revolution), which, too, was absolutely bottom up.
This monumental error by Brooks renders his explication of social science of the past several hundred years rubbish.
5
"Compassionate Conservatism" was a marketing slogan, not a movement. Brooks once again tries desperately to paint over his own rejection of conservative beliefs during the Bush years, and his cheerleading of anti-conservative policies over and over again for the past 20 years.
As an educated conservative, I've never voted for a Republican at the national level in my 30 years of voting. To a one they've been anti-conservative (which doesn't -- as Brooks has tried to convince us in the past -- make them liberal, either). Republicans sit outside the political spectrum, where all that matters in maintaining power, further enriching wealthy donors, and relying on dog-whistles to get uneducated racists and fake Christians to vote for them.
It's nice that Brooks is finally on board, admitting that Republican and Conservative are not remotely synonymous. It's a shame he happily helped to so much damage in the past by pretending otherwise. I hope the Times paid him well for his complicity.
4
Defining liberalism and conservatism isn’t that hard, David.
Liberals dream of a better world. In service of that goal they embrace change.
Conservatives fear change. Currently, whites fear losing their social position and fat cats fear losing their financial advantage, but conservatism is not defined by specific fears. Just fear itself.
liberalism/Conservatism didn’t begin at any specific time. It was been with us since humanity walked on two legs.
9
Or, put more simply, the label "Conservative" (capital C) in American politics actually means a "right wing radical reactionary movement that took over the Republican party in a few stages after the 1964 elections." If you actually are a conservative (small c) in some old fashioned Burke/Eisenhower sense of the term, register Democrat because that's the party of status quo moderation in the US. If you are afraid of aligning yourself with the radical leftwing equivalent of (capital C) Conservatives, fear not. There is no such thing in US politics.
1
Less than 2% of David's community bastions of "conservatism," Burlington (VT) and Salt Lake City (UT), are black. Moreover, shouldn't losing the popular vote by almost 4 million invalidate said populist bent that our social order was somehow under threat? That Trump "doesn't base his belonging on the bonds of affection conservatives hold dear" selfishly provides more false revisions to history than due order wanting to tear down molds of traitors about whom a more perfect union had clearly not formed in their offing.
8
Edit: Republican voters went for the tribalism of Donald Trump because he understood that there’s a social order under threat, and that social order is white majority rule. This is what Trump, Giuliani, and Buchanan are signaling to their base: We are losing our country to people of color.
Mr. Brooks avoids this ugliness and depicts the social order as a Norman Rockwell painting. But these sacred places -- family, religion, local community, local culture, arts, schools, literature, and the manner that govern everyday life -- do not belong to conservatives. They belong to everyone. And it's a bit offensive to see them co-opted by one political party, as if liberals don't embrace these things. The author is staking out a claim and creating us versus them. And that's part of the problem.
When Mr. Brooks refers to "local" community and "local" culture, is he talking about the community and culture that shares the color of his skin? I don't get the sense that he's talking about the diversity of larger urban populations. It's more a dog whistle for smaller rural communities where whites feel more comfortable among people of their own kind. "Local" means racially more homogeneous. That's the social order that's supposedly "under threat."
4
It is easy to laud the old order if you are a Ruskin or an Eliot and that order puts you at the top. It is a good deal more difficult if that order tells you that if you insist on existing, you must do so invisibly.
I have seen conservatives wax nostalgic for the past when "people knew their place." The utopia of their imagination is usually fixed in the social order of the 40s and 50s. Pointing to Ruskin (1819-1900) is a bit of a stretch.
Conservatives may say that the love the "sacred space," but they have consistently acted as if what they really love is that religion and law keep those they look down on in line. Conservatives most love the sacred space when it's on someone else's shoulders. The "betters" are allowed vice as long as they keep the masses virtuous.
Conservatism has always been hypocritical. Many conservatives are skilled at arguing both sides. Marriage good until gay people want it. Infidelity bad if you're Bill Clinton, excusable if you're Donald Trump. How dare a Democratic Senator filibuster a Republican judge, until we have Mitch McConnell announcing that Obama gets no more Supreme Court appointees.
Hypocrites all. Conservatism is a sham based on the authoritarian amassing of power. Nothing else.
7
Sigh .... Brooks is willing to say: "...the tribalism of Donald Trump because at least he gave them a sense of social belonging. At least he understood that there’s a social order under threat."
But he's not willing to say what that "social order" is -- it's white people on top, plain and simple. It's LBJ's famous quote about the lowest white man.
And speaking to Republicans or Conservatives, all of David's pained exegesis is completely beside the point. The point is Trump and Trumpismo. What about the man can you possibly support? Be honest, no dog-whistle.
And what about Trump's decisions (not Ryan's decisions, not McConnell's ... Trump's) can you possibly support? Let's hear that.
4
If Dems cannot win elections against this absurdity the future is indeed bleak and we will have what is deserved.
9
We must have lived through different George W. Bush administrations. As far as I can tell he was a "compassionate conservative" only on the campaign trail.
In office, GWBush, Ryan, McConnell et al were just as eager to cut taxes on rich people as Trump, Ryan, McConnell et al.
Bush was also willing to play on racial divides, just in a less obvious way.
3
Here’s what I don’t understand. Brooks claims, and I agree, that the current Republican party is in thrall to what he calls Market Fundamentalism. To them economic performance is the measure of all things. But then there’s another piece in the online NYT, “What’s the Yield Curve?...” that presents data showing that since Teddy Roosevelt every Republican administration has brought us a recession and every Democratic one has brought us recovery and prosperity. Surely it should be the other way around. How could Republicans, who value economic performance, be so spectacularly bad at producing it? And why, given the Republican track record, do voters keep falling for Republican rhetoric? What is the matter with us?
9
At this point, I doubt rational individual choices will make much difference. The Republican Party is beyond that. Rational thinking has been cast aside in favor of cult-like behaviors -- a grand dance of consensual delusion dependent on invented "alternative facts" that are no more than a web of lies.
History has familiar parallels. When a society becomes this unmoored from reality, events will progress to a nasty end. Reality has a way of reasserting itself. In the sobering wreckage that follows they'll ask, "What were we thinking?"
But for now, the question is, What magnitude of calamity will be needed to sweep away today's GOP delusions? As we've seen, polite discussion has no impact, and angrily pointing out those delusions and the danger they pose to our country creates only angry denial. What sobering wreckage is required?
As Dylan sang, "it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall."
3
The problem with the modern Republican party is that it isn't a conservative party; it's a reactionary party. There's a real difference, and the country is suffering as a result.
10
Conservatism seems ideally adapted to a stable culture, the responsibilities and benefits of which are established enough so each generation can profit and improve by lessons learned from previous ones. In this happy case conservatism can polish, preserve and pass on received cultural wisdom.
As the Judeo-Christian ethos/mythos that has held communal behavior together slips politically into a crude, threadbare caricature of itself, the search is on for new cultural glue, while the reasonably secure hope things won't get too bad, too quickly. In this case conservatism functions best as brakes on the train wreck of cultural chaos, ironically probably exactly the sort of role President Clinton would have filled.
Currently our "sacred space," the commons, is polluted by corporate greed, assisted by a kakistrophic government which is increasingly transparently for sale, and willing to forsake all sense of stewardship for short term profit. This iteration of Republicanism needs not to be resisted, but repudiated, and it seems unlikely conservatives can do the job fast enough.
5
David, why is it that 87% of Republicans still approve of Trump's tribalism? How do you revive a party in the face of this statistic? Where are the values to make this happen?
11
Until some Republicans who are in office truly act on their principles this is of little value.
Some, such as Corker and Flake have expressed concern but they don't stand up when it really counts. Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz, among many others, were principled -- before the election.
They needed oppose the policies but simply object to rampant conflicts of interest and violations of democratic process that they once claimed they held dear.
3
They were never principled. They worship money. And I suppose Trump knows a lot about their private lives. Bannon once said he could destroy all their marriages.
2
Good try, Mr. Brooks.
At least now you are engaging in a critique of your party, to some degree, rather than just dealing in fantasy.
Both Burlington (where Sanders started out) and Salt Lake City are examples of good governance--- surprising you would mention them as good places.
Both have been run by progressive Democrats or Independents.
5
Yes, tribalism is a reaction to market fundamentalism. But it seems that members of the white tribe have been duped into thinking that the market masters are allies, and not the people responsible for their fix in the first place.
Market fundamentalism in fact worked pretty well for the little guy during the days when big industry needed labor. An industrial job and union wages were the ticket.
The means of production have been disrupted. Hence, this ordeal of change.
The Enlightenment led to most of the good things in society. However, as some German philosophers pointed out, it is the material means of production which define the nature of society and individual selves.
The big problem now is that a lot of white people are underemployed and don't have the equity to buy the consumer goods they want. The even bigger problem is that white men do not have the work to define themselves in a postindustrial epoch. They don't enough cash, but they feel worse about having no identity.
Trump supporters of humble means have not discovered that they are like humans on the Kanamits' spaceship as seen on the "Twilight Zone." This Republican administration has a cookbook philosophy and they are on the menu.
Things will only change for the better when government lays down the ground rules for the new postindustrial economy. Health care for all would be a foundation to allow people to fairly participate in a gig economy. Alas, this is not conservative.
5
From here in Canada I fear America's choice was to reject conservative or liberal and choose to survive. Today's Supreme Court decision displays that America has chosen to perish. The Gorsuch strategy has seemingly won the day for conservatives but I cannot see your country surviving for much longer.
12
You better hope we survive, as 350+ million of us can't move to Canada! By the way, there are Canadians protesting asylum-seeking immigrants crossing from Northern NY into Quebec. Some Americans aiding these people have been harrassed by your citizens.
Funny how these situations aren't always one-sided.
KS,
Funny that is what I am trying to say. You will only survive by listening to the other side. Gorsuch is a GOP lawyer in a country needing justice from justices. CPAC.ca carries our Supreme court, watch how real justices deliberate. It is too late for "conservatives" and "liberals" your country needs Americans. There is a story in the bible about Solomon and the dispute about who the baby belongs to. I have tried suggesting the baby be divided in two and maybe that is the solution but it seems to me that is a remedy that suits neither side and both sides would rather the baby die than give up their claim.
I lived through two independence referendums but we settled on a compromise because we were willing to listen. When Karl Hess III wrote Goldwater's acceptance speech in 1964 the GOP declared war on the USA's constitution and I am afraid they have destroyed a once great nation.
By the way our governments and police and military are helping the refugees get across and many like myself were overjoyed today watching our armed forces replacing the Germans in trying to make Mali functional. That Canada has people who prefer hate to love is not a surprise.
When Brooks waxes nostalgic about conservatism emphasizing the arts and literature, etc., he's reminiscing about a time he couldn't have experienced himself, it's been so long ago.
Conservatism may have championed those areas in the dim past, but they have been largely ignored in the 20th century and up to 2018. The conservatism I've seen in my six and a half decades is overwhelmingly rooted in racial and ethnic intolerance, militarism, nationalism, religious extremism and unbridled greed.
32
Recently there have been a number of articles by Republicans who claim to have left the Party, the party that is now Trump's. I've puzzled over two aspects of these proclamations.
First, what took so long? Is party loyalty so ingrained as to justify an extended holding of hands with such as Trump and turning one's back on the nation?
Second, what now? The election options to the party of Trump are few: 1) stay home, 2) vote for a 3rd party candidate, or 3) vote Democratic. The results of each choice are self evident. All that is necessary is to recall #1 & #2 in the context of the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections. I've yet to see any of the well-known deposed Republicans indicate what they intend to do. Brooks, Stephens, Will, Rubin, and all the rest, I'm looking at you. What do you intend to do in 2018 and 2020? What's the proper path for the deposed Republican, vintage RINO?
4
David's argument proceeds on the basis that Conservatism is, by definition, a good enough basis on which to build a democracy. By itself, it isn't. David's argument assumes that conservatives can define a common good which will bind a democratic society together. It cannot, if it assumes that protection of individual space and freedoms are paramount over all other causes. A complex democracy of 350 million people from many walks of life requires compromise. Individual freedoms and rights are not absolute; they have to be limited to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..." Drawing the lines between individual freedoms and common good is the essence of our democracy. Unless that is part of the conversation, no label -- conservative, democrat, liberal, libertarian, republican, etc. -- is by itself worthy.
7
True conservatism's death knell was the advent of Ronald Reagan, movie actor gimmicks, tax cuts for the rich with phony trickle-down, hypocrisy justified by a glossy surface.
We are becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of marketing.
2D does not work in a 3D world.
Truth or consequences ...
18
Fair enough. But with the passage of Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, LBJ said the Dems had lost the South for at least a generation. The white supremacists never went away, but reacted from time to time to different burrs under their saddles: Brown V Board, for example.
1
I've been waiting for someone to notice that good communities are not necessarily red or blue; they can be one or the other or both. I live in Montgomery County in Maryland which is a great place to raise a family, no matter your ethnic or religious background. We face a lot of challenges going forward, but political tribalism won't help us meet them, and I think most of us know that.
4
Political tribalism is promoted as a shock brigade in the march of the Libertarians, who follow Reagan's dictum that government is the problem.
4
Brooks writes as if this is a recent phenomenon, but A.E.I./ Club For Growth free-market radicalism captured the GOP's establishment wing decades ago, and its tribal appeal goes back at least to Nixon-Agnew, the southern strategy and the Silent Majority, a minority that we now call the Trump core. The latter was mainly a campaign strategy until Trump reconceived the presidency as perpetual campaign in the time-tested manner of authoritarian demagogues.
19
"Market fundamentalism is an inhumane philosophy that makes economic growth society’s prime value and leaves people atomized and unattached." I would suggest that the unfettered and "atomized" (another word for "free") market comes first. It CREATES the conditions under which "humanity" is possible. Without it, we literally have nothing, and end up at each other's throats.
1
If "everyone in the conversation is conservative" then we wouldn't have had Trump take over the Republican party. Unless there is something inherently wrong in the traditional conservative dogma that allowed people to be so easily entrapped by someone who lies to this extent. Maybe it is from years of conditioning that the "non-elite" republicans could no longer tell lie from truth, fact from fiction, that allowed this takeover to occur so easily.
6
The Republican Party might conceivably, as Kristal yearns, return from the Trumpischer horror show to something like the party of Reagan, the Bushes and Romney. However, it will never turn from the economic fundamentalism that has dominated the party since the late 1970s and that reign earlier as classical economic liberalism from Coolidge up to Wilkie's 1940 nomination The New Deal Republican era that stretched from Wilkie through to Nixon/Ford (but for the 1964 Goldwater disruption is the sole post-Wilsonian era of GDP economic restraint sufficient to coexist with Brooks dream of a free and orderly Republican nation.
Of course, Brooks thinks he can point to the reigns of Reagan and Bush, but that's just because those administration lacked the degree of United (House-Senate-Presidential) government to show the ugly eco-fundamentalist face revealed by Ryan and McConnell in 2017 on the wings of the Rust Belt Surprise.
I suppress reference to GOP foreign policy, which, the Eisenhower years aside,
bears little looking into.
6
Thank you, David Brooks. This is a thoughtful essay which leaves us much to discuss--if indeed our nation can cling to the values of open discussion.
I would respond by invoking freedom--a freedom in which each individual is free to construct her/his own "sacred space" from the many different elements of the "sacred spaces" that we believe should always surround her/him in our American culture. Spaces within the law, of course, assuming that our democratic laws can survive these wretched times.
As a proponent of the liberal arts (especially literature), I strongly believe that they do allow each person plenty of room for thoughtful assimilation, invention, and an adjustable construction of that person's own "sacred space," a space relatable to society and other human beings. Montaigne, our first essayist, famously said that "the liberal arts" are "those arts that liberate us."
I do notice that the liberal arts are called "liberal." Yet in any case, I believe that it is still possible to have constructive and humane interchanges between our country's liberals and conservatives--provided that bedrock human values (as in "human rights," for example) can still remain "sacred" whenever and if ever we can dig ourselves our of this frightening and despicable mess into which the supposed Age of Trump has now thrown us all.
I do like the term "sacred space."
4
"This space is populated by institutions like the family, religion, the local community, the local culture, the arts, the schools, literature and the manners that govern everyday life."
..."Conservatives fought big government not because they hated the state, per se, but because they loved the sacred space."
Oh, really? So how does Brooks explain the GOP's long-running utter contempt for the arts and good schools, and apparent support of Trump's desire to reduce funding or eliminate many departments? He also conveniently ignores the fact that the Republicans' hatred of big government doesn't extend to what transpires either in an individual's bedroom or doctor's office.
30
Suggestion: see "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Those weren't the real Republicans/conservatives, they were just people who pretended to be Republicans/conservatives in order to dupe the real Republicans/conservatives into doing the impostors' dirty work.
Since Mr. Brooks isn't in the habit of answering questions in this space, let me hazard a guess as to what he might say: It's because "the GOP's long-running contempt for the arts and good schools" etc. doesn't reflect true conservatism, at least in any classical sense. As he wrote, "Today you can be a conservative or a Republican, but you can’t be both." The sensibility you describe is clearly the latter, but that is a bastardization of what true conservatism is, and we see its ultimate dark manifestation in the Trumpublicans that now own the party.
1
Conservatism has emphasized institutions like "the family, religion, the local community, the local culture, the arts, the schools, literature and the manners that govern everyday life"?
In practice, conservatives have in the last 30 years emphasized the religion and culture they happen to favor. They abandoned the arts, schools and literature decades ago.
Brooks is wallowing in a wispy dream of an idealized past. The conservatism that he defines is long dead. It morphed into Corporatism years ago, and now it's Trumpism. Times change, Mr. Brooks.
33
Spot on.
1
David - I appreciate your presentation of conservative principles. They are sorely lacking in any conversation about conservatism or the current state of our national dialogue or state of the country.
But I take issue with the primacy of community, though I agree with you that a "sacred space" does exist among us and should be guarded and respected. But the original sacred space is within each person. This is not esoteric and least of all religious. That interior space is a fact, and a lot more practical and accessible that most of us think. But unfortunately, ignored by most of us on a daily basis. All of the qualities you identify as virtuous in community, they are born and as pristine as ever within each person. We don't collaborate or tolerate or listen to each other because we ignore our Self. Yes, big S.
And the communities you place so much faith in - civic, religious, cultural - all capable of pointing us back to our best and deepest self, now generate so much noise and venom. Handed down, rote information, to be repeated. Why? Because the individual components of community don't know the entry point. The only way to recognize the humanity in front of you is to find it within you. Simple.
6
On the other hand, Trump seems to be winning almost every argument and debate. He's pushing forward with new laws and policy somewhat swiftly, he continues to loosen regulations everywhere and he's beginning to "re-organize" the Executive Branch. And the Times concluded months ago that the Republican Party is now completely "Trump's Party." All the while, Trump's polling figures appear to be getting marginally better, not worse. Given all of the above and the fact that many conservatives still believe that life after Trump will look like life before Trump, where exactly is this renewed conservativism going to come from?
I note that many of the recent Democratic primary victories in traditionally "Red" voting districts involve a candidate that has many of the hallmarks of being a conservative (military service, opposition to an invasive gov't, opposition to a Democratic bogeyman like Pelosi or similar, etc.). The key distinction is that they're members of the Democratic Party. So maybe if there is a renewed conservative movement, it won't be formed under a red flag but a blue one.
3
I think that Trump is the ultimate expression of market fundamentalism. He's a popular entertainer whose main calling card is his economic success.
I don't see how you can say 'radical individualism' is the chief danger when technology, weaponry and governmental power are more powerful and deadly than ever before.
Liberalism stands in opposition to the excesses of governmental power. It's as American as the Declaration of Independence. You can be a liberal and also respect tradition and the values of community. That represents the future.
8
I was shocked that Brooks accurately diagnosed this:
"The Republican Party became the party of market fundamentalism. Market fundamentalism is an inhumane philosophy that makes economic growth society’s prime value and leaves people atomized and unattached."
