Holy false equivalency!
The real difference between the parties is that the Republicans have made themselves the party of short-range thinking. Republicans seem to be singularly focused on shoveling money to their rich owners, excuse me, supporters for the purpose of preserving and increasing their own power (now). If that involves ruining lives and devastating the earth, well, there’s a price for everything, isn’t there? Outright lies about scientific findings, other facts and their own intentions are just road-clearing maneuvers. Suppression of rights is just business.
The modern Democratic party has never been remotely like this. Its thinking has been long-range for decades, focused on the present and future health, safety and security of human beings and the earth they live on. Only the Democratic party seems concerned about how such details as climate change and lack of decent health insurance and suppression of rights and astronomical costs of education will affect the lives of future generations, and only the Democrats offer realistic ideas for improving any of them.
Remove all the jargon from party comparisons and you’re left with a simple idea: One party blocks the road. The other looks down it.
These “I’m not OK/you’re not OK” false equivalencies are Republican attempts to make themselves look less corrupt, and they multiply like kudzu. If I had a nickel for every one I’ve heard, I’d have enough to buy a senator.
180
This analysis made a light come on in my head: these same polar opposite but affluent groups are each media advertising goldmines. What if savvy media companies cultivated and reinforced them over time with compelling political and cultural narratives that reinforced interest, loyalty, ratings and boffo results for their advertisers? After a while, it wouldn't matter if the slant of programming and content was balanced or in the public interest...only that it builds and sustains a sizable group identity that tends to outright loyalty. Polar opposite media strategies would be expected to yield polar opposite tribes.
<sigh>
13
I'm sorry, what? In what alternate universe is tribalism strongest among the rich and well educated? In what world do those who are doing well in life cling to group membership for meaning -- as opposed to those who are completely disenfranchised and have absolutely no prestige without that group membership?
Tribalism worked on poor whites in the colonial South, who gained status over Blacks by claiming membership in a new race called "white." Tribalism worked among the economically devastated populace of Germany, who could regain pride in their heritage despite the ruinous state of their country by blaming the Jews. And tribalism is working among America's poorest today.
I'd like to believe the rest of this article, but it rests on a foundation of nonsense. I call sophistry.
48
Mr. Brooks’ summary of this survey and its meanings, at least on the extreme ends of the political spectrum is useful. But then, true to form, he finds a way to belittle us on the left. “There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity.” no, Mr. Brooks. All of the Progressive Activists I know have spent countless hours developing and explicating the elements of their belief system. Indeed, our views are coherent. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men [and women] are created equal.” “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Cliches. Sixth-grade civics. What, I hope, all of us were taught early on, in school if not by our parents. Operationalize these when you consider taxation, voting rights, gender and racial/ethnic equality, etc., and you can predict our political stances. Tell us, Mr. Brooks, are these the core American values, or is “I’ve got mine; to hell with you” the core value for which we stand?
50
I am definitely in the “exhausted majority”. I have voted since 1972 and I have never seen or heard before such lock, stock and barrel cartoon characterizations of of “the other”. Ideological fervor destroys one’s ability to consider the shared humanity of us all. It is a one way street with a dead end. It heartens me that the “silent majority” includes me.
16
I'm an older white woman. I'm married to my first husband of almost 50 years. My children work hard in order to have a middle class life. I've been a progressive all my life. I believe in universal health care, that everyone should pay a fair share of their income in taxes--and that includes Trump and his spawn, that everyone who works deserves a living wage, that education is important and so is telling the truth, and that no religion, race or ethnic group owns this country. None of these are the values of the Trump right. Not a single one of them is practiced by the con artist and lifetime racist and crook who became leader of this country despite the fact that his opponent received 3 million more votes than he did.
Until you and the writers you favor come to terms with the fact that the entire Republican Party is now utterly in thrall to a mentally deranged crook we will never move ahead toward a fairer and more just and civil country.
109
Good article. Trump supporters often play the victim and victimised, perhaps to justify their own prejudices, if one is a victim, how can they be wrong? Along comes Trump, validating their fear and paranoia, validating their prejudice and suddenly it all makes sense. Not to belabour the point, but those who know history, in particular the strategy of Hitler and the Third Reich will recognise exactly what is happening. We should know better, sadly, it appears we do not.
26
Ok, here's another data point to factor into your 'two tribal narratives' pitch. Ask those who count themselves on the more or less extreme right, how they get their news and forge their opinion.
Bet you get a substantial, perhaps even a majority, for whom Fox News is their mainstay or a main source for 'information' and spin.....
With the progressives? Yes, the NYT might be there or some other big city paper but there would also be NPR and perhaps a weekly journal or so on line or not. I.e., a variety. Book groups would also be a feature of such lives.
Rousseau was as skeptical of the untutored masses being responsible citizens as much as any of the philosophes. But he imagined that it might be possible for mutually engaged groups of people, say on the scale of a city-state like Geneva, could learn how to make a republic work.
But reliance on mass theater like the media driven consciousness of 21st century America is not 'engagement' of that sort and promises nothing but the continuing mistrust David Brooks laments.
15
I used to vote Republican.
I used to think of myself as conservative.
I now vote straight Democrat.
I can say this about your piece: you have seriously undersold the religious psychosis that has infected the Republican/conservative party.
A god can be used to justify anything.
The Progressive/Democrats have nothing remotely as poisonous and it shows in their inability to wrest control of our government from a demented criminal and his complicitous accessories.
76
Before the Civil War, the Southern Democrats were happy w/their plantations, their slaves and their ability to act like the barons of Europe. After Lincoln's Civil War and the concurrence of freeing the slaves w/the Republican's belief that 'all men are created equal', things obviously changed for the country. It was then that the Southern Dems w/their cohorts in the North, decided they needed a 'new plantation' run by their elite brethren - it was to become the behemoth - we all know today - it was and is the US government. Please brush up on your history.
4
Again, David Brooks, with the rest of his conservative cohorts, engaged in this and other exercises of false rivalries, which I'm glad to note that many in the comments section have recognized. Where is the much vaunted intellectual honesty to which they supposedly are laying claim? All I see is bad faith emanating from those quarters.
17
Bad faith, David. Typical for Devoted Conservatives. False equivalences and numbers that don't line up. You claim to value civil discussion, but you don't practice it.
If you want a civil discourse, stop insisting you can define what people you disagree with mean, or think. Have the humility, and honesty, to say what you think and stop there. You clearly don't know what other people think, particularly those you disagree with. Putting up straw men doesn't help you understand. You have to stop talking, and listen.
That's why Conservatives and Progressives differ in their analysis. Conservatives tend to believe unfounded fantasies about Progressives, and conclude they are stupid. Progressives tend to listen to what Conservatives actually say, watch what they do, and conclude they are evil.
I've been seeking a world of abundance, gifts and hope, for all of us, for 60+ years. Conservatives, with few exceptions, have replied with deficits, fear and hatred.
34
Majorities of Americans of all stripes favor national health care, strong environmental regulation, and ending our endless wars. Sounds like a consensus to me. Just not for David Brooks, who doesn't mention any of them.
23
All good until the last paragraph. Just a bit of magical thinking.
You have successfully enraged the false equivalency crowd with your latest article. They make your point more clearly than anything you could have said.
11
I see Mr Brooks is back with his false equivalence. I'm sorry Mr Brooks, there aren't 2 cultish sides. There's one cult of personality which is completely disconnected from reality (the one which calls every fact it doesn't like 'fake news'), there is another side calling this out as a serious problem, and everyone else is confused in the middle.
18
If you can't see some problems with both extremes, odds are, you are one of the extremes. Sincerely, Middle America.
12
America needs a third political party which would appeal to all those people between the two extremes.
5
Assuming this is some sort of unbiased assessment in what now appears to be a totally biased world...this is probably the truly great argument for getting rid of 'Citizens' United'
6
I hope you’re right!
2
Based on recent surveys on public opinion, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is well to the right of the average American - Devoted Conservatives, in fact. I’d like to be hopeful too, but what do we do when judicial review puts enormous power, contrary to the will of either the majority or their elected representatives, into the hands of a tiny sample of this tiny, extreme subgroup?
9
What the report excludes is more important than what it includes. Brooks' title hides that in plain sight. The report does not address the differences between the wealthy and the non-wealthy. In particular the extremely wealthy. It is telling that so called pundits refuse to acknowledge that there is more than one dimension to conflict in America and around the world. The political dimension of Liberal to Conservative completely avoids the wealth and economic dimension of Wealthy to Poor.
It is also worth pointing out that the assertion that people hew to tribes itself promotes tribal identity. A cultural norm could emerge that makes people suspicious of being labeled and of being "put in a box". The report's intent is opposite of its promotion of the middle.
The fact is Wealth Is Power. Wealth is power independent of politics. But now wealth has essentially usurped political power from the mass of citizens who ostensibly form our democracy.
That is where the real power dynamic and differences matter. The one salient fact that the report gets right but does not explore is the assertion that the news media exacerbates "tribal extremes". Even a cursory examination will reveal that nearly all media is owned by the financial elite. And while it is great for them that promoting polarization makes money, that polarization has more fundamentally important role which is keeping the "tribes" at each others' throats instead of effectively taking back power from the financial elite.
12
80% of the article is about 14% of the people. The disproportionate focus in our public political discourse on what the extremes among us do and say is precisely what the exhausted majority are exhausted by.
12
I've read several comments from progressives who are angry that Brooks is making a "false equivalence" here that both sides are "equally bad."
He's not doing that. He's saying that there ARE some similarities, however, which many of us who don't identify with either group recognize.
This is a symptom of a larger problem: tribal thinkers don't understand that they can have similar characteristics to those they don't like and/or identify with and it doesn't mean "bad" or "good."
So feel better if you're in either tribe: you can still feel morally superior without totally abandoning your ability to critically think.
7
As an interested political observor amd 3rd generation minority, I am somewhat disappaointed by Brooks analysis. The current political circus is less about opinions than the the political forces in power on the rather Orwellian focus on retaining political that power at all costs at the expense of norms, ethhics and good governance. The last election shows the vulerability of the elections to the susceptibility of the voters to charlantan-like promises, catering to fears and uncertainty, promotion of a personality cult and the power of moneied interests (which is still with us). Wasn't it Stalin who once said people will believe you if you continue to lie to them over and over again - or something to that effect?
7
David, I enjoy your ideas, writing, and watching you on T.V., but I think you are too young to really understand the baby boom generation. We have always had all the power, since we were children, because of our numbers. We are the world's biggest consumer group and all new products have been oriented toward our age since we were children. We did the counter-cultural revolution. Now we're all senior citizens and Trump's election and all this brouhaha is the last hurrah of us baby boomers. It was old white people who elected Trump. The candidates were all baby boomers. We have been divided and at war since our youth during the Viet Nam war. Millennials now outnumber us, but they don't vote. This November, they might finally realize it's their future and vote. If so, for the first time in my long life us baby boomers will not be making the rules.
6
"There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity."
That's really insulting. My progressive values are not based on someone telling me what to think. I hold them because they are based in compassionate moral judgment and in facts. They are also bedrock
American values, or at least they used to be-- equality, inclusiveness, openness to new ideas, religious tolerance, and opportunity for all, not just for the rich.
32
I ascribe to the belief that the term "takeaway" should be confined to menus.
4
"I don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred." I would love to agree, but I see no signs of it. As you are the betting man, please elaborate.
2
What to do about abject, incessant floods of lies?
What does evidence show and why is evidence tribally rejected?
What we believe is shaped entirely by how we each choose to think--or not think.
5
It seems those who speak (act) can’t listen (bare witness), and those who listen can’t speak.
2
David...Do you really think that Sean Hannity and Mr. Rogers, or Merrick Garland and Brett Kavanaugh, are equivalent in creating the animus that this nation is experiencing?
20
How about a Coalition of the Decent party? But can we please stop pretending that the Republican party is conservative, as they have yet again blown up the deficit and their leader is proudly amoral? He has built a cult of personality around himself and we ignore the danger of that at the risk of our Democracy. He stands for nothing but his own indulgence and aggrandizement. America deserves better.
19
Brooks’s concern about ideological polarization is well taken, but it cherry-picks the issues and ignores its asymmetry. It’s much worse on the right than on the left, as recent Pew polls have shown. In 2010, almost half of Republicans but only one-third of Democrats polled said they would be “somewhat or very unhappy” if their children married someone of the opposite party. In 2014, Pew found that half of the “consistently conservative” said it was important to live in a place where most people shared their political views, but just over one-third (35%) of the consistently liberal. Of these conservatives, 63% said most of their close friends shared their political views, but just under half of the liberals. Perhaps it is related to who controls Congress, but 63% of the “consistently conservative” like elected officials who stick to their positions, whereas 82% of the consistently liberal preferred representatives who make compromises. So no more false equivalency in a misguided attempt to look balanced, please.
14
There's a glaring error in the center of this piece: cult membership produces a pattern of uniform agreements, therefore all groups sharing uniform agreements are cults, or cult-like. Uh, no. Ironically, Brooks urges the nation to embrace "individual thought," but he disqualifies the conclusions of large classes of individual thinkers--in particular, people who he says have coherent philosophical narratives--simply because they reach conclusions similar to one another!
Brooks supposes that the test of flexible, individual thinking is that your profile of beliefs diverge adequately from some ill-defined statistical norm. His dismissal of others' views is motivated in no way by "flexible, individual" critical thinking about competing claims, as much as by a dogmatic rejection of thinking that produces shared conclusions.
6
90% of devoted conservatives think immigration is bad and 99% of progressive activists think it is good. That right there illustrates the difference between the two. A litany of research has demonstrated that immigration has many positive benefits to the culture and economy of the U.S. To name just one, because the U.S. has a low birth rate, as do all industrialized countries, young immigrants help maintain the tax base that provides for the needs of its native-born aging population. Japan is struggling greatly with a disproportionately large percentage of aged citizens compared to those of working age because they greatly limit immigration.
On the other hand, what could the basis be for 90% of devoted conservatives thinking immigration is 'bad?' Immigrants take American jobs? They commit a lot of crime? They dilute our culture? All demonstrably false. Either they refuse to accept the results of research or there is some other reason devoted conservatives think immigration is BAD. What could it be?
12
I'm not ashamed to be an American.
I am ashamed of what America, under Trump and those who possess a Hitler-like fascination and adoration for him, is becoming.
237
@Glen Congratulations...you just made the author's point!
4
I'm a Leftist with some conservative beliefs. I guess you could call me a political mongrel. The Republican party is no longer conservative; it is a classic model of a fascist party. The GOP's mission is to cheat to win elections, with voter suppression and even cooperation with an enemy nation, Russia. And now, after victory, Republicans are consciously weakening the U.S. government, in order to eventually become the U.S. government. And they are on their knees to a sociopathic Leader.
I admire educated and clear-thinking conservatives. A strong conservative party is necessary in a democracy to ameliorate extreme Leftism. But the GOP is not a conservative party; it is a fascist movement. I oppose it with every fiber of my political being. If that's tribalism, count me as a member of the mad-as-hell mongrels.
25
This is a very insightful argument for why we are so screwed up right now. People at the top of the income scale are just clueless as to how the rest of us live. They can afford to be so ideological, because they don't have to live with the consequences of their politics. It's tough for us who are in the center of the political spectrum and the middle of the road economically. We just want to see some problems get solved, but instead we get political correctness from the Left and tax cuts for the rich and more military spending from the Right. Neither side gives up a sustainable option for how to proceed.
119
I'd be curious how the question on Islam was framed. I would answer that there is presently violence within the Islamic world, and there is violent ideology fueling it, but not that it is more inherently violent than other major religions. What you have is the most extreme elements having outsize influence in the teachings of the entire religion.
2
@JC You'd be surprised how many people actually think that Islamic teachings include mandates to behead all non-believers, and such. I was raised Muslim, and I've personally encountered this misconception at least a dozen times.
4
How is it 80% of us do have not voice? Where is the massive middle? This piece shouts out for a third party. Where are the centrists in politics today?
Sorry the rich whites are definitely not doing the fighting ans in the original civil war they pay others to fight. It should real GOP billionaires the dealers behind the American Divide. I would love to see who contributed to Trump's 100 billion dollar war chest. I bet it is a who's who of American Billionaires.My money is on corporations and billionaires very happy with the billions he and the GOP gave them in tax breaks. Bread and circuses American Style and the deficit spirals upward. The Chinese and Europeans really must see us as a nation of fools and their overlords.
3
So, if the extremes are only 14% of the population, how did Trump get elected?
4
Perhaps what both extreme tribes have in common is what Emerson called "a foolish consistency". To me, for some time now, the US has felt like totalitarianism mated with Beverly Hills 90210. Someone please get an administrator!
1
"Moral foundations"? How can you say that with a straight face based on the current administration?
9
Like so many survey-based topologies, this "Hidden Tribes" report actually sounds pretty worthless. When questions are designed by humans who identify with one "narrative" or another, the answers come aligned in a similarly binary way. That Brooks and the rest of the punditry in this country subscribe to binary thinking in a bipartisan political system, just shows how much of a rut this black/white way of thinking has dug for US. Lame assumptions about 14 percent of the population, and admitted shots in the dark about the other 86 percent is just as anti-intellectual as knee-jerk populism.
7
The narrative of everyman today is
We're here to pass all good on to the future
and
We're all in this together.
1
By next political paradigm do you mean our post-democracy governments after the divisive cult of Trump is finished holding rallies to demonize the “criminals” that are democrats and dismantling the democratic institutions we hold dear. Watch Trump’s last six rallies and see if the far right isn’t best now called fascism.
It seems like the only fix for the civil war you describe is to move to the middle. So here’s a proposal. To all Democrats: vote in the Republican primary for that candidate you find least offensive. Look for common ground, not to sabotage. I welcome Republicans to do the same. Then, we will have two candidates that more directly represent to will of a majority. More candidates will land in the center. And they will talk to each other.
If the candidate who wins the primary on the opposing side is not abhorrent to you (ie not a climate change denier, etc) then whoever wins the general election you will not be shut out of the political process by minority rule. Maybe compromises will be reached. I know this isn’t ideal, but maybe it represents a path back to sanity.
Mr. Brooks, try this narrative on for size:
There are two "camps" -- the cultists and the people. What are the values of the cultists? There are two sets of values, because the cultists are two groups -- the Greedy Rich and the America-First Stupids.
Both groups wants one-party rule -- either oligarchical or fascist or both. Trump delivers both.
It's up to the people to regain control of their government on Nov 6.
4
"People with more stresses in their lives necessarily pay less attention to politics. People with college degrees are more likely to describe their ideology as central to their identity. They are much more likely to derive moral meaning from their label, more likely to affiliate with a herd based on their label and more likely to vote on the party line."
I'm not sure if I agree to that. Instead, I would argue that it's all because the rich (regardless of ideology) simply has had far more time and resources; afterall they don't have to toll 16-18 hours a day to bring food to the table, never mind spending time voting. I would also argue that the rich fight for beachheads because it's all about power and control, what better than to control politics and have politicians in your pocket?
3
Spot on! I have been seeing this for over a decade, but it's much more entrenched today. The extremes have taken over the 'voice box' of America - the news, the media, and the social networks. When I see something extreme, I know it is a partial truth at best. However, most 'extreme' conservatives I meet have a strong religious bent and rely on their experiences over decades to shore up their extreme beliefs (older crowd). There have always been far right religious, but today's group is more likely to believe conspiracy theories. Most 'extreme' progressives I meet disdain religion and rely on fairy tale logic when they talk about 'how to fix' things. They have little experience and have held little responsibility in their lives to date. Perhaps both are reacting to the recession's timing in their lives. I've always seen far left attitudes from college students and youth, but generally that dissipates when they enter the real world of work, family, and kids. This latest group of progressives were quite delayed in entering that phase of life, many never have and are sitting their at 35 screaming that life isn't fair. They too believe in conspiracy theories; maybe that's what both groups have in common.
3
David: I am not capable of intellectualizing, as you do, and making a diagnosis of a surgeon, you need that patient in intensive care in the USA. My perception is more rustic and only reaches the functional scope: USA is like a gearbox of a car. The owners of the car, we, according to the manual of use of the vehicle had to change this critical part of the machine a taxi. In 2016 we bought the spare part and the service center changed it. But when going by our transport to the mechanical workshop we realized that the vehicle only had one gear, one speed. Everything for back An immovable lever that only acceded to the recoil. We had therefore bought the wrong gear. Stubborn, we went pushing the car to the street and accelerated, with the idea that the gearbox was released with our maneuvers. The only thing we managed to do was to move backward, away from the horizon we saw through the windshield, to the center, to the left, to the right. A look in the mirror filled us with anguish, panic. We tried to jump out of the car but the doors were locked with solid gold padlocks. In the midst of terror and claustrophobia we were invaded by a crisis of panic, a state of insufferable limit At the edge of the abyss we suddenly remember the mark that appeared on the packaging of the spare tire TRUMPREY We were already in free fall.
1
How are the questions on this article actually being presented or posed to those being grouped? They are so devoid of content or context, at least as they're presented in this article, to be meaningless - a litmus test for one's worldview, but based primarily on instinctual or emotional reactivity. If someone were to ask, for example, "is immigration good or bad", I would hope that most thinking people would make an effort to clarify - good or bad for whom? What kind of immigration? The same goes for creative versus "well-behaved" children, or exactly which outcomes are outside of one's control - to what degree, and for whom this is true.
If the questions posed were truly as simplistic as they are being presented here, that would suggest to me only that this survey and these "tribes" or their divisions are more a reflection of another long-term trend in our public discourse: the inability to appreciate nuance or complexity. Immigration is a massively complex issue, as is navigating race relations as a society (not to suggest that racist views have a place in our dialogue). The problem is that we, as individuals and a society, buy into tribalism because it's what we are primed to do. We need leaders who engage in meaningful dialogue and compromise; the rest of us, regardless of political leanings, tend to follow suit once this happens. Scorched-earth, divisive politics and its proponents are enemies of all humanity - and unfortunately our president is among them.
3
so interesting that I saw nothing in these comments about what we will be facing in the next part of this century and beyond. In an economy of shrinking resources, it's so obvious to me that a sharing impulse is what would save the most people for the longest time. Of the two - conservative and liberal - which political party do you think would be most likely to endorse this position?
3
Why is it that the 'rich' extreme groups are not only smaller but louder? Is this why the 'exhausted majority' is exhausted? It would be hopeful to believe that self-righteousness, which seems to define the tribal mind-set on the right and on the left, will discover that it is also self-defeating. One cannot help but wonder if articulating the thoughts of the largest but least heard group -- supposing that someone can find the voice to do this -- will silence the extremes.
The apparent future conception of America?
Probably a society of next to invalids: Increase the population; drive up the human lifespan having people essentially alive yet in weakened state for decades, meaning having the elderly increasingly sitting on and controlling the population, forcing the young to be firmly beneath themselves; declare everybody equal (meaning essentially average and even tolerant of the very weak in society); increase medicine and have everybody used to having to see medical specialists with regularity; increase bureaucracy in order to "help" but obviously really boxing everybody in; declare that there is no way anyone can be truly independent, that no man is an island and that EVERY person must depend on other people; and essentially have a sedentary and urban population demanding increased ease of life by technology and always sticking their noses into each other's affairs in a vast surveillance system of attention and always with concern for the safety of society.
In such a world it becomes the ideal that a person is mostly a broken person, a person who fulfills just one small task in a vast network in which one is dependent on so many other people. A society in which you're made to feel next to worthless, certainly far from great independence, yet everybody is so glad to be of help to you. A society of modest, helpful people. And you too might one day be able to drag on for decades in the safety and plenitude of a perfecting society.
@Daniel12
Atlas shrugged, eh?
2
It's the politics of selfishness versus the politics of empathy. Devoted Conservatives, such as the Trumps, are more likely to say that they got everything through merit rather than luck. Thus, as Ivanka recounted in her book, her father was driven to school in a Rolls-Royce but dropped off at a subway station and had to walk across the street to school, which kept "him focused and grounded.” That's what Devoted Conservatives mean by "merit" versus "luck".
And DC's want strict values and strong authority to keep them safe because they imagine everyone wants to take what they have. This is not about keeping the country as a whole safe - it's about keeping themselves and their stuff safe so they can preserve their privileged lifestyles.
5
Brooks says, of both progressive activists and dedicated conservatives, "There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity." This is an outrageous non sequitur. The “Hidden Tribes" report takes a continuum of political beliefs and arbitrarily divides it into seven groups, each of which, by construction, contains people holding similar political beliefs. There is no hint of “cult” in assignment to any of the groups. There is no cult leadership or any other evidence of coordinated thought, just a collection of people who happen to agree.
What kind of logical analysis can possibly follow from this?
4
David Brooks labels activists on Left and Right as cultists in order to equate the democratic thrust of the left with the autocratic movement of the right. There is no such equivalence. Those on the left have historical evidence to support their claims of the advantages of an open, equitable, commonwealth policy. Those on the right ignore the historical catastrophes visited upon the world by the grasping power-mongering of a ruling few.
Brooks is either a cleverly disguised right-wing ideologue or an intellectually limited but thoroughly conservative observer.
6
I had to think about "creative" versus "well behaved". I'm unabashedly liberal (but disagree with many of the "progressive activist" tenets) and value creativity highly. Creative geniuses are a gift to humanity for all time. But imagine if everyone behaved like Beethoven. For us ordinary folks, though, it's highly unlikely even 1% of the screaming over-indulged brats you see in public everywhere will grow up to be creative geniuses. And it's not a zero sum thing. Children should be encouraged to be both creative and well behaved. The idea that requiring conformity to certain social norms stifles creativity is nonsense. But if one or the other has to go, let it be creativity.
1
So if one side clings to a Hobbesian narrative while the other insists on a Rousseauian worldview, does this imply that we must search for a Lockean middle ground? Rather than truckle to an omnipotent, despotical state or utterly destroy our institutions to rid them of their flaws, should we try to work together to shape our government into a mutually beneficial entity using Locke's view of the social contract? Locke argued that working together to forge an enduring covenant that establishes a more fair, more equal, and more secure political system was our way to escape the dangers and inherent pitfalls of the state of nature. Only through constructive cooperation could humankind craft a proper government that took into account a plurality of interests, ideologies, and lifestyles. The social contract cannot be formed if one party refuses to engage with the other, for then the compact falls victim to the inexorable damage of division. Of course, this would require discourse that spreads across the ideological spectrum. That type of salubrious deliberation seems unlikely in our hyperpartisan atmosphere. Neverthelesss, I think it is important to not only diagnose but also to prescribe. Your piece offers the descriptive analysis of our current tribes, but we need to proffer prescriptive suggestions for closing the harmful gaps between us, and I believe Locke's view of the state of nature could provide that bridge.
Almost everyone that is commenting on this article is missing the scale of the numbers. The two opposed groups are not the 1%. They are the 14%. That's half of the number of Americans with Bachelor's degrees. If you plug "top 14%" into an income calculator, the income range for this group is roughly everyone making > $100,000. We aren't talking Soros and Koch here.
The point David is missing is that this 14% is basically the same group that is positioned to provide leadership to society. Of course their opinions are going to be represented in and driving the national conversation. They are leading that conversation. The idea that the majority - a group defined by their lack of a philosophical foundation - are going to jump into the fray and change the conversation is ridiculous. They have no idea what they want. Not wanting an "extreme" is not a real position.
I think I see the opportunity for a third party to emerge from the under served middle
51
@Jay Nair We do need at least one more party. And to represent the bulk of the people, we probably need both the GOP and the Democratic Party to formally split into at least two groups.
This is a flawed, circular argument. The report cited asks questions of people and then lumps them together based on their opinions on issues, then Mr. Brooks states that the people in these groups are cultish in their thinking when they stick to their beliefs when this random grouping is already based on those beliefs.
5
This article shows vividly why Citizens United, and unlimited money in politics, is wrong and bad for the country. If we continue to allow the rich on both sides to control the narrative we will continue to allow the "extremists" to control our destiny.
2
Mr. Brooks is being disingenuous in how he has chosen to represent the research by how defines the two "extremes". He only mentions the Devoted Conservatives (6%) presumably because it matches up well with Progressive Activists (8%), but the authors do not group their findings that way. Instead, on the right they group both Devoted Conservatives and Traditional Conservatives (6% and 19%) as part of the Right's problematic world views that are well outside the Exhausted Majority. I'm willing to accept that in any well-functioning society, there will always be a fringe of 6-8% at either extreme; there is nothing worrisome about this. But when one extreme can claim 25% of the population in its ranks, then the broader society should become very concerned. Mr. Brooks chooses to overlook this inconvenient finding.
According to the research, a majority of Americans in the Center-Left and Center are in the "reasonable" camp (with the Moderates, this proportion grows to almost 60%, assuming an even split between Left and Right among Moderates). This is very good news and a source of hope. And it leaves the extreme views almost entirely a Right issue.
Many readers correctly accuse Mr. Brooks with false equivalency. This false equivalency is made that much more egregious by his intentional distortion of the research's findings. This distortion is painfully close to the abandonment of facts broadly promulgated by Republicans and the NYT should expect better from its columnists.
5
"Ninety percent of Devoted Conservatives think immigration is bad, while 99 percent of Progressive Activists think it is good."
Let's think about that. Our country was built on immigration. Do Devoted Conservatives therefore think our country is bad - since it was built on a foundation of "bad" immigration? Or do they think immigration of their own ancestors was good while new immigration is bad? When did it become bad? Is part of it good and part of it bad?
Obviously, the subtext is white nationalism. It is overwhelmingly immigration from south of the border that concerns racist white nationalists posing as Devoted Conservatives. Whether it is legal or illegal immigration has virtually nothing to do with it, despite their protestations to the contrary.
2
David is SO much more hopeful than I.
While the issues that have sparked heated division change from time to time, our perversions of excess ALWAYS have been with us. I understand that it’s politically correct to assume that this can change, but what always has been most likely always will be.
Let me see if I get this. The moderate Mr.Brooks asserts that those on the extremes who he asserts demonstrably think quite a bit different than other Americans are cult-like conformists, and the rest of America, those in the so-called middle, who agree that people need to compromise more are independent thinkers. Sounds to me like twisted, "the truth is always in the middle", cult like thinking.
2
@Keitralso the center never holds;ask comrade Kerensky.
This last weekend I attended my Harvard 45th reunion. Our class includes former Senator Al Franken, assassinated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and journalists and writers that include Evan Thomas and EJ Dionne. With political analyst and classmate Bill Kristol a no show, I was dismayed at the lack of honest conservative voices on the political panels and their discussions. I do not think that David Brooks believes that the left and right extremes are equivalent but rather is making the case that the extremes, on both ends, share characteristics that are destructive to a fulsome national debate and the forging of consensus on key issues such as immigration and border security.
2
" It’s about identity, psychology, moral foundations and the dynamics of tribal resentment
I would like to point out what should be gobsmakingly obvious to anyone who reads the comment pages of the NY Times. Namely, that a disproportionate number of comments are Russians who are engaging in agitprop. And their ultimate end of these trolls to stoke resentment & tribalism among Americans.
My suggestion to my fellow Americans is to log off, turn out and talk to your fellow Americans. It will help your psychic health, and the psychic health of the land we all so love.
This column is a few electrons short of a full charge. With publishing space unlimited by printing restraints, why do neither journalists nor editors spend the time and energy needed to tell us where and from whom they get their information? Because they are relying on questionable "experts"? Because data analytics reveal that if the article is too long, it loses eyeballs, clicks and ad revenue? Because they believe we swallow their opinons sans thought process, regardless? Because there is no dividend in reading comments?
A very strange thing to me is that digital journalism now most often sidesteps the formerly important feature of telling the public just who are the sources of "facts" and/or "research" quoted as arbiters of understanding what's going on in the world. Brooks bases his entire column on some group calling itself "More in Common". The linked web page, detailing this source, gives zero information about who they are, or how their "research" was conducted. We're just supposed to go straight to the conclusions, believe them and move on to the next click. I suppose many of us do.
So, intelligent readers of the NYTimes are supposed to swallow the statistics whole and then digest Brooks' analysis of this "information" as a guidepost to reality? Not drinking the Kool Aid without better details of where you get your data, Mr. Brooks.
4
"hope not hatred..."
David - You mean someone JUST LIKE like President Obama?
2
I wish I could agree with you about the future narratives, but I fear you're wrong.
Until (more or less) the 1980s most Americans could look upon the future economically with hope. Certainly in the last decade or so that has ceased to be the case. Unless that changes there will be no narrative of hope and abundance. Furthermore, it is becoming abundantly clear that Global Warming is a much more potent and real threat than previously hoped. That will further impinge on the future.
The time to have dealt with inequality and Global Warming was about 10 years ago, but we didn't do that (probably mostly because of the Great Recession - and Republican intransigence). There's still a small chance we can make good headway against both, but the window is fast closing, and will doom I fear the whole Earth to dark ages unlike seen in a long time.
1
I would love it if politics is the issue that will have everyone at odds in the coming years. Unfortunately, as the U.N. report on Climate Change tells us, the world is rapidly moving towards chaos. If we cannot come together on this issue, no other ones will matter.
1
Once again Brooks uses his latest read as fodder for a column to bolster his theories about how to fix America. He seems to think that if we all just smiled sweetly and cared less we could all just get along. The stats in this study are basically useless facts revealing nothing. What constitutes "activism" is not revealed. Of course, if it is a factor of donations to political parties it will be the rich and educated who are the most active. And it is usually the educated who read and are most informed about news events. People who have to work 3 jobs to survive and can't afford a newspaper may not have the time to be active in working toward political and cultural change even though they may wish for it. And they may not trust a system that has let them down. They aren't necessarily moderates as Brooks assumes. Both Obama and Trump proved that by energizing large numbers of people to come out to vote.
In these times I'm afraid a "moderate" such as Brooks is just an enabler for those who would do us harm. He preaches calm and civility while Rome burns.
Flip the coin with Trump and Hannity united in hate on one side and find Warren and and Maddow on the other melded in strident invective and resentment.
Any political view which leads to utter national derangement on this level can only be disastrous. The rest of the nation has been effectively silenced and disenfranchised. The narrative is now solely about justifying political psychosis, and has nothing to do with facts or needs. No issue is receiving rational scrutiny, no reality is being permitted to intrude. The last Civil War wasn't much fun either, but now the question is whether this one will be more destructive.
Basically the R & D parties are one and same two-headed snake. The elites of both parties that you speak of send their kids to the same private schools, drive thee same luxury vehicles, live in the same upscale neighborhoods, hang out in the same country clubs, go to the same fancy resort destinations, have summer homes in the same areas and share their bourgy-ness together. They know what each other represents and tolerate one another publicly. Privately maybe not so much yet they are most aware of the politics of their wealthy neighbors. It's a well educated, money club and most of us are definitely not in it.
This article is overly abstract and fails to look at the actual issues.
I guess I remain hopeful, but short of optimistic. As Mr. Brooks notes: “The current situation really does begin to look like the religious wars that ripped through Europe after the invention of the printing press ….”
The two wealthy extremes show signs of similarity with national and military leaders. They’re more than willing to go to war (and reap the rewards of victory), but it’s still the lowly foot-soldier who does the bleeding.
If you want a paradigm based on abundance rather than scarcity, it had better be an ecological rather than an economic one.
From an ecological perspective enterprises, societal or commercial, are conceived in passion, born in communities of trust, grow through the application of reason and mature in power. Here they tend to get stuck. The founding passions and purposes have long been forgotten and the means to success become ends in themselves.
The national narrative splinters and factional fighting breaks out among the elites. The nation is caught in a systems trap from which it seems impossible to escape. The electorate reaches for political outliers who usually promise either to renew or restore a lost narrative - Pope Francis or Donald Trump.
Often it takes a crisis of some kind to jolt the system toward renewal. Only when a situation’s demands are so pressing, unambiguous and anxiety-inducing can deeply embedded habits, identity and ways of being be changed. Only then can individuals truly set aside self-interest and collaborate with their peers in common cause. Often this process begins in local communities that David Brooks has written about recently.
The 'Hidden Tribes' report calls for a 'blueprint' for our efforts. This engineering metaphor is precisely wrong. From an ecological perspective enterprises are not equilibrium systems and neither are capitalism or democracy. For them the ecological mantra remains, "Nothing last unless it is incessantly renewed"
You could have simply written that the nation is as divided now as it was in pre-Civil War America, when those who supported slavery (wealthy Southerners by and large) ended up going to war with opponents of slavery (educated writers, teachers and journalists). There has been, and still is, a moral divide running through our national history, and it has to do with the stain of slavery. Other nations had slaves, but they got through it and over it and moved on (England, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, et al).
Americans have not. Slavery bedevils us to this day.
2
My takeaway from this Op-Ed: Progressive Activists agree with things that have an abundance of statistical support - the benefits of immigration, the prevalence of racial discrimination and sexism and sexual assault, the studies on economic mobility and to what degree people have control ove their own.
While Devoted Conservatives believe in consistently debunked conceits - Islam is a more violent religion than Christianity, immigrants are taking our jobs, government saftey nets are economy-draining "entitlements", and I have to sigh a bit a them believing in "well behaved" children seeing as how Consrvative culture is the one fighting back against society's attempts to tackle sexual harrassment and racism, often perpetrated by the "well behaved" children they brought up in their Conservative, authoritarian world views.
Progressives believe in looking at new information and responding to it. Conservatives believe what they believe.
2
It may be a rich white civil war, but people of color are not split evenly between the two sides; it's obvious that many more people of color are on the left side than the right side.
Just look at the color of Proud Boys vs. the color of Antifa. This is a civil race war in the offing, not a civil rich white war. It's the 20th century vs. the 21st century, and the future usually wins in the end.
99
@me It’s interesting that you make this distinction. The thing you are missing though is that while African Americans are solidly Democrat, polls show that they do not consider themselves socialists and do not identify with that wing of the party. So yes, minorities are mostly for the Democratic Party but at the same time are mostly moderates.
1
@me Oh, it's a rich man's white civil war alright. It's a rerun of of Lincoln's Civil War wherein the white Southern Dems are still warring against the white Republican abolitionists of the North. Look it up;-)
I would have to say the Mr. Brooks could benefit from a course in statistical analysis. What he’s talking about is really a standard Bell curve.
If you take a population and analyze according to just about any set of criteria—income, height, political views, or just about anything else—you find that you have a great mass of individuals clustered around the mean, and a much smaller number at the extreme ends of the continuum. In this case, we have “roughly two-thirds of Americans” who have moderate views, and 6-8% of people on fringes at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Is it surprising that each group of extremists have almost nothing in common with the other? It really shouldn’t be. I suspect it has been ever thus.
What is new about our present situation is the way in which extremism dominates media and our public dialogue. A clear majority of Americans may wish to see more compromise and less extreme rhetoric from the extremists, but calm and reasonable discussion is not the sort of thing that goes viral on social media.
Republicans have learned from Trump that, in this cluttered and overwhelming media environment, rage gets noticed, and it moves the needle when it comes to public opinion. Democrats are only going to respond in kind—unless someone can find a high road that leads out of these dark woods.
4
"Unfortunately, people in the exhausted majority have no narrative. ... When they get one I suspect it will look totally unlike the two dominant narratives today."
Exactly. We need a third political party, one whose primary tenet is "act only in the interest of a clear majority."
Have no position on abortion. None. That is not a political issue, but rather a complex social one with which society must first come to better terms.
Have an open position on gun control. This is a political issue, but one in which both sides are right. You can't take guns away from someone who lives 2 hours from the nearest police station. You also can't pack a city of a million people with one gun for every individual.
The thing is, a moderate, mostly center party would garner at least 25% of the vote, and it never needs to be a ruling party. It simply needs to whittle away enough support from the extreme parties to force them into the middle. If neither Republicans nor Democrats could force their agenda on the nation with 50.1% of the vote, then they'd have to deal with that middle party, and that would mean that their proposals would have to be moderate, not extreme.