Totally agree. What we need is a "social market" system similar to Germany's, where capitalism and free markets provide economic growth, but the inevitable market failures and blind spots are ameliorated by regulations and government programs. Seems to work pretty well for them.
17
Add to that the Nordic nations, most of which are still monarchies, but have fashioned a hybrid governing structure that includes parliamentary democracies and carefully regulated capitalist economies. There is little
corruption, excellent education and healthcare, little extreme wealth or poverty, and active citizen involvement in what works for all citizens. Go visit Denmark--cities, towns and countryside, businesses, farmers, schools, government employees--you will see why they are regularly ranked high in citizen happiness and why most are appalled at what they see happening in the country they have long admired, the USA.
3
Interesting points Mr. Brooks. You are a purist. I see value in traditional institutions, however, there is the mix of opinions, innovations and values that makes democracy vital. Are you willing to respect varying traditions? There is an interplay between the mandates of government and the private influences of religion, social welfare and extended family, to name a few. New power centers later become traditional ones. We have absorbed some of our government programs in that way. Now tea party conservatives, railing against government, yell "keep your hands off my Social Security!" Social Security has benefitted not only the elderly, but entire families with greater economic stability. Reality can exist in interactions and acceptances of seemingly disparate things. By the way, being liberal does not mean abandoning all traditions for top down mandates. It is more the desire to make treasured traditions more expansive, inclusive and flexible, in my opinion.
6
The current Republican party has evolved during the last 35 years into a white-nationalistic, theocratic, punitive party that desperately wants to legislate its religion and allow capitalism to move all available money to the most wealthy no matter what the cost to society. If we, as a country, could agree that some form of regulated, modified capitalism - wherein companies have a responsibility to take care of the workers and communities that comprise them instead of exploiting every angle and person for maximum profits - we might be able to take some of the heat out of our political divide. But I don't know where the space is to have that conversation right now.
14
I enjoyed the review of the origin of liberal versus conservative thought and the design of society and the social contract. Conservative thought, since it is so strongly and twined with traditional social groups and institutions often carries the limitation of preferring the status quo over change and what is hopefully a change for the better- ( i. e. progress).
And yes a social fabric and social relationships can be valuable and important for most individuals but most of the traditional social organizations, favored by conservatives, such as the traditional family, organized religion, and even the workplace tend to give most of the power to men over women, ethnic majorities over minorities, and those with more wealth over those with less, and even the old over the young. Thus they can have an an inherent unfairness and stifle the free and most beneficial flow of ideas, those both new and old.
4
For once I pretty much agree with Brooks on what has happened and why. As a Democrat who was a "middle of the road Republican" until Ronald Reagan began steering the party ever farther to the right and I began slowly shifting my voting choices to others, until GW Bush finally sealed the deal for me with his totally inept (but still basically honest) conduct.
With Trump, the GOP has sealed its own deal with the devil and possibly with the likes of Putin. If it does not self correct it will continue to become an Great American Tragedy, one that may relegate this entire Great American Experiment to the dust bin History.
Maybe its time for the real conservatives, those in Brook's view who are still on possesion of a strong ethical and well founded moral compass to bite the bullet. Maybe they should bolt from Trump's now Gross Old Party and create a brand new national third party, based on the tenets specifically mandated in the Constitution's Preamble about what this government was created for and exists to do: namely, to be made ever more perfect in promoting the safety, general Welfare and blessings of Liberty to We the People (all of the People.)
10
You find George W. Bush to be "basically honest?" You DO live on this planet, right?
W honest???? Weapons of Mass destruction, Mission accomplished, Uranium in Niger? Need I make the list complete?
Whatever else animated traditional conservatism whether 'The order comes first' or in the guise of 'market fundamentalism', it was this: preserve the privileges afforded by the status quo. The evidence is clear. In recent decades the Republicans have consistently resisted state intervention in such a way that we have the most unequal society among developed nations.
17
The GOP has been taken over by Donald Trump and the cultists he has assembled. He and they are the result that comes to a society that is going through rapid racial/ethnic change. White people who were bestowed with racial/ethnic supremacy by our founding fathers no longer can assume that their supremacy in American society is durable.
Brooks' disquisition on the constructs of conservatism is interesting but only marginally relevant. What we are seeing today is the final but fruitless struggle of a social class trying to stave off the inevitable. In many areas of America the white birth rate has fallen below replacement level. It's only a matter of time before white Americans become a minority in this country. That's when Brooks' thoughts on the role of conservatism and community structures become important.
9
I feel like Brooks embraces a platonic ideal of "the conservative" that has never actually existed in real life. And it certainly has never been remotely close to what the modern day (post 1950s) Republican party has been about.
32
Very succinct and very true.
The platonic ideal was never an open society to use the words by Karl Popper. It was totalitarian.
Didn't anyone listen to John Kasich during the last election? He kept talking about responsibility for the poor and mentally ill at the community level, at least expanded Medicaid in his state, and tried to protect a vision of community at the local level. I'm not a conservative but found his message, rhetorically at least, different from all other discussions in the campaign. No one listened or even commented on it, but if conservatives are looking for an honest non-tribal approach from other than conservative intellectuals, they might take another look at what Kasich was trying to say. And us progressives actually have picked up on that, by re-focusing on states and communities in opposition to the disaster of the current mal-administration.
19
For sure. John Kasich was the only Republican running this past campaign who was genuinely interested in taking care of those who are not winners in our economy. He's a genuinely decent person who not only has talked the talk, but walked the walk in his state.
We could do far, far worse than an election between a similarly-minded Democrat and Kasich. He might lead the GOP - and all of us - out of the desert.
6
Brooks, like so many conservatives, ignores the primary emotions driving the creation of community -- race, tribe, and clan. It is the original sin that the modern American state has tried to mitigate to make community institutions more effective.
Further, he ignores the atomizing effect of all market capitalism. It's a good thing that capitalism seeks to sell to everyone; bad that that it shreds human bonds. Nice to give a shout out to Ruskin, but conservatives, even conservative reformers, have acted to strengthen the power of capitalism over the institutions of society -- in the name of efficiency and profit.
As always with Brooks, shallow.
9
In fact, Actually, Brooks specifically calls out the Republicans for their "market fundamentalism.
1
Wasn't it that heroine of conservatism, Margaret Thatcher, who said "there is no such thing as society". Really, Mr. Brooks, such revisionism! The conservative movement (and the Republican party as its agent) has made the bed we all now are forced to lie on. With respect to this revisionist epiphany I would say "better late than never", but it's already too late. Perhaps (and sadly, for democracy) it would be better to say "we told you so".
7
Don't Trump and his admirers have two other important traits besides tribalism: A rejection of facts and science if facts or science are inconsistent with their policies.
Once upon a time Republicans argued for polices using as premises their principles, facts and science. Nowadays Republicans assert policies and manufacture principles, bogus facts and bogus science to support the policies.
17
They're so inflated with God complex that they believe they can transform reality by force of will alone.
As a theoretical concept I found this article educational but both major political parties are lost and filled with angry partisans. For governance, it's going to take mature leadership in both parties to bridge the schism at the national level. When Obama was in office there was little Republican cooperation and legislation was rammed thru the Congress. Now that the Republicans are in control the Democrats are uncooperative and legislative agreement is non existent or rammed thru. Both parties need to grow moderates so we can agree on what the role of government is in this day and age. Extremes win elections, but our country is languishing after the dust settles. This probably delights our adversaries. The United States is a moderate country and our major political parties would function better if they reflected this moderation. It is up to ordinary citizens to see this and make the appropriate changes.
3
This post is inaccurate and silly. Republicans began refusing to cooperate, in any fashion, with Democrats in 2010, scheming to deny Obama a victory and to only pass bills with Republican majorities. The writer confuses the year-long development of the ACA with Republican propaganda about it being rammed through -- they refused to work on it or vote for it.
Calls for people to work together are pretty fatuous when you don't understand even the immediate history of the situation.
You have made a false equivalency between Republican intransigence that was absolute, malignant and racist, and the resistance of the Democrats to the horror that the Republican party has become .... even before Trump. The lack of good faith cooperation is NOT an equal thing.
Mr. Brooks I take issue with your generalization that conservatism was the driving force to blunt the excesses of industrialization. Industrialization was the antithesis to family life, and it wasn't until progressives started hammering away at the conservatives propping up industrialization, did the working man start to make progress. When Ida Tarbell and the rest of the muckrakers, exposed Standard Oil, and the rest of the robber barons, The working man was able to get out from underneath the heel of the industrialist and their conservative backers. When these individuals finally got the ear of Teddy Roosevelt, then he began to push through progressive reforms, which many times put him at odds with his conservative Republicans. I think you need to go back and reread your history.
28
Thank you, Kjensen. Mr. Brooks does indeed read history, but always through the distorting lens of his conservative bias. If he read it again, he would still read it through that same lense.
1
A useful analysis, but it raises two cogent concerns.
First is that if your concern is order, which I agree is important, you have to design in systems that discourage authoritarian tendencies. Neither Republicans nor conservatives have a solid record on this in the last 20 or so years.
Second, is that this ignores the right wing infatuation with the free market as the sole (to varying degrees) instrument for arbitrating the validity or the efficacy of government intrusion into economic affairs. All too often free market advocacy is a smoke screen to camouflage naked self interest. To ignore this fact is to free up business interests to exert an authority that is at least as dangerous as any government.
The point is that social structures should be thoughtfully instituted to balance the conflicting agendas of personal and public welfare. Greed is a powerful stimulant for economic growth, but it is a medicine that should be taken in restrained doses.
6
Tax cut has been passed so it is time to burnish the humanitarian credentials a bit, eh? I'd say this portends poorly for the next round of tax cuts and Orwellian entitlement reform, what with all the self-styled true conservative Republicans heading for the exits. If there were any chance of any of it passing, their impressive powers of rationalization are still up to any task Trump will set before them.
5
What do David Brooks, George Will, truly want for the Republican Party? What Will, Steve Schmidt and other members of the Republican intellectual class have called for is the election of Democrats this fall to provide a check on the assault upon the Constitution and the fabric of our civil society by Donald Trump.
Should a wholesale defeat of GOP members of Congress happen, what will become of the Republican Party? Will it quickly re-form after some period of confusion and governmental stasis during the period of 2019-2021? It is hard to see how a Congress led by Democrats in 2019, now presumably able to block the worst of Trump's assault on our economy, increased dysfunction in the health care sector, the immigration mess, and perhaps further increases in income inequality will be able to do anything more than to slow it all down. If in 2020 Trump is re-nominated, or if Pence replaces him, the Party may suffer a second defeat, and leave the country with only one national party, with both progressive and moderate wings increasing their conflicts with each other. We may enter a repeat of the period we had in the 1810s, when the conservative Federalists disappeared and struggled to re-emerge as a new party in opposition to the extremism of the Jacksonian Democrats.
If in 2020 the Party turns to a Romney 2.0 or to a figure like John Kasich, Ben Sasse, Jeff Flake, or even a John McCain 2.0, maybe it can re-invent itself. If not, maybe we'll get the Whigs.
8
All of this is sound reasoning and highly well-informed. None of it has anything to do with Trump supporters. Trump supporters have entirely bought into the racist tribalism that Trump promotes. They accept his daily lies and reject all criticism of him immediately and unthinkingly.
Since Trump has established himself as the God-King of the Republican party, true conservatives have no choice but to leave the Republican party. All thinking people, all compassionate people, and all people who abhor racism must also leave the Republican party.
Don't fool yourself, the GOP is basically over. One part of it, aligned with Trump, is aimed at fascism very akin to the Nazi party. All other parts of it must abandon the party completely, because unfortunately, the vast majority is aligned with the incompetent, racist, misogynistic, malignant Trump.
So dear David Brooks, please realize what we are up against here, and that all thinking people must fight against the evil that is Trump's GOP. Your party is dead. Fight the zombie it has turned into, for all our sakes.
26
Conservatives trying to distance themselves from Trump is like water saying it has nothing to do with rain or snow! Conservatives made the GOP what it is today with the hatred, the anti women, anti child, anti worker, anti senior and anti human policies. No, David you don’t get to pretend that Trump is an outlier. He is a symptom of the Republican Party, a fruit from the GOP tree. He’s yours. He is you!
22
Problem is, David, trump is a democrat. He is, of course, uneducated, unread, and therefore stupid. He discovered the alt-right and Fox, and that he could call on other stupid people. It has nothing to do with Conservatism.
2
Horse feathers. He is the distillation of every Republican belief that has festered in a dark place since FDR!
1
Your list of sacred spaces is wistful and romantic as are most of your recent musings, but it seems to be missing a few things: science, public policy, constitutionalism, rule of law, just to mention a few examples. But then again, the GOP and conservatives were never fond of evidence, rationality, or common sense; belief, ideology, and adherence to outmoded social norms were always much more important.
10
I'd like to say that I don't recognize this current Republican Party, but it's actually been just as rapacious, selfish, greedy and irresponsible since the Reagan Revolution, which conflated enlightened self interest - that impulse which makes liberty work - with selfishness, making the latter a virtue.
13
I don't know if I buy into Mr. Brooks' clever hair-splitting, but he's one of the conservative columnists I consistently read because he gets me to think and he avoids "vicious tribalism" (love that term! It's perfect.).
One thing he said is dead on: "Today you can be a conservative or a Republican, but you can’t be both".
5
Sir, I deeply appreciate your thoughts and read you on a regular basis.
However, I would love to see you seriously examine our Constitution. Written over 200 years ago with the demands of satisfying 13 colonies, it is not relevant to the 21st Century (for example, every mall has the same stores, every town has the same box stores and fast food chains, etc.),
And beyond the imagination and brilliance of our "fore fathers", social media is an incredible force whose impact has yet to be appreciated - just look at the impact of Russian interference on our last national election.
It is obscene, absurd, and pretentious to assume that all 50 states should be allowed to function independent of each other in regards to justice (marriage, divorce, citizenship, voting rights, gun laws, and sexual identification).
The United States are not "united". Period! That an individual can become president with fewer votes than an opponent is pathetic!!!! That a Senator, due to seniority, can dominate national issues that affect millions of people when his constituency whom he must appease, are only in the thousands, is criminal. That a Senator can control constitutionally defined government action for "political" reasons, is unconscionable (the appointment of "life-time" judicial appointments based on party dogma, is an example -- hello Senate!!!). Lord luv a duck, a life-time appointment MUST demand a two/thirds (at a minimum) vote. I would prefer a 75% vote.
6
Ah yes, indeed, Republicans should choose between Conservatism and Trumpist crypto-fascism.
But then, Republicans would lose their hold on power! Can't have that! Better support Emperor Donald the Dumb than lose control of Congress!
I hope voters will help give Republicans the "courage" to back off from Trumpian incipient dictatorship and come back to rational conservative principles. George Will's prescription of giving the GOP a "time out" to regain its senses is the right decision. May voters help bring this about for the health of the party and the nation.
11
As I assess Brooks' criteria for true conservatism, Jimmy Carter comes to mind as much as the Bushes and David Cameron. Interesting...and ironic.
3
So, professor Brooks, are you somewhat timidly telling upset republicans, such as yourself, to vote for the democrats?
3
Mr. Brooks, your sense of romanticism in relation to your Burkean ideal is admirable. More of a figment of your imagination, rather than reality, but admirable nonetheless.
That being said, perhaps what you really need to do is redefine what you see as deep red and deep blue and then analyze the end results of that philosophical pretext.
For example Mr. Brooks, Utah may be seen as a "red state", but Salt Lake City is anything but red.
It has been run by Democrats since 1976 and since that time, Salt Lake City has experienced the kind of growth most municipalities would dream of.
I wonder why?
So here is a thought Mr. Brooks.
Perhaps your underlying philosophy is completely ungovernable when applied to a large population.
Either we will become a village of hunter gatherers living in our own little nirvana, or we will become the wreckage of cities and towns across the midwest because of the laws of supply and demand and defining them as merely self adjusting.
Or so you keep on telling us.
The rules of creative destruction, while forgetting about the population that has to live with that destruction.
Or, if carried to your other extreme, your society will end up becoming a private autocracy or aristocracy because the end result of competition is always going to be one winner.
My point?
Why must there be a next Conservatism, especially in a world of billions?
What exactly is your dream Mr. Brooks?
What are you holding onto?
7
Theory is a platonic concept. While I may be an ideological conservative a la Brooks, politically I lean left. Communities are no match for powerful organizations, be it a political party (whose first priority is getting elected and remaining in power) or economic forces, corporations and selfish/wealthy people. Whereas, I want government to ensure a level playing field for all, others (the GOP and political conservatives) believe government is "evil" and gets in the way of pursuing their goals.
Trump is a symptom of a larger malaise, The forces that brought him to power need to be honestly confronted. Communities need to be strengthened, even if that means empowering "undesirables". Immortality must be condemned and not simply pushed aside for political expediency. People (in power) need to be held accountable.
Right now, I feel we're in a tail spin. The current administration and national tenor has me distraught. Simply removing Trump--while a start--isn't enough.
13
Maybe someone should point out to Brooks that the biggest enablers of Trump has been the those "sacred spaces" he says is the foundation of "liberty". The religious right, for their own short term purposes, has embraced a thrice married, pathological liar, who is in the end only loyal to himself.
Claiming to be in favour of families, faith and everything nice is, well, nice. But the fact is, modern capitalism has created mass displacement of people that has resulted growing inequality. Unfettered capitalism has led people to despair and drug addiction and yes, even increased suicide. Families are struggling to keep cohesion in the fact of growing debt, jobs with little security, and housing that is increasingly out of reach. Any attempt to contain unfettered greed has now been completely overturned by the this administration. Even petty corruption is commonplace. The EPA Administrator Pruitt thinks nothing of using his position to get himself a better apartment or get his wife a business opportunity, while he helps companies poison our environment with impunity.
It's odd the religious right takes no issue with any of this. Apparently the quality of the air we breathe or the water we drink is far less important than kicking out transsexuals from the military. And for this Trump receives idolation from these "Christian" soldiers. I have long looked at these "foundations" of liberty with concern if not outright suspicion.
13
Too right.
The goal of the right is to destroy civic life and the public domain. We are all to be consumers.
Very few of us have the luxury to spend there time distinguishing between the extreme corrupt and hate of the current GOP. Where are the conservatives and old time republicans. They don't exist no matter how much Mr. Brooks want to create a different history. Where are they while 2k children are missing and others are in cages. Yes we have very separate communities that haven't been mixed ever,with our racism in full,force and white flight.
What would William Buckley say to all of this hatred and the current economic state of affairs.
The Republican Party is not 'conservative', and the Democratic Party is not reliably 'progressive'. Jonathon Haight has carefully and convincingly documented the evidence that both conservative and progressive values and actions exist in each of us. Both are needed and must be present and valued, if a diverse society is to survive, let alone flourish. In our best selves, as individuals and as communities, including our national communities, we express and defend both. Conservative values and behavior that support and preserve the elements of our lives and society that 'work' for the common good, are essential. Progressive values and behavior that recognize and identify the elements of our complex society that are not 'working', must generate ideas and actions that contribute to improving our collective situation. There is overwhelming evidence that our nation, and the world 'community', are not 'working ': extreme inequality, racism, sexism, potentially irreversible deterioration of our planetary environment, war, famine, uncontrollable migration. None of these problems can be overcome without both conservative and progressive leadership, action and popular support. 'More' for some must be replaced by enough for all. I share David Brooks' worry, and am happy to welcome his help in building a future that is both Conservative and Progressive, and which puts the needs of the many above the ever greater power and demands of the few and powerful.
6
What a joke a person working for the NYT having an opinion on conservatives and Republicans that is worth anything. Most of the proposals that the president supports are very conservative. Now his style is not, but that got him elected so there is that.
1
Dear vulcanalex,
It is about time we call a halt to this nonsense about the "failing NYT". The Times and its journalists and opinion writers have been putting together a hugely successful newspaper for well over a hundred years now. It is highly regarded around the world and read by both right and left.
Mr. Brooks, with whom I often disagree, has written a thoughtful opinion piece and that should be respected and dealt with in an equally thoughtful manner.
Enough of this name calling and deprecating of serious writers. Either take the time to respectfully refute his arguments or cease writing these nasty, personal diatribes.
Respectfully,
Bruce Mellon
2
Interesting, important piece that clearly identifies the existential threat to our democracy’s existence.
One point: Salt Lake City is NOT deeply red, politically. It is politically blue, a haven for diversity, and democratic ideals. But it is, unfortunately, surrounded by a sea of deep red Utah, gerrymandered so as to disenfrachise its votersin State and Federal elections. A travesty.
6
It seems to me that what has happened to the GOP is the Populist base are no longer Conservatives but have moved to the right of Conservatism. They are the ones who have left the Party but took the name with them. The Conservative Elites are left holding the empty shell that will forever associated with market fundamentalism.
5
I'm surprised to discover that the French Revolution was about reorganizing society from the top down rather than, you know, a revolution against the powers of the day. I'm equally surpised to discover 'conservatives arose to protect us from soulless pragmatism' - I naively thought social democrats had arisen to protect us from the depredations of soulless capitalism - you know, the system by which we only count as economic units, not as communities. The system that believes there is no such thing as society. David Brooks has a romantic view of conservatism - good for him, but the rest of us prefer to be a bit more clear-eyed about what it has really represented in history.
22
"conservatives have always placed tremendous emphasis on the sacred space where individuals are formed. This space is populated by institutions like the family, religion, the local community, the local culture, the arts, the schools, literature and the manners that govern everyday life."
My family is the single biggest thing I am most grateful for in my life. Followed by my friends, community and education.
Despite that, I find the idealizations of these institutions to be odd and misplaced. In my case, my family is my bedrock. For others, their familes / churches / educational institutions / communities are living nightmares.
It was the state, for example, that intervened and prosecuted the horrific sexual abuse of minors by priests, while the Catholic church made every effort possible to protect its own self-interest. There is absolutely nothing to admire about that, and nor should that institution be protected above everything else.
16
All you “conservatives” did nothing to oppose DJT during the primaries but you sure heaped the cow dung on Hilary. Get it? You did NOTHING. Now arm chair commentator Brooks wants to “theorize” what conservatives need to do.
Just keep doing nothing while my country burns, thank you very much.
26
Sure they did, there were a number of other alternatives. But without a rigged system Republican voters selected and elected this president because traditional types have failed. Since the president is delivering I am quite happy that rigged Hillary lost.
He's "delivering" hatred, plain and simple. From the global to the local, he's fomenting hatred and division. I'm sorry anyone would see that as admirable.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste and trump is in charge of your mind. He is delivering for specific white people so please just go on being happy and the rest of us Will do well without interacting with you.
We aren't going to let you weasel out of this - the republican party has courted bigots, mysoginists, homophobes, religious extremists, ignorants for decades in an effort to clobber enough votes together to pass your tax cuts. Trump is not an abberation, he is the culmination of your actions. You don't get to be the not trump party once he is gone. No whitewashing.
Shame on all of you. Where were your voices when your party's evil made life hell for people where your representatives ginned up hatred and fear in our communities.
NOW you're upset? Forgive me if I don't buy into your mea culpas, while I cynically wonder if looking the other way just stopped paying off for you.
And don't try to make a home among democrats - last thing I want is for throngs of you to remake my party in your image so that you can destroy it.
We are the majority, and we shall overcome this tyranny by a minority gerrymandered into power, even if it means the only option you have left us is civil unrest
31
Only in your fantasy alternative reality. And if there is civil unrest perhaps those with guns and the ability to use them will win. I bet that is not you, and it is not me either.
The dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans no longer works.
We need to explore new combinations of beliefs. In other countries that is facilitated by having many political parties. The two-party system in the US imposes a rigid uniformity on political discussion. Some issues are never mentioned, even though they may be crucial to the nation's future.
Sustainability, for example. In the long run, anything higher than zero population growth is unsustainable. Yet this fact is never mentioned in the NY Times.
Yes, we need to stop illegal immigration, because it contributes to population growth, which lowers the wages of unskilled workers in the long run. It does this through the simple economics of supply and demand. More unskilled workers mean wages are lower.
But by itself zero tolerance for illegal immigration appears cruel. It has to be supplemented by the other necessary policy---incentives for smaller families in Latin America and also in the US.
Republicans argue against such incentives when they may it difficult for Americans to achieve family planning, including access to abortions. We need to provide those services for Americans, because we need to urge Latin American countries to curb their own population growth.
The alternative is unacceptable: widespread poverty including outright starvation in the worst cases (now in Venezuela).
And global warming is one consequence of overpopulation.
Overpopulation is not discussed by either party.
4
Very good our country is over populated, so we actually need negative population growth. Zero or near zero immigration especially among the lower capabilities people.
Mr. Brooks, your thoughtful piece creates an unnecessary either-or. I'm a liberal who wants "big government" polices that are humane, family and community friendly. Those include access to medical care, living wages that don't require endless hours of breadwinner work, maternity/paternity leave, and financial/food support for those who need it. I suggest you miscast the liberal agenda to make a point.
8
Your desires are impossible, they don't even work well in a very homogeneous country like say Sweden. Now we all have "access" to medical care, living wages, and all those other things. Unfortunately many take too much advantage of them, thus making them unaffordable.
Sweden seems to be doing fine.
Where is the state that is the exemplar of your political philosophy?
It would be helpful if what you say about access to medical care and living wages were true but they're not. Try to cite some valid statistics by a reputable source.
This discussion is fruitless and irrelevant without covering the overwhelming power of the plutocracy—call it Wall St or whatever: the handful of people for whom only money matters. These people control the country, and the individual, the community, and the government are all irrelevant. If we could lessen the influence of these people, our political life could settle down to more orderly and less hysterical traditional forms of compromises and trade offs.
4
Excellent, but with a caveat. "Market fundamentalism" is everything you say it is with the effects which you say it has. But another word for it is "capitalism," and it is hard to believe that American culture is not so imbued with that economic system that it can unloose its grasp of America's economic and political system. Indeed, the economic and political correlative of the benign conservatism which you espouse is, OMG!, socialism with a kindly manner.
Still, it or something shifting the balance to a collective effort to advance the common good makes sense. America's love of private enterprise and private profits means that it cannot address the shared interests of all Americans: (1) reasonable health care for all Americans, (2) a quality education to meet the personal, civic, and career needs of all Americans, and (3) safe, healthy, clean, and supportive urban, ex-urban, and rural environments.
6
Why the desperate need to persist? You were a conservative yesterday; you can be anything you want today.
As the evidence mounts that high-sounding conservatism plays out very badly in the real world, and ever worse the longer it is practiced, maybe it's time for a re-think. It's easy if you try.
3
Conservatives, as the word indicates, want to "conserve" the status quo that allows the privileged ruling class to maintain their power. Republicans who separate themselves from Trump by claiming to be true conservatives are in fact proposing that we Make America Great Again. Before Trump, the Republican code words were "family values", "religious freedom" and "baby killers".
8
Reeking of sentimental nostalgia, Brooks visits Disneyland’s “Main Street” - a dreamy landscape of revisionist history laced with the invigorating fragrances of “compassionate conservatism…prerational cords of sympathy and affection…and sacred space.” He urges conservatives (and all of us) to turn back the hands of time and return to the glorious days of a conservative Camelot where all our needs were fulfilled by “the family, local civic organizations and the other players in the sacred space.”
In this utopia individuals inherit the irrational biases of their ancestors, a kind of prepackaged indoctrination; it’s a “sacred space” apparently with gravity so strong that that it suffocates rationality and any hope for the individual to explore or learn beyond the boundaries of that caged space. Individual freedom is forged by the irrationality and emotion of the sacred space, rather than discovered.
But, this is the very definition of “tribal” Brooks claims it is not. And it sounds more dystopian than utopian. It poses as anti-Trump, but in effect normalizes the mythical yesteryear, framed solely by ethereal and empty rhetoric, that Donald Trump wants to force America back into.
To which Brooks says: “The problem is he doesn’t base his belonging on the bonds of affection conservatives hold dear.” But David, the real problem is your hypocrisy because conservatives reserve the right to define the terms of those bonds of affection; they are not universally inclusive.
2
Revisionist history and propaganda by David Brooks. Full of high fives and wishful thinking.
"Once Donald Trump falls, the party could be brought back to health, and the fight has to be within the party as well as without."
Hard to fight without a spine.
3
Conservatism was an enlightenment tread opposed to monarchy!?!? Phoney learning about an inch deep. It was opposed to reform and revolution, the great liberal tradition that decisively influenced the American revolution.
14
Too little, too late, and--typically for you--too shallow. Just stand up and say, "I, David Brooks, will oppose the Republican Party and everything it is doing. If this means supporting (gasp!) Democrats or even Bernie Sanders, so be it. But the damage to our nation must be stopped before it is too late (and it might be too late."
Will I ever see that or some paraphrase of it? I wouldn't even bet a nickel, much less the farm.
5
Republicans now like Kim much better than Nancy Pelosi. You can't recover from this.
Trump brutalizes American day by day.
9
No they don't, the world would be better without both of them. Nancy is here so she is more dangerous.
"Then it was the state. In their different ways, communists, fascists, social democrats and liberals tried to use the state to perform many functions previously done by the family, local civic organizations and the other players in the sacred space..." because family, local civic organization an other players would not step up. The 'I've got mine' mind set took over. Power and money became all that mattered. And if you did not 'fit' any preconceived ideas of 'us' you and yours do not matter. And religions gave permission with their selling of "other, nonbeliever, savage' pick any disparaging label want.
Humanity isn't recognized as one
2
Republican or Conservative?
The choice is better stated as Confederate or Conservative.
2
You start with a false premise based on a lie. Donald Trump is the son of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, all bigoted conservative Republicans. And you of course extol conservatism as a virtue. Conservatives opposed social security, opposed civil rights, opposed marriage equality, oppose reproductive choice, and the minimum wage and common sense gun laws. And today, right now, conservatives are trying to restrict voting rights. No thank you Mr. Brooks. George Will and Steve Schmidt are right and you are wrong.
9
Radical individualism does not lead to vicious tribalism. It leads to disaffection. People are viciously tribal by nature. As recent history has shown in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, for example, the primal is always just below the surface. I think as humans we must recognize our unpleasantly paradoxical nature to try to stay on the path of reason which has bestowed the wonder the civilization upon us.
3
Don't you love the way "true" conservatives like to make their positions sound so noble? Sorry, David, but the GOP ran off the track long before Trump and you didn't say a word. Are you prepared to renounce your membership now?
3
You're right that your party became some kind of prosperity gospel bologna at some point, but you've always protected "traditional" power. The thing is, trickle-down is another temple you all worshiped at, and that doesn't fool (most) people anymore, so you told whites who aren't doing well in a post-recession economy that it's the fault of everybody else except your corporate masters.
What institutions, traditions, and "values" did you you all really champion? Treating women and LGBT people like second-class citizens and restricting our rights?
You know where you stow your traditions, Dave? In the dustheap.
2
Missing from this well thought out piece is "race," the cancer at the heart of America. Where do non-Anglos fit into this analysis? "Race" long protected Americans from having to deal with class. For centuries, poor whites could labor under the notion that they at least were better than (name an ethnic group). He may be a complete imbecile on every other issue, but he is a genius when it comes to understanding the power of thinking you are better than someone else. Both conservatives and Republicans played this game for decades, but he perfected it.
2
A pretty story. By your definition, though, the folks who called themselves "conservatives" in the mid- to late 20th century were misleading everyone, since their respect for these "sacred institutions" did not extend to the African American family or the families of those sent off to die in a misguided war in SE Asia. And you of the younger "neo"conservative generation yoked yourself to their team, just because they used the term "conservative", and then wondered why the left called you "racist." Look to your own history, my friend.
1
So conservative politics is just tribalism? Good to know.
2
I can almost hear the fife in the background playing “Yankee Doodle”. Green Acres here we come!!
1
Successful communities, cities, and states cannot hold the tide if the federal government is corrupt and our President is poisoning us from within for his own ego.
There is a cancer in the GOP that is rotting our democracy and commentators like Brooks cannot wash their hands of it as he tries to do in this article. For 40 years the GOP has built a campaign of fear, divisive single issue voting, disenfranchisement and race baiting. Brooks cannot sit honestly and say that the principles of conservatism as currently supported by ANY branch of the republican party are free from this disgusting taint. You want limited restrained pro-business government? Do it honestly and do it for the betterment of all Americans.
12
Mr. Brooks waxes nostalgically for the good old days when being a republican conservative didn’t mean being a red-meat eating racist without a clue about the the Global society.
7
Animal or Human, You Have to Choose.
2
Paper or Plastic !! ...
Finally someone has set this out; thank you. You cannot be a conservative if you chuck conservative values. You cannot be a Christian if you oppose everything Jesus preached.
3
Unfortunately, your party voted in a con man who doesn't understand nor care for your value system. He represents what his base is: angry, insecure, aging white men who see hate as an easy means of keeping their status
13
Stronger together. Sound familiar?
4
"Is it time to leave the Republican Party?"
How about you, David?
4
You fail to see the dialectic that is taking place. Cooperation, globalism, community has been rent asunder by both repubs and dems. It has lead to open borders, the rapid latinization of America, ridiculous LGBTQ dominance , globalization to the detriment of the American worker, internationalism replacing Americanism etc. All this is being reversed as having gone too far. Until the balance is reset, there will be no peace for loving communities. Get your head out of the sand. Donald Trump despite his faults is the harbinger of the necessary 2nd American revolution occurring before your eyes.
1
Ray, your racism and paranoia are showing ... particularly "LGBTQ dominance" ... they are perhaps 5% of the population. They will never be "dominant."
What's your problem, really? Is it that the only thing you have going for you is being a white male?
I'm a white guy, but I'd be really embarrassed if I couldn't find some better excuse for self worth, or some more objective reason why somebody should pay me.
1
Baloney. This is just another attempt by the old school elite to assert a lost dominance.
Trump is neither a Republican nor a conservative. He is a populist ideologue who has tapped into the darkest instincts of the American soul. His hardcore 40% support comprise racist xenophobes who are certain their life difficulties stem from some “other” (black people benefiting from affirmative action, brown people streaming across the border to “steal” jobs, yellow people cranking out the stuff they buy at Walmart). Tack onto that the 9% who are so blinded by their hatred of “liberals” that they are willing to subvert every norm of decency (hello, evangelicals) and the U.S. Constitution itself (hello, Neil Gorsuch), and voila you have an Electoral College winning plurality. And flush, there goes the USA as we knew it.
Try a different tact Mr. Brooks: affirmatively reject all those who would burn down that shining city on the hill we all (liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat) built so lovingly over 241 years. Urge them to vote for every Democrat on the ballot so the republicans get the firm rebuke they so richly deserve. Maybe then - and after a solid decade “time out”
10
YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE!!
Permanent press or traditionally creased slacks?
1
Nothing to see here, folks. There are no conservative candidates, only Trumplicans. Vote Democratic as soon as possible.
2
It’s time to govern again, by the majority vote rather than blind partisanship. This crisis of cowardice has displaced conservatism with tribal Trumpism. Mr. Brooks, the GOP is dead. The GOP remains dead. And we have killed it.
2
Those of us who saw through the GOP decades ago know KoolAid when Brooks tries to serve it up to us.
The GOP has been on a downward spiral since its inception worsened by the likes of Nixon, a criminal, Reagan, a mindless, know-nothing precursor to Trump, Old Bush, who took us into a completely senseless war, and W who lied and took us into a couple more senseless wars, all of them meanwhile sowing racial strife and class division at home.
There is the GOP war on labor, women and minorities and the poor, especially children. The party stands for nothing except whatever lobbyist pay it to stand for. The party goes with whatever is best for the businesses is in its pockets.
All the GOP wants is whatever the Kochs and their ilk want, or the Heritage Foundation or Adelman and the Jewish lobby or the Evangelical lobby or the gun lobby or big pharma or big ag want, outside of staying in power at all costs, by cheating, stealing and lying.
What a garbage dump the GOP is and has been. So, why must Brooks roll around in it, tortured by whether to be a crook or a kook? Or both? The rest of us chose long ago not be anywhere near it.
12
Today you can be a conservative or a Republican, but you can’t be both. David, have you formally declared?
1
Mr. Brooks, the title directs anonymous readers to make the choice that YOU have to make.
When are you going to live up to your philosophical political ideals and burn your Republican registration card??
Never? Well then your choice is "Republican", and you remain on the record as a loyal supporter of the Trump Party. So admit it. And please stop your meek, passive critiques of it.
2
Ah. Thanks for this new and enlightening redefinition of conservatism. From all of my personal experience over the last 55 years I thought conservatism rather meant ‘ignorant racist’. You know what, I think your definition- let’s call this the Fancy Definition- is not only wildly inaccurate, it is downright disingenuous. I think my definition - let’s call this the Actual Definition - is better because it accurately reflects what actual conservatives *do*. The Actual Definition does not rely on some defunct historical meaning like the Fancy Definition. Doing this is sort of like saying the GOP is the party of Lincoln - a bald lie.
1
Perhaps we should re-cast the soft language of "market fundamentalism" in terms that are stronger, and more accurate: "totalitarian market capitalism." That might shock us into a better recognition of what conservatives and liberals alike face today.
5
liberals don't want to use the government to liberate people (from poverty, from oppression) because they hate churches and families, it's because when - as was the case in America - the government was used as an instrument of oppression, in a capitalist society, where money makes money and more money means freedom, de jure equality is meaningless without intervention. liberals would love strong, healthy, longstanding local institutions. let's just give them enough money to make a difference in people's lives, especially poor people's lives, of any race or ethnicity, rather than defunding them in the name of "freedom."
4
Today's Republican party is like that village in Viet Nam: in order to save it, we have to destroy it.
Conservatism in Brooks' sense will arise from differences in the Democratic party.
Nice try.
The truth is Donald Trump is the truest of conservatives. He represents the ultimate conservative thinker and embodies the very nature of the conservative movement.
Conservatives are those who seek to maintain power by oppressing those without it. It is the political force that loathes change and therefore social progress.
The principal tenants of conservatism are the oppression of women and people of color. The only way for the wealthy to become even richer is if they continue to take from the poor.
I don't blame you for trying to disown him, but Donald Trump is your man all the way home.
4
In practice, folks like George Will made up a lot of nonsense to support their biases. For example, Will used to write about the dangers of small cars, even though insurance companies never were worried that smalls cars are death traps. Other like David Brooks used to spout nonsense about health insurance to support folks paying larger out of pockets - skin in the game. When you examine the practical ideas from conservatives, they fall apart. Anyone know why? Brooks and Will are decent folks. So what is the problem?
1
This "sacred space" is dangerous territory. Anne Hutchison was kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay colony and later murdered, along with her children, by the Narragansett Indians because her identification of herself in that sacred space violated the thinking of the elders as did the religious convictions of Roger Williams who, when he was kicked out of the same colony, was saved by the Indians and then founded Rhode Island as an island for freedom of worship. Fear of such tyranny from inhabitants of sacred spaces impelled the Founders, spiritual descendants of religious tyrannizers in both the Old World and the Massachusetts Bay colony, to ratify the 1st Amendment. Religion is key to what is happening to us today. Sacred space is threatened by the tribalism of both the President and the Vice President--but as polar opposites. Which is more dangerous: the tribe that worships money, power, the subjection of ethics to personal gain, or the tribe that worships rules, law, the subjection of ethics to personal whims? In a sense, I fear Pence more than Trump. Eventually, marketplace values do fade or change. Personal whims of religious zealots? Only for the worse. No mercy.
2
So much of the current divide goes back to Roe vs Wade. Once the GOP decided, in the late '70s, to exploit the choice issue for their gain, the party abandoned their long-time emphasis on the rights of the individual and "conservatism" in this country lost its focus. As moderate Republicans were squeezed out, the Party became more and more hate centered. If you don't believe me, review the tapes of the 2016 GOP Convention which was almost a total hate fest, with little to say about what the party could do to improve the lives of citizens. Trump capitalized upon this hate and we are paying the price although the absurdity of his Administration might just be the wake up call the country has long needed.