That, in turn, would force more moderate candidates and positions into both existing parties. Extremists would be guaranteed of cutting their supporters out of the equation. Both sides would move towards the middle.
Everything would move to the center if we had a minority centrist party to marginalize the extremists.
Diversity of thought for progressives here?
The only diversity they like is racial quotas.
2
We're drowning in words. How about a clear statement about how wrong it is to torture and murder someone in cold blood, or overlook that fact for money and power? That's all we needed this week David.
2
Brooks trots out false equivalences again ... zzzzzzzz
The elephant in the room (pun intended) is the warped outcome - of minority rule - because of the rural bias in our voting institutions: i.e. 2 senators per state irrespective of population; plurality voting in Congressional districts (makes gerrymandering possible; and winner take all in the antiquated electoral college ...
these are distinctly regressive democratic structures, relics of an earlier age, and not defensible in any way.
It was pointed out somewhere/everywhere that the senators who voted for Kavanaugh represented 44% of the American population, but 50 % of the Senate ... (vote was 50-48). That same minority denied the value of my vote (somewhat depreciated in Massachusetts) for Obama in 2016 in refusing to hear for Garland.
This is a broken system ... and it fosters extremism, mostly by ceding undue power to the more naturally conservative rural vote.
4
The master of false equivalency. In this latest book report--a book of questionable provenance--we discover that 14% of rich white Americans are "extreme"; extreme right or left. The left has 33% more extremists--heh-heh.
Any distinction between these groups is ignored.
The extreme right deliberately thwarted efforts to recover from the recession to prevent Obama from succeeding.
The extreme right has ALEC. ALEC writes legislation for right-wingers who are too busy doing...???
The extreme right--Koch, Adelson et al, funds a diverse network of propaganda/misinformation groups posing as "think tanks". (also the "Tea Party")
The extreme right, using their "think tanks" and "Christian Universities" nurtures a small army of foot soldiers destined to occupy judicial seats wherever they can be crammed through (Kavanaugh to a "T"). Trump has appointed 2 (dependable right-wing) Supreme Court justices in less than 2 years time along with an unprecedented # of appeals court judges.
The extreme right has used extreme gerrymandering to an extent never seen before.
But that's not enough to ensure WINNING! So they've (with the help of THEIR justices) killed the Voting Rights act and revived voter suppression in as many ways as possible.
Citizens United--power ceded to $$$, away from people.
The "extreme left" does NOT engage in these behaviors, best characterized as lying, stealing, cheating.
This "smart look" is not just dumb. It's disingenuous and deliberately misleading.
6
I’ve been wondering for years who makes up the “left-wing crazies” we hear so much about.
Who is it?
Is it those who want to provide health care to fellow Americans who can’t afford it?
Or is it the teacher’s union which supports teachers pay and benefits when they are allowed to have one (and teachers go without when there is no union)?
Or is it the peace movement that is ignored every time we have to go to war to exercise our war machine whether we need to go to war or not?
Or is it those who fight voter suppression?
Or those that suggest that that it’s smart to fund and build better, fairer and more equal public schools?
Or those who feel our Justice system and for profit prisons are an embarrassment to everyone American who believes this country is the last best chance for humanity?
Or those who feel that early child education would in time be good for all children, communities and our nation?
Or those that believe that the president of the United States is not above the law?
Or those who are against the use of torture?
Or those who wonder why the man in the Oval Office has not been arrested?
Or the people that believe that the separation of church and state as set forth by our founders make both church and state stronger and better.
I’m just wondering why any of the people who think these thoughts and have these goals would thought to be crazy?r
4
where are the Nuremburg-style rallies on the Left that Trump is regularly conducting - filled with screaming hate?
are the increasingly alarmed editorials of the NYTimes, WashPost, NewYorker equivalents of the lies-filled, race-baiting, xenophopbic stuff spewing out of Fox and the President's twitters?
there is zero moral equivalency between the agenda of the right and the left in Congress.
it is willful blindness - and fatuous - to assert that they are the same
8
"The current situation really does begin to look like the religious wars that ripped through Europe after the invention of the printing press, except that our religions now wear pagan political garb."
Fortunately, US culture is still comparatively superficial. McCarthyism was nothing compared to Marxism or Nazism. That is the main indicator that our government won't become more actively hate-based. (Though racial hatred, a US foundation, is always stirring.)
Nonetheless, Steve Miller's goal to deport 5% of the U.S. population is the most obvious official U.S. government action that is 99% hatred-based. Many cultures need a boogey-man; Miller is the U.S. Inquisitor, eager to sacrifice millions of people with deep, long-term, U.S. roots.
1
Using this as a quick check list, I confirmed something I thought, or feared, about myself. Even though I have never voted for a Republican in my life--I'm not rich, I'm not stupid, plus I know they're evil--I think I agreed with more of the statements used to describe the Devoted Conservatives than the Progressive Activists. My exceptions were that I would like for us to be more welcoming to immigrants and think racism is a big problem. On the other hand, I have always thought my fellow man needed watching (neo-Hobbesian) and am convinced of real, often genetic, limitations on our success in life. Luckily, ideological labels have never been an issue for me, so I will not lose sleep. Trying to be pragmatic and deal with problems on their own terms seems to me the only intelligent approach to our civic life. Mine is, apparently, a decidedly minor party.
If this is what you really think maybe you should stop writing for a publication which is primarily read by Progressive Activists?
@Jason Galbrath.
LOL, he can’t stop writing for the Times because he likes the credential and they pay more than anybody else would. Except maybe Fox or a Republican think tank but then he’d lose the credential. He’s the happiest pig in the pen.
If, as you say Mr. Brooks, "Progressive Activists" represent 8% of the population according to your study and "Devoted Conservatives" represent 6%, then how is it that we currently have a government that almost exclusively represents the will and ideology of just 6% of the population?
You argue that much of the discontent of the remaining 86% of people - the "exhausted majority" - stems from the notion that "Unfortunately, people in the exhausted majority have no narrative. They have no coherent philosophic worldview to organize their thinking and compel action."
Could there possibly be another reason why they cannot compel action beyond (ostensibly) philosophic incoherence - a reason such as disenfranchisement, perhaps? A reason such as having been sold out to moneyed interests, their voices drowned out by corporate "citizens'" cash?
We have a majority GOP Congress who all vote in a single bloc to uphold the will and values of the 6%, an Executive who caters to them and a SCOTUS now tailored to their very goals. Don't you think that might have some bearing on the exhaustion of the 86% - the people whose political will has been thwarted by obscenely wealthy families/donors who are also "Devoted Conservatives"? Can't you imagine their anger at having no power despite being a majority?
And wouldn't you wonder how exactly it was even mathematically possible to have such a lack of balance of thought and power in government, a circumstance that defies all normal odds?
3
"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality."......
George Washington
Brooks, do you ever get out of your ivory tower and talk to people? Real people? Nope, I didn't think so.
1
@Bob Laughlin
Thanks for the very apt Washington quote.
1
I read the Hidden Tribes study. I don't fit into any of the tribes. I don't know what to make of this. Just to point it out and wonder if anyone else didn't fit into a tribe as listed in the study.
1
Convincing argument. The extremes both treat reality as a silly inconvenience in their views of what matters. That they should come from privilege that makes them ignorant of reality is plausible. Trump does govern for the extreme right but he plays on the frustrations of the majority to achieve power of this majority he only needs to appeal to less than half to gain the power he wants. Of the rest, they have lost heart and mostly don’t participate. The extremes do fire up each other.
The thing about Brooks and his endless appetite for cultural categorization and stereotyping is that he never seems to consider that statements such as "There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity" may be an indictment of the analysis rather than a snapshot of underlying division.
7
the use of "think" in your citations of preferences, either way, is a stretch.
Although we may have differences of opinion about what constitutes a Rule of Law, there is consensus on what it is not: Tyranny.
We are not at all divided on this; the majority of the country is clearly opposed to a Rule of Trump.
To avoid crowning him, we must restore the balance of power by flipping the House, at least. It should be easy to unite on that.
3
It's really quite simple, Mr. Brooks: It's not the people with political ideologies that call the shots and divide the country as it is the MONEY in politics. Take the massive amounts of special interest money and lobbying and the dark money out. And a big shout-out to the activists in the Roberts Supreme Court for the Citizens United travesty for undermining, well, everything democratic.
7
"I don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred."
I salute your optimism, and in an ideal world, such may be so. But the people on the ends of the political spectrum have too much to gain from maintaining the current status quo. Not only that, but they have bought most, if not all of the elected officials, (if people really think there is salvation in Democrats, they should have saved us already). Further, these people on the ends control (or have loud mouthpieces in) the media. Control the media and you control the narrative. Control the narrative and well, even "Trumpist" reality is real, for some people.
Meanwhile the "divide and conquer" keeps the rich getting richer and the rest of us more alienated and more focused on personal economics rather than larger politics. To our detriment, but such is where the majority of us are. I'm not sure what it will take to change the paradigm at such a fundamental level, but I'm sure continued fealty to the current political duopoly of parties isn't going to do it.
1
A two-party system creates a natural divide and maintains it. A party deepens the divide when it demands lockstep party loyalty and ideological purity on every major issue and every vote. Republicans are guilty of this. If it brooks no dissent from its own members, when it punishes its compromisers, voters have no real choices and no real voice. We pick a party and that's all. For a while now, the Democratic Party has offered no true left, populist or progressive candidates, mostly watered-down liberals scared of their own shadows and go-along-to-get-along centrists. Hopefully that is finally changing. If we could get rid or parties and/or primaries, have open general elections with run-offs between the top two or three vote-getters, I think we would see the divide narrow.
2
Brooks should get some kind of 'false equivalence' award for this. The tactics of the right, going back to Gingrich and Lee Atwater, are not the tactics of a 'party' committed to negotiation and compromise, but of a movement seeking single-party, authoritarian governance. That some authentic 'conservatives,' devoted to constitutional rule and the rule of law rather than personal loyalty to Fearless Leader, become impassioned is hardly surprising. John Dean, Robert Altemeyer and others have described a fundamental difference in political temperament that Trump's election has simply intensified. It's tribalism versus Enlightenment--the reality-based process of continuing error and correction, rather than the obedience to absolute Truth. Vulnerability to the machinations of Putin is a side-effect of the exhaustion felt by many, but there is no deep mystery on a viable alternative. Trump may be thinking of the 1930s when he invokes lost greatness, but the postwar decades were prosperous and stable. We cannot re-create the external circumstances of that era but we could restore financial regulation and a reasonable distribution of productivity gains between labor and capital . . . if we weren't hamstrung by a skewed political system.
4
It is a common theme that there is no middle. But there is - just not an elected one. I am a voter who now votes for democrats - but I don't believe immigration from outside of Europe and Central America makes sense. And I am sure a large number of Republican voters are not completely on board with their party's ruling elite. But the partisan hardening of electoral districts makes it needless for compromise in the House. And the electoral college gives far too much power to empty space.
It is not the middle that is flawed, it is a poorly designed system that does not grant power to the middle.
"Unfortunately, people in the exhausted majority have no narrative" Brooks is wrong on this. Their narrative might be non-conforming,an amalgam of the two dominant ones, but they do think, and freely to a larger extend, with perhaps far more critical thinking than the tribal extremes, for better rather than worse.
3
"There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity."
This is a really bad inference. Why isn't it just consistent application of political principle? The groups are divided according to political principles; of course members of a group would hold predominantly similar views. It's almost a logical tautology.
3
There are powerful social/political movements involving people of all colors and multiple genders and they exist no where in David description here. Most don't have much money. To David they are invisible. He has nothing to learn from them. No wonder he bristles at being described as a privileged white male. Being white, being male, being privileged is the the very definition of being human. Or at least being a human who has anything important to say.
5
The obvious answer is nurses. Nurses work three twelve hour shifts and then have four days off. Four days off. Aristotle thought you needed leisure time to develop virtue which he considered necessary for leadership. He thought only rich people have leisure time. Way off. He also said democracy serves only the needy, the indigent. There are a lot of people who are needy that are not served by our democracy and a lot of rich people who love the US. Like Aristotle, our view of democracy is narrow. I agree with Brooks, we need new ideas, a new vision of the human, of ourselves. One thing I've been doing is catching myself in the midst of something and then saying this is a moment in my life. If I am at a movie and I am bored, that is a moment in my life. If I am outdoors enthralled with the beauty of the landscape, the mountains, the snow, that is another moment in my life, if I am on the toilet, that is another moment. If you take a moment and say I am a person who blank you begin to see we are much more than we think and so are other people. People who complain about labels are right to complain and people who cling to them shouldn't. To really practice this would require, well, practice. You might discover you are not who you think you are.
Brooks loves to paint this as a war between 2 extremes, while positing that most people in the middle are not extreme. This is a farce. When you look at a majority of Democrats they are not pushing extreme measures. One example is healthcare: Dems are pushing medicare for all; were they extreme they'd be pushing for a complete Govt-based systematic takeover of healthcare. For a majority of Republicans, they take the extreme position: too bad for you, you're on your own if you get too sick, and we want big companies to have control over your health while they can dissolve at any moment without any responsibility to their customer's needs. That's extreme! You can not have a middle ground with so much extremism on the right & radical-apologists like Brooks.
4
Really what’s amazing is that he gets the analysis all wrong. The activist left are young. The rabid conservatives are the oldest group. They’re white and southern. They grew up in a different time. They like their Medicare and they don’t want to share. They’re the cranky old man lamenting “kids today”. Problem is: they vote.
5
David, consider this view of Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives based on following the Harvard-Asian American case.
According to Jeffrey Toobin (New Yorker) and many others, anyone who supports the case against Harvard must be a Devoted Conservative because the case is being brought by "Edward Blum, a conservative activist who has made a career of attacking laws and policies that have historically assisted African Americans. Most Americans don’t want race to be part of your application to college,”
I believe these intellectuals whom I see as Progressive Activists might support at least parts of Blum's case: Thomas Chatterton Williams, Adrian Piper, Dorothy Roberts as would I.
They must speak for themselves but if I am right then assuming that only Devoted Conservatives would oppose race-based admission is an unjustifiable assumption..
Race is an ancient archaic racist invention, preserved more actively by the USA than any other western democracy, I believe.
I can at least be sure about Sweden, the country that once had an Institute of Race Biology run by a man in close contact with Adolf Hitler. Sweden learned from that misadventure and now records us immigrants only by country of birth.
When will the US learn and move on?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
3
A majority of Americans think abortion should be legal in most cases. A majority of Supreme Court Justices think the opposite. So, it's all very well to try to understand the differences between the people of this country, as if they mattered. But this is not a Democracy, its a Dollarocracy. We have a reality TV host heading up our executive branch. Does anyone honestly think that could happen in a Democracy?
3
The red wave will continue in Nov, and so-called moderates on here will cry as you all did in 2016.
1
Au contraire. When the dems retake the House and gain control of the Ways and Means Committee, they will have the statutory power to force Trump to release 10 years of tax returns. Game. Set. Match.
2
I have read Brooks for many years, and while rarely agreeing with his views, have appreciated his efforts to spend some non-trivial time thinking about the subject at hand.
But the cycle is that he always ends up, eventually, betraying - cancelling out - that impression of thoughtfulness, with a boiler plate, hard right voice of white privilege. That's right - not moderate right. Hard right. So we have pieces like today's - which is just stunningly lazy in its labeling progressives as not being in possession of their own moral compasses. Please.
So I think I've had enough.
When the Times brings in a new voice from the right other than the sanctimonious Douthat or the bait-and-switch Brooks, I will read them. I will pay attention and will not pre-judge. But for now I'm done here.
7
If I spent all my time reading news about politics (which is by default high politics), I'd think I could see "the rich white civil war". But it is possible "the rich white civil war" is confined to the bubble kingdom, and its helpless acceleration reflects its failure to drown out populist forces. It is still a populist moment, however faint and incoherent, and might even last.
The three foundations of a viable democracy, as envisioned by Jefferson et al, are the right to vote (although that needed some major adjustments), free speech, and justice, The GOP has been trying and succeeding to destroy all three. What difference does it make, Mr. Brooks, into how many groups one can divide US citizens and those that want to be?
4
More "Both Sides" BS from Brooks.
"There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity. The current situation really does begin to look like the religious wars that ripped through Europe after the invention of the printing press, except that our religions now wear pagan political garb."
Screw you, Brooks. I'm not in the "exhausted majority," but I'm very tired of your tortured typologies and fealty to the "both sides" narrative.
6
Mr. Brooks, this is your latest attempt to expand on the Republican talking point of a left-wing "mob" that will push the U.S. into extreme socialism, or something. As far as I can tell, the extremes are mainly within the Republican party at this point. You have "mainstream" GOP candidates railing at Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi as evil radical forces, and sticking with a platform that vilifies immigrants, denies climate change, promotes huge tax breaks for the wealthy and entirely neglects income disparities, environmental pollution, and the proven attempts by Russia to subvert out election process. Sure, there are anarchist groups on the left who egg on the white supremacists on the right. But the Democratic platform, in this race and in 2016, was certainly not radical. These equivacations are false, and at worse scare tactics to push the country further to the right, when what Dems are fighting for would be perfectly accessible to President Eisenhower or, in many cases, the first George Bush.
3
If David Brooks' was at all non-tribal and apolitical himself, he could have accurately acknowledged that "abundance, gifts, and hope" were the pillars of Obama's Presidency. And, likewise, current Democratic frontrunners like Warren, Biden, and Harris profess the same values. Consequently, Brooks' tired and unwavering, narcissistic, inherently divisive libertarian GOP bias again screams through his writing, despite his professed support for a common, collective narrative of shared sacrifice widely espoused by Democratic voters. You can't have it both ways, David. As of now, you are on the wrong side of history. Ayn Rand's celebrations of greed propelled Trump into the White House. It's time Americans dropped them into the dusty discount bin of human history and moved forward, together.
2
The commenters definitely proved Brooks' right. The regressive left is a cult of conformity that doesn't tolerate nuance or criticism, never accepts blames for the problems they've caused and lacks any self-awareness. It's also overwhelmingly white and aristocratic despite pushing an oppression narrative based primarily on guilt and pity rather than lived experience. They are not the equivalent of the far-right, but they are more annoying to me because they constantly undermine the regular left and regular liberals who live outside the blue bubble and are trying to make this country better, rather than just complain about how terrible it is. They make unrealistic demands like abolishing ICE and shutting down the government to grandstand over the rights of a small group of immigrants and want to suspend due process to believe all accusers, without corroborating evidence. They attack teenage girls on Twitter for wearing "culturally inappropriate" dresses and berate anyone who doesn't use the latest newspeak in their PC handbook. And they've probably saved the Senate for Mitch and the GOP by making Democrats come across as a mob, attacking Republicans at restaurants and threatening them with violence. They are a scourge.
What is the percentage of conservatives that believe it is okay to separate 5 year old children from their parents and to imprison them indefinitely for trying to enter our country, and what, Mr. Brooks, does your philosophical narrative have to say about the party that is carrying this out?
4
"I don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred." Hmm, has David, in his Trumpian haze, already forgotten Obama?
2
"There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity."
How would you identify "individual thought" among yes/no answers to a set of survey questions? And how do you think the analysts sorted the 1,000s of respondents into 7 groups? They did it by lumping together people who gave the same answers, which means that, by definition, there will be conformity of answers within groups.
So your analysis is based on a tautological fallacy, and you, David, are the one lacking individual thought.
What would be more useful would be to take a set of politically significant verifiable facts, and measure the accuracy of each group's knowledge of them (like the quizzes the Times runs where you fill in a graph line and then find out how far off your estimates are). That would not only give us a picture of each group's world-view, but also tell us how they compare to reality--where each group's blind spots are.
Because as important as "individual thought" is, it doesn't get you very far when you're working on incorrect assumptions.
5
Mr. Brooks,
Is climate change the product of cultish thinking? What about tax cuts? Is education reform? Is racism? I'm not sure this construct holds up to much scrutiny..
1
There's no stopping progress.
There's no stopping Progressives!
Almost true.
My quarrel with conservatism, and by extension, the Republican Party, is how can a "modern" political philosophy/party whose emphases and inspirations are the past, itself mostly mythical, and whose goals and aspirations are to return to or recreate that past, lead anyone, much less a nation, into the future.
The “godfather” of modern conservatism William F. Buckley, Jr., in his mission statement in the first issue of “National Review (1955), clearly stated that his mandate was to stand “athwart history, yelling Stop.”
Buckley succeeded. Nothing has changed in conservatism, or for Republicans, since then.
1
Brooks’s column today does all Americans a disservice. We are divided, true. But to categorize progressives as rich whites with a lot of time on their hands and ample hatred of conservatives is just plain wrong. Most progressives I know are neither white nor rich. And those who are white and rich have usually forcefully distanced themselves from the myth of meritocratic success. They recognize the social instability of chronic inequality and want to extend more fairness, more opportunity, and an end to racial and gender privilege. The vision is positive, generous, and hopeful, but not driven by hatred or myopia.
2
How about giving progressive Buddhist compassionate libertarianism a try?
If there was a political party named Exhausted Majority, I'd be a member.
148
The title of this piece should be "The Rich White Civil War #2." I've been reading a lot of American history lately and recently began Jill Lepore's "These Truths; A History of the United States." It confirms to an even greater degree than I previously knew that from the very beginning of our country, when the Europeans discovered us, there was always the battle between rich and white v. poor and people of color (e.g., Native Americans). The comments from and previously unreported activities of our founding fathers that she's unearthed are eye-openers. Yes, during certain periods of our history, we've made progress for justice and fairness and created programs that helped all, but it seems that at this moment, with this group of federal and state legislators and judges, we're regressing...severely.
3
I share Mr. Brooks' hope about the future but have difficulty accepting this sort of equivalence between the extremes as being reflective of a more general reality. The exhausted majority is seeking an alternative, but only the Republican Party is exercising a raw power grab through voter suppression, an assault on the independence of the judiciary and an all-out effort to discredit the free press.
The notion that both parties are to blame is really misplaced.
1
I think the issue with the divide is a result of introducing religion and cultural identity into our politics. Democrats tend to focus on secular values such as equality(racial, gender, disability etc), economic fairness(antitrust laws, labor rights) and collective works with taxes, roads, bridges, public services and public benefits for the less capable.
Republicans were mainly people who had racial primacy, economic advantages and who did not want to bear the bigger burden of collective works--but their population was small so they very adeptly co-opted white religious groups to get downscale religious people to vote against their economic interests.
They made voting for public servants equivalent to proclaiming your religious values. They also co-opted bigots(to increase their numbers) who would vote against their self interest as long as they could express their hate for other groups.
Mr. Brooks writing is superb but this idea that war is fought equally is laughable. One side, the right, conservative Republican side is trying to crush the other so that the rich elite people who are concerned with preserving their status will continue to be able to do so. Just read the story of the DeVos/Prince families--it is very obvious.
2
Good column. I very much enjoy the link to the Hidden Tribes website. Those categories do fit many people I know. And "exhausted" certainly describes me (although "disgusted" describes me too). Thanks, Mr. Brooks.
I think this misses a point, Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives are both shouty and unwilling to compromise, but
'the distinction between the Wings and the Exhausted Majority takes us beyond a simple story of the left and the right. Based on their strong views and values, we believe both Traditional Conservatives and Devoted Conservatives belong in the Wings. ... Progressive Activists belong in the Wings, but Traditional Liberals belong in the Exhausted Majority.'
Traditional Conservatives may not be as extreme as Devoted Conservatives, but they are equally unwilling to compromise. The 'Exhausted Majority' actually contains most liberals. Traditional Liberals, like myself, recognise that not everyone thinks the way we do and that we need to compromise, and get annoyed with Progressive Activists who don't, but there seem to be fewer and fewer people on the rightward end of the spectrum who feel similarly. The Affordable Care Act is a good example, I'm sure many other Traditional Liberals would have much prefered a more expansive, medicare-for-all type system, but accepted ACA as a compromise that could get through. They were met however by total intransigence from Republicans.
In any study of political polarisation, yes both sides are more polarised, but Republicans are consistently more extreme than Democrats, so there is a false equivalence in saying there's just a small shouty group at each extreme and everyone else is in the middle.
3
I’m seeing a lot commenters confuse the demographic groups in Brooks’ article with the institutional Democratic and Republican parties. While the “false equivalency” issue holds with the political parties—the GOP has objectively become more extreme right than the Dems have become extreme left—I do agree that the cultural tribes of leftist progressives and hard right conservatives do often engage in equally inflexible and intolerant speech predicated on a negative and threatening world view that is alien to many citizens in the broad political middle.
"Abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred."
Sounds like the very extremes that are used to define the Devoted Conservatives and the Progressive Activists. I'm guessing that this columnist is a Devoted Conservative cultist.
But I am very glad he has pointed me to "Hidden Tribes".
Sounds like a "base" may be there to form a true 3rd party. If those middle groups are truly so large, and so exhausted, maybe they'll listen to someone that speaks to their needs. Has to be better than holding their noses and voting for the extremes offered by the Repubs, and are taking over the Dems as we speak. How do we get that higher on everyone's agenda?
3
Nothing profound here. There is a large white elephant in the middle of the room though. This isnt about American tribal polarization as much as it is about how corporate/money influences drive this phenomena. It is even more crazy now, as dems in general have abandoned many principles as more and more money flows into their accounts.
1
I finally found my tribe. A relief to be sure. I am a Progressive Activist accordingly. I detest the Conservative block heads and the crooks that go with them including the nincompoop currently at the head of the table. The odd part of this tribal recipe is that the Conservative Uptight people are so strongly in favor of industry and government deregulation (includes taxation) yet the Progressives are the richest group. Their children are better behaved while the Progressives have the more creatively adept. I always prefer more imagination to clicking heels together on command.
2
Well, given that some of these positions have (at least when better defined) answers which are demonstrably correct, some of these positions concern whether certain people get to have the same basic rights as other people, and that some of these questions actually concern blind cultishness (for example, good behavior versus creativity, or keeping people who aren't like you out--out of your country or neighborhood or school), it seems a little intellectually lazy to throw up your hands and label both equal and opposite "cults." Perhaps it would be useful to focus on actual content before you give up and declare "both sides."
I don't know what the agenda is of the group that conducted the study, but there is a lot of characterizations in their results that are suspicious.
I took the quiz. I was never asked if I was 'ashamed' or 'felt shame' about being an American. I was asked if I was 'proud of my nation's history'. I was allowed to strongly, moderately, or slightly agree or disagree. I slightly disagreed, because my country has a mixed history, just like most others.
Yet, this study labeled me an Activist Progressive, meaning a member of a group 'three times more likely than the average voter to say they are ASHAMED to be an American'. I'm not ashamed of being an American and was never asked whether I was. To characterize that someone who is 'not proud' must in turn be 'ashamed' is an amateurish false dichotomy. Either they have an agenda, or this is not a top not research outfit.
7
Handmaid's Tale. If Canada wasn't such a trusting, idealistic country, they would be building a border wall. The exodus of Americans seeking asylum in Canada and other 'safe sanctuaries' is not far off. I used to love these United States, the country my father fought for in WWII, the country I pledged allegiance to every morning in grade school. I cringe with the realization of what America is openly becoming. The racists and the eartheaters are feeling their oats. The purple mountains majesty above the fruited plains have transformed into a seething mass that has disgraced the pledge to crown thy good with brotherhood.
@Solar Farmer Please research Canada's immigration point system, before calling them "idealistic" and "naive". They don't need a wall, because, unlike the US, they deport people.
@me -- the CRS point system is about qualifying to immigrate under their Federal Skilled Worker Program. There are other ways to immigrate to Canada, too.
This has nothing to do with whether and how they deport.
Out of amusement I went through the CRS points list and discover that I make the cut-off without a job offer in Canada and even though I am old enough to get 0 age points (goes down with age).
And I could
If Trump really does manage to become El Lider Boca Maximo then it's comforting to know I can join that exodus.
Sorry, David Brooks, I reject this model. I am sure they did exhaustive research on this subject but its a non starter for me. I thought of myself a FDR type Progressives, but admit I still have not completed the two large biographies of him, but this group says I am the extreme left? So where do Socialist and Communists fall? even more to the fringe left?
Then the exhausted fuzzy middle? seriously? I am energized by this Trumpian, possibly fascist assault on our country and I am nowhere near exhausted. But I am looking for a group of like minded people to work with. Among other things I dislike rentiers and camp followers but admire and respect original thinkers. There's more...
The Conservatives with a Hobbesian outlook? Oh, I don't know. There are several types of conservatives. If you are trying to paint Trump followers as belonging to this group I can't believe it. Neither do I think his shadowy and not so shadowy large financial backers are extreme rightists. Some are there just for the Government handouts, I mean, exclusive contracts. If there are more of them I am worried for our future.
"In many cases, 97 to 99 percent of Progressive Activists said one thing and 93 to 95 percent of Dedicated Conservatives said the opposite. There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity."
I haven't seen the report, but I have to wonder: How can "individual thought" be expressed in a survey like this? The questions will require either A or B as an answer, not thoughtful answers.
At least the rich white progressives on the left are trying to help those less fortunate than they, to narrow the chasm of inequality across all relevant measures - education, access to health care, civil rights (whether based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion), sharing more of the fruits of their actual labors, freedom of religion (including freedom from religion, freedom from having someone else's religion imposed on you, or being vilified for your choice of religion). The rich white conservatives work, instead, to deprive others of their rights - their voting rights, their rights to worship as they choose, their rights to control their own bodies, their rights to love whom they love, their rights to health care and a living wage and an education. No matter how often you try on this false equivalence, David, and no matter how often you try to put lipstick on the pig that is your GOP, there's a right side and a wrong side of this civil war, even if we concede that it's between two rich white factions, just as there was a right side and a wrong side of the US Civil War, and likely every other civil war in history. Your GOP is on the wrong side. It's on the side of the privileged at the expense of the underprivileged. It's on the side of the oppressors against the oppressed. It's on the side of the real takers in our society - obscenely profitable corporations whose obscene profits are made on the back of modern day slaves - and the rich who reap those profits.
6
@Oscar...Look no further than that rich white progressive, Jeff Bezo, who raised the minimum wage of all of his beloved amazon workers to $15/hour. Of course, by the time he gutted other remunerative aspects of amazon employment, his beloved workers may be no better off than before his wonderful gesture. But, the important thing is that Jeff cares. He really cares.
1
@Albert Edmud: Very good analogy, much akin to the farce of investment bankers slapping their names on building after destroying middle class jobs, while robbing the citizens and the taxman blind.
And yet again, we see the false equivalences which the neo-conservative position uses to justify that so-called "coherent" philosophical narrative. 94% of conservatives believe that racism is taken seriously enough?All that particular nugget of information tells me is that 94% of conservatives are either delusional or -- more probably -- willfully blind. After all, this from the political movement which for the last 50 years has depended on the southern strategy as a means to maintain power. Of course they don't have a problem with pervasive and systematic racism which is endemic to America society.
In short, the modern "conservative" coherent philosophical narrative is to believe whatever you need to believe to justify subverting the electoral process in order to maintain power. That is certainly a narrative. It might even qualify as a political philosophy, at least in the sense that "divide and conquer" or "let them hate us, so long as they fear us" might also qualify as political "philosophies". But, by no stretch of the imagination can it qualify as "coherent".
4
Mr. Brooks seems to be indulging in Trump's gambit of painting both sides with the same brush, or false equivalency. That may have been appropriate several years ago but not now. One side denies climate change, and Russian interference. It cries out for "law and order" if minorities are executed with no trial, but defends a country awash in an unprecedented theft by corporations, banks, pharmaceutical companies and lobbyists. It falsely charges voter fraud on one hand while it simultaneously rigs elections and gerrymanders voting districts. It stonewalls a perfectly acceptable Supreme Court candidate, and then plows a partisan toady into the court with no real vetting. It talks a big deal about "patriotism" then sells out its own citizens to Russian and Saudi despots. It has become a party made up of lies, trickery and white collar theft. It would be great if we could all kiss and make up. But somebody has got to do some big time repentance first.
8
As usual Mr Brooks is avoiding the real problem with the Republican party; and is attempting to put both the GOP and the Democrats on an equal plane. He knows full well that the GOP has abandon any sense of moral authority, and has become a bottom feeder of the most immoral kind.
7
"Devoted Conservatives subscribe to a Hobbesian narrative. It’s a dangerous world. Life is nasty, brutish and short. We need strict values and strong authority to keep us safe."
According to Merriam-Webster, the Hobbesian theory states "that people have a fundamental right to self-preservation and to pursue selfish aims but will relinquish these rights to an absolute monarch in the interest of common safety and happiness." I'm sorry, but "devoted conservatives" would be completely against the idea of an "absolute monarch," and they would especially be against the idea of having their rights taking away from such a figure. I think the former part or the definition ("that people have a fundamental right to self-preservation and to pursue selfish aims") is in line with traditional conservative values, but the latter is antithetical to any sort of American conservative ideal.
So why use the phrase "Hobbesian narrative"? Was it more for an aesthetical than logical purpose?
1
@Xyce...Merriam-Webster [Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary:1971] "Hobbism - the Hobbesian theory that absolutism in government is necessary to prevent the war of each against all to which natural selfishness inevitably leads mankind"
@Albert Edmud
What was the purpose of publishing the definition of "Hobbism" from an antiquated edition of the same publisher?
"Absolutism in government," which is "government by an absolute ruler or authority," is still antithetical to American conservative ideals. The sense that you quoted does not in any way contradict the sense in the newer edition. The newer edition is just phrased differently, and, in my opinion, better.
Here's the thing, David. Too many of the positions advocated by Conservatives are not about hope or a "gift." Conservative positions mostly seek to take rights *away* from people, not enhance them. Are you opposed to abortion? Then don't have one; no one's forcing you. But your opposition doesn't give you the right to deny one to anyone else. Are you proud and protective of your religion? Fine, you are free to practice it. But your freedom doesn't give you the right to force your religious beliefs on others, including those who wish to be free *from* religion. And yes, if you enter the world of commerce in this country, that means respecting the rights of others to be free from your religious beliefs while they are in your place of business. Do we want to go back to the days of 'whites only' restaurants?
Remember how Sarah Palin vilified Barack Obama by taunting crowds with "how's that hopey-changey thing going for you?" Just because he wanted affordable health care for all?
Sorry, David, but modern-day conservatives with the GOP as their vehicle are largely responsible for our current situation by pandering to the coarsest, most hateful instincts of a segment of the country, and giving them some sense of validation.
Whatever happened to a society that encourages its citizens to be the best they can be, and seeks government policies that will empower them to do exactly that?
That's what liberals want, regardless of race or class position.
8
@cfluder
These are excellent points and well stated.
I am heartened by the many strong comments here that are a breath of fresh air, dispelling some of the flimsy fantasies that Brooks likes to indulge in his ideological playpen.
Hey David! Read the comments!
2
When you say "there’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity," you again raise a false equivalency. This description definitely applies to ultraconservatives, who have their scorched Earth fantasies confirmed by the echo chamber media on the right. Ultraliberals, on the other hand, live in the reality-based community, where facts matter, and are appalled when their opponents deny basic facts.
The reason for the depth of this divide is because the far right has made truth a partisan issue. Your failure to recognize that one side isn't playing by the rules is part of the problem.
2
A religious war where each side plays a politics of grievance. A scary interpretation of American politics that fits too well.
It is not even "extremism" in the sense of having a far right or far left view of policy. It is a difference in approach and perspective. Many conservative opponents of Trumpism ARE truly very much free market or cultural conservatives.
Some on the left now talk about fighting against "illiberal leftists" This uses an older meaning of "liberal", the one used by Putin and Orban when they attack "liberal democracy". Anti-Trump conservatives like David Brooks in many ways are attacking illiberal rightists.
1
When groups are made up of 8% of the population, you have to ask if this study isn't similar to the classic paper on "Diurnal behaviour of the unicorn" based on application of accepted statistical techniques to a table of random numbers.
Tribalism and stereotyping are much in vogue nowadays as a convenient explanation of the general abandonment of traditional American values, incluiding civility and a spirit of compromise in solving national problems..
2
I think you're confusing conformity with more effective data collection and analysis for identification and more effective sorting on the part of group members.
Pray tell (Mr. Brooks almost never tells.) what is a Conservative? Does a Conservative want to save lives? Then why, since WW2, has a Republican President been responsible for most of the carnage in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan? Does the death penalty , unique to the US among the developed nations, save lives? I recognize that they are desperate to spare any costs to the well-off, but why is it not conservative to raise the minimum wag and provide adequate health insurance to all Americans as most developed countries do? Is it Conservative to ignore the unmistakable sign of Global warming? Is it not Conservative to try to protect the environment from further despoilment? Is it Conservative in a Democracy to try to prevent people from voting. What is conserved by having the highest incarceration rate in the developed world? Is it Conservative to treat corporations as "people" in political campaigns? I'm looking forward ,but not holding my breath, to when Mr Brooks answers any of my questions?
4
@Pessoa...A Conservative did not bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A Conservative did not start the Korean Conflict, but a Conservative did oversee the Armistice. A Conservative did not start the Viet Name War, but a Conservative did finally end it. Yeah, a Conservative started Iraq and Afghanistan, but it was perpetuated by his Liberal successor who also added Libya, Syria and Yemen to the firestorm.
"There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity."
I fall into the Progressive Activist category, but take issue with this statement. It sounds to me like Progressive Activists should be labeled Pro Logic and the Devoted Conservatives Anti Logic.
My individual thoughts tell me it is illogical to believe that we do not affect our climate by decimating forests and paving large areas with blacktop. Is it warmer in the city than it is 5 miles away in the burbs? It is illogical to believe that cutting taxes on wealthy people creates more wealth for those less well off. It is illogical to think that one religion is more violent than another. How many people are killed each day in this country by a "Christian"? How many by a Muslim? It is illogical to believe that the word "militia" was put in the second amendment for no reason whatsoever. It is illogical to consider a business a person, and money as speech. It is illogical to believe that someone born into a poor household in a poor neighborhood with no job prospects and poor schools has the same chance to succeed as someone born into the trump family.
There is logic and there are facts on one side and on one side only.
7
wish you had age data on the Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives, education and finances about the same but I'd bet Devoted Conservatives tend older and have a shorter remaining runway to influence
1
The glaring difference between conservatives and liberals (especially rich ones) is that conservatives advocate for policies that are in their own self interest (tax cuts for rich, etc) while liberals care about issues that do not necessarily benefit themselves (poverty, health care, climate change). "Compassionate conservatism" (as George Bush called for) doesn't exist. Conservatives see to have a real problem with empathy. I'm sure they care about their family and friends as much as liberals do, but they don't seem to care about people who are different from them and are often openly hostile. No wonder they're called "the hard right".
9
I think the Progressive Activists vs. Devoted Conservatives discussion is summed up nicely on page 88 of the report.
"Progressive Activists are deeply concerned with issues of Harm and Fairness (and not any of the other foundations). Devoted Conservatives, on the other hand, highly value foundations of Authority, Loyalty, and Purity."
I would submit that authority, loyalty, and purity pushed to the extreme are antithetical to the ideals that founded this nation. One can not be free in a country that demands obedience, devoted support, and uniformity.
6
Let's be honest, America is and always been an oligarchic republic masked by a thin and increasingly eroding veneer of representative government.
3
Cue the predictable people at said extremes objecting, because their side is virtuous and true and the other is pure Lovecraftian evil, and this this is all false equivalence and "bothsame." AKA exactly what you'd expect a religious zealot to say.
3
Rich White Liberals are the most cringe people on the face of the world.. Can anything be more pathetic than rich white people in their gated communities crying about cryptic (systemic) racism and cultural appropriation?
1
False Equivalence yet agsin. The key flaw in this analysis is that it ignores the reality that the Republican Party is no longer Conservative- it has become a corporate fascist bastion that thrives on Hatred and Big Lie propaganda. Ignorant racist Trump is the face of the Republican Party. There is no defending these anti-Americans.