1
The comments on brooks column are great and worth saving! Educational themselves and tightly written because of the format. Smart people who can tell us what’s missing from brooks theory. What he did not know or consider.
This discussion and our time should be framed as a struggle between two competing political philosophies: liberalism and illiberalism.
The United States of America was founded on a liberal political philosophy, which emanated from the Enlightenment period. Individuals that subscribed to an illiberal political philosophy, like monarchy, the fusion of church and state, and the absence of individual liberties, supported the British.
Progressives over time, sought to perfect our union, through Constitutional amendments and law, by moving the country towards the liberal ideal. America was fairly illiberal in practice in 1789 because citizenship, suffrage, economic participation, and liberty were limited to a few. Progressives have sought to extend liberty and freedom to all Americans.
Conservatives, at each point in history, opposed these changes. Regressives sought to nullify and reverse these changes and favored, at the very least, the form of limited liberalism (short of the liberal ideal) at the country’s founding. Trumpism, a virulent form of illiberalism, seems to destroy the liberal institutions and freedoms built by generations of Americans.
1
Whatever Mr Brooks thinks the term "conservative" once meant, it has been hijacked by the radical right wing, whose goal is to roll back our society to the status quo that existed before the Civil War, where the rights of property owners, especially the landed slaveowning oligarchy, reigned supreme. The only difference would be that chattel slavery wouldn't be revived; it would be replaced, however, by our current monopsony economy and its limited opportunities for people to freely choose the terms under which they work. That, along with our ballooning credit card and student loan debt, would make it easy for our current oligarchy to control the labor market while they raise prices with impunity thus ensuring their perpetual profitability and burgeoning wealth.
In this scenario Trump, a mean spirited bully with no conviction besides his own self aggrandizement, is a useful tool, along with the entire Republican Party.
In our binary system, if Mr Brooks thinks that the "conservatives" for whom he is so nostalgic can form a new political force, it's a fantasy. It would be more productive for these classical "conservatives" to join forces with the Democratic Party, find they have much in common, build a larger coalition, and drive the Republicans back under the rocks, where they so rightly belong.
2
Perhaps Burlington, VT is such a vision of peaceful community is that it's long been a city of reasoned enlightenment and outreach. It's no surprise that Burlington elected Bernie Sanders - a community organizer - and thrived during his leadership.
Vermont's tradition of Town Meeting every year on the first Tuesday in March has a way of keeping people plugged in to the survival of their towns. In the early days, there was no way of surviving without such community. You could have your private kingdom up on your hill farm, but you better well take care of others too, paying it forward for when it might be your turn to need help. The state's motto of "Freedom and Unity" pretty much sums it up.
1
David Brooks leaves the impression that conservatism vs. liberalism is an either/or choice. This is a fallacy. Classically, at least, both good conservatives and good liberals have in common an openness to change when it comes to such matters as justice, equality, opportunity. The difference lies in their approach to change. Conservatives, favoring liberty and fearful of anarchy, believe those goals are best achieved through gradualism; liberals, feeling a greater moral urgency, tend to turn to government as the quicker, more effective agent of change. Both approaches have validity and need not be mutually exclusive. Today, we have a president who is neither conservative nor liberal in the good sense. Trump stands outside both camps: his goals are not justice, equality or opportunity, but self-enrichment and the aggrandizement of power. He is a radical bent on destruction, a would-be despot who should be rejected by both true conservatives and true liberals.
7
Exactly. There is no mutual exclusion between conservation and liberation.
Great column. I hope all take note, especially in the media, that the time has long, long, long passed when "Republican" and "conservative" were interchangeable terms.
Calling this current Republican party "conservative" is to make the word meaningless.
David, you make a good effort to separate today's Republican Party from Conservatism but it is a futile effort. They are inseparable. Conservatism was a philosophical construct to provide validity to the claims of a class of people who owned wealth and slaves. It made them feel good and respectable. Republican party added Market Fundamentalism, Guns, God, etc. to the brew. One doesn't exist without the other because they share the same ground.
4
Logical or not, former Democrat Ronald Reagan got a lot of mileage out of saying: I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me. Well, this is essentially what Mr. Brooks is saying about the GOP and people like him. Call yourselves what you want. Bullmoosers might work. But make it clear that, for the time being at least, you are no longer part of what has become an authoritarian and know-nothing enterprise. Make it clear that to vote for Republicans at this point is to be complicit with transgressive policies contrary to the national interest.
6
David is engaging in the same thing he is purportedly denouncing. He is putting everyone on teams with false attributes. The two party system is bonkers. And David is revealing why that is so. His description of conservatives, leaving liberals out of a link to community and pulling together is just crazy talk. He always seems to want to divide us into simple categories with no basis in reality.
3
David Brooks daily push for theocracy.
He has overlooked, endlessly, the twisted power of religion to hurt, not help, humanity. Refusing to acknowledge that these institutions can sometimes be lethal undermines his argument. "Til death do us part" has strengthened the strangle hold of the wife beater and incestuous father. Christianity justified slavery and genocide as powerful European countries and the United States stole and pillaged the resources of Africa, Asia and the Americas.
The "Republican" and the "Conservative" both refuse to admit past mistakes in policy and philosophy. Family and religion can be powerful forces for good, but they sometimes can be used to justify evil. Evil lives in the hearts and minds of INDIVIDUALS. Allowing those individuals to misuse any social institution cannot be accepted by people of good will. Mr. Brooks, your devotion to preserving the institution, no matter what it does, is the reason you can't see the evil it nurtures.
4
This column is a wonderful insight that I had never thought of before and I thank Mr. Brooks for it. Many commenters have noted that the flavor of the local environment of “sacred space” can easily turn malign. When that happens how can the malignancy be excised? It’s evident that only forces outside the local power structure (that is, outside the sacred space) can force it to change. That is true when the sacred space is a company town of coal miners dying of black lung or a town lynching it’s black population or where corruption in the power structure leads to abuses of power in all its manifestations. Those who abuse power will always condemn any action that threatens their power. Virtue in their minds attaches to any means necessary to avoid change.
What is striking about our current moment is how many of those stuck in a malign spaces and suffering because of it join the fight against change. That they are recruited to the fight by appeals to xenophobia and the stoking of hatred of the ‘other’ is not a surprise. There is an inescapable link between the use of such tactics and abuse of power.
What a choice for “true conservatives.” In order to stop the cancer of Trump destroying the Republican party any further, they will have to, alas!, voice for a Democratic Congress. There is no hope with the current Congress stopping the runaway train. And simply complaining or not voting are no options.
Once the cancer’s spread is halted, only then can they work on their permanent cure. I am sure that many such conservatives could never have dreamed of such a dilemma. But no one could have imagined such a man ever being elected to the Presidency.
5
Who could imagine any grown up person believing the bloody fool that he's worth $10 billion after 6 bankruptcies?
3
The next conservatism will be just like the old conservatism. Old rich guys, usually white, using the system to stack everything in their favor. Trump is a perfect fit for the conservative movement.
5
If what David Brooks says is accurate, then why aren't the Conservatives embracing the immigrants coming in from the south? They are highly moral people who adhere to standards of faith and family that have been completely missing from American society for some time. I have experienced in California, well-behaved children, manners and an obvious familial closeness among the Mexican and South American populations that reside here. Perhaps we can come up with a better way to extol these values and stop viewing these good people as criminals.
3
I had to re-read this column three times because whatever Republican or conservative world Mr. Brooks is describing as *sacred*bears absolutely no relation to anything that either group have had in their guiding philosophy since at least Eisenhower. Just to name a few of their shining moments; Joseph McCarthy, the John Birch Society, Nixon, the inhumane philosophy behind refusing to take care of the least fortunate, the refusal to offer health care for all, actively disenfranchising voters through registration games, the Iraq War, and last but not least, Trump, and all that that entails, from jingoism, to racism, to cozying up to dictators and despots, and now, locking up babies and children. The Republicans, and conservatives, will not recover from this anytime soon. Hopefully Americans will.
2
For God's sake, this isn't about *party*...it's about true Democracy.
Other countries have a "None of the Above" (NOA) option for elections, and the U.S. just as clearly & desperately needs this power put in the people's hands as well.
Trump and Clinton were the most disliked candidates in U.S. history, yet We the People were effectively told -- again -- that we 'have to' vote for one or the other.
George Washington forewarned in his farewell address, a letter to the nation, that political parties would only seek advantage for themselves when in office, and revenge when they were not.
It's high time to end this farce of political parties somehow really caring more about governing the nation as a whole rather than serving their own special interests.
2
History will teach our descendants that it was Ronald Wilson Reagan's administration that destroyed America. Liberalism and conservatism are products of middle-class governance and are not opposites but essentially the centrist position in a country where the middle-class has the fiduciary responsibility for well run government.
Both English and American dictionaries define middle class as the class below the aristocracy that has the educational and financial resources to make the choices necessary for a functional and well run government.
The military industrial complex had little understanding of the complexity of the largest, wealthiest, most powerful and most diverse society ever created. Reagan replaced the ever evolving and expanding middle-class with men who rejected the moderation of middle class governance with men who found refuge in old ideas and older values in a world which was evolving very rapidly.
I think specifically of Antonin Scalia who rejected the values and ethics of the American revolution and wished a return to the absolutism and efficiency of top down government.
William F. Buckley Jr is a hero of the right wing but it is his father an unabashed fascist who deserves the credit for today's Republican Party. It is Buckley Sr who planted the American flag in Mexico and Venezuela and preached the gospel of economic colonialism backed by American military might.
It is time for a rebuild where liberal or conservative has no meaning.
3
I'm 54. In my lifetime - from Nixon on - I've seen zero evidence of this beautiful conservatism you speak of. This is a fantasy that denies reality.
5
"...over the last 30 years the parties of the right drifted from conservatism. The Republican Party became the party of market fundamentalism....Market fundamentalism is an inhumane philosophy that makes economic growth society’s prime value..."
Isn't it wondrous how Brooks, Will, Kristol, et al have suddenly found a way to absolve themselves of any blame for the pig stye condition of Trump's Republican party? This after comforting and guiding the party for the last 30 years into and through Welfare Queens, Willie Horton and its Southern strategy.
3
The logical conclusion to Brooks' conservative "sacred space" is a society that values good governance. A place where corruption is punished, where citizens live in peace from constant talking wars, trade wars and, inevitably, shooting wars. It would be a place where its inhabitants are protected by the rule of law. Unfettered markets would not be allowed because they always fall prey to the wicked and dishonest, thereby depriving some of us of the fruits of our labors in order to benefit the corrupt.
It is clear that Republicans can't govern, and the accumulation of poverty, especially in rural America, is the rot at the core of a conservative Republican party extended to its logical intellectual conclusion. I agree with Steve Schmidt: vote for a Democrat, any Democrat. It is the only way to save the soul of this country from Trumpism.
1
Brooks absolutely hits the mark with this column and explains why someone like me who cannot embrace the Democrat approach (whatever that is beyond not Trump) feels I have no place in the Republican Party.
This paints a rather rosy picture of Conservatism. Conservatives have always supported family, church, community but these "sacred spaces" were only fine if they held to a kind of rigid and very pale caste system. Being born into a poor family in a blighted neighborhood is not at all like being born into a family with an Ivy League legacy. People stopped being religious because it seemed as if religion was being used to give people solace in the place of opportunities and to justify the hierarchy that kept each caste in its place.
Conservative ideas today claim that people's wealth is proof that God loves them. That, of course, implies that the converse is true, if you are poor God thinks you deserve to be poor. What? Whatever Conservatism Brooks is describing never really existed at all. It is a chimera. It was always about economics and business and white supremacy. What we are seeing now is the logical destination of a conservatism that has forgotten all about humanism.
I see that there are Republicans who cannot own this single-minded conservatism. What is a person who is somewhat liberal socially, but somewhat conservative economically to do? David Brooks and other conservatives of conscience are feeling like people without a party because that is what they are. Are they an anachronism? Perhaps but we should hope that the best bits of the past are somehow preserved in the future.
3
Cameron’s “Big Society” failed miserably because it failed to answer the contradictions between the government asking that ordinary citizens do more for free while both failing to punish bankers for the 2008 Recession and ideologically destroying the public services that had previously addressed those tasks the public was being asked to volunteer for. It was received with utter cynicism and died a deserved, miserable death within months.
2
Well, it's been a long journey for David Brooks! It's almost as if he never supported Reagan's government "small enough to drown in a bathtub" Republicanism. It's almost as if he never supported Bush's "kind conservatism."
Now, finally there's a Republican standard bearer whose defense he cannot muster. I congratulate him for his arrival but wonder how in the world it took him so long.
Make America great AGAIN - that’s the key word that fooled Trump voters into believing he was a conservative,for conservatives always look back to some golden past when things weren’t in such fearful flux. But Trump is intent is not only nostalgic, he actually wants to make the past the present, and his version of the past isn’t golden, it’s white,white, white.
3
Totally agree that the Republican Party has split off from the conservative movement. But I blame Ronald Reagan for shoving off first.
Before Reagan, conservatives paid the bills, maintained the property and paid the help. After Reagan, the GOP was all tax cuts all the time, even with budget deficits.
Since then, looming racial tensions and fear-mongering about brown immigrants have further skewed the argument.
If I were objective, I would make room for a real conservative movement to counter the more powerful arguments of the enlightened liberals among us. But Trump has tarnished the Republican Party for a generation.
Conservatives, rise up and start over.
2
David, you make conservatism sound downright socialistic. That you've hung on to the GOP for so long, which has been completely captured by market capitalism - seemingly the antithesis of these values you hold dear - boggles my mind.
In our society now, your party has pushed policies that have been destructive to the institutions you hold dear. You can decry secularism all you want, but these sacred pre-social contract institutions need strong economic soil in which to flourish, and I think we all know where your party stands when it comes to stewarding the environment, economic and otherwise. Like it or not, the health and welfare of families, civic institutions, congregations, etc. rise and fall with the way the state is managed. Leviathan isn't going anywhere. Bad faith market capitalism will never amount to the benign neglect you seem to cherish, it will just result in wealth transfer away from the vast majority of our citizens to the very few, who (no dummies) have seized the levers for their own benefit.
*Someone* always has to be at those levers. We all have a duty to make sure they are operated fairly and in good faith to promote the GENERAL welfare, while we still have the mechanisms to do so.
1
Wow! A very rare column by Brooks in which he discusses the flaws of Conservatism without taking gratuitous potshots at us dreaded Liberals, and creating false equivalencies!
Better yet, there's still more evidence that Brooks's worldview is evolving, that he's starting to understand that you can't always look at things as clear-cut dichotomies, and realizing that we Liberals aren't the anathema that he has consistently argued over the course of his career:
"When I look at places that are successfully nurturing beautiful communities, which seem most “conservative” in the true sense, I find great pluralism. Burlington, Vt., is doing it, and so is Salt Lake City. I find beautiful communities in places that consider themselves deep blue and places that consider themselves deep red."
David Brooks extolling pluralism in Burlington VT? I never thought I'd see this day!
3
Country Club conservatism leveled with an ah shucks attitude will get crushed by the Donald. Lets take the example of Al Smith New York Gov and Democratic nominee for 1928. The political tornado of FDR swept him to margins and the Al Smith wing of the Democratic wing gone from any relevance.
Insert the free market compassion wing of the GOP for the dust bin of history. The reemergence of the country club set will require a complete rejection of the Trumpian formula and no one in the GOP has the clout or personality heft to lead the revolt. Since the Libertarians already exist , co-op their 19th century Foreign policy and run a third party....or join Al Smith
What do Republicans, who read your article here, think when they read it? Does it resonate? Do they see Trump the same way that you do? Do they "feel" the drift away from the traditional view and the traditional values that you describe are at the heart of conservatism? I would hope so, but what probably folly, perhaps. An undisputed poll showing 90% support for Trump among Republicans presents a quandary for me. How can that be? Where is the "sacredness" of the individual that you attribute, by implication, to most folks on the right? If people feel quite comfortable in their support for Trump, for his appeal to the baser instincts, for his trail into Tribalism that he has so brazenly blazed, you have to wonder, is this normal going to persist? I have mine, the heck with the rest. Market fundamentalism. You have provide one analysis. Put on your cristal ball and predict what you think is likely in 2018 and 2020 - or beyond.
1
Republicans started down the slippery slope to where they are now many years ago beginning with Nixon's "Southern Strategy". Republicans cultivated a base where prideful ignorance, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and homophobia were encouraged. Donald Trump was actually the perfect Republican candidate for your base because he embodied what have become the values of today's Republican Party.
Mr. Brooks I am afraid you are living in a memory of a Party that never was. The Party which claimed to be the Party of preserving the sacred space, desecrated it in favor of power and enriching already wealthy supporters.
1
While I appreciate the fundamental thrust that Trump is something different to traditional conservatism, this is rather incoherent.
If true conservatism believes that order comes first, and freedom comes of that, then it would not be so hung up on the idea that a "well regulated militia" has no meaning, and every Tom, Dick and Harry should be able to buy a gun whenever and however they like.
If true conservatism believes in the sacred, non-governmental institutions that bind us all, then why does "It takes a village" seem to them to be a massage from Satan?
If government is fundamentally distrusted to the true conservative, why is the knee jerk reaction of conservatives to use the government to regulate women's bodies.
If conservatism is rooted in fundamental, even sacred, bonds why is environmentalism usually viewed by many conservatives as something between a illogical tree huggers and a fifth column of the communists?
1
To simplify the discussion, Conservatives want to conserve the past - at least a romanticized version of the past where women knew their place, white men ruled and uppity minorities were kept in their place.
Progressives believe society always needs to and can be improved by an ongoing progression towards equality for all peoples including equal access to health care, education, justice, safety and the fruits of our huge and burgeoning economy.
Conservatives look backwards. Progressives look forward. Conservatives are fear based. Progressives are aspirational. Conservatives are suspicious. Progressives are welcoming. Conservatives are exclusionary. Progressives are inclusionary. Conservatives expect the worst in people. Progressives assume the best in people.
Mr. Brooks is right, you have to choose. Many of us have a long time ago.
6
It must take a genius to come up with such nonsense. A lesser mind would be incapable of it.
Intellectual "conservatism" has, for a long time, provided polite and intelligent-sounding cover to a movement whose practical effect is to preserve institutional racism and sexism while stifling the working class in favor of big business and the wealthiest. It has opposed progress toward the equality of human beings in every respect.
Brooks conjures the image of a man lecturing from the deck of the Titanic while it sinks beneath the waves. Dude, this idealized imagined version of the Republican Party does not exist and never did. There is only the Trump-led nightmare of reality.
3
David's selective history of Conservatism is like a description of the Vikings as ingenious navigators, and trade ambassadors to diverse far-spread lands without mentioning all the mayhem and pillaging.
1
Conservatism or greed? Today's conservatives are hardly conservative in the true sense of the word. They care about their families but not others. They preach austerity but vote to explode the debt by giving more wealth to the already wealthy through tax cuts. Using their view, the problems would all be solved if only we could get rid of welfare recipients and immigrants.
Their version of the Holy Spirit is the almighty dollar, not some religion based spiritual god. They don't practice religion, but rather use it to hide their bias.
Some Republicans may feel disgust at the Trump agenda, but if the polls are correct, the huge majority of the GOP endorse his hate filled rhetoric and racist policies, including a majority of GOP congressional representatives.
Those who still support the GOP enablers who unleashed Trump to destroy our democracy need to look into the mirror and determine if they like what they see.
3
I have come to hate the term conservative or liberal. They seem to hide the basic needs of each individual. Liberals seem to think that the state should be the end provider of our basic needs while conservatives want to push those that can't provide for their basic needs to be turned out and shunned. Both positions are detrimental to basic human needs and even morality.