7
There no doubt in my mind which tribe David Brooks resides in.
2
Where do you fit into this paradigm, David?
1
The consistent attempt by conservative columnists to write about things being equal, even among the extremes is annoying.
We defeated the Nazi's through bloodshed of our own people. The new ones march through our towns with lit torches. Encouraged on by our own president. Simply encouraged.
60 million Americans voted for this fool. Shame on them, shame on you for attempting to muddy the extreme voices. It's not the same. Our voice is the Nazi's must be exorcised from society, their voice is that liberals need to be exorcised from society because what, we choose our words more carefully? Get real.
6
And where is the middle journalism between the NYTimes on the left and Fox News on the right?
Where have you gone, Walter Cronkite and the Christian Science Monitor and the BBC.
3
David Brooks is best when he is giving intelligent summaries of thoughtful books. (I liked his last column, too--2 in a row!) Best line comes late: "This is not a 50-50 nation. It only appears that way when disenchanted voters are forced to choose between the two extreme cults." It's worth saying that it's also the media that help to feed the sense that there is no middle. Extremes sell papers and product lines.
3
Conservatives LOVE legal immigration.
Intavt adults realize that America has a larger share of people not born here than in the last two centuries, so it only makes sense to get these new American worked into the society befoe we throw open the borders willy-nilly.
ANY country sees the wisdom of working new arrivals into its ''body politic'' before the culture that has made us succeed is lost forever.
David's elite-loving tribe appears to never want to discuss this sort of details. After the Republican wave success in three weeks, this can be discussed in a more public setting.
1
At some point, we Americans need to face down the "embarrassment"factor. We have a giant pile of rationalizations to excuse us from the fact that the world just looks at us like we all belong in a mental ward.
Right or left, patriots populate our military, our first responders; people who work very hard, every day to impact our lives in positive ways. None of them are politicians.
Maybe if we spent a bit more time getting truly decent, smart people elected and less time pointing fingers and name calling, we would come back to that place that the world used to admire.
When you elect a leader whose idea of policy is making fun of a woman who was sexually assaulted or another who must justify her gene pool, it is fairly obvious to this woman that we need less sexist idiots and many more dedicated voters with vaginas working to make us worthy of "Land of the Brave and Home of the Free". Truly, fellas, pull those big feet out of your mouths. You are starting to only be worthy of SNL skits these days. This dedicated "sexist" Grandma is really tired of watching well coiffed men pretend to work in between camera moments on TV talk shows. Hair and make-up appears to rule more than policy these days.
Time to elect worker bees, not mouth flappers. Run for office, volunteer, VOTE for the future. I have two female Senators in my State and guess what? They WORK more than do TV spots. I appreciate not seeing them 24/7 and know they are WORKING. Isn't that what they are paid to do?
8
The contention that liberal activist are wealthy is not remotely accurate with regards to many liberals I know. Most liberals I know are basically working class whites and blacks. Most are barely scraping by but despite working their butts off they're never too selfish to lend a helping hand to those in need. This is somewhat true of many conservatives I know.
3
I thank David Brooks for bringing to my attention a very interesting study.
With other commenters, I note the response to the statement:"Government should take more responsibility to ensure everyone is provided for".
Progressive Activists: 94%
Devoted Conservatives: 3%
I think this item summarizes much of the situation.
5
Perhaps Republicans shouldn't feel so comfortable rebutting scientific, economic and statistical facts with their 'beliefs' so easily. Leads to irredeemably pointless discussions where one side studies the available facts while the other counters with 'anecdotes'.
2
Just more of the false equivalence used to excuse the right for their relentless march into authoritarianism. Only one ideology in this country is putting toddlers in cages and placing them alone on a witness stand to defend their existence. Only one party wants to destroy Social Security and Medicare to give even more to their wealthiest patrons, all while shamelessly lying to their constituents who strongly support those programs. Only the right is happy to accept the enormous amount of corruption overtaking our government since January 2017, so long as they get what they want. Your rose colored glasses seem to be working for you but it doesn’t take 20-20 vision to be alarmed at what is happening and recognizing the damage being done doesn’t make me an extremist.
3
As a white person who is doing fine financially, I feel less of a civil war moment happening in America but a French Revolution democratic moment. Mob scenes are the will of the people and those who are using God's church as a verbal shield are fools.
The monarchy of France was brought down by a revolution that inspired our own country. The more our president and the conservatives taunt American people for being poor or losing their homes in hurricanes or for voting for their own best interests- the more they all go down in history as the bad guys. Melania wearing her colonialism hat in Africa and all the mind games our president thinks he is pulling on everyone is becoming laughable that he is the head of any smart conservative movement. That "group" of white people should be ashamed of themselves and stop any tribalism that just makes them look empty-headed. Trump needs to be de-throned from his golden toilet and anyone in their right mind will help do it the American way- vote them out.
6
Didn’t our revolution (1775) precede the French Revolution (1789)?
1
@Ron A -- Indeed. Not only that, but the debt France took on to support us was a significant contributor to the pressures that caused their revolution.
One really hopes it does not come to a French Revolution here.
Ask yourself, as respects each question or viewpoint, which one is more kind to others, particularly to those less fortunate than you.
If your answer is unkind, ask yourself why you believe what you do.
If your answer is that you are ignorant about the people or topic, and therefore fearful, ask yourself whether education could ever change your viewpoint.
If your answer is no, then a lot of soul searching may be in order.
4
It is good that you endeavor to interject our common humanity into our strife-ridden political culture.
But will you please stop beating the dead horses of false equivalence that are “polarization” and “tribalism”?
3
Sounds an awful lot like Brooks is hoping that Obama returns to politics, as a genuine member of the Exhausted Majority.
Would it have killed him to admit as much?
2
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you.
The problem is that critical thinking isn't employed by most of the Conservatives at all. Not a lot of brain cells are being employed when you jump on the bandwagon of a man who spews hate and brags about sexual abuse. I wish I could speak more respectfully but they make it harder ever day.
6
Another bothsideism article designed to obsolve the GOP of the mess they’ve made by implicitly arguing the left would have done no better.
5
When did conservatives become so paranoid? I read the tweets of the NRA and they are highly paranoid; Brooks sounds paranoid, Lindsey Graham was screeching like hot oil was being poured on him, Kavanaugh was (is) plotting revenge, Trump is COMPLETELY paranoid -- but at least he has good reason to be. I mean, what is it? The black and brown people are invading, Hillary's liberals want to take away all the guns.... Meanwhile, the deficit is soaring, the earth is dying, and it's all, hey, we're cool with that....
7
Mr. Brooks continues to seek his "happy place" after the downfall of the immoral GOP.
3
David Brooks and Michelle Obama have a common philosophy on this issue.
"Eighty-six percent of Devoted Conservatives think it’s more important for children to be well behaved than creative. Only 13 percent of Progressive Activists agree." Naturally, the "Devoted Conservatives" are all over Twitter saying 86 percent of "Progressive Activists" don't think their children need to behave. It's all spin. All of it.
In the days of the "first" rich, white Civil War, there was no TV, no social media, no newspapers/networks clamoring for hype to increase ad revenues. The "far left" and the "far right" have always been part of our populace, whether they got cheesy tribal nicknames or not. The middle class remains the backbone of this country. We are the ones who actually pay our taxes.
The Silent Majority of the 1970s is now the Exhausted Majority. We're the same folks, the same demographic. We're the ones struggling to pay for health care, driving the kids wherever, mowing our lawns, and so frustrated we don't even know what to say, much less how or through whom. Why bother to speak anyway when the people who own and control the country - rich and white - won't listen?
"Cults." "Mob." "Extremists." "Socialists." "Nazis." "Bots." Labels. That's all they are. We box people into groups and label them to hate or revere. That's psychology, not politics. Always has been. Always will be.
Oh, David my dear David. The rich cons have more money than the libs. Please stop the false equivalency. Are you a double agent?
2
If it’s true as Sipa111 notes, that 95% of progressives are happy to pay more taxes to help their fellow Americans, while only 5% of conservatives are,then that’s perhaps why conservatives think progressives are stupid, and progressives think conservatives are evil. It’s all about the money, honey. Which then perhaps explains our current situation - having an ultra wealthy, developmentally arrested 8 year old in the White House. It’s all about the money —the true value and driver of most people’s time on earth.
5
I guess the native populations of the Americas came to realize immigration was bad too... I would disagree on Mr. Brook's summation. The middling majority are not exhausted. They are simply fed up with political creatures who will never speak their mind for fear of losing their job; as if it should be a job for life. We do have a world view but rarely see a politician who expresses it. The DC's were lucky. They got a guy who expresses EXACTLY how they feel and now he's working part time at the White House as President. The only one with an inkling of understanding that's palatable to the middle is Senator Warren. She's never strayed off the message of fairness and a playing field that gives a chance to someone other than corporations and the wealthy.
The issues highlighted in this column and the survey are all very interesting, but they don't reflect what seems to be at issue at the moment: Who gets to vote and do election outcomes reflect the will of the people - all of the people?
I know any mention of fascism is considered hyperbole, but in fact it is a term used to describe specific types of political behavior, and that type of political behavior - scapegoating, disenfranchising voters, attacking the press, undermining the justice system, corruption, embracing fascist leaders in other countries, and the wanton violation of basic human rights and decency - and those behaviors are on the uptick in our politics and it is hubris to believe it can't happen here.
We are still facing the same fundamental question debated and fought over in the 20th century: Are we going to have a world with liberal democracies or a world with various flavors of fascism? And just for the record, when fascism is successfully defeated, it is defeated by people from the center-left and center-right. They may be exhausted and have no coherent philosophic worldview, but they have a instinctual reaction when something smells rotten.
3
Both groups may be privileged but Mr. Brooks' own description seems to imply that one group appears much more interested in trying to expand some of those privileges to those who are less so. Hmm. Wonder which one?
1
So, a couple thoughts on this. First, I thought the premise of this was interesting – our political divide is largely driven by two tribes of white, privileged elites. But the problem with this piece is that it suggests a moral equivalency between the two tribes and their beliefs. That’s complete nonsense, not to mention dangerous. You just can’t proclaim that “92% of Progressives say people don’t take racism seriously enough, compared with 6% of Conservatives” and then go on to decry how both sides are cultishly committed to their ideology. C’mon man – you’ve got to recognize that in this particular example (as with the other enumerated examples of harassment, immigration and Islam) one set of beliefs is morally correct and defensible and the other is not. Racism is NOT taken seriously enough. Sexual harassment IS common. Immigration is NOT bad. Islam is NOT inherently more violent than other religions. It’s just so wrong to bemoan tribalism but not at least acknowledge that one tribe's beliefs are grounded in concepts of social justice and the other in an ideology of fear and hate.
Just drives me crazy.
5
David, as usual, you attempt to rationalize your belief in a conservative philosophy, but also as usual, you fail. You fail because at heart you want to believe in mankind's better self, but conservatism is based upon fear, and a lack of trust in mankind.
Here you again assert a false equivalency between liberal and conservative thought - Progressive Activists may be extreme in their views, but they don't seek to eradicate all other views, nor use violence towards that end. But most Conservatives do, not just the Devoted ones. This intolerant and violent characteristic is rooted in fear which forms the basis of conservative thinking. And it's what drives conservatives to close their minds to all other thought. Liberals and Progressives however tend towards open-mindedness, which absolutely terrifies conservatives and makes them dig in even deeper, making themselves impregnable to compromise. Ultimately this leads non-conservatives towards entrenchment themselves. This is the state of America today.
But the blame isn't equal David. It took decades of conservative fear-mongering to get us here, and if you have any intellectual integrity you'll finally come to accept that, instead of trying to assuage your guilt with false equivalencies.
4
Let’s hope this becomes the last battle of the Civil War and the good guys win AGAIN!
So what are we to do with this? Here in Vermont, I am more worried about what the upcoming winter will bring after our droughted summer than what group I belong to. I am so glad that I live here and not in your world David. Please go back on another extended book tour.
Brooks writes: "people in the exhausted majority have no narrative. They have no coherent philosophic worldview to organize their thinking and compel action."
Nonsense. Most people - and anyone with children - understands the absolutely central principle of taking care of one's own.
In a democracy, that means simply that CITIZENSHIP MATTERS.
The citizenry comes first. Oppressed girls in Afghanistan or kids in Guatemala have nowhere near the claim on our sympathies as kids in Chicago or Appalachia.
The "exhausted majority" - including majorities of legal immigrants - strongly opposes illegal immigration and rejects the madness of "sanctuary cities" and Orwellian newspeak about "undocumented" immigrants. In this country, only the extreme left and the libertarian / Chamber of Commerce-led right support the foolishness of amnesty and lax immigration law enforcement.
The second key principle is AGAINST OLIGARCHY and in favor of free competition plus common provision for our fellow citizens - what our American forbears called securing "the common weal." The Mayflower Americans were thrifty and worked hard to create their seed corn, and they refused to allow Goodman Bezos to grab it all.
The exhausted majority urges that we:
Take care of our own American children and our parents.
Reject our billionaire-dominated, clownish, extremist politics.
Break up the tech giants.
End illegal immigration.
Stop building up China.
No more foolish ideological crusades abroad.
1
The polarization is dangerous. I’m not convinced things will improve in my lifetime. Wealth disparity and privilege are evident and remain insufficiently addressed by current philanthropic models.
https://medium.com/balle/wealth-inequality-and-the-fallacies-of-impact-i...
1
This whole analysis is superficial and Pollyanna-ish. We are not experiencing a war between tiny rich minorities at each end of the political spectrum. One look at a Trump rally tells you that.
We are experiencing an alignment between the ultra rich who despise being taxed to support the public good (let’s call them them the new robber barons), the resentful victims of globalization (let’s call them the downsized), and the ideologically regressive (evangelicals, white supremacists, flat earthers, and various conspiracy theorists).
The fraying of the social contract that prevailed in the twentieth century—when taxation gave us great public universities, high ways and bridges, and a social safety net—has increased the pool of deeply discontented Americans, now willing to listen to the comforting lies of the arch conservative 1%. The Republican Party is the organ by which the robber barons today adjust our government and laws to suit themselves; the Party’s success relies on an alliance of the barons with major malcontent constituencies who are not “exhausted” but energized.
5
Facts matter. As others have pointed out very well, Brooks focus is entirely on peoples' opinions, and not at all on facts and the truth.
I have one Trump supporter friend with whom I discuss issues in depth. It took us literally *hours* of discussion for him to entertain the possibility that Trump still owned and was profiting from his businesses. This is NOT simply tribalism. This is political ignorance being daily exploited by the calculated dishonesty of the right.
3
This dovetails nicely with the Atlantic article about Competitive Wokeness. Suggest everyone reads it.
2
I proudly but myself in progressive camp but strongly disagree with your characterization progressives are cult members. The reason for opposing the conservative rights is this group is only interested in their own agenda and do not belong 21 Century democratic western values. Look at your total commitant to a constitution which is written by white male who denied the black and women the right to votes among many other rights and the insistence of conservatives to continue to have a system which does not represent majority of Americans. The Senate, and Electoral College are good examples that have outlived their function. Progressives believe fair taxation is an essential pillar for our civilized society. Please do not equate the progressives with conservative right.
1
WOWWWWW! Dave!
Incredible!.... you found it!
America is driven by ... MONEY!
Remember: "Money makes the world go around...."
Serious now.
What can be expected of a society that glorifies savage materialism everywhere, anywhere, by everyone?
A place that allows access to healthcare only to the rich, leaving 50+% unprotected, that looks the other way to an untold number to live in cardboard boxes in American cities downtowns.
And that while spending more than the next 7 countries combined on the military, has 800+ bases around the planet.... (to export and secure democracy and freedom, alright!)
I am so disgusted that lost any sense of hope.
Welcome Global Warming Life Extinction!
5
The cries of "false equivalency" in the comments here are misunderstanding the point of this piece. This isn't about the views of both sides being equally flawed - it's about the surprising fact that fervent support for both sides is equally slim. The group on the left that's being examined here make up 8% of the country's population. That means you very likely do not agree with their views - these people are too far left even for you, and it's worth pausing to think about what that means.
There's a lot of insistence here that the policies of the right harm most people and favor the few, whereas the left simply believes in equal rights, fair wages, and protecting the environment. But that's not accurate when we're talking about the far, far left. The differences between their views and those of most "progressives" are significant.
To use one example, they don't just believe we need a better system in place making it easier for people to immigrate legally. They believe we should have completely open borders, and that it's morally wrong to deny anyone the opportunity to live in our egalitarian society. The idea is that it can't ever truly be equal if we still restrict who can be here in the first place; by doing so, we're complicit in the human suffering happening the world over.
If that sounds ludicrous or unreasonable to you, you're not on the extreme left. That's the point.
1
This linear measure is the problem itself. The two party system is a disaster and has no potential to improve. Further, the Ds amd Rs have rigged the system so that 3rd parties are impossible. So? We will fail as a nation within 50 years. Say Good-bye.
Smarter or fatally biased? Interesting argument but seems to ignore non-white perspectives which, to me, is seriously in error. I'm wondering if it reflects a defect in the surveys and methodology used as a basis where the samples used under-represent non-whites and the statistical clusters are thus biased as well.
"There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity." Mr. Brooks, this statement is ludicrous. Cult conformity has nothing to do with my aspirations and vision for society. Careful consideration has been given to instill my progressive leanings. I'm sure people on the conservative side would agree that their opinions are similarly rationalized.
I cannot quite fathom the Trump-lead Republican Party gathering steam, aligning with Trump, as they move towards the Devoted Conservative narrative. This "movement" is lead by someone who lies with impunity, substitutes money for any notion of ethics, name calls and denigrates any disagree with him. And beyond lying, he often calls black white, up down, and perserverates in never taking blame or responsibility for anything that might make him look bad. He says women love him, he empowers white supremecy, he courts dictators, he uses his position to advantage himself and family unapologetically, he is mean when unnecessary, winning is almost seen as a virtue, and he has yet to express any desire to bring the American peoples together. In these ways, he is is incredibly consistent. And yet he has somehow attracted the increasing support of his party. Do you feel that Devoted Conservatives believe they have the moral high ground or moral equivalency to the Progressive Activists ? The comments that criticize the false equivalency of your interpretations are worth considering. I think a listing and comparing the values held by each of the extreme groups, and then those of the middle 2/3, the broad middle band, would be an interesting follow up to this. I then would ask, which values would best define our future society, the next political paradigm. Abundance, not deficits? Hope, not hatred? And then a dose of the practical - what is required to get there?
Yet another summary of someone else's book or report. Once again, I'm reminded of a Wendy's commercial from my youth: "Where's the Beef?"
1
More False Equivalence. As a Progressive Activist, it is all about a philosophy of society. And I don't scream "lock him up" or openly carry guns. I guess "smarter look" and "David Brooks" would in juxtaposition define an oxymoron.
5
This article sums it all up for me. I am in the exhausted majority. Bravo.
3
"In many cases, 97 to 99 percent of Progressive Activists said one thing and 93 to 95 percent of Dedicated Conservatives said the opposite. There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity."
Am I supposed to be surprised by this? Mr. Brooks pre-selects the most-extreme 14% of America (8% on the Left; 6% on the Right) and then reports specific data showing that they are extreme. In my day we called that a tautology. He further reports "What is new is how cultish this dispute has become." But he gives no data on what this dispute looked like previously -- are his Left/Right cults *new* or are they just *relabeled*? I don't have any data either, but my recollection is that the extremes in America have always been ... extreme.
2
Whatever side you look from, the other side seems to be an opposite version. Liberals don’t want the excision of conservatives; that’s a conservative thing, the closing of borders, denial of voting rights, the love it or leave it. If you believe evils committed by your side are morally equivalent to their transgressions, life a a conservative world is more palatable.
Sure, there is an obvious equivalence between the left and right. Donald Trump and Barack Obama are pretty much similar people, just with different viewpoints.
Harassment and violent attacks on women is a minor issue that really doesnt figure in the big picture. Refusing to believe in climate change is just a philosophical difference between the two groups - no big deal.
I get it.
3
Watching from abroad, I can't help but wonder if there's not a time and a place to "capture" the middle ground with a third party in the US? It seems to me you could cut out the extremes that have largely hijacked the right and thereby polarized the discourse.
2
Just catching on, are you? I am on the brink of no longer speaking to a friend of 45 years who is so deeply into his economic view of Republicans that he no longer sees the forest for the trees. And I am afraid that he won’t be awakened from his trance until he is personally hurt by the siphoning off of wealth to the upper 1% and the destruction of functioning federal government both of which are right on track for oligarchy. Fortunately for him he doesn’t live in hurricane alley but he does live near the San Andreas fault, and at 77 he doesn’t have to worry about outliving his savings, although he might be out part or all of his Social Security thanks to the tax cuts for the Uber rich.
The 7 tribes model indicates that the United States needs to move to a functioning multi-party system. In today's two defacto two party system, the politicians need to curry favor with the extreme activists to make it through the primary. To make a multi-party system work we need to replace the plurality election system, to one where the winner needs to obtain a majority by having some type of runoff voting.
1
So the majority of Americans do not live at the extremes. Since we see that the Republicans have decided that going with "their" supposed extreme has benefited them, all the Democrats need to do is find a normal 60%-80%-type person and we will win back the normalcy of the USA with most in agreement (except for the Trumpsters and extremes as you mentioned). I felt Bush1/Clinton/Obama were all closer to that, but racism and errors squashed that; Hillary thought she was that, but she wasn't. Find some regular guy who is today a Gov. or mayor and doesn't root for the Yankees or Red Sox and he could come right up the middle. Not Warren, surely not Trump, and, unfortunately, probably not Booker (this time). Whoever you are, please come forward this spring.
1
Mr. Brooks -
I like your demeanor, but your arguments on character and identification have lost their way. One party is demure and conservative. The other party is radical and unmoored from reality.
Soft support becomes meaningless when one side of the argument actively suppresses and denies science, moves the goalposts on what constitutes adequate evidence, runs a government devoted to wealthy donors (not just the current administration), works to disenfranchise the electorate using whatever methods they can, discards norms (and blames the other side), and is devoted to power politics over informed policy (Trump makes Karl Rove look polite - that's hard to do).
No matter how you describe it, the Republican Party long ago abandoned any pretense of rational debate. They are radical and destructive. The payback to the donor class of the unspeakable tax cut at a time when budget deficit should be diminishing is a sign of their radicalism. They'd burn down our house rather than address the pressing issues of the day - paying for services, increasing efficiency, and planning for the future.
One party is about service. The other party is about politics as a form of careerism - satisfy the donors and guarantee a healthy paycheck out of office.
6
The next political paradigm is a gift already here: healthcare for all and a fair economy. It just needs to be fully implemented.
2
People in the middle don't have a narrative because they feel it is pointless. Money in politics, gerrymandering, first past the post elections, unequal representation in the Senate, the electoral college, voter suppression tactics -- all of these devices make participating in politics frustrating if not pointless for people in the center. The system -- make that systems -- need fixing. Mr. Brooks always likes the narrative to be about personal responsibility but when the system is so intensely rigged don't blame the victims!
3
It's called a bell curve Brooks. The fringe is statistically a fringe for a reason. The problem in American politics is a two-party system forcing median and mean Americans into a political space dominated by outliers. Voters are exhausted because they like the requisite democratic power to silence the minorities on either side. However, one side stands out particularly more than the other. The side David Brooks has spent a lifetime seeking to empower.
If Brooks wants moderation, he needs to give conservatism obsession with small-r republicanism. The majority will not rule in a dedicated republic. That is a feature, not a bug. Big-R Republicans want fringe rule. If you want the center to win, you need small-d democracy to take back decades of degeneration. A step big-D Democrats have been unwillingly to embrace honestly and openly. Until you square those two halves, the majority is frustrated.
3
I read David Brooks' columns regurally. He is brilliant, evenhanded, insightful and usually spot on in his analysis. In this column, though, there is an unexplained and perhaps faulty conclusion. Perhaps it is supported by uncited empirical evidence in the study he reports, I don't know. But it is certainly inconsistent with my experience that the 8% on the progressive left merely parrot their "tribe's" beliefs rather than arrive at their positions through a process of "independent thought." I for one, and several other progressives I know, have developed our political belief systems through years of arduous and open-minded analytical study and thought. So have people I know on the conservative right, by the way. I would not adhere to my positions if the objective evidence, fully synthesized, did not convince me that the tenets of progressivism are practicably, socioeconomically, and spiritually the best path forward to a peaceful, healthy and universally wealthy nation and globe. America is no doubt in a civil war for its soul. But ascribing independent thinking only to people in the center and diminishing the intellectual integrity of people at the extremes, while perhaps a politically expedient means to marginalize the most passionate on both sides, is in my view a recipe that calls for more divisiveness and stagnation, which will only prolong our agonizing cultural war rather than hasten its resolution.
1
There is much talk in the comments about David's supposed error of "false equivalency," whereby he is equating the "scientifically proven," and "reasonable" progressive concept with the "irrational" and "self-serving conservative concept.
But these comments are missing the broader and more important point that must be agreed upon if we are to achieve pragmatic compromise: that free people are entitled to their opinion, even if we disagree with it, and that we need to respect them and give them the benefit of the doubt or else we are doomed to being drowned out by an unproductive screaming match between the extremes.
3
@Chris Hobson Comments may be missing the most important point mentioned by you, but the column does not raise that either. It seems to me that the columnist is living in the past, when conservative thinking may have been partially intellectual. He needs to wake up and stop fooling people with his false equivalencies between two extremes.
@Chris Hobson With respect, I would ask where the utility is in giving the benefit of the doubt to people who deny science, to the point of Rick Scott's Florida government banning the use of the term, "climate change" from official documents? Where is the utility of giving the benefit of the doubt to people who would seek to withhold the vote of marginalized people, Native Americans in Heidi Heidcamp's district, African Americans in Georgia?
These are serious questions. I hope you'll ponder them and perhaps provide answers that make sense to you.
1
“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
1
Sounds like an insightful work. Other frameworks have been proposed, like the moral foundations of Jonathan Haidt and the 5 types of Trump voter from the Cato institute shortly after the election. All can contribute to the important work of understanding both whom one opposes as well as whom one stands with. Both conservative and liberal writers have spent time and words giving pushback to their own side. (Think of Conor Friedersdorf, Max Boot, George Wills among others.)
The question remains as to why the country is so intensely polarized when so many are relatively moderate?
Politicians certainly don’t seem to espouse compromise and moderation. There are probably many reasons but the unforgiving (vocal) public and media demand consistency that is unreasonable.
While the public seemingly plays a role as well, I think news outlets and pundits bear a very large portion of blame.
I tried at one time to understand why so many poor non-slave-owning southerners were eager to serve as cannon fodder for rich whites. I’m not sure I arrived at a complete answer but, as the article’s title suggests, at least some repetition of history is going on today. I’m just waiting on a violent assault in Congress to solidify that idea.
1
The division is not between progressives and conservatives. The division is about Trump. Trump is a vulgar bigoted narcissist. On one side there are people who are disgusted that the country they love is represented by Cretan who has no respect for the office of President and understands little about principles on which our country was founded. On the other side there are people who think being vulgar and bigoted is somehow pro American along with a bunch of shriveling sycophants in Congress who think if they don't say anything he will appoint conservative justices and quash the press from reporting truth they don't like.
8
I used to think that Republicans and "conservatives" were good to have around because they did act as a check on financial excess, and their backwards-looking ideology was ok as long as it was confined to the fringes of society (ie Birchers, anti-UNers, etc). But in the last 40 years the "conservatives" have proven they care nothing at all about profligate spending - they are quite willing to bankrupt the country for THIER causes - mainly military (even if useless and non productive), corporate subisides, tax cuts for the rich, etc. Indeed, the things that "conservatives": are against spending money on is helping people - universal health care, good schools, jobsite safety, air, water pollution. All those are not even on the radar of "conservatives."
These days this is how I define "conservative:" A person who is utterly corrupt, only concerned about their own bank account; does not care at all about anyone else in the world; tends to be sociopathic. Money and power are the only "values" a conservative has and America and the American People are seen as roadblocks to getting more money and power.
That about does it. Why would anyone be a conservative. I don't know ask Trump or a Trumper. but I bet they can't answer in any rational way.
13
I don’t know about anybody else, but speaking as a Party of One, I found this analysis encouraging. It made me think — hope — that maybe we are not all fanatics who want to win no matter what.
3
I remember when it was like that, before CU.
So is sounds to me like Mr. Brooks concludes that over compensated elites on either end of the political spectrum are defining political discourse to the detriment of the vast majority. Money and the pursuit thereof apparently isn't the nirvana the libertarians claim it to be.
1
'Unfortunately, people in the exhausted majority have no narrative. They have no coherent philosophic worldview to organize their thinking and compel action. When they get one I suspect it will look totally unlike the two dominant narratives today.'
Mr. Brooks, how in the world are exhausted people going to create a coherent philosophic worldview? They are exhausted, yet you expect them to engage in some sort of heavy duty existential/ political analysis and emerge renewed, energized, with purpose and direction? Our political class has made it quite clear they do not care what we think. The power that our state possesses is overwhelming. How can one resist it? Just the idea of trying to create some sort of change is in itself exhausting. Only some sort of cataclysmic event will produce the kind of change you are looking for, something so drastic it will force people to choose a side and act. That's the way it has always been. Modern life has become quite comfortable for many, or just comfortable enough. I can go to the community board meeting, or order in and relax on the couch after a stressful day. Hmmm. Which one will most people choose?
2
“But the people who make positive change usually focus on gifts, not deficits. They tell stories about the assets we have and how we can use them together"
- It sound nice for sure, but is it true? Particularly now? It seems to me that people on the fringes are the ones making the change right now. Mr. Brooks, for your next article, I'd challenge you to articulate examples of the positive change you see from the middle, vs. negative change from the fringes.
So Mr. Brooks, you sorta tip your hand there at the end.
The "Abundance" religion, which much of the Devoted Conservatives ascribe to, in one form or another, is really veiled new age Christianity. Jesus blesses me (my family, my tribe, my church, my business, my bank account) because "I" (or we, or our tribe, our congregation) believe in the Abundance philosophy. The rest of you wear Pagan Political Garb.
In your own way you have shown that the words abundance, gifts, etc, can be transmuted from the global neutral lovely words they are, to be used by the 6% as a new way to control the masses. As a way to instill shame (well, if you don't got it you didn't earn it - Jesus loves me/us/our ideas more then he loves you). The way that words can be twisted - with such nuance at the beginning causes them to become weapons in the end.
Please don't take the words - abundance, gifts, positive, charity, love, grace and compassion and turn them into a litmus test/double speak for the "new paradigm" political party - no matter how centrist you say that may be.
1
It appears to me that we really need to get rid of the wingnuts at each end of the spectrum!
More false equivalences from the master of false equivalences.
5
Wife: "What did you do with my little shovel thing?
It was in the garage."
Self: "What little shovel thing?"
Wife: "The little black and yellow one I bought at Home Depot."
Self: "Why can we never just call a spade a spade?"
1
You know, for a while I thought David Brooks was actually starting to get it. His anger over Trump seemd to be opening some interesting gaps in his armor.
Well, maybe it’s the election being near, but looks like he’s welded the seams shut again. Yeah, democrats and lefties have their probs and idiocies. But right now, the Right is the bad guys, and they’re being aided and abetted by “mainstream,” Republicans. Brooks just doesn’t want to cope with that.
So spare me this pseudo-intellectualism about “tribalism,” the flavor of the month for justifying whataboutism and everybody’s to blame. This isn’t “Totem and Taboo;” this is open greed, and open racism.
9
The problem with the accuracy of the description, there being two opposed tribal cults and that they are menacing and feel menaced by each other,is that the description seems accurate. Also the situation seems similar to pre-massacre Rwanda or pre-Pol Pot Cambodia or pre-Nazi Germany or ... Well there are a lot of recent historical examples of Nations suddenly descending into inter-tribal mass violence. Millions of NRA activists are accumulating arsenals and ammunition stockpiles. It is no longer comfortably far-fetched to imagine flash mobs of armed men invading "enemy" neighborhoods to burn homes and shoot people there. Bloody Kansas is not so long ago. We seem to be forgetting the lessons learned then.
3
The exhausted majority?
Here's what we see: Data splicing equivalent to taking whacks at an obviously dead horse to write an article.
What does this new information do for us, David?
Not a lot.
My thesis is that Conservatives/Republicans have an adversarial world view and that Liberals/Democrats have a collegial world view.
For the former life is combat. For the latter, the world is a neighbored.
9
This article is just silly——does not contribute to real issues we are facing today with leadership of the country.
2
Just wait three decades and the so called “rich white conservative” will be a minuscule minority in America. So called Trump’s America will be a history. Most of the the Trump voters and Brett Kavanaugh fans need to do their mathematics. I’m a professional and a progressive but since Trump and his fascist gang has invaded the White House, I’m more determined to fight for American democracy, morals and principles. Calling for the “unity” means nothing to these “Trumpies”, they are suffering from the “White fright” and grandiose paranoid delusions.
4
That next movement is called Sustainability, David. Sometimes you take 8th grade Civics and try and make it a Masters Degree. Am I the only one who thinks you should throw a Homer Simpson like "Doh!" in this column?
1
TL;DR
The people that have money control everyone else’s fate based on rarefied academic or faith based arguments. Then they join each other at the country club and clink glasses.
"...people in the exhausted majority have no narrative. They have no coherent philosophic worldview to organize their thinking and compel action. "
This is nonsense Dave. You're simply not interested in addressing narratives other than the two you offer here. Please be more honest with yourself and your readers.
More than anything, your description of the "exhausted majority" reads like an unintentional self-portrait.
3
Interesting. I thought going to college was supposed to teach you to think for yourself.
It shouldn't surprise us to find that the concentration of ideological dogmatism and cultish tribalism is to be found among the wealthy, privileged, college educated ruling class whites, and that there's a far greater prevalence of independent, flexible multiperspectival thinking among the economically disenfranchised, less educated and politically exhausted majority. Basically, the current political polarization is being driven from the top-down by a degenerate and politically toxic class of educated and privileged elites at the top. The ruling classes have the most to gain by preserving the status quo and obfuscating the inherent failure of the political system itself, and so of course they'd be heavily investing keeping the rest of the population fuelled by hated and divided against each other over superficial non-issues that disguise the real problems. And the above study is contradicted by an analysis in Medium that divided the US by region found Trump’s strongest support in the US did not come from the wealthy regions but the poorest places in the country, Appalachia and southern Louisiana, which he won by 22% and 25% respectively. And while we know that the coastal elites voted overwhelming for Hillary the big take away from this study is that the ruling elites are a bunch of ignorant morons and its these poor, uneducated mostly white Trump voters - the so-called deplorables -mare probably the most independent, flexible and cognitively advanced people in the country
3
Would love to know Mr Brooks where you fit in all this confusing polls. Let me guess. 6%conservatives?
David Brooks has been spending too much time among liberals. He needs a reality check.
Why does this piece allow the author to spout statistics,Smith no reference to where he got the statistics from?
The real difference between the far extremes is “living for today” vs. “working on tomorrow”. The extreme right lives for today and all the riches that can be gained dammed the long-term ramifications caused by short-term gains.
Some of these involve the raping of the environment and civil liberties. Others involve the classic pyramid scheme in which one knows that the long-term take away will involve shafting a great many just as long as one gets to cash out now. The vision of the extreme right is frankly not a long-term vision. Perhaps that is why the far right looks a great deal older, whiter, and wealthier.
3
Dear David,
You cleverly try and frame your arguments (as you always do) in your own structure.
But you have FALSE EQUIVALENCIES! Many people writing in have picked this up. I see that much of what extreme conservatives believe is not based on fact or science. And therefore you cannot compare the extreme right to the extreme left, which bases many ideas on facts.
DEVOTED CONSERVATIVES: Immigration bad, Islam violent, children need manners more than creativity, sexual harassment almost non existent, racism not a problem, authoritarianism is good, life is in your hands, even if you get a disease. Let's add climate change denial, which you ignored.
PROGRESSIVE ACTIVISTS: Immigration good, Islam no more violent than other religions, Inequality and oppression must be dismantled, racism must be dealt with, life is not totally in your control (think healthcare), climate change is real and must be dealt with.
This is not merely a difference in philosophical opinion, this is not merely "cultish", David.
The progressives have their finger on the FACT BUTTON--
research shows that immigration is good, sexual harassment is rampant, health care in America does not work privately, climate change is real, etc.
CHOOSE A SIDE DAVID-- FACT OR FICTION.
9
There are interesting points here, but as usual false equivalency undercuts the material. These are not two equally valid competing narratives. Where is racism located? Where is misogyny located? Where is unconcern for income inequality located? In which narrative are people with pre-existing health health conditions likely to get insurance relief? Yes, we need to listen to people with whom we disagree, but if your worldview is fundamentally racist and lacking compassion for the less fortunate, don't ask me to respect it.
8
You write, “What is new is how cultish this dispute has become.” But you don’t compare the results of this survey to the results of any past survey or other evidence of past political divides.
1
There is a significant, qualitative difference between wanting to exclude or eliminate certain groups of people, like Muslims and immigrants, as conservatives want to do, and wanting to exclude or eliminate certain societal structures. They are in no way equivalent.
3
Great column. More Brooks and less Goldberg may raise the bar for intelligent debate on issues facing our country.
What Trump has done what is a rarity among politicians. He’s kept his promise if elected. Overall unemployment, is the lowest since the late 60s.For African Americans including their youth it is the lowest ever. Something promised by Democrats but never obtained. The same for Hispanics, the lowest ever. That's two evers. For the handicapped, employers had fallen under Obama's time, is now up 7-11%. He has renegotiated a new NAFTA and signed a new trade agreement with South Korea. There is now a record job opening of 7.136 million. Another NYT editorial reported that wages of the lowest paid workers, was rising. Small business confidence has risen to record levels, up by 39% since last year. Along the way, another op-ed contributor for the NYT, credited Trump for the defeat of the ISIS Islamic State. Add to that, threats have turned to cooperation between North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S. So will negative propaganda against Trump succeed over accomplishments succeed in November? We will see.
The core of a conservative is fear:
Fear of losing one's place in the front; fear of losing their "stuff" to another; fear of losing the culture wherein they grew up.
The core of a liberal is guilt:
Guilt that they have more than they deserve; guilt that not enough is being done to help those with less or nothing.
People are either wired to be one or the other or they learn this from family of origin.
But it seems nearly impossible to change the wiring.
1
People are generally wired for both. Not everyone has a capacity to feel guilt or fear. There is such a thing as psychopaths and they don’t feel either, but they love to manipulate for their own benefit those that do using both fear and guilt.
I don’t think people who are liberal are that way out of guilt however. Instead I think there’s a sense that unfairness as a policy principle is unstable and unsustainable and that way will bring about what everyone fears, disruption, violence, poverty and other nasty things. It’s the “Want peace, work for justice” thing.
From 1945 to 1973 the GNP went up 100%, both in the U.S. and globally. In the U.S. all groups advanced equally: poor, working class, middle class, upper class and filthy rich. Since 1972 the median wage has been flat while GNP has gone up another 150%. That is neither reasonable, decent nor sustainable. One group, and only one group, has seen their health and well being stats actually decline - white working class. Sooner or later some monster like Trump or worse was bound to come along and exploit that politically. If I were to blame anyone it would be Democratic elites like the Clintons who abandoned the working class interest on behalf of banksters and the like. The working class is a large constituency lacking solid representation. So they put their trust in Trump who whispers sweet nothings to them while giving the wealthy enormous tax cuts. Go figure.
2
The difference that Brooks' ignores here is that Devoted Conservatives have captured the Republican Party lock, stock, and barrel while Democratic candidates span a much wider spectrum.