As a life long Republican, I believe in fiscal responsibility in both the public and private sectors. This is what my party was built on and today the GOP has turned its back on those basic values. Trump has made the administration his private piggy bank and even mentioned that it would be a good deal if he had sole power and a life long tenure. The individual rights and needs of the common man are not his priorities. He has surrounded his office with toadies and boot-lickers and purged all that voice their own convictions.
It is a very dark and dangerous time in American politics.
7
You too readily fall back on religious terms to justify your social dogma, Sacred space is an absurd concept. Your view of the individual is not of an individual but of a follower - a follower of the group or system he or she has been born into. Your ideology paradoxically does not allow for individualism, it turns out to be a rational for small units to rule over larger units.
5
Name a prominent conservative in either party.
David,
Interesting piece in an abstract sort of way. Defining and redefining terms like "conservative", "liberal" or libertarian and progressive are intellectual exercises that lead in a circle.
I think I am one of many who consider themselves careful financially and tolerant socially. Forward looking and practical. So...what am I? Don't pen me in with labels, thanks.
The real discusson we need to have NOW is about truth. It's about rejecting the politics of manufactured fear and lies to support that fear.
The White House is occupied by a monster from a horrible novel or a dystopian movie. Find a label for him. And help us rid ourselves of the most destructive and morally repugnant president of all time. Help us oust the haters.
13
David Brooks makes a false dichotomy that there are Republicans or Trumpists. The GOP since Nixon/Reagan created the fertile ground for Trump and the type of people who support him. Nixon first created the Southern Strategy to turn Dixiecrats to the GOP by dog whistling racism. Reagan also appealed to racism by targeting welfare queens and the poor (e.g. blacks) as the enemy. On and on it went over the years with Willie Horton and Bush senior, and Lee Atwater's strategy.
What they call the "Movement" GOP appealed to social issues and hate in return for votes and they targeted evangelicals who never used to vote. Now those evangelicals, racists and other vote. They don't give a darn on the "Movement" Conservative goals of doing anything and everything for large corporations and the 0.5%.
The "deplorables" finally got smart after voting GOP for 30 years and not having their issues addressed.
It will be hard for the "Movement" to resurrect.
3
You make an eloquent argument. However, you miss a stark reality. Pure, unadulterated greed now controls our country. And with the systems currently in place, that is highly unlikely to change any time in the near future. The Republican party, the majority of the supreme Court and the majority of Congress are bought, paid for and functioning as puppets of the top 1% wealthiest in our country. Sufficient pittances from Congress and mass brainwashing from Fox cable will ensure that the Republican party in its current form will survive. Polls show 90% approval of trump. That isn't likely to change in the foreseeable future. We have truly lost our democracy.
2
Mr. Brooks, Pleasantville was just a MOVIE, a made up entertainment, that BTW had ominous overtones as its underlying plot device. Not a Republican or Conservative ideal.
2
Far too much deep, wishful thinking, hoping to save the moment. The fundamental problem with the party, whether its republican or conservative iterations,, is that it's become a slave to marketing and is no longer about policy. trump is just the logical conclusion of the marketing campaign that began with Reagan and engineered by Gingrich. It's time for both iterations of the party to die the death that is the natural result of trumpism.
“Conservatism, as Roger Scruton reminds us, was founded during the 18th-century Enlightenment. In France, Britain and the American colonies, Enlightenment thinkers were throwing off monarchic power and seeking to build an order based on reason and consent of the governed. Society is best seen as a social contract, these Enlightenment thinkers said. Free individuals get together and contract with one another to create order.”
Wrong! This is called liberalism. Traditional conservatism, a form of illiberalism, favored monarchic power, the fusion of church and state, and governing without the consent of the people.
12
Once again, Mr Brooks in incorrect in framing the question.
Conservative or White Christian Nationalist?
You have to choose.
3
I think conservatism means "Use tradition, keep everything the same". Republicanism means "power and profit at any cost".
3
According to your definition, I've never met a living conservative. As Krugman waggishly suggested in advance, there might be about five of you, writing columns for major media outlets--like this one.
1
If the Republican Party continues along its current trajectory, there won’t be a post-Trump Republican Party to rehabilitate. The question should not be if you are republican or conservative; rather, do you believe in constitutional democracy or not? If the answer is that you believe in it, then quibbling over what some conservative intellectuals and never Trumpers debate doesn’t matter, and psuedo acts of defiance like Mitt Romney writing in his wife’s name for president are empty acts of pageantry. The answer is for the good of the country, they need to vote with the Dems, and once our country is safe from the rot and corruption seeping from the Trump administration, then they can get to work rebuilding their disgraced party.
1
"Today you can be a conservative or a Republican, but you can’t be both."
Or, you could be a Democrat, which is currently your only viable alternative.
2
Speak for yourself Mr. Brooks.
The Republicans you advocate for are nothing but piñatas for the dominant media.
Trump has brilliantly gone on the offensive and still has better approval ratings than he did on Election Day 2016.
1
People who believe that Trump believes anything or represents anything don't understand him. All he wants is power. He represents his 'base' because they give him power. He's shown through his life that he has no other beliefs than the belief that he must have power. He and his wife have no morals. Most people have some morals, and so they can't understand these types of people. Trump and his wife are the king and queen, they are wall street personified. They are high level administrators in universities or CEOs. They are of a class of people who simply do not have any morals or any beliefs. As her jacket said, "I don't care." And she meant it. How else could one visit children who have been stripped of their parents and tell them "good luck" and have them clap for her, or be vile enough to wear that jacket. Until people realize what these people are, they will be constantly misread.
1
Order based on reason and consent of the governed? Individuals as defined by their community? A political ideology based on sacred spaces? Brooks, you sound like a downright hippie.
Would that any of this could be realized. If it ever is, I promise that it won't be realized by people we currently call "Republicans" or "Conservatives."
Also, I don't want to hang out with my fellow Americans who are part of the president's tribe. I'll argue with them, but we can't even agree that facts are real things. That is insane, and I'm not the crazy one. If they could stop maligning people like me for a second—and I'm sorry, but they really did start this yelling match—then maybe we could hear each other. But until they take responsibility for their actions—for things like implying that I am not a "real American" because I have the temerity to live in a blue city, don't own a gun, and don't go to church, that sort of business—until they take responsibility then we're at an impasse.
You remember responsibility, don't you? That's another tenet of conservatism, or so I'm told. Currently, it's right up there with reason.
2
If you believe in the conservative philosophy as Brooks suggests history defines it, you'd be labeled a liberal these days. That's how far the right wing extremist gaslighting has twisted the narrative.
1
Another excellent column, Mr. Brooks. Much food for thought.
I don't believe that Trump has any grandiose vision for America or that he has internalized the "Conservative" values that marked the Republican Party since the end of WWII. He's just projecting his own cravings for recognition and wealth outwards, and he happened to latch onto a GOP that was rudderless and in disarray. He claims victories for things that have gone well, and he casts failures on to his detractors.
It remains to be seen if the conservative movement will be able to resurrect and restore the social and religious organizations that helped set the stage for the flowering of the enlightenment ideals that were the basis for our country.
The article opens fetchingly enough, but I kept waiting for a rehash of the tired anti-Trump establishment tirade and was not disappointed.
President Trump in trying to rally the nation on behalf of its own interests — e.g. fair trade, the domestic economic, jobs, well-regulated borders, etc. — is fighting for the biggest "sacred space" of them all.
You cannot have the abstract isolated pockets of community that Mr. Brooks conjures up without a larger political/cultural ecosystem within which they can be protected, not only against external threats, but against the ideological fanaticism of extreme factions in both political parties. That encompassing ecological system is called a nation, something that globalist (Right and Left) seemed determined to pretend shouldn't really be there.
The problem with Trump is that if he is trying to rally the entire public, he is doing a super lousy job of it. He is abrasive, dismissive, and divisive and tells too many porkies to count. Mr. Trump is, without doubt, the worst, most incoherent expositor of his own views we have had as president in anyone's living memory.
Mr. Brooks, your thoughtfulness and civility is always appreciated. However, I believe it is a faulty claim to suggest that the "sacred space" of community is, or was, fully the domain of the conservative viewpoint. It is true that the extremes on either side are prone to rage at society and government as it is currently constructed, and the radical alterations they proscribe do threaten the formation of communities as we currently know them.
However, at the core of a liberal view, with faith in the state and other collective institutions, is not the belief that all elements of the sacred space must be mandated by collective opinion. Rather, it is the thought that provisions must be made for those who are unable to "gratefully inherit" their institutions, or have instead inherited a millstone around their neck. The immigrant, the economically disadvantaged, the minority, must have protections that allow them to shape a place for themselves in the sacred space. And, anyone that comes with open arms as a friend seeking to participate in the sacred space cannot be turned away without cause, or because of who they cannot help but be.
1
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. An excellent article and, I believe, spot on. We need to have a rational conservative party if we’re to maintain the current two party system. But maybe it’s too late? Maybe the two party system no longer works in our multi-faceted society and culture?
2
It's a sweet thought that we are all incubated in sacred spaces that help us become the kind of individual that can be entrusted with liberty. I myself am grateful for the loving and principled way my parents and large extended family raised me as well as my childhood temple for giving me space to consider a higher meaning and purpose of life, all life.
However, Conservatism often shows no compassion or offers no criticism when those institutions fail. Conservatives admonish individuals to respect traditions and the institutions of family, faith, marriage, etc.; however, they are reluctant if at all capable of criticizing those institutions or traditions when they lead to hate, violence, and tribalism. I left my temple when it became clear that those who were running it were never going to give up on caste, homophobia, and misogyny, despite their rhetoric. I had higher expectations, based on the very principles the faith taught me. I know many folks who left their church, mosque or synagogue for similar reasons. Marriage also has a history of being a space for violence, suppression, and homophobia. But Conservatives would have you believe that we reject institutions and traditions out of disdain for higher principles, not out of disappointment that those institutions seem incapable of following their own most important teachings.
Conservatives bow down to traditions and institutions but demand little of them. Liberals are willing and able to improve those institutions
10
Okay, you got a basic point absolutely right: "There never was such a thing as an autonomous, free individual who could gather with others to create order. Rather, individuals emerge out of families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nations. The order comes first. Individual freedom is an artifact of that order." But, conservatives said that? When? Certainly not Milton Friedman or any other Economist beside, perhaps, a few who respected FDR.
2
It seems to me that there's a fundamental problem with Brooks's idea of conservatism. He talks about "sacred spaces," saying, "This space is populated by institutions like the family, religion, the local community, the local culture, the arts, the schools, literature and the manners that govern everyday life."
But many of those institutions are formed around like-minded people, meaning such conservatives feel strongly about their local community, but not about outsiders. That road leads directly to tribalism and Trumpism.
We see this everywhere: people arguing for confederate monuments or against Muslim immigrants. Yet government has to be for everyone, not just the majority.
9
Exactly. There is no inclusive “sacred space.” Spaces are “sacred” only when everyone within them agrees that their way is the right way.
What the ballots on every one of our elections should have is "None Of The Above". If that wins the majority then the election is voided, another called, and we start all over again until an actual human wins. Considering today's deeply divisive nation that may take some time, a very long time maybe. So be it.
DD
Manhattan
3
Conservatism as defined by Brooks lacks one major characteristic: empathy for those who are not as well equipped to succeed, whether by reason of a physical impairment, amental or psychological issue or sociological disadvantage. Sure, it is nice to recede to our sacred space as individuals, but we cannot turn our backs on those less fortunate than we are. Unfortunately, the conservative platform has always been based on selfishness.
8
I appreciate the sentiment of your vision, "The next conservatism will be built on the back of these real-life communities, and the way they nurture good citizens and healthy attachments. It will be based on new alliances, which have little to do with your father’s G.O.P." I think is will be as successful as it was 200 years ago.
Rather, I feel Bill Kristol is more accurate with one cavet when he says, "...not so fast: Once Donald Trump falls, the party could be brought back to health, and the fight has to be within the party as well as without it." I see people running into a burning building once Trump falls only to be burned by the miasma of thought that has been breeding in that unmaintained structure.
Once Donald Trump falls, the party could be brought back to health, and the fight has to be within the party as well as without it.
1
Nice piece of writing as is usual from David Brooks. Ignores the fact that "Conservatism" as understood by most of the population defines the rich and privileged members of society. It is a good concept in the abstract but relatively useless in a national election based upon one man one vote. Trump was a Democrat before he was a Republican. Today he is neither - he is a populist who attracts the middle and can win elections. Quite simply, are you voting for someone you want to work for or somebody to run the country? The voters are, in essence, the shareholders of the country.
1
Conservatism does, indeed, seek to "conserve". To conserve my position as a member of a preferred race or religion; to conserve that position from attack by "others" who look, think, talk and act differently than I do; to conserve my wealth, even if others have little or nothing; to conserve my labor by exploiting the labor of the "others"; to conserve my safety security by denying safety and security to others, based on my fear of them, real or not; to conserve the resources that serve my needs and wealth, while exploiting those that don't; to conserve my ideas of morality, ethics and freedom against those I disagree with; to conserve my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness by denying the same to those I disagree with and who I therefore see as a threat.
I see little to distinguish conservatism from the tenets of the Republican Party over the last 40 years. A return to the communities and institutions that gave rise to this brand of conservatism is not a future I look forward to.
3
I wish that there was a conservatism that Brooks describes. I could live with that. Today conservatism only looks at how people can serve corporations and businesses when it should be the opposite.
8
David, as a life-long unaffiliated voter, I have always appreciated your thoughtfulness in putting forth a conservative perspective. The issue I have with this column, though, is that it presumes that people actually have "sacred spaces" any more. Millions of Americans (maybe billions around the world?) do not have such a space: no family, no religion, no community, individuals living next to each other without even knowing each others' names. Where do they live? How do they benefit from a conservatism based on sacred spaces that they are not a part of? And when they do exist, as now, how does this provide a rational basis for nationhood where one "sacred space" expresses intolerance for another? (Trump's Christians vs Muslims, for example).
1
Brooks "sacred spaces" all tend to keep people in their place. The poor go to their churches and the rich to theirs. He seems to think that getting aid in bad times should depend on first professing a great belief in a particular god and then belonging to a faith community that has the resources to give aid.
Government safety net programs treat all as equal, regardless of parentage, surely an anathema to conservatives.
6
How about "Republican or independent"—
You have to choose.
Face it Mr. Brooks, for once. Not that I do not appreciate you trying:
Repubs and conservatives over the years have become unseemly, uncouth, stupid, mean-spirited, dollar worshippers, bordering on pure evil.
Paul Ryan, who you so admired for years, publically, on public TV, as a brilliant something is the laughing stock of economists and in the past 18 months has blossomed intona craven coward.
Were it not for gerrymandering and the enabling of the minority to rule there would have been no Bush 2 and Humpty Dumpty 1 to mess the world up.
1
Trump is nasty, but ultimately, conservatives are getting everything they want. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan think so. Tax cuts for the richest, gutting of government, conservative SCOTUS, loosened business regulations, green light for big oil, the list goes on. You guys are on happy street, so why the dramatic essays? Hold your nose and reap the bounty. If a few brown kids get lost, what's the big deal, right?
3
Sadly, David, you seem more concerned with saving conservatism than saving America. The country is at DEFCON 5. Just admit that you need to vote for Democrats so that we can save the Republic.
3
Every time I read one of these "isn't community grand" columns by David Brooks, I feel as if I'm looking backward through a telescope at Judy Garland et al going off to the World's Fair in Meet Me in St. Louis. Everything is brightly colored; the family is in place, father at the head, mother and everyone else subservient to him. The ladies carry parasols and wear long skirts, the gentlemen are in straw boaters and spats, and everyone can sing -- in harmony with each other, no less. The family lives in a big house, and the father's income supports a large number of children and at least a servant or two. Everyone is lilly white and there's never a cloud in the sky!
Then I remember that that film was made in Hollywood seventy or so years ago, that it's all taking place on a soundstage, and giddy Judy Garland was high as a kite on whatever pills the studio was pumping the kids full of.
David Brooks knows that reality is a bummer, too. Guess that's why he enjoys making up fantasies about a past that never really existed. I want some of whatever he's smoking.
2
So your sacred space is by breed alone, hence a quintessentially white, Western space? Appears like this to me. Correct yourself is this is not the essence of white nationalism a la Steve King.
1
Typically high-minded rhetoric from a myopic man. If conservatism had its way, blacks would still be enslaved, women would not vote, unschooled children would labor in factories and the labor movement would have been strangled in its crib...among other outrages. Nice try, Mr. Brooks.
11
You keep worrying about the health of the Republican Party, or "Conservatives," Mr. Brooks.
When are you and your kind going to start worrying about the health of the United States?
12
The Republican Party lost its way when it decided that winning the game was more important than governing well. In order to win the game, it pushed itself to the farthest edge of right wing fundamentalism in order to keep the “base”. When that pushed out all of the people who actually both like human beings and want good governance, then it started chasing stupid people, hoping they wouldn’t notice the harm that was being done to them in the name of conservatism.
Now, there’s nobody left except rabid dogs. It’s probably time for the party to die.
1
When will this paper stop publishing Brooks' repetitive paeons to the false philosophy of "conservatism" ? Conservatives have always stood for white, male supremacy and subjugation of all others to a social order that affords the spoils of hard work to wealthy masters. Sorry that Donald trump is too on the nose for you, and just too vulgar for your Victorian sensibilities. He is the leader you conjured. Accept him or denounce him in plain language. A coward hides behind this fantasy of conservative morality.
3
"communists, fascists, social democrats and liberals tried to use the state to perform many functions previously done by the family, local civic organizations and the other players in the sacred space."
Yes, because they had to: Hoover left millions of Americans homeless and hungry, because "it's not the government's job to be a nanny state." Republicans would have never passed the Civil Rights Act: "We don't need it. There's no racism in America."
Many Christian Republicans are happy to party out at the country club while millions of kids go to bed hungry or live in toxic environments. They just ain't their brother's keeper: "Anybody can make it in America if they're willing to work ... George, let's get a bourbon in before we hit the links."
3
Nice Try Mr. Brooks.
Now who is the dreamy idealist? The great flaw in your piece is "The Republican Party became the party of market fundamentalism." Without the vast amounts of money coming from the market fundamentalist there would not be a republican party that you think exists.
The Republican, Whig, and Federalist parties were all driven first by a simple notion, What is good for Business is good for America. Your idealistic views are just an attempt to dress a pig... or elephant.
Now your party is not even that it is a proto-fascist party.
The GOP is: Undermining the rule of law, Using the "big lie" to blame fault on a powerless group, using the power of the state to enrich itself and cronies. There is a clearer choice Mr. Brooks, are you a republican or an American, at this point in history is seems difficult to be both.
9
If today’s ‘conservative’ votes as a racist and reactionary protectionist, whose idea of ‘personal freedom’ means women lose choice, and brown people can fear being shot by the cops for nothing, then count me out.
Mr. Brooks, this article exhausted me. I do believe you missed your calling. Fiction could be a career for you.
3
There’s not one word in this article about race and the “conservative” Republican Party’s tradition of accepting and encouraging racists to join their “big tent”. In my lifetime that began with the GOP’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act, lead by their first modern Conservative hero, Barry Goldwater, continued by the Southern Strategy “Law and Order” candidate, Richard Nixon, the next conservative icon, Ronald Reagan, who kicked off his campaign in a notorious Civil Rights Movement battleground city—with denunciations of Cadillac-driving Welfare Queens (just in case the dog whistle wasn’t heard). From there we had Willie Horton, from Poppy Bush and the nitwit son’s brain, Karl Rove, conducting a racist campaign against John McCain’s “Illegitimate Black Daughter” in the South Carolina Primary.
Mr. Brooks’ conservatism exists as a fantasy of Burkian ideals in denial about the abusive marriage of convenience every single Conservative leader has made with White Racism.
The mealy-mouthed and faint hearted Republican candidates who were demolished by Trump were made to look ridiculous because an honestly proud Racist exposed their hypocrisy by eschewing the dog whistle for a brass-band.