2
Given that political/societal perspective reflects a person's psychological/temperamental sense of self (somewhat a function of childhood experience, parental style, adverse events)- it seems increasingly independent from rational policy discourse.
We align politically like we choose food, lovers, movies, fashion and jobs.
Now- with so much anxiety, diversity/complexity and chaos generated by Trump's claim that all criticism is Fake News- the pressure to blindly give a Strongman total authority is increased.
This makes reasoning, rational argument, fact-based expert 'news' less useful in winning hearts & minds.
Under great stress, we regress to a child-like state. the Zeitgeist veers toward choosing a Big Daddy.
1
It boggles the mind that it's considered extreme to want the same people/family/economy supporting institutions in America that the rest of the civilized democratic nations provide their people...like affordable single-payer healthcare and higher education, safe affordable childcare, limits on possession of assault weapons, a decent living wage, well-maintained infrastructure, etc. The polls have long indicated that a majority of Americans want these things, as do even most "conservatives" in the other democracies. And there's no question that Americans could have them if those at the top of the economic ladder were as generous as the Greatest Generation's taxpayers.
4
Great column David, but in your “This debate is not new” observation you surely count conservatism as the ideology that “emancipates” us from rigid hierarchical structures, thus enabling our freedom to live as we choose.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the past 40 years conservatives have grown the size of government, loaded us with debt, and have passed laws that restrict our freedoms, threaten our privacy and intrude into our lives. They haven’t freed us from anything.
What they have done is free the market to avoid regulation and wreak havoc. They’ve hindered the ability of government to intercede on behalf of the exhausted majority, creating a zoo without bars in which the apex predators exploit the rest of us.
They’ve freed most of us to experience poverty or at best financial water treading, year after year. That’s what your ideology has become. Not freedom, but the prison of wealth inequity.
7
Although the Devoted Conservatives and Progressive Activists may have "among the highest education levels" among the population, I am suspicious that they both have the same degree of education. According to the Pew Research Center, "Democrats lead by 22 points (57%-35%) in leaned party identification among adults with post-graduate degrees." Academia is mostly filled with progressives. As a result, I would not be surprised if the Progressive Activists have a higher percentage of post-graduate degrees than the Devoted Conservatives. Since individuals with higher degrees generally display more independent, informed, and critical thinking, I am skeptical of Brooks' conclusion that both groups are equally cultish and problematic. He presents a false equivalency.
6
@K.S. Hughes -- I doubt Academia is filled with Bernie/Ocasio-Cortez progressives, but liberals of various stripes for sure.
And I know, because I am one.
I want to make a point about this though -- the nearly-universal extinction of conservatives in Academia is recent, and what is remarkable is that today there are nearly zero scientists or engineers (outside the petroleum industries) or mathematicians who identify as Republican.
40 years ago Republicans dominated engineering, and were common all across STEM.
Academia emptied itself of Republicans as they became the aggressively anti-intellectual, pro-religion, pro-ignorance party we see today.
Now there are some in the B-school, some token ones in Poly-Sci ... and beyond that you can find a unicorn in the halls of academia more easily than a Republican.
The primary system for choosing candidates favors extremists. The GOP's preposterously crowded field in 2016 and the presence of a veteran celebrity turned their race into an extended TV reality show. As a result, with the help of Russia, we have the most extreme, polarizing president and political agenda in memory. While this column is devoted to the 14% of the electorate at the extremes, only at the end do we read about the exhausted middle. Rich White Civil War is the kind of Tom Wolfe bon mot Brooks always strives for, and it is one of his better ones. But again, the frame obscures the picture.
This study illuminates the modern version of feudalism.Monarchies justified their subjugation of the masses by eliciting fear of invasion and conspired with one another in this strategy, The modern version of feudalism by the extreme rt. and lft. conspires to polarize the masses by accentuating value differences promising to protect the masses from those that would undermine their respective values as defined by the extremes.Thus rendering them powerless as they fight among themselves struggling under extreme policies lobbied by the rich extremes intended to kept them under educated and in debt and in jail.
1
Well, Brooks is far more sanguine than I am. When long-time friends no longer speak because of political differences, it's not a good sign. When a graceful, brilliant African American president sends way too many of this country's citizens around the bend--and they elect a man who fueled the birther movement--it does not inspire confidence that at some point we can all get together as Americans.
517
@kathleen cairns
Well said--
3
@kathleen cairns
alas, mr obama was indeed charming, but rather the assistant professor whose charm is used in the intro courses to attract prospective majors than the tenureable
original thinker who contributes to the definition of his field.
@kathleen cairns
You've nailed the reason why people like me no longer speak to friends who voted for Trump--the birther movement. I have enough family who voted for him that I have to maintain a relationship with. I have no desire to voluntarily maintain relationships with people who will vote for a president who actively promoted the birther movement on Fox News for five years. I understand political "spin" and "gamesmanship" but that was just disgusting and a step way too far. He actively undermined the legitimacy of a sitting president. If I want a national leader like that I can move to Russia, Turkey, or the Philippines. I thought we were better than that.
3
Reading through these comments is a hilarious exercise in denial. All of us (myself included), Right or Left, that spend time on the NYT Comments section are undoubtedly closer to our preferred ideological extreme that we are to "center". The overwhelming response of "I don't self identify as an extreme [insert preferred leaning], but the [insert other side] really is full of a bunch of wack jobs" just goes to further prove Brooks' point. Wait, not Brooks' point. It proves the data.
David has gone for false equivalency. The left isn't fighting on its own, wealthy behalf. The left is fighting for a society where wealthy leftists, along with all the other wealthy people, will do their share to support and include people with fewer advantages.
Also, I hope David is able to distinguish between knee-jerk allegiance to everything your side stands for and agreement on issues based on shared core values. I, for one, object to having my understanding of, say, the Kavanaugh hearings labeled as slavish adherence to party.
5
While the findings of the More in Common survey is not surprising--clearly there are far more U.S. citizens in the middle than on either extreme--I'm struck by the invisibility of what has become the silent majority. Not the conservative right that once co-opted this moniker, but the real silent majority: centrist independents.
Because neither mainstream party has the political courage to move away from their respective ideological base, no group is speaking to or for the huge center. It is the fringe that selects political candidates, especially for the GOP, simply because they attend caucuses and turn out to vote in primaries. Politicians of either persuasion who espouse middle ground and conciliatory positions are rejected being hopelessly pusillanimous. Candidates with the most extreme positions are nominated and elected, thus accelerating the move to the extremes.
Clearly, the answer to reversing this trend is for the predominant centrist group to step up and get involved. Without active participation in the process, politicians have little incentive to change their stripes. They assume that their tribal views are what the majority of their constituents demand, and they're correct. But it's not the majority of their constituents; it's the majority of their VOCAL constituents.
The vast silent majority of centrists can change the course of political discourse, but not without flexing the power of active involvement.
1
David, could you mention the category that you fits into? In Your Humble Opinion.
2
It seems like the NYTimes more right leaning columnists like Brooks and Douthat have a penchant for pigeonholing people into narrowly defined categories. Then they draw all kinds of conclusions about those categories. Problem is, everybody is unique and nobody fits neatly into any of those categories. Drawing conclusions based on these artificial categories provides essentially meaningless results.
1
Mr. Brook's statement that "There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity" among the "wings" is simply bad use of survey data. Surveys force people into categories of responses. That you see a strong pattern of agreement among a group of people doesn't mean that the agreement is caused by a "cult of conformity" (conformity="behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards"). You can't know the causes of the agreement from a survey. There's a big difference between the terms "agreement" and "conformity." And isn't that what everyone is so upset about? That Americans are "so divided." I would think the fact that *some* Americans agree would be applauded by that crowd. (Ha!) I read the original report and, unfortunately, it looks like that value-laden conclusion of "conformity" originates there.
I also agree with other commenters that Mr. Brooks is drawing a false equivalency. If you look at the fundamental values of our country as articulated in the Constitution, which "wing" better represents those values and which seeks to move us away from those values? Which "wing" is blowing up our institutions? Brooks sets up a false equivalency and then slaps on some survey data to justify it. It's just poor logic, i.e., a weak version of "Lying with Statistics."
1
A dumber look at America's divide by hundreds of light years of misguided misinformation.
In the beginning there were 500 Native American nations. Followed by a handful of invading and occupying European nations and their enslaved African property. The British won the colonial war and then lost the Revolution to white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men who owned property. A Civil War followed over the status of that African property killing more Americans than in all other wars combined.
After a brief Reconstruction the separate and unequal caste system kept the black color aka race a marginalized physically identifiable historical caste. No black life matters as much as any white life. No matter socioeconomics or education. Neither condescending paternalistic liberal white pity nor condescending paternalistic conservative white contempt accepts the divine natural equal certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of blacks as a diverse accountable class with hopes, dreams and fears.
Moreover, there is no violent hot deadly civil war in a nation of cowardly dishonorable and unpatriotic people who think that rising to sing the national anthem and salute the flag at sporting events is equivalent to the 0.75% of Americans who have volunteered to wear the military uniform of any American armed force since 9 / 11 / 01.
This is not a civil war. It is a water balloon and paint ball fight led by the pompous bombastic bloviating buffoon in Chief.
4
.
The leftist commentariat here is smart not wise and too clever by half.
The midterms are generally a political equalizer as voters restore a balance between the parties. This cycle, however, is different. The democrats disqualifies themselves by:
-Over-politicizing SCOTUS nominations
-Abandoning bedrock legal principles such as presumed innocence and due process
-Protesting instead of praying or volunteering
-Denigrating national history
-Choosing division and hysteria over harmony and reason
There will be no balance restored Nov 6 … as democrats fade into oblivion.
#timefornewpoliticalparties
1
The right has abandoned democracy and the proposition of majority rule.
The majority of the majority of Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican Presidents who arrived at office with a minority vote. Yet they act as if they have a mandate to impose unreasonable, indecent draconian conservative policies upon the majority, including a $1 trillion dollar tax cut upon the 1% that they intend to pay for by cutting Social Security and Medicare.
No one was saying Kavanaugh belongs in jail for attempted rape when he was 17, they were just saying can’t you find another candidate who doesn’t have questionable values, temperament and wasn’t so openly a political hack for the highest court in the land? (Kavanaugh impelled Ken Starr to pursue salacious sexual aspects of Clinton’s behavior, it was perhaps a bit of divine justices that put Kavanaugh under a similar spotlight, only to see him claim self pity, self righteous victimization.)
Can’t we all agree that our policies should pass the decency and reasonableness test?
I keep waiting to see Conservatives remove the board from their own eyes instead of pointing out the splinters in liberal’s eyes.
Here’s some help. It’s neither reasonable or decent to have minority rule, to force expensive healthcare for the sake of the 1% on the many, to separate children from their mothers, to give gun’s to crazies, to undermine affordable quality education, to trash the planet for the 1% and so on. You’re simply a tool for the 1%.
4
@avoice4US
The republicans disqualifies themselves (sic) by:
-Over-politicizing SCOTUS nominations
-Abandoning bedrock legal principles such as presumed innocence and due process
-Protesting instead of praying or volunteering
-Denigrating national history
-Choosing division and hysteria over harmony and reason
Gosh, Mr. Brooks. You mean there are people who believe living in a society (10 Commandments), and who who believe living in a bunker (2nd Amendment)?
So, why are these patriots not taking their money and moving to a better place?
2
Since the ability to tax is the ability to control, why shouldn’t the wealthiest, literally having the biggest stake in the country, exert the most effort/expense to voice their interests? How can anyone expect them to sit out the fight with one hand tied behind their backs? When candidates like Sanders and Ocassio speak freely about confiscated wealth, it’s entirely reasonable to panic.
44
@From Where I Sit
So, more wealth deserves more influence? That has been the dominant paradigm since about 1980. More wealth gets more influence, which gets more wealth, which gets more influence. It is blatantly obvious that this is not sustainable. It will come to an end. It may come to a catastrophic end, as seems likely by current trends. Or it may come to a more controlled end by a wide practice of enlightened self interest and a return to consideration of the greater good.
9
What right do the wealthy have to bankrupt America? Dodge paying taxes? Us working folks get taxes removed from our paychecks, twice a month. The likes of Jared Kushner sometimes don’t pay taxes for years and years.
2
Gee. Did the rich "reasonably panic" under Eisenhower when the tax rate for the richest was 91%? And what was the consequence of their not panicking, one of the most prosperous era's in modern American history. What nonsense.
2
One thing I have noticed about conservatives is they like to preach "abundance" and "gifts" and "hope" pitted against "fear". The spin goes something like, "I am secure in who I am, why aren't you?" With the conservatives who have made it, the private sector is there to "gift" the poor -- maybe -- while government safety nets are drowned in a bathtub, something about taxes and all that. Don't have "fear," they smile, church groups will provide.
There is a condescending tone a conservative code in Brooks' final paragraph. It aims to squash legitimate protest on the left, spinning them as rich, complaining whites while sweeping away the real issues of fair pay, healthcare, gerrymandering, education, student loans, woman's choice as liberal elites steeped in cozy fear. It's disingenuous and dangerous.
423
@PE Yes!
While it is true that progressives can demonize conservatives (who are really more radical than conservative, but I digress), Brooks doesn't acknowledge that what animates the left is a desire for fairness and justice -- and, I might add, the very conservative principle that the country at least try to live up to its promises as articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
We progressives don't enjoy being bothered by what we see and hear on the right. We're just heartsick over the fact that so much cruelty and racism can be perpetrated under the false guise of conservatism.
1
We on the right know when the right goes way out of line. It's when it veers into homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny. And here's the thing: It gets called out and the people who embrace it are shunned.
What about on the left? Would NYT readers care to say when we know when leftist progressive activists go too far, what the red lines are on the left, and who's calling them out? Because it apparently is not crossing a red line to stand with Louis Farrakhan.
1
David Brooks NAILS IT as usual. I've been saying for a long, long time that I feel like I'm navigating through a sea of cult members in the religions of Wokeism and Trumpism. People mindlessly parrot the same religious talking points, condemning others' heresies and original sin, with no original ideas or solutions of their own. None of them even grasp how vacuous and controlled they sound--and I include many of the NYT Opinion writers in this cult.
Wow David! Let's just say 99% of all members of the flat earth society are complete idiots while 99% of smart people disagree with them. Must be tribalism eh? Your continuing variations on the false equivalence theme seem inexhaustible. When you run out of excuses for the racism, anti-free press, anti-earth, anti-democratic, fascist impulses of the right, you might just consider that it isn't "cult conformity" to oppose them, but rather rational and compassionate resistance to their evil ways.
3
Part of the reason for this divide especially in multiple choice surveys is that everybody is using different definitions for these hot topics. Take blm as an example. The left see it as blacks getting killed by rogue police officers, while the right sees it as a blanket anti-police movement. There's no room for the left to say yes we need and support the police but we need them to be more in control and punish those who are out of line. Can't the right say, yes bad employees should be dealt with in accordance with the law. Then there is that clownish media hyping these differences and raking in the billions....
More false equivalence from Brooks, as the other posters here have wisely pointed out. The fact that he has a forum to blow his hot air week after week is evidence enough of the prevalence of unearned white, male privilege
We humans have long surpassed our ideal population size.
What a waste of space by this summary of a book reporting on a survey of opinionated folks, and bunch of new labels, indicating Mr. Brooks biases with terms like ‘devoted conservatives’ and ‘activist liberals.’
Only the last paragraph provides a vaguest possible prediction of the future, which seems to be saying that the extreme left will be the winner, without actually saying it! The title of the article ‘a smarter look ...’ is a sham.
1
In Georgia, the candidate for Governor is also the Secretary of State and is trying to do everything he can to keep blacks from voting. In North Dakota, the Republicans are trying to make it difficult for Native Americans to vote.
Trump despises women, minorities, immigrants, muslims and on and on. Basically everyone but people just like him.
Yet in the Brooks bubble none of this exists. It is all intellectually whitewashed so Brooks doesn't actually have to face the truth about our country. It's what makes his columns so tedious.
4
The false equivalence of right v. left posited here again broadcasts a cowardice and/or contempt for reality now familiar to Brooks readers.
Maybe you are reading things backwards David. The fact that the majority of Americans are too financially squeezed and too harried to be acquainted with the forces bent on their enslavement is no great blessing. Maybe they are not basically good-hearted folks looking for comity; maybe they are just ignorant. The billions of dollars spent on campaign advertising is predicated on the fact that the public is, at best uninformed, and at worst, completely misled. A population actually current with the issues would not be so susceptible to onslaughts of smears and innuendos, with nary a fact in sight. This is why we have so many close elections these days; the idiots on one side exactly counterbalance the idiots on the other. It's like flipping a coin.
Just as in the eighteenth century, when only the wealthy could afford to indulge in scientific investigation, only our wealthy possess the time and energy for the luxury of political debate. The remaining, vast lumpenproletariat is something to remedy, not celebrate.
Another attempt to create a false equivalency where none exists. I wonder if Brooks would have written a column in Nazi Germany describing the situation as a 'civil war between rich white Germans'. The current government is actively kidnapping infants and toddlers from parents fleeing for their lives from actual battle zones and David Brooks is trying to characterize it as an armchair disagreement between aristocrats in victorian England. Only accurate phrase in the whole column is 'civil war'.
Ah yes, moral equivalence. As in both sides must be equally bad. I believe that’s almost every track on the David Brooks Greatest Hits album entitled “Cherry Picking, Muddled Thoughts, and Confused Readers”. I suggest you pick it up along with Ross Douthat’s “Fifteen Paragraphs of Huh?” And Bret Stephen’s “Climate Change: a Guide to Totally Normal, Not Human-Induced at All Weather Phenomena.”
2
In which elite tribe would you put Donald Trump, I wonder?
"...people in the exhausted majority have no narrative." That's the good news. It's not good to have a narrative. Narratives are what makes people stupid. Narratives allow people to quit thinking and just follow a recipe. Narratives are often called biases or prejudices. Narratives are racisms. Narratives are holocausts and killing fields. Narratives thrive when people are too lazy to be objective observers. Hobbes and Rousseau are both good story-tellers, but neither is true.
The stock market is high and income inequality is worse than ever. Extreme weather is more frequent and clean energy sources are cheaper and more plentiful. The richest pay less and less federal tax and the middle and lower classes are nickel and dimed into debt. Mass shootings are routine... deadly police profiling... date rape... data rape... price gouging for drugs... arms deals trump life... opioid profits... etc.
I guess there is one narrative that holds water: The evidence based narrative.
1
Can you give us some examples in each group. Like names of these white people from both extremes?
1
Speak for yourself as privileged white conservative. What your tribe is against are civil rights for women, gays, and people of color. Your tribe has used fear to stir up your base and portray other citizens as taking what you feel is yours.
As soon as Democrats, progressives and any other group claim their rights, which go against your 'values' they are accused of tribalism, of stirring the pot, not only stealing but destroying our country.
You should know better. Shame.
Mr. Brooks is still in a deep state of denial about the depths to which his own GOP tribe has sunk. And the best rejoinder he can offer (and he offers it with just about every column) is, “Oh yeah? Well so are you!”
I'm sorry to be blunt, but this kind if pseudo intellectual nonsense is a big part of why Americans can't get together to effect meaningful change. The notion that the most significant divide is between the richest Liberals and their wealthy Conservative counterparts can only come from a guy who's never lived in his car because he couldn't afford the rent, who doesn't have friends and family forced to choose between groceries and medicine, who had to put their career dreams on permanent hold because they had to work two jobs to feed and clothe their children, etc. Coming up with elaborate explanations for what 'really' divides us in a political sense may satiate Brooks' desire to be seen as ingenious and sensitive, but its true purpose is to distract himself and his Conservative peers from the ever-increasing gulf between the privileged few who suck the life out of the burgeoning number of poverty-stricken, wage-earning American taxpayers. In this way, Brooks is no different from any other kind of denier--of the Holocaust, of persistent racism, or the irreparable harm that Republicans are inflicting on the Land of the Free.
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@J Young I agree, but yet, many of those folks vote R. What gives?
Another thoughtful, well reasoned piece by Mr. Brooks. The NYT is lucky to have him.