Conservatives have had their brand destroyed—like liberals, they need to start calling themselves something else.
9
Those institutions, like slavery, that conservatives find so sacred. And the institution of slavery is what Black people have inherited.
Right! And the only honest "something else" would be the party of racism and bigotry. I say "party of" since it isn't fair to impugn the millions who are basically uninformed but who do, like Wallace and Faubus, know exactly "what works in American."
This act is getting old.
Go declare yourself, Mr. Brooks.
Admit you voted for Trump. Do it now.
2
So how about you, David? Will you stand with Will and Schmidt in the next election or will you vote for the Banana Republican States of America, which our current Republican legislators are supporting?
1
Dog Whistle, we all know that term to disguise racial animus. has been the de facto phrase for a quarter century at least. starting with Welfare Queens. and continues to this day.
the only Welfare Queens i am aware of yearly get in line for their Farming Subsidies. oh sure the Pentagon gets their yearly trough fill also. But no Democrat politician has ever used Dog Whistle words to hide anything other than contempt for the Gop party.
1
David Brooks may not get it, certainly the Clinton Democrats didn’t, the greatest threat to American prosperity is the threat to the ever shrinking middle class, the new Globalism, the offshoring of jobs factories and future, onshoring of undereducated illegal cheap labor.
I nearly spit out my coffee laughing at Bill Kristol’s assertion that the Republican Party will go back to “normal” once Trump exits the picture. Trump is the culmination of years and years or GOP pandering to cranks, kooks and racists. This is the party!
The only thing more ludicrous than Kristol’s opinion on the matter is that people still pay attention to him, despite the fact that he had been so wrong about so many things. Says a lot about the national “discourse.”
The Republican party you're talking about hasn't existed since pre-WWII. ﹰBy the 1950's they went on the hunt for communists and it went down hill from there.
5
Consider the "conservatives" in Germany as Nazis rose to power. How did they fair? So many pundits are appalled by references to Nazis. Why? It's simplistic? It's unimaginable? So is a fire in our homes, or a burglar. If we smell smoke or hear someone walking around the house, should we pull the covers over our heads. If Trump is a willing asset when should we admit it.
3
The lying party versus the Republican party. Make your choice.
2
Mr. Brooks,
Does this mean that you are not longer a card carrying member of the Republican Party?
“No true Scotsman.” At this moment you’re no different from a campus Marxist insisting we parse the difference between big C and little c communism. David, the sooner you accept that this is how conservatism looks in practice, the sooner you’ll be able to get your head right about a way out of this mess.
3
Here is where Mr. Brooks goes off the rails:
In their different ways, communists, fascists, social democrats and liberals tried to use the state....
Everyone with half a brain, who can match a round peg to the round hole, knows that fascists do not belong in the above group, but belongs squarely in the real life conservative and republican group.
3
David -- George Will is right. You are wrong. What you hold sacred is dead. The infection began with Nixon's southern strategy. Symptoms began emerging with Reagan's welfare queen and organ failure commenced with Willie Horton. Remission began with GWB's effort to bring us together following 911. But we are now in a death spiral. You are (or once was) Jewish. Come home. It's time.
2
Greedy old party, GOP. Greed is what has been the underlying dogma of the Republican party for many years. Greed has taken hold and become the entire ethos of the Republican party. Smash and grab is the motto.
Mr. Brooks, many years ago Lincoln and other patriotic political leaders created the Republican party. Their basic belief was slavery was evil and should not be spread any further in the US. Their party has morphed into an ugly greedy beast. They are siding with racists and Neo-Nazis now. Lincoln would be absolutely appalled. Lincoln was a regular bible reader and took succor and wisdom from its pages. Now, we see the prosperity gospel being venerated by many. Recently, a church held a "love of guns" ceremony! Astounding! simply, astounding.
Many in the USA have lost their way. The worship of money and guns, The hatred of the other, differences and the perversion of the bible. It is alarming to see.
It is time for a new party of conservatives who value the constitution, bill of rights, the rule of law and all their fellow man.
1
I can't help but be reminded of the split from the republican party by Theodor Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party back in 1912. Granted, D Trump is no T. Roosevelt and the Bull Moose party was considered progressive for it's day, it did wreak havoc in Washington and national politics.
I think you have to choose if you want to be a Trumplican or a Republican. There is no such thing as a one party democracy. We need what may be called a loyal opposition. Trumplicans are not loyal to anything but Trump.
2
Your view of conservatism misses one huge point, no individuals can achieve the reach of the coordination and compromise of a secular group. Together we can achieve, individually we fail.
Conservatives, aka Republicans, and the current Administration will fail America totally because they are the personification of me and mine. How can I enrich myself at the cost of all those suckers?
Another Books column fronting for Charles Murray, with fantasies of benign conservatism ignoring the malignant Republicanism destroying democracy.
Brooks is delusional about his "scared spaces". If they were so sacred they would not have been supplanted by the communities of the web and social media. Moreover the GOP has seen fit to politicize "sacred" and divide "spaces" .
Brooks is an intellectual coward in his failure to confront the hard truths. Charlottesville was crossroads and it looks like Brooks stayed the course.
6
“Bill Kristol says not so fast: Once Donald Trump falls, the party could be brought back to health, and the fight has to be within the party as well as without it.”
[Trump walks up to Kristol]: “Look at me, Bill. Look at me! ... I’m the captain now.”
2
This is such patent nonsense it is mind-boggling that it could appear in NYT.
There is no sacred space! Tribalism vs. community is a totally fallacious contrast.
The two -party system requires parties to be multi-faceted . Brooks has ginned up his hatred of Trump into some kind of Utopian philosophy that can never be materialized.
4
The chicken or egg conundrum, huh?
The Republican party of today is the result of Dr. Moreau-style engineering of its DNA, the honorable genes of Eisenhower's era snipped out, corrupted in a toxic stew of racism, religion, xenophobia, and, above all else, greed before being reinserted and allowed to breed.
1
That's a lot of nice words. Conservatism is about protecting White Male Supremecy and its tactics of suppressing everyone else. It's dying, and having a hissy fit while doing so.
6
Now you are attempting to turn anti-Trump Republicans into stalwart humanitarians who “loved the scared space,” like Druids dancing in a moonlit glade. What feeble-minded ignorance of American history. Conservative Republicans have always been on the side of money, power, the stock market, the bottom line. Trump just stripped them of their pretensions toward piety.
1
David, you nailed it. Stick with it.
Mr. Brooks,
As is often the case, your column today has left me a bit confused, to wit:
First you write (at the end of your fourth paragraph):
"The order comes first. Individual freedom is an artifact of that order."
Whoa there! I've been hearing "conservatives" proclaim for decades now that it is Revealed Truth that, "Our Freedom comes directly from God." Handed down from the Almighty to every human soul - just like Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
But now you write that "order" (created by man-made communities) is a precursor to (and giver of) "Freedom".
Well, which is it?
Then you wax rhapsodical for most of the rest of your column about a "sacred space" which is the repository of all this "order" that we cherish as "community". What is "sacred" about this space? To me "sacred" implies the hand of a Divinity.
Tautology much, David?
I think we'd all be much better off leaving the "sacred" out of our anthropology, sociology and politics. Homo sapiens are nothing more than highly-evolved protoplasm - a cosmic freak accident in a universe too vast for any mind to comprehend.
So here we are as a species at the apex of four billion years of evolution. We have total control of our destiny, for good or for self-extinction.
"Sacred" has nothing to do with it. We will either thrive or perish solely on our own efforts. And we're smart enough to learn from history - and stop doing stupid things (like fostering hate and and trashing our planet).
7
Nations rarely lose wars gracefully. After Germany lost WWI, they had chaos, then Hitler. When Argentina lost the Falklands War, they had dictatorship. Except for the Cold War (which Russia lost [leading to the Putin dictatorship]) we've lost every war since WWII. Our future bodes chaos and/or dictatorship, not conservatism.
And so, David, which have you chosen? Conservatism or Republicanism? And good luck with whichever you choose.
Republican, conservative, or decent human beings; you have to choose.
11
So all modern history leads to this moment with David Brooks occupying the space where all is right and good?
1
It’s the Trumpublican Party now; a vile, heartless beast.
Not only should Conservatives be shunning it but all decent and patriotic Americans as well.
10
You’re at least 40 years too late Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Brooks, your 9th paragraph was horrid. What would you say to a sentence that began, "In their different ways, Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, the Federalist Society and conservatives..."? It wouldn't matter much what followed. Had to get it off my chest. Carry on.
3
Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest conservative of them all?...
1
David Brooks is a sly writer for certain. I stopped reading his column years ago after he said racism was in no way responsible for Reagan beginning his presidential campaign in the South... I mean give me a break.
As in this column, he tries to run away from the obvious fact that the Republican Party 2018 is responsible for the current person in the Presidency. No, no "real" conservatives would not allow this to happen... take "Sacred Space" for example blah,blah, blah. The CONSERVATIVE Republican Party is responsible...that includes you David Brooks...gets some guts and just say it.
2
You pulled your punch at the last second, with your rather weaselly use of the phrase "not your father's GOP," which leaves open the question of whether or not you continue to support the republican party in actuality. George Will had the courage to say, specifically, don't for Republicans in 2018. What do you say?
Drifts from conservatism? More like a tidal wave. More like a flock of revanchist anarchists. The Republican party seems too shot through with this tumor to live. I hope it survives. A conservative politics ought to vslue decorum and propriety and abjure bombast and Billingsgate. One can only imagine Edmund Burke's nausea were he forced to listen to Limbaugh and Hanity or witness the ugly, sordid spawn of Newt Gingrich
John Stuart Mill put it best over a century ago: "I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative."
While his quote refers to the Conservative Party in the UK, I think it works in a general sense with a lower-case "c" as well.
OMG David. Just say the words "Vote Dem" already. It won't kill you. I promise! Then you can start atoning for your hypocrisy, which helped create this mess.
This essay has so much it could become a dozen more articles.
Mr. Brooks seems to have retreated into a hallowed past as imaginary as the one Trump and his lynch mob invoke. Please come back to Earth and join the fight, Mr. Brooks.
Is this opinion piece Mr. Brook's farewell to the Republican Party, because, as he said. you can't be both a conservative and a Republican? Are Trumpians closet liberals who haven't come out yet?
You missed the part where the Republican Party became the party of racism.
11
Stability or chaos, you have to choose. Those who are not fascist racist misogynist criminals should just vote Democratic. The Neoliberal Republican has no voice whereas the Neoliberal Democrats have still got a vice grip on the Democratic party. Actually, the only ones who really look like Republicans are the far left. The conserve the planet people, the conserve energy people. Lets remember that the root of conservative is conserve. This pigs at a banquet type Republican has never conserved anything.
1
Oh please, David. People longed for family love and community support since our ancestors lived in caves, so everyone of us must have a genetic disposition to conservatism. But you're wrong. Our ancestors understood government services enhance community life when they created public schools, roads, utilities, medical care supported by the community and equally available to everyone. Conservatives railed against Social Security and Medicare, lifelines for the elderly and even more necessary now that generations will live lives poorer than their parents. Conservatives railed against Bonneville Power Administration that came online just before Pearl Harbor and helped power Seattle and Portland in WW II. You're correct, you can't have it both ways, so stop trying to pretend only conservatives value families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nations because your article simply presents the view that liberals like me are your enemy--and that ain't so.
7
Certainly Mr. Brooks does not believe that local communities can provide for the defense of our country, build interstate highways or issue currency more effectively than a national government. Also, it is not clear whether he considers local government to be "the state" or "the sacred space." I think it is correct to debate whether certain functions should be in the sphere of a federal government, a local government or private institutions. However, to say that every function is best done by private institutions without considering the function is ideological. How about a third category other than liberal or conservative? Call it evidence based, rationalism, or any other term. The principle would be not assuming that a function belongs in one sphere or another without reason and evidence.
3
OK. I finally realized that I really don't know the fundamental difference between what being a "Conservative" is and being a "Liberal" is. Am I the only one? How in the world can I (or anybody else) get the proper definition of these two important concepts squared away when it seems that nobody else can either?
Then, assuming that there really is a mutually-agreed-upon definition of these two terms, it would seem that the next problem would be to determine whether or not the current Republican party truly represents the "Conservative" philosophy and the Democrat party represents the "Liberal" philosophy.
Until and unless this can be done I fear we are all doomed to being constantly whip-sawed by both of these political parties and truly unsure of which one actually represents our interests and deepest concerns.
1
Noble sentiments from David Brooks on the necessary distinction to be drawn between the Republican Party under Trump and true or classic conservatism. Bottom line: today you can't adhere to both. But is the picture of the true community that supports classic conservatism realistic anymore? The last time it seemed to be true across the USA was in the wake of the immigration restrictions of the 1920s and then of the huge collective effort of World War II. During the 1950s, as a result, the ethnic-cultural homogeneity of the great majority of Americans was in place all right but so were racial segregation, terrible food, the nuclear nightmare, political machines, banal (utterly inoffensive) radio and TV, exclusivist higher-education, and militarism. No; let's continue to build on the positive achievements implanted in America and the world since the 1960s as we struggle today to define and defend an equitable, accepting global culture, one that should prevail first at home (Americans' primary task) and then, by example, abroad. We who are lucky enough to live in one of Brooks's sacred spaces need, in this new era of instant worldwide communication, some overriding vision in which to locate ourselves. Retreating into a nostalgic isolationism--what Brooks's conservativism seems to lead to--cannot, realistically, be the answer.
3
Trump's GOP isn't conservative it's just right wing. I don't refer to "conservative Republicans" any more unless they demonstrate that they actually are. I'm a conservative Democrat and have all that goes along with that as evidence.
1
"Membership in these institutions is not established by rational choice. We are born into them most of the time and are bonded to them by prerational cords of sympathy and affection."
And therein lies the reason I will be neither conservative nor Republican because I refuse to limit anyone to the station they were born into. Even if a person is born poor or black or brown or, horrors, female, they should be able to pick a tribe (or none) based on rational choice.
10
I want to 'tut, tut' David when I read you or anyone suggest that a huge slice of Trump voter wanted anything other than to get their slice of the pie by taking it from someone else. You keep trying to explain the behavior of trump voters in rational terms, when the only thing that animates a great majority of them is an animal instinct to stick together. That these voters also have wrapped themselves in religion -- Christianity -- which is about charity and compassion and giving first and foremost is the stench that will never wash away.
1
So David, does this mean you don't have the guts to walk away from the Republican Party and say it has failed? You, like others, enable its ongoing destruction of our democracy because you pine for days of old that as many other writers have noted, did not exist. Grow a spine David and stand up against this malignancy on our Republic. As our Founders stated, "...to secure these rights (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) governments are instituted among men...". Somehow you Republicans turned government into the problem. Well it certainly is now with your Party in charge.
2
As an American, I found this column shocking. But now that there are 600 comments, I am even more shocked that David Brook's wrote column taking a clear stand against the Declaration of Independence and no one here seems to know it or care.
1
Maybe we'd care if we understood your point. Frankly, I have no idea what you're talking about.
It is unbelievably disturbing that you are an American and need this written out for you. This is what is wrong with both the left and the right. Ignorance. David Brooks writes, "Conservatives said we agree with the general effort but think you’ve got human nature wrong. There never was such a thing as an autonomous, free individual who could gather with others to create order. Rather, individuals emerge out of families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nations. The order comes first. Individual freedom is an artifact of that order." So order and by extension institutions like government comes first before individual liberty? That doesn't ring a bell at all for you, an American with an opinion? The Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." That is literally the opposite of what Brook's claims conservatism represents. It's the most important, most famous, founding principle of this nation. It is one of the most radical ideas in written civilization and is what has made this country unique and special. People like you make me cry for the future of this nation.
You have a terrible case of the flu, and Dr. Brooks tries to decide between a foam and a spring mattress instead of which medicine has to be administered. Brilliant!
David, what needs to be done first is to crush the problem. As long as you keep voting Republican in hopes that the new people will "control" Tramp, all you are doing is giving them a win to brag about and a sense on invincibility.
If you are conservative, you have to be pragmatic as well. If you loose the House BIG, you will show that you do not want the trumpkins anywhere near your party. And then, if you really believe conservatives are so good and deserving and liberals so bad, you can have confidence that you will get it back in two years.
Problem is, most of you don't believe in what you sell, and feel that if you loose it, you won't get it back in a long time.
Eventually you'll lose it. Only then you will fix you house...
2
Sorry Mr. Brooks, for the last several decades the 'conservatives' in the Republican party have played a dangerous game; in effect they thought they could control the 'tigers' of their party, i.e. the social culural conservatives, by holding on to that tiger's tail.
Obama's presidency brought out a racist core, for a time lurking just beneath the surface, and bequeathed to America the Tea Party, which aside from the titular leaders like Ryan and O'Connell and of course the very rich donor class, is now in control.
The assumption was that so-called moderates would play the cultural game during electoral periods; you know, the gun control and abortion type of cause, then tone it down and when in power do little to serve this radical core aside from tossing them a few crumbs now and then. So when this ignorant fool became President, he quickly sensed that to solidify his power and assauge his towering ego he catered and pandered to their wants, and now look where that's gotten you and your kind, and more importantly and worse, the people of the United States.
So much damage has already been done to our values and our policies of the last 80 years and what is to come?
Please, get down off your lofty tower and get your hands and your words dirty to fight not just for the soul of 'your' Republican Party but for the soul of the United States.
2
I do not know, David. Your defense of conservatism is way over my head.
To me: Conservatism comes from the Latin word conservare - in translation preserve the status quo; preserve what is.
If you look at the policies from conservatives then you will always see shining through all the polemics one red thread. "Please change nothing".
We love slavery, we love whiteness, we love our old ways of life, we love our independence, we love guns, we, we, we, we ... we hate Mexicans, we hate black people, we hate immigrants because they change what once was.
The world changes beneath you; but you cling to what is or even worse what once was.
Is it not obvious that conservatism is doomed to fail? Because it reveres the past and hates the future.
3
So which are you Mr. Brooks? Enough of the philosophical underpinnings. We have an incompetent racist running the country and you want to wax eloquent about the philosophical underpinnings of conservatism. Take a stand and not one which says “I’m leaving the GOP, but writing in my dog next election.” It’s stop to stop fiddling; Rome is burning!
2
Mr Brooks, you seem to be a decent person, and put a lot of thought into your columns. But you are seriously going to hurt yourself twisting yourself into a pretzel to convince yourself that your party - the Republicans - have been doing great harm to our country. From Nixon, to Reagan, to the Bushes, to the disaster that for some reason is now our president - you are in the party of meanness, selfishness, greed - obstruction - it is not both sides do it - it is YOUR side does it. You have been sitting next to a most decent, bright fellow in Mark Shields for year, showing you the answers. Isn't it time for you to join George Will and Steve Schmidt and provide some true leadership by also quitting the Republican party?
2
CORRECTING DETAILS IN MY EARLIER:
“If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brains”.
This is attributed to Winston Churchill, who left the Tories at the age of 30 to join the Liberals. He rejoined the Tories at the age of 51, which by my calculations is 11 years more than, by his own dictum, he should have acquired a brain. But unlike today’s GOP, now the Trump party, he never threw his brains to the hogs.
2
re: "conservative, Republican but you can't be both. Survey Says! 90+% of Republicans love the hairdo guy in the WH.
"We can clarify this debate by returning to first principles....the 18th century"? When an "oh-so-reasonable Neo-Con" go all George Will on you, it is their way of saying "we are so far out in the weeds, we don't have a clue".
"there was never "such a thing" as an autonomous, free individual who could gather with others to create order". Waiter, cake please! Now that's 18th century!
2
What??
Usually enjoy Brooks but cannot wrap my brain around this one. I’m missing the entire concept/premise. What IS a “sacred space”?? And what exactly is going on in Burlington and SLC that is supposedly to be significant?
Can somebody dumb it down and more importantly make it at least somewhat concrete? Is this just a plea asking decent Republicans to differentiate themselves from Trump?
4
It's common to lean overly intellectual when the facts on the ground and the theory one holds dear are so dramatically at odds, as Brook's are today. David could have easily made his point by comparing libertarian and communitarian social structures, but he couldn't. He wants the benefits of communitarianism without sacrificing the libertarian privilege that he enjoys as an intellectual and economic elite.
This has been the fallacy of conservatism since the time corporate capitalism became king … roughly 150 years ago. Conservatives are still trying to cope, and not doing it too well, and the final act in that drama may be emerging even as we speak, er, write.
“If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.”
This is attributed to Winston Churchill, who, at the age of 30, left the Tory party to join the Liberals. He rejoined the Tories 21 years later, being 51 at the time. By my calculations this was 11 years more than, by his own dictum, he should have acquired a brain.
By contrast, today’s GOP, now the Trump party, has thrown its brains to the hogs.
3
Would you say that David Brooks even reads these comments and is swayed in anyway by arguments that challenge his?
4
I think he has 'people' who read the comments, and provide emotion by proxy, as deemed suitable.
2
And who appointed you three God?
Never read the part of the US Constitution that states 3 Washington insiders have the power to dictate what others believe.
1
Mr. Brooks fails to touch upon the spineless. traitorous character of the current GOP.
When Trump announced his candidacy, the "conservative" Republicans joined together in denouncing his bigotry, misogyny, criminality, stupidity and lack basic decency. When he was nominated, we heard all about how he would be controlled by the "good" Republicans in the Congress and those whom he would pick for his Cabinet - even as Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans smashed the Constitution by making up a new one and holding back Merrick Garland's excellent nomination in favor of the partisan hack that Trump would serve up.
Once Trump became President and began to run amok, the choice was clear and immediate - stand up or roll over and accept the New GOP where pedophiles are endorsed, women are groped and beaten, children are taken from mothers and lost in the bureaucracy, allies are insulted and attacked, healthcare is taken away from the most ill and vulnerable, the country is bankrupted to pour money into the bulging pockets of the .01%, the tax law is used as a weapon against 'enemies' and Black Lives Do Not Matter.
The rollover commenced.
Today's GOP has thoroughly enabled Trump in every way, even as they try to pretend that they are not the soulless corrupt bigots that he is. They are. There is no coming back from Trumpism, no baptism that will ever wash away that sin. There is nothing legitimate left to 'build' from.
9
Republicans are learning anew the lesson of the camel and the tent. Having let Trump's nose into the tent,they have found it impossible to keep him from taking over the tent. They can either sleep with him or be out in the cold. Or maybe the better parable would be riding the tiger?
I would add that you can be a Christian or a Republican but not both.
6
This opinion piece is as nauseating as comments referring to the Republican Party as "the Party of Lincoln." The Republican Party ceased to exist years ago. What Brooks refers to as the Republican Party today is the lunatic fringe. Saint Ronnie would be considered a relatively liberal Democrat by the standards of today's Republican Party.
4
Brooks glosses over the inconvenient reality that today's Republican Party finds its strength and numbers in White Identity Politics. What Brooks calls rudeness or crudeness is really vile racism, and to skip the obviously relevant, shows willful ignorance or indifference. OK, well maybe it's simple embarrassment.
3
The current day is not some spontaneous combustion. Trump is the devilish fuel to a fire that was already burning.
4
What nonsense! Liberals value your so-called “sacred space” just as much conservatives.
And your hero, Roger Scruton, wasn’t some 18th century philosophical giant. He’s just some supercilious British college professor who makes excuses for localized authoritarianism because he doesn’t like modern art.
Get a grip. If you don’t like liberalism, fix it from the inside. Stop defending a conservative movement that existed mostly as a marketing tool for the GOP donor class.
4
I’d like to believe what Mr. Brooks says is true, that “real Republicans,” who are fiscally conservative and believe in small, less bloated government are the true backbone of the Republican Party. How can I when the unabashed, racists hate mongers have hijacked that political party and the “good ones” have stood silently by and done nothing about it??!!
They are all out for personal/political gain no matter how much our country and her people pay the price!
5
“Conservatives like John Ruskin and later T. S. Eliot arose to preserve culture from the soulless pragmatism of the machine age.”
Perhaps, but T.S. Eliot was a shameless racist, anti Semitic and misogynistic white male, as were many in that era. He is long dead and cannot evolve. What’s the excuse for Trump’s GOP?
2
Today it seems traditional conservatisim is more about SHRINKING the sacred space, while liberalism expands it. It's unfair of Brooks to neatly shove liberalism out of this equation.
8
All ideologies are filled with fallacious tenets. However, Conservatism is by far the stupidest ideology of all because 1) Conservatives believe that they can return to the past, a physical impossibility and because 2) Conservatives hope to return to an idyllic past...that never existed. American conservatives specifically wish to return to the late 18th century, when a handful of white men owned everthing, all men could treat their wives as their property, most blacks were property, Native Americans could be shot on sight without provocation...and the average life expectancy of all humans was about 30 years of age because antibiotics had not been discovered nor were vaccines available for most deadly diseases.
6
Hmmm... how did the Universe begin? Out of Liberty, or order?
4
It is disappointing to see David Brooks make two references in one week to the huffy, elitist snob Roger Scruton. If Scruton is the guiding light for interpreting conservatism, then heaven help us. I'll stick with Reagan's brighter image of the shining city on a hill - a beacon of liberty for all.
1
Since when is it "conservative" to upend the Constitution and deny a hearing to a Sup. Ct. nominee by a sitting President? This rot in the GOP started long before Trump.
3
You and Will and others like you are conservative intellectuals. The sad fact is that since the 60’s you have been riding the Tiger that is tje white working class. Now you are “shocked, shocked” to find out that racism and ignorance is going on in your party and that it has been captured body and soul by the most despicable human being ever to occupy the White House. Go ahead, try and start a “true conservative” third party. It will be a lonely one. The rank and file will not join you. They are quite happy where they are. And no wonder. They now have a demagogue who utters the bigotry they have been constrained from openly expressing for decades. And they exult in it and him. Your best hope is to join with centrist Dems and independents in a new centrist party. But it won’t be a conservative one. Moreover, with the Democrats smelling blood in the mid terms and the establishment winning primaries what incentive do they have to join you? Only if the left wing of the party continues to feel disenfranchised and sits out general elections allowing the right to triumph or breaks away itself creating the same result will a centrist party emerge. And it’s likely to be the Democrats. But your party as you know it is gone. Face it; you are homeless and you have no one but yourselves to blame.
9
Mr. Brooks, where in the conservative creed you espouse does greed come in? I ask because Conservatives/Right Wingers are only interested in money. They want more of it and if they kill people, or the environment really it just doesn't matter. That's the party you have been promoting and protecting for the past 40 years. George W. Bush may have talked about compassion but all he was really after was lowering the taxes of the upper classes and impoverishing the rest of us. How can you be so delusional?
1
Conservatives need to decide they want to be normal or nasty.
3
Mr Brooks, you are a civilized man, you want to invest the current political situation with the dignity and complexity of the old conflict between conservatism and liberalism. I think it is much simpler, coarse and uglier than that.The election of Obama was a cause of celebration for those who want a more equal, non-racist world. It was, equally, a cause of rage and despair for racists. Racism has been a major component of the mindset of many Americans since the Civil War, as it was in Germany during the 1930s. People say they should not be compared, but there are no other wars in recent history, in Euro-civilization countries, in which racism played such major role. But Germany, unlike America, was destroyed by that war, and re-assessed many things as a consequence. Confederate America did not reassess anything, just swallowed the frog of defeat, and began to hang Confederate flags and build monuments to its leaders as soon as possible. There are no monuments to Himmler in Germany, or Swastika flags flying over domestic gardens. Trump, like any demagogue, tapped into that subterranean river of racial poison, by then spread beyond its mother territory, and won. To explain him as the result of liberal-conservative transformations misses the point. Racist America is vomiting its hatred of Obama . Since that is unsayable, Trump has used immigration, and Mexicans in particular, as fig leaf, but everybody knows what he really means, and what his audience is nostalgic of.
8
The basic difference within the party seems to be that one group thinks that when Reagan said Welfare Queens he was onto something. And when Trump said Mexican rapists he was a bigot. And the other group who thinks there is nothing wrong with either.
6
The "other group" simply thinks there aren't very many Welfare Queens and Mexican rapists. In fact, statistics, if you would take the time to do a little research, would bear this out.
The "other group" knows far more people who are truly needy are helped, and they shrug off the one individual gaming the welfare system.
The "other group" believes most people in America, in Mexico, and in the rest of the world are not criminals and rapists. Yes, some are, and we hope to catch and punish them, but we will not turn our backs on the vast majority of decent people who need our help.
That's who the "other group" is. The "one group" is a selfish bunch of people having zero humanity. And, if you don't think there are people gaming the system and rapists among the "one group," you are delusional.
2
Neither ever again.
1
David,
Old school conservatism is alive and well. You are just looking in the wrong place. They are Democrats now.
4
The tribalism of which you speak was already entrenched in the Republican party during the Reagan years. Your'e such a revisionist!
2
Don’t fall for David’s siren song! These communities which he praises are white majority, white dominated enclaves.
Progress requires their destruction, progress requires the inhabitants pay reparations to those who can’t afford to live in these places, and progress requires a complete re-evaluation of religion, the family, and bourgeois values.
The best way to achieve progress is to reject conservatism and Republicans, to hound them relentlessly and to re-educate their children in the schools and via media - which we control, and finally to simply replace them with people who are more open to progress, namely the working masses of the global south, via open borders and amnesty.
David has nothing of value to share. Progress is everything!
1
The party has been rotting for 40 years. Reagan was the last Republican leader who did not bow to the alter f Conservative Christianity, AKA Evangelicals. Mr. Brooks, you have been blind to this for 20 plus years. I read what you write and kind of know what your principals are, and they are similar to mine. I bet overturning Roe v Wade and Obergefell (same sex marriage) are not your top priorities, but they are the ONLY priorities of the Evangelicals. There has been an unholy alliance between the Koch Brothers and the rest of the moneyed interests because the two agendas are really not in conflict with each other. I am for fiscal sanity, but not insane tax cuts for the super wealthy. It is long past time that you get your bloody head out of the sand, Ryan, McConnell and the rest of Republican leaders do not stand for any kind of right of center values I do. Trump vs Republican leaders, it is only a matter of a little bit of finesse.
3
"At his essence Trump is an assault on the sacred order that conservatives hold dear — the habits and institutions that cultivate sympathy, honesty, faithfulness and friendship."
This is in direct conflict with the philosophy which permeates much of the Republican party - the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
1
A look at the books and their titles associated with the 2016 Presidential Campaign candidates illustrates the difference between contemporary Republicanism and Liberalism. 45's name appears writ large on the covers of almost all of his books. Two variants include "The Midas Touch" and "48 Laws of Power". Secretary Clinton's book titles reflect various human communities. "It Takes A Village", "Dear Socks, Dear Buddy" (about their pets, a cat and a dog), "An Invitation to the White House", "Stronger Together", and "Hard Choices". One series of books are egocentric and focus on wealth and power. The other series of books focuses on the value of co-operation, the joy of family life, and that life, as Erma Bombeck wrote "If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?". I see a qualitative difference. Neither current Republicanism nor Conservatism promote co-operation (just look at the fiasco of re-connecting now separated parents and children, refugees who fled for their lives and their children's lives the violence in Central America), and neither do they celebrate all families, and most certainly do not acknowledge the degree of hardship many Americans experience (Native Americans and their lack of basic utilities including access to clean running water and Puerto Rico reconstruction and Flint, Michigan's toxic water).
7
Rather than coming up with a fantastical and gauzy picture of the beginnings of conservatism, Mr. Brooks would do better to give us a picture of how a classic conservative would deal with current problems facing America. How would he deal with a party that won't bring forward legislation for a vote unless there are enough votes to pass it just in that party--in other words, a party that won't let the other party vote on any legislation where their votes might make a difference?
How would he deal with a party that elevates the fate of the unborn over the fates of actual living people who struggle to put food on the table for their actual living children? Where is the "community" when so many workers have lost jobs to automation or to downsizing (called "right-sizing" by Wall Street)--blaming it all on China? How would a classic conservative see the opioid crisis in this country? Would he approve of legalizing marijuana? Billboards in my area proclaim that there are fewer opioid deaths in places with legalized marijuana.
How would a classic conservative respond to the Republican dream that tax cuts are the solution to every problem regardless of the government's financial situation?
These were the kind of problems William F. Buckley discussed on his PBS tv show many years ago and made him worth watching, even for this liberal Democrat. Forget the fairy tale of "community" that yields a conservative world view. Tell us how to solve real world problems.
8
Can conservatism-- a belief in free individuals pursuing their own best interest in the context of humane institutions-- have any future? The problem is that the humane institutions that Republicans and Conservatives used to believe in have been so weakened by the forces of commercial capitalism that individuals, free to pursue their own best interests, will do so without any regard for what is humane.
The revitalization of institutions-- communities, families, neighborhoods-- in which humane individuals will accede is now a liberal (not a conservative) project. It is manifest in the almost spontaneous organization of the various protestations against the cruel Republican regime. The faith in true "togetherness"-- I believe-- has never really been a Republican or even a conservative ideal, since "togetherness" was always, always, always thought by people of that persuasion to belong only to certain groups.
1
Mr. Brooks lauds conservatism as the system which preserves the institutions into which we are gratefully born into? Well, some of the lucky ones are grateful and wish to preserve their advantages. Others have to work themselves out of the institutions of poverty and racism they are born into. Some of us are willing to use our advantages to help the ones who weren't born with them. That may the most significant difference between conservatives and liberals.
7
The real conflict in modern society is not between abstract principles such as liberty or order but between the classes. The ruling class puts forward various ideas to rationalize their rule over the rest of us. We call this "ideology".
Traditional conservative ideology, such as Mr. Brooks yearns for, justified the status quo based on religion and patriotism. The newer Fascist ideology had the same aim, but based on race hatred and macho aggression. Fascism historically was the rulers' right wing, mass movement answer to Socialism.
If you exclude Socialism from legitimate political discourse, as is the case in the USA since the 1950s, the workers have nowhere to turn but Fascism.
As the Russian people have learned to their misfortune, the only "human rights" the capitalists care about are their property rights. The only freedom that the capitalists really value is their freedom to exploit the working people.
12
Yes, Mr. Brooks, you are stating the truth. But what took you so long?
The sign of a true conservative is to yearn for the good old days...
People and times change and your choices are to adapt or keep whining about how things were when we were younger.
Reagan was a New Deal Democratic before becoming a Supply Side Republican. Where do you go when you start as a Supply Sider and your arguments don’t resonate any longer? Whine?
Brooks:
How about "Republican or independent"—you have to choose.
[And by the way, let's all do "conserve" the environment, upon which we all depend.]
Recites Brooks, “There never was such a thing as an autonomous, free individual who could gather with others to create order...The question of which comes first, liberty or order, was to divide liberals from conservatives for the next 200 years.” All that is missing from this utterly specious, self-serving conservative ideological mantra (for it isnt an argument of political philosophy as it omits any recognition of heroic individuation, to say nothing of human agency’s power of self-determination, resistance, or its power to intervene) is Romans 13:1, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”
For it suppresses the very foundation of social contract, that of man in the state of nature, in existential principle a being fully authorized by nature to take justice into his own hands. And it is this very right he necessarily gives up to leave the state of nature in order to form a political organization via the understanding characterized as social contract, and something superseding the societal bonds of pre-political society. Conservatives are either ignorant of or conflate man as a pre-political, social being, with that of an autonomous being undertaking entree into a political social contract, which is an Enlightenment construct/concept. Brooks’ argument here is philosophically seat-of-the pants. See, Mulford Q. Sibley.
1
Ha! This "administration", this absolute disaster, is the GOP's own creation - its Frankenstein. Thanks.
Sorry. George Will and Jennifer Rubin get it. Brooks doesn't. The whole Republican party has to go.
1
This is a terrific column for anyone who is curious about how the deck chairs were arranged on the Titanic. Unfortunately David, your party has already decided - they gave the ship's captaincy to an illiterate who knows nothing about navigation, engineering, or the North Atlantic, and who refuses to believe in icebergs. Have a nice voyage David, but unless you get lucky with a seat in a lifeboat, don't expect to reach port anytime soon.
7
Political parties Democrat or Republican, Liberal and Conservative appear to be dead. The only thing that matters is Facebook Likes and Public Shaming. We need more actors and comedians to tell us what to think and who to like. Also more analysis of every story ad nauseum. That's what we have become. Also you don't have to choose the media you consume can make that decision for you. Whether it be MSNBC or Fox News you can feel like you are part of the tribe.
"Today you can be a conservative or a Republican, but you can’t be both." Oh so sad that this is true.
2
Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be an intelligent Republican in this Republican Party. No legitimate newspaper endorsed Trump (Zero,none). No Republican intellectual supported Trump (the Three in this paper, the half dozen at the Post, the entire staff of the New Republic and, sadly, the late, Charles Krauthammer. You all thought you were leading a conservative movement and, yet, no one was listening. You all thought you had the pulse of the Republican Party. Until it flatlined. You tried to make sense of nonsense until nothing made sense. Now you exist in the same world I do. For the first time in my life I can't assume the smiling, elderly, white male (basically me) is a nice person. As a smiling, aging, white male, this kills me.
1
This pretzel-twisted piece of moralizing allows the writer to sidestep the rise of crisis politics to which he contributed. We saw this coming a decade ago but you and all the Republican defenders of the status quo turned away from an oncoming train.
9
Republican or conservative? I choose 'neither.'
4
Thanks, David, but I choose Democrat.
5
one difference between Burlington & Salt Lake City is that you are equally included regardless of you religious affiliation in Burlington. in SLC, it helps to be Norman.
what does that tell you Mr. Brookes?
Sign on to the Brooks Challenge! As see in this string of comments, there is never a piece of this frequent source of Brooksian side-stepping, socio/political casuistry in which readers fail to call out the pundit to put up or shut up regarding his own retained affiliation with the Republican Party (however he wishes to parse what it is). Therefore I am inviting readers to sign on the "Brooks Challenge" - confronting him to man-up like George Will and announce his own affiliation. Game on David -
7
I have to laugh. David has set up a weird mental construct that allows him to keep being a Republican. He describes, in glowing terms, beliefs Democrats espouse, and then calls them Republican, er, I mean, conservative principles.
This latest argument about order being created from scratch by individuals with no preconceived ideas about what the order should be vs. order being created by individuals based on the existing example of their "sacred place" childhood order is almost incoherent.
He understands that we are, right now, completely out of order. He's right about that. So, he tries to extract true conservatives from Trump Republicans. But, the true conservatives always look a lot like Democrats to me. Lots of Democrats in Burlington VT, and, wait for it....Salt Lake City. Utah may be red--Salt Lake City, not so much.
It astounds me, every time, that he doesn't see it.
2
Invariably every idea however inspired by God Family or simple human mercy is corrupted and finally debased enough that revolution comes. The United States was at first a harsh compromise between slavery and liberty, that changed and for a while an effort at equal justice was the ideal to pursue. The Great Depression forced everyone to step up and save the Republic. The Civil Rights movement added a sincere topping of justice for all. Sadly the backlash to social justice poisoned too many and with cynical talk radio and TV added a layer of scorn almost too much to escape. Donald Trump has already defeated himself. Even idiots grasp his impulsiveness and tackiness. The Republicans tolerance of this spectacle will be costly in 2018 and certainly in 2020. Conservatives are not at fault any more than liberals. Donald Trump is at fault. What must be done is for all of us to be honest about trash talk media and vulgar politics. Be certain the wrath of history will come. Mr. Brooks speaks well of what is true but right now not enough Americans are ready to put a stop to this abuse, but in time they will and this tribalism and pandering to bigotry will end. The historic truth of conservatism will survive Mr. Trump.
The sacred within patriarchy is a double edge sword because it is a ritualized replacement of the female creative life giving power. It is a male dominated, female excluded, social order that has master/slave dichotomies trickling down every sphere.
I would argue that perhaps “conservative” has in fact run its course and it’s inevitable outcome is trumpian.
Look around you at the current nations who are veering towards dictatorships, USA, Russia, Turkey, Hungary, etc... they all are espousing conservative traditional values.
It all depends on what you are tying to “conserve”, doesn’t it? Are trying to “conserve” a social order of male dominance and female subordination; heterosexual hegemony; 1% holding on to 99% of wealth and resources; white supremacy; the poor disenfranchised electorally; fossil fuel industries hegemony over energy sources, etc the list goes on.
I would say no to all of these. I don’t want to conserve them. They need to change, and liberals are the only ones who seem to understand that, and that change is healthy and good for humanity and desperately needed.
5
The most embarrassingly arch pedantry I have seen yet, in the service of grossly seective doctrinal tidepools, going positively nowhere without adventitious "interpretation." So Kirk, so Buckley, so effetely idle. God save the phony post-War American impostorship of Conservatism, which never could withstand its recurring internal eruptions of one excuse after another for virulent, sanctimonious, and -- yes -- sterile greed, from the repulsive unctousness of this desperate social climbing,
8
"Conservatism, as Roger Scruton reminds us, was founded during the 18th-century Enlightenment. " Not really David, but, no surprise that you remain enchanted by the fantasy promulgated by the right wing even as you turn into an old man.
"Conservatism" as you have practiced it was first brought into visibility by your beloved Ronald Reagan who had no idea who Roger Scruton was nor did he care.
Reagan brought to the conservative revolution the real beginnings of coded phrases for white supremacy, and, real enmity toward the working class in favor of the truly rich. Furthermore, Reagan became the first President to lead the way in spectactular deficit spending while lying about "cutting spending". Lastly, Reagan was the first President to really lie about breaking the law against selling weapons to Iran, and, then, giving the money to a brutal dictatorship in South America that routinely killed its own people.
Also, the Reagan "revolution" fully supported the very first large scale destruction of the middle class worker as that snot "Jack Welch" was left alone to destroy thousands of skilled workers at GE. Thereby destroying GE.
So, David, there you have "Conservatism" in a nutshell as you have practiced and worshipped it.
13
In my mind Trump is a dangerous and destructive force. It is time for decent people regardless of politics to recognize our first job is to get Trump and his ilk out of power. Therefore it is time to unite in opposition to him. once we get some decent and moral people in place can we go back to a normal political situation. splintering the opposition to Trump plays into Trump. This is a bad path. For Trump is a bad human being.
8
David--Just say it! The Republican Party and Donald Trump are a threat to this great nation! And own up to the fact that your conservative ideology has been the backbone of the Republican Party. Your decades' long attack on our basic institutions and modes of governance, and your willingness to go along with Gingrich, McConnell, Ryan, and the neo-cons who brought us the Iraq War and the Great Recession are largely to blame. Why not go all in and state the obvious. Vote Democratic this fall. Don't be a wimp like Romney and vote for your spouse. Stand up and be counted!
2
Blah, blah, blah...
You realize that the rot is more billionaire funded libertarianism than academic or social conservatism, and that won’t change as long as the money dictates the direction of the party.
1
Once again, Mr. Brooks is trying to distance himself from this hideous clown show by trying to draw some spurious distinction between "Conservatism" and "Republicanism," as if the former had nothing to do with the latter. To call "market fundamentalism" anything but a bedrock principle of American Conservatives — and, oh by the way, Republicans — is beyond ludicrous. To evince nostalgia for the wonders of "Compassionate Conservatism" is to paper over the less overt but no less cynical malevolence of the Bush administration. If he were actually to ask Trump voters to describe their political leanings, they would — devotion to Scruton notwithstanding — unanimously choose the word "Conservative." But whatever word Mr. Brooks prefers, the results are the same: 40 years of steadily institutionalized racism, sexism, science denial, economic ignorance, rampant dishonesty and moral bankruptcy. To blithely write off "Trumpian rot" as some unpleasant detour on the road to an idyllic brand of Conservatism conveniently ignores Mr. Brooks's own complicity in that rot.
1
My Christian fundamentalist cousins honestly believe that God delivered us a savior in the form of Donald Trump. It was a miracle that he squeezed out an electoral college victory, and only God deals in miracles. So, it only follows that he was ordained by providence.
They looked to Trump to restore our cultural values in the form of conservative judges who would strike down Roe V Wade, support bakers who refuse to bake cakes for gays, and protect our right to carry a gun anywhere we want. Add to the fundamentalist movement the growing number of Christian nationalists (the unchurched who believe in God and country but cannot tell you the first thing about the Bible or the Constitution), and you have a cult following that will believe anything you feed them.
You're right that fundamentalism is at the heart of the problem with the Republican party. You just have the wrong form of fundamentalism.
10
Conservatism is dead. Your choices now are to support the new Empire of Trump, or to support the Republic of the United States of America. Pro-America versus Pro-Trump, there is no middle ground and you can't choose both. The sooner you accept it, the less tortured your attempts to define your political stance will be.
MAGA "America" is an entirely different entity from the nation formed by our Constitution. It is a machine devoid of both philosophy and pragmatism, a chaotic and aimless construct that exists purely to glorify its creator and emperor while making flailing, desperate attempts at world domination at the expense of its own citizens. It doesn't matter if you're liberal, moderate, conservative or whatever you want to call yourself. If you disagree with Trump on any issue for any reason, you are anti-Trump and he considers you an enemy of the new nation he has created in his own image. Have you ever disagreed with Trump or failed to fully support him? Then congratulations, you are now a Democrat. Get used to it.
2
If the new-new-GOP wants to return to something guided by rationality, you're going to have to ditch God as a propaganda tool. The religious nonsense many Republicans spout as excuses for their irresponsible and/or cruel policy, simply loses every shred of credibility for this voter who believes in rational analysis.
1
The arts? Really Mr. Brooks?
Given the # of times conservatives have tried to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts, they certainly do not appear to hold the arts sacred.
10
Conservatism in the US has been the handmaiden of racism and there is no way to ignore that. Talk about sacred order is just nonsense when one realizes what the sacred order was.
4
I’m tired of hearing about this team nonsense. The only team is on the right, liberals are bunch of different people from many ways of life and very poor at following a talking point. The right is an extremely well funded machine trained in market persuasion with a religious following.
9
Inca mythology is more grounded in earth reality than Brooks’ lecture on how conservatives were recently invented to save sacred spaces from the enlightenment.
His view of sacred spaces is amusingly a weak te version of it takes a village to raise a child nonsense.
And the Order Comes First Stuff? Brooks is unknowingly worshipping the Jesuit counter reformation. And apologist from forever. Grand Inquisitor needs to be reread or perhaps read by Brooks. But some are beyond hope.
In one of the most breathtaking examples of the maxim “Conservatism never fails; it is only failed,” David Brooks fails to notice that the conservatism he claims to embrace has been nonfunctional in the Republican Party since at least 1968.
I keep waiting for his “mea culpa” column where he admits that he, George Will, and Bill Kristol went along happily for decades thinking that they could harness the fearful rage of the Dixiecrats in pursuit of giant pots of corporate lentils with no consequence.
2
Sometime in David Brook's developing years, he encountered a packet marked "Republican" that contained the ingredients for a noxious beverage of no nutritional worth, all you did was add sugar.
2
Brooks' fingerprints are all over the present moment in the Republican Party.. If you doubt that, just go back and read his opinion pieces during the Obama administration. News flash, Mr. Brooks: there's a paper trail.
1
Nice try.
But I'm having a hard time seeing how Justice Scalia, Jamie Dimon or Mitch McConnell fit in the sacred space. You are engaging in the reverse of defining deviance down. Better to invent a new word for the vestigial occupants of the sacred space, or their ghosts, instead of trying to make an old word fit these current times.
3
whoa! Start the discussion with people who think. Our government is in danger of being hijacked by cultists and opportunists. Get the discussion going. We can agree to disagree after we have thrown the traitors in jail.
Good work David Thank you.
Ruskin was not a conservative.
Best column I've read from Brooks in many a year, but his characature of "liberals" placing government above church, family, and community is a laughable bit of nonsense that he must renounce before ever being taken seriously.
2
Conservatives or Republicans, meh. We still have GOP elites like Adelson, the Koch brothers, Mercers, Fox News, Heritage, various preachers, and on and on. You can't fix this party with this kind of essay. It's all about the money and incessant negative attacks from the right wing elites.
1
I would be perfectly happy if the Republican party died and something new and more humane rose from its ashes.
More ivory tower philosophizing by Mr. Brooks. A highly Intellectualized rationalization of the rot that has finally spread from the fringes of conservatism to the heart of the Republican party. Save what is left of your integrity, David, and quit the party; become an independent.
1
Trump is not a conservative but he’s doing conservative things. Never-Trumpers like Brooks can’t see the forest as the trees are blocking their view.
1
You really call blowing up the established international order, starting trade wars that everyone will lose, interning people and ruling with lies and incivility conservative? You can't even see the trees.
1
Still fiddling while Rome burns Mr. Brooks?
Conservative thought has produced this monstrosity. Wringing your hands about saving the family portraits from the bonfire you have systematically created is just plain pathetic. Do the right thing, join the bucket brigade.
2
On balance, I'd rather be a Republican.
Good luck with that.
3
David Brooks is undeniably a smart guy, but he's way too in love with these orotund generalizations; there are five or six interesting ideas here if he could just for five seconds stop going around the party being extra-nice to everybody.
Hi David, I think what you want is Toryism and not what is known today as "Conservatism". I recommend that you read George Grant's Lament for a Nation. It might clear up a few things. Take care & love your work.
So sad and pitifully out of touch. Mr. Brooks must spend many of his non-working hours watching "Leave It To Beaver" reruns, with intervening episodes of "Happy Days" also included, for his philosophical affirmation.
Wrong David - of course you can be Republican and conservative - your statement is more a wish to impose a choice upon others that you can not convince otherwise. When one loses an argument, either leave quietly or join another party. Telling others they must make a similar choice to yours is, well, somewhat pitiful.
FYI, Salt Lake City is deep blue. Surrounded by red, yes, but it is an island of blue. In order, the last mayors have been a woman in the 1990's, then a former ACLU lawyer, then an environmental lawyer, and now an openly gay woman. None LDS, none a Republican.
So keep looking for your bastion of living conservative politics because its not in Salt Lake City.
1
Democrats: The Progressive party.
Republicans: The Regressive party.
Which way do you want this country to go?
Also, get rid of big money on Capital Hill.
Interesting and perhaps one of the best analysis of racism in America. Blacks, by sheer number, threatened the hold on power of white Anglos. Conservative principles, which mandated primary attachment to the family/community, see any power sharing as a challenge to their principles. Hence racism and theanti- immigation crazies of today. Consevatives must admit their history if they want to present a viable alternative going forward.
Let's see, should I align myself with racist, bigoted, sexist, hypocritical republican class ism or racist, bigoted, sexist, hypocritical conservative class ism? I will remain a progressive Democrat, thank you.
It's a contract. I pay my fair share of taxes and I expect those taxes to be used for the betterment of conditions for all Americans, not given away to the wealthy and corporate. I served in the military and I expect to be defended against all enemy provocations. I comply with national laws because I believe it is for the common good. I participate in my community through civic organizations, the church and activism in my local political organizations. It's a good system that provides me with stability, progress and opportunity. What the heck is going on now? All provided by the election of a mindless jerk by an angry minority of the electorate. This minority now writhing in twisted rationalization to justify the actions of a madman.
Is the shine wearing off? Are you now rationalizing the beginning of divorce proceedings against this feckless denizen in the White House? We all make mistakes.
2
Brooks is promoting a historical myth when he says: “[18th-century] Conservatives said we agree with the general effort but think you’ve got human nature wrong.”
The birth of conservatism was in its opposition to “an order based on reason and consent of the governed,” where “free individuals get together and contract with one another to create order.” (What we came to call liberalism.) Conservatives originally supported crowned heads, clerical power, and rights, ranks, and privileges derived from custom and tradition rather than reason, written law, and voting. (There is a reason the UK Constitution is “unwritten.”) It is more accurate to say that conservatism reconciled itself to liberalism victories in these areas over time.
Also, the division between liberals and conservatives concerning “The question of which comes first, liberty or order,” was and is about precedence in importance, not sequencing in time. (The romantic belief in a libertarian “man in nature,” was never universal in liberalism.) Liberals believe order’s only valid purpose is to secure liberty and conservatives believe order is a good unto itself that can produce liberty as a luxury byproduct or epiphenomena.
Which is also why Trump’s “nationalism”—as we now call neo-fascism—has more claim to conservatism then decent people like Brooks like to admit.
1
Question; So have you left the GOP? If so why don't you announce this in this article? If not , why not?
So David, Thats a lot of highflalutin words to take in so early in the morning. Outside of philosophers, not sure who is reading these books, made in the 14,15,16th centuries, in a "land before time".
So if I read you correctly, the "good people", these who live in "red states", who still run the family farm, kids who didn't get educated because they thought they would always get a "factory job" (union jobs until your hero Reagan killed them off) and make a good middle class living, are threatened by immigrants who are more educated, have better work ethics, and who by the way, are much more religious than your average American, have a divorce rate less than 1/3 of that of Americans, but have one flaw....they are not lily WHITE. I didn't read that fact anywhere in your article. Why, you're just choosing to ignore what is so obvious, not only to liberal and Democrats, but of the Republican racists themselves. They're voting for exactly this. The choice isn't Republican or Conservative, it's whether you want to be a decent human being. It should not be a difficult one to make, no?
Two words: Newt, and Gingrich.
3
A false dichotomy, Brooks. How about the choice between good and evil? That is a real choice. The one you present is between hate and hate more.
2
Oh my, David. The drifting of the republican party from its noble sacred space and roots only began 30 years ago? That was about 1988 if my math is correct. You so skillfully and stirringly skip over everyone from Joe McCarthy to Richard Nixon and his Southern strategy and Ronald Reagan and his “strapping young bucks“ dog whistling in Philadelphia. The truth of the matter is the republican party has been stained with nativist and racist winks, nods and assorted calumnies since the mid 1950s, and the sacred space referred to was not open for admission to women, blacks, gays or other assorted undesirables in the bygone time you so fondly wax about. Donald Trump is in the inevitable outcome of the machinery set in motion by Joe McCarthy, the John Birch society, Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon and Ronnie R starting 70 years ago, not the Republican Party losing its way more recently. The sacred space is and was, in actuality, profane.
2
The paternal, Christian order of the country is tumbling. It is being replaced by diversity and reason. Liberals are ok with that. Conservatives and Republicans not so much - hence Brook's threat of irrelevance and obsolescence.
1
Kristol is Krazy. Leave now, and do it visibly--then come back to your party when and if it's your party again...but you've got to make a statement (already too long delayed) to let the party establishment know that this is NOT okay. The enabling and the caving has to stop.
1
So Mr. Brooks, does this mean that you will finally repudiate the Republican Party or will you still hang on even if it means swallowing Trump?
First he has to come clean on who he voted for.
Community is NOT a “conservative” trademark. It is a hallmark of humane policies everywhere. Brooks is helping himself to the entire pie, then looking around and asking “what are the rest of you going to eat”?
Isn't it interesting that the words "communities" and "communism" have the same root word. Another attempt by Dave Brooks to apologize for being on the wrong side of history. When you gotta dig out GW Bush or David Cameron as role models the well is bone dry.
4
I do not pretend to be a conservative. Never was; never will be. However there is a (or was) a certain balance in the U.S. for over 200 years that kept the extremists of both the right and the left from running amok. That has gone right out the window over the last 40 years. Beginning with the Reagan Revolution in 1980; the extremist elements of the G.O.P. have destroyed what I can only describe as traditional conservative values. They are like sharks who only seek out their next victim. Two books (John Dean`s "Conservatives Without Conscience" and David Frum`s "TRUMPOCRACY") have clearly stated where mainstream conservatism has been hijacked by the ALT-RIGHT nuts have basically destroyed the moral underpinnings of the G.O.P. ; and replaced it with TEA PARTY insanity. Can there be salvation for this once proud party. GOD only knows. Time to CHOOSE!
1
And what about we Centrists? There is really no place to walk in the middle of the road.
For the record, I’m a registered Democrat and I voted for Hillary. I stand firm on both of those decisions.
But I don’t think Trump is really quite as awful as he’s portrayed. Let’s face it — half the country loves him. They can’t all be wrong.
And the Progressives go into a delirium every time Trump wakes up in the morning. Stop it, already! Yes, he’s a fool. We’ll survive.
Is there a space where I can say, ‘I don’t like him, but I agree with some of his ideas, even if they’re not well thought out?’
Any space where I can say, ‘I’m a Democrat, but I think many on the Left have gone stark raving mad?’
1
Pure Gobbledygook set in a historical context with mythic recovered memories of conservatives.
2
"Today you can be a conservative or a Republican, but you can't be both." ~ David Brooks
Reminds me of a quote from Louis Brandeis:
“We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
"the next conservativism?"
God save us all.
If you limit the political spectrum to "liberal" & "conservative", you're limiting your argument.
Try expanding it to "radical" & "liberal" to the left, & "conservative" & "reactionary" to the right.
Thanks David, good one.
There are basic qualities leaders of any political persuasion should demonstrate that are more important than ideology, like honesty , competence, and courage. Trump is a liar, a cheat, and a bully. His views on trade, alliances, and taxes are irrelevant. Trump is a corrupt demagogue, and a clear and present danger to the Republic.
As I read this essay, I kept thinking, "What David is calling "conservatism" describes beautifully that segment of the New Left which embraced E F Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful."
This segment of the Left goes back to the libertarian socialists of the late 1800s, who while celebrating community, also reluctantly realized that government was necessary to counter the oligarchic/plutocratic powers of the newly emerging corporations.
Then I got to "Burlington, VT"!!!
Burlington!
Where Mayor Sanders famously "Out-Republicaned the Republicans" with his year-by-year success in fiscal responsibility.
Where Mayor Sanders instituted land trusts which have been copied not only through the US but around the world as a fiscally responsibility means of providing low income housing.
Where Mayor Sanders worked tirelessly to create the infrastructure that has continued to strengthen the very community bonds that Brooks is celebrating.
Next Essay:
When the Left is right and the Right is wrong.
David, we're eagerly following your evolution.
2
Oh, David, David, David, I love you dearly and faithfully watch your thoughtful and civil discourse with Mark on Friday nights’ Newshour, but you are so naive. The “sacred space” has only ever been for white males. No women, immigrants, minorities, or LGBTQ need apply. With a father-knows-best ideology, the death knell for this tired try at conservatism is past due. An immediate implosion would be best to avoid further suffering. Start anew with something more inclusive and less abrasive and you may be surprised at what you get.
11
As they say, "it takes a village..."
John Ruskin was not a conservative. He was a romantic idealist.
The core of the left position is not liberty but justice. The extent to which, from this perspective, justice incorporates liberty, democracy, economic equity, and diversity varies according to the political theorist and the historical context. Views on the role of the state also vary--there is a left critique of bureaucracy and authoritarianism but at the same time a recognition that only the state can act on behalf of the public as a whole, enacting regulation to limit economic predation and providing a safety net.
3
Another voice that praised Republican policies and helped to enable the gutless GOP Congress that refuses to recognize the clear and present danger to our republic, reveals doubts without accepting responsibility for his own actions. You broke it, you own it.
3
No one has to choose an ideological badge or party affiliation. One can simply judge each issue on its merits and make pragmatic decisions. That's the best alternative for thinking individuals.
Anyone who has backed Republicans over the last 40+ years chose long ago. They chose not "conservatism" but racism, bigotry and the monetary interests of the rich and corporations. The elements of racism, only a little less blatant than Trump's, were an integral part of the strategy of conservative 'heroes" such as Goldwater, Reagan and William F. Buckley.
7
Universally unique people will never all be equal. However, we can all share equal rights and obligations under the law under an agreed-upon framework for coexistence.
3