“It won’t surprise you to learn that the most active groups are on the extremes — Progressive Activists on the left (8 percent of Americans) and Devoted Conservatives on the right (6 percent).”
1. Progressive activists are not extremists. Unless you think it’s extreme to want people to have food on the table, a roof over their heads, enough to survive on in old age, and healthcare.
2. If you think believing in those things makes somebody an extremist, we have a lot more than 8% extremists.
3. The idea that the United States has a “left” is, to anybody half-sentient, laughable. With his customary distortions, Brooks turns what we have ordinarily called centrists into radicals. A nifty rhetorical trick and thoroughly dishonest. Goebbels would approve.
4. Progressive activists are both progressive and activists.
5. Dedicated conservatives are dedicated but there’s nothing conservative about them since their aim is to destroy, not conserve. They’re radicals. They believe the government should take care of none of it citizens, that Social Security is a scam (or God forbid, an entitlement), that Medicare is a danger to the health of the republic, and that all minorities, meaning anybody who isn’t a white heterosexual Christian, should be kept in their place, which means keep their mouths shut.
Once again, a David Brooks column Is predicated on distortions of a theoretically mainstream view of the world. That is to say, it’s his usual brain-numbing crock.
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Wait, what? The Progressive Activists embrace the equality of all races, fight for the rights of all women, welcome all immigrants ... and you're saying they are just as narrow as the Devoted Conservatives, who exclude all but whites, all who don't put men first, and would shut the gate on immigrants?
So that makes them equally tiny and exclusive?
You've got a MASSIVE logic problem there, Mr. Brooks. Please stop playing false equivalencies, it's making you look stupid, or a liar of Trumpish proportion.
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The liberals are not a "cult," they are reasonable, and feel strongly about their moderate, thoughtful opinions.
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In today's online edition, I'm seeing this Rich White Civil War piece, the Frank Bruni/Ross Douthat talk about why Latinos don't vote for their own best interests and Mimi Swartz' inane piece about how Democrats haven't managed to win statewide races in Texas for many years, which, duh. The Times no longer seems to need to sit in Midwestern diners to drum up Trump supporters talking about how they still support Trump. In the runup to the midterms, the op ed folks are happy to carry the banner of discouragement forward to make sure to dampen liberals' hopes and suppress progressives' votes.
Chalk up another win for false equivalency. I don't know exactly how this study quantified political activity, but coming from another country my experience is that the right is far, FAR more active ... and not in good ways.
I have never seen a progressive bring up politics out of the blue in a business meeting or environment, but am constantly rained down upon with Fox News excrement every day at work from Republicans. Almost half the country is bathing daily in Hannity, Breitbart, Drudge, Alex Jones, and Rush ... they regurgitate it to themselves, know all the conspiracy theories and are ready at the drop of a hat to argue the most ludicrous things to defend their tribe (remember how we actually DID find WMD's in Iraq). Meanwhile, as a white man in a professional setting, I can name the American liberal men that I personally know on one hand. They either don't exist, or they've been shamed by republican activists in their lives enough to keep their heads down. This country is drowning in the far right.
And guess what, as much as I disagree with these republican regressives, the one thing I admire is THEY VOTE. Every single bubba in every state believes to their core that their one vote could turn the election, they prioritize voting as an activity, and not matter what they get out on, or before, election day. Really, that's the only type of "activity" that really matters.
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David Brooks is the hyperbole of false equivalency. He thinks he’s smarter than anyone else in the room while he espouses falsity. We have a serious problem with sexual harassment and abuse as well as structural racism. It isn’t progressive liberalism as a cult. Trump’s followers are a cult. Why doesn’t he call it out?
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) - duh!
This column is what David Brooks does best, hold a mirror to the entitled class. Bobos in Paradise has come full circle. The weeping and wailing in comments is to be expected.
just vote for Republicans. democratism is the new communism and Americans are disgusted with it. never vote for any Democrat.
No matter the topic or data, Brook's conclusion will always be that america is going to be fine. No matter the rotting corpse, lying flat on its face in the mud - america is going to be fine!
Time to accept the hard fact: america is dead.
All in all, David is doing violence to the truth here. His sloppy thinking is directly enabling the president who is doing irreparable damage to out democracy. In short, the progressives and Democrats believe that everybody counts. Their vision is optimistic. E.g., everybody should have good, affordable health care. The Trump Republicans believe, that the only folks who count are the white people, especially the white men, who support Trump. Of course, Trump Republicans are not conservatives. Their vision is dark and apocalyptic. If they cannot retain their white entitlements, they will burn the democracy to the ground. They have shown us that they will follow Trump no matter what he says or does. They are, however, relatively well off. The so-called conservatives have for the most part servilely capitulated to him, as David is doing here.
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Another day, another strained false equivalency from the prodigious mr. Brooks.
To act as though deconstructing oppressive heirarchies is akin to denying the humanity of foreign neighbors is ridiculous. Your entire enterprise is bald, even when you go this far out of your way to restrict the parameters to a class that may actually provide the optics you need to sustain this threadbare narrative. The divide is much simpler than you think: those who have, and those who have not. The illusion of gray area perpetuated by the credit bubble is the only thing disguising the true nature of this oligarchy. Please stop trying so hard to make this about politics. This is about the class warfare that's been focused on the poor in America since inception. We see through your selective haze, please stop hurting this country by ignoring the obvious. Thank you for your time
I'm not a Devoted Conservative but pretty close. Most of my friends are like me. None of us are rich.
At least three of my friends are Progressive Activists. We argue politics all the time. They're not rich either.
I think of the many black conservatives: Larry Elder, Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele ... and on and on.
No, race doesn't seem to be part of this equation. Education might be.
It might be best described by the quote: "Liberals think conservatives are evil. Conservatives think liberals are stupid."
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@usarmycwo if it's conservatives that elected Trump, then I would label them as stupid, or perhaps a more charitable label would be "gullible."
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@usarmycwo, perhaps we need a better definition of “rich.” To me, and this is obviously entirely a subjective view on my part, rich should be defined as comfortably assured of food, shelter, and health.... and without the anxiety of being a couple of paychecks away from bankruptcy. That would sweep in a lot more people than simply using straightforward metrics of income and assets. A certain smug assurance sets in when you have a marketable professional degree or license, or dependable assets like property or a pension. Having those attributes or not having them I believe greatly affects how one sees the world.
@usarmycwo
Yeah, chief. and neither opinion is ungrounded. Conservatives would do anything to win, which is sort of an operating definition of evil. Because liberal ideals impose moral restraints, the GOP thinks liberals weak/feminine=stupid.
When he stooped to pluck the slimy Nixon from the far right GOP septic tank that was McCarthyism, Eisenhower thought his rational centrism insulated him, his party and his country. Just doing what was necessary to get elected. After all, his contempt for his Vice President was plain to see in all his eight years.
Instead it was a fatal infection, and Trumpism is the pus spills out the open sores on the diseased body politic.
But otherwise, Mr. Brooks, your 'both sides are just alike' analysis is spot on.
Skilled marketers can slice and dice the population in an infinite number of ways. But let's use this one. Question: With respect to raw power (as evidenced by the decisions currently being made by the President, Senate, Congress and Supreme Court), who is winning this Civil War and why?
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“Ethics/Morality/values are a middle class characteristic: The rich don’t need’em, the poor can’t afford‘em.
We essentially are a minority ruled country right now.
The majority of people are mildly progressive, want single payer universal healthcare, affordable college tuition and decent pay raises (tide to increased productivity?), common sense gun control, & a planet that is habitable in the future.
The majority of people pragmatic.
The majority of people are reasonable & decent.
That should be the standard by what we do everything. Is it reasonable? Is it decent?
Open borders is not reasonable but separating families at the border is not decent.
The Uber-rich on the right are neither decent nor reasonable yet they are running the country.
Proof: the median wage has not gone up since 1972 even though GNP has gone up 150%; almost all those gains going to the 1%. Is that reasonable? No. Is it decent? No, it is indecent. Who recently has stood against this trend? Only Bernie Sanders as far as I can tell.
Who calls Bernie a kook? People like David Brooks.
There are no major countries aspiring to have institutions like ours, especially in regard to healthcare, education and gun control.
It took some foolery to get poor whites to fight & die in large numbers for a handful of wealthy slave holders in the south, who saw their own welfare more important than the lives & freedom of their slaves. That same foolery is impelling the right wing conservative movements of today.
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This is really an important study. I fall into the traditional liberal category, and I have been alarmed by the increasing radicalism of the progressive left for years. Far from rational and altruistic they are motivated by allegiance to a strict ideology, and are quick to brand anyone who questions it the enemy. It’s hard to convince them that I, and people like me, are actually their allies in the fight against the conservatives who are destroying our country and all that it stands for. Enough with political correctness and identity politics. Both notions are ultimately divisive and self serving. It’s high time for the left to revert to its true principles. I say that as someone who has never considered myself a moderate. I am an atheist and a vegetarian and concerned primarily about the environment and wealth inequality.
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I like Brooks, but I am tired of the false equivalences he presents in every other column. A la” here are the bad ultraconservatives on one side, there are the bad ultraprogressives on the other, and I as a moderate – who unfortunately do not have a political home – stand in the middle as the lone voice of reason”.
I am not an ultraprogressive either, but ultra-progressives do not lead a war against science. They do not engage in buying the political process in order to defend and foster the economic interests of the 1%, and accept global warming, mass murdered school children and third world health care provision for large parts of society as collateral damage. Ultra-progressives hold extreme but debatable views - there is a kernel of intellectual validity to them. While ultra-conservatives harbour views that fail by the simple application of logic and empirical evidence.
The modest conservatism that Brooks subscribes to – which is only modest within the US political coordinate system, and fairly far on the right in all other advanced, enlightened societies - is based on debatable views also. But de facto it has acted mostly as an enabler for ultra-conservative ideology, which, in terms of its practical consequences, far outweighs in importance the contributions modest conservatism has made on its own. Unfortunately, it therefore more of a part of the problem than of the solution.
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Regarding political affiliation and ideas, repeat after me: Those who disagree with me are not necessarily my enemy.
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The original division into the clusters may have been based on the very same set of questions on which Mr. Brooks agonizes about our differences. If so, this entire article is based on a statistical artifact.
Brooks continues to infuriate. The data is interesting but as professional sociologists often complain, it really only 'repeats the data' to divide it into this kind of analytic. What Brooks then does is to impose his own analytic about 'rich' and 'white' without acknowledging the obvious difference that is likely but uncontrolled in the data he presents: the extreme conservatives have obvious financial self-interest aligned with their ideology; the same is simply not obfious for their 'counterparts' Controlling for the 'rich' quality as inherited or derived from investing as opposed to professional accomplishment would show you a huge difference in the motivation for the competing extremes. Like the misleading assessment of the confused middles bombarded with propaganda as the domain of 'flexibility', Brooks's take is always smarmy. Whatta Princetonian.
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This study, or maybe Brooks's recounting of it, reduces "tribalism" to a desire for one's own opinions to prevail. By that definition, all politics have always been tribal, so saying todays politics is "tribal" really tells us nothing.
Furthermore, Brooks posits equivalency between the right and the left, saying both are "about who needs to be exorcised from society." That may be a fair description of today's conservativism, in which non-white voting is suppressed, non-religious opinion denied, respect for diversity ridiculed, violence against African-Americans excused, a wall is built on our southern border, Muslims are banned, discrimination against LGBT people is legitimized, and white male supremacy is condoned and even celebrated.
Right-wing media like to accuse the left of being anti-Christian, anti-white, anti-heterosexual, but these are figments of fevered imaginations. Today's left is not out to exorcise, but to include.
The "narrative" of today's liberal left is all about diversity and inclusion, empowerment, equality of opportunity, and distribution of the unearned benefits of privilege. If empowerment of all people can be called "tribal," then the word has been drained of meaning.
It may be that adherents of both left and right are "privileged." But on the left, awareness of privilege is paramount, whereas the right ridicules such self-awareness as "political correctness" and re-casts its own privilege as entitlement.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
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Many educated people are humbled by the pace of change and the vast scope of what they do not know, or at least fully understand. Awareness of the world's ills both in number and in depth, combines with the lack of expertise to create despair. What to do and with what priority? How do we get out of this civil war to live up to our preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, 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, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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No surprise that most people are in a frustrated majority, somewhere in between the two extremes. We only look like a binary 50:50 country because we are limited to choosing between Democratic and Republican candidates in elections. While the parties differ on cultural issues, they agree in placing the interests of wealthy supporters first. If candidates emerge who represent the interests of the majority (moderate social policies, progressive on wealth inequality and health care, conservative on foreign entanglements), they will find a large, receptive population of voters.
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Yes, Mr. Brooks, you are right when you say, "our political conflict is primarily a rich, white civil war. It’s between privileged progressives and privileged conservatives."
And it's supported by the ever-more-concentrated "privileged" media owners who inform the public of what it wants them to know. A few "privileged", inherited/stolen wealth Robber Barons control every aspect of OUR lives right now.
They decide what we get to watch as "entertainment" and in most cases they choose hate-anger-fear-destruction-chaos.
They decide who should live and die.
They decide who should vote.
They decide which of our foods to contaminate with their greed.
They decide how much WE THE PEOPLE pay for everyday needed items - and the price goes up and up to feed their insatiable greed.
The Good News is that WE THE PEOPLE - average people across America and around the world - have finally begun to realize just how sinister the situation is and WE are taking action every day to stop the Robber Baron democracy-destroyers.
Their agenda - the one you have whole-heartedly supported - Will Not Stand in OUR United States of America.
Not now. Not ever.
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"There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity." I only take exception to this thought. Individual thought is what makes the ideas so rich and focused.
The compromise does take place in the middle.
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I'm not a big Brooks fan (His round-up of the Kavanaugh spectacle conveniently avoided Kavanaugh's habit of lying under oath), but here he's on to something. Let's remember, many of the same people who voted for Trump voted for a black president. What those in the sensible center want most is a safe, sensible, stable country and planet. We believe the economy ebbs and flows.
The misguided notions that criminals are just victims of 'the system' or that global warming is a hoax makes us cringe. And yet, what Brooks has nailed here is that while we may possess common sense, we have no galvanizing political vision, and for that, we are lost.
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I did not read Mr. Brooks column carefully. After a re-read, I am more accepting of his analysis, and especially like the end sentance.,,,,,,It is always the rich that promote the altruistic goals of society....they are the only ones with the spare time to give any thought to philosophy beyond putting groceries on the table and making sure the next generation enjoys better. Some of the definitions we use are becoming dated. For example.....define "white". I further believe it is futile to defeat racism, especially if you insist on categorizing everyone by an arbitrarily defined race. The USA seems to run on an approximate 70-80 year cycle of transformation. 1790.1860.1930.....and now. We refuse to open our eyes....insisting the we still live in a world of 1968, civil rights, Cold War adversarial Russia, Oil Crisis's, 3rd World, Right v Left, etc,etc..........But there are far different challenges ahead.
Why are almost all of the wealthy "devoted conservatives" I know also Vietnam draft-dodgers, and why have all their sons and grandsons avoided serving in the military and the wars that others in their privileged "tribe" have started and even profited from? This tribe seems to need the offspring of the working and middle classes to "keep them safe" in this "nasty, brutish and dangerous world," significantly of their own making. Unlike American royals and wealthy so-called "conservatives," I admire the British Royals, where their sons and grandsons not only have the courage and sense of honor and patriotism to directly contribute to their nation's security in the military, but take risky jobs in doing so, like flying helicopters and serving as an infantry officer in combat in Afghanistan. The American aristocracy's gene pool is very weak, which in the not too distant future will likely be its downfall. Chinese-made pitchforks are cheap.
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The "exhausted majority" will never have a "coherent philosophic worldview." It's so much easier to be "exhausted."
I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that 14% of our population cannot really be the primary cause of our political conflict.
The problem isn't that Americans differ over politics, so we should stop pretending that they don't. This is simply another variant of the myth of the silent majority. Call it the myth of the centrist majority. It would nice if out there in The Heartland, beyond the cities and the college towns, there resides a bulwark of stalwart yeomen, steadfast in their solid commonsense. It would be nice. But sadly, they exist only on the Hallmark Channel and in Mr. Brooks's muddled prose.
Americans have always argued over politics and always will. The stalwart yeomen are as feverish in their opinions as the Volvo-driving urbanites. Have you taken a look at the folks who show up at Trump's rallies in this-or-that blasted rural heath? They look white enough, but not especially educated or "secure." This is the the wellspring of a new, more pragmatic politics? Really?
Give up the idea of a return to some 1950s "consensus" politics. (Itself another myth.) Concentrate on making our political system more responsive to the will of the majorities actually here, trapped beneath the minoritarian logic of the GOP. Address the asymmetry in how the two parties respond to political conflict--- the one weaponizing hate, greed, and fear, the other deluding itself that political life can be conducted like a Harvard seminar. Stop dreaming and start thinking!!!
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@Kim Messick Very snobbish, biased, and inaccurate post. Yes there WAS more consensus in the 1950's and 50's nostalgia exists because it WAS a happier time for millions of Americans. And interesting that you bring up the Hallmark Channel; please explain what you have against it. In fact, I've read that it's one of the most successful channels with a very large, loyal audience, and wonder why that bothers you. Does the left want to get rid of one of my favorite channels now?
Once again what strikes me most about Brooks column is how he so easily assumes a false equivalency between progressives and conservatives. How can anyone assign equal credibility and respect to conservatives who routinely and savagely mock and undermine truth, vulnerable people, important public institutions and democracy itself. You can't. However, Brooks regularly does. He obviously believes he is the ultimate reasoned level headed non partisan. In fact, he is just another conservative apologist unable to criticize his party, even modestly, without pointing out that the democrats are just as bad. Last I checked republicans were directly responsible for protecting a dangerous, divisive, morally bankrupt and corrupt President. In the process of doing so they are undermining the legitimacy of the countries institutions so critical to America's success. Justice, law enforcement, intelligence, the state department and the courts, not to mention the many federal departments responsible for protecting consumers and our health and well being. This is directly the responsibility of conservative Republican's who worship power and winning at any cost. For these zeolous conservatives the ends justify any means at all. Lying, bullying, zenophobia, discrimination, the list goes on. Most pathetically, in 2018, it also justify's their support of a breathtakingly unqualified President who also happens to be a pathological lier and world class narcissist. Isn't America great again.
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The world's leading educated fool is at it again, drawing a lesson of facile false equivalency rather than drilling down to the very different ways in which these extremes arrive at their conclusions. It's not that hard to figure out; just look at the ideologies. The true-believing radical right follows what their leaders say; the somewhat paranoid radical left examines the evidence and arrives at consistent conclusions because that process tends to arrive at better answers, which should tend to be consistent. If anything, leftists go out of their way to find ways to disagree--their major problem, really.
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David Brooks is essentially right, especially about the Progressive Left. Last week on the Tucker Carlson Show (FOX News), Professor Victor Davis Hansen of the Stanford University Hoover Institute discussed the wealthy Progressive Left in California. He noted how they basically talk a lot about the working class, the poor, the destitute, and the homeless, but keep their distance from them, living in palatial homes behind high security fences and armed guards. The California Progressive Left is OK with walls to protect them from the masses, but not a wall to protect the nation from illegal immigrants! The Progressive Left, which seems to define the Democrat Party now, has transformed that party from once being on the side of the working class to being chief opponent. I am currently reading Chris Hedges, America, The Farewell Tour, in which he describes a nation drained of its industrial potential by NAFTA, Clinton’s free trade agreement which sent meaningful work to Mexico in exchange for the opioid crisis that dominates the lives of a once proud but idle workforce. The wealthy Right is probably not any better, but I rather cast my lot to that side, as I find Democrats of any social/economic level deplorably sickening. Thank you.
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@Southern Boy, that's a lot of false generalizing. The vast majority of progressives here in Northern California do not live behind walls. We all, simply, want the system modified so wealth is spread more evenly. We want to give up a little for a better overall society. Other countries do this. Why is America currently so stupid as to not want this? A more equal society is good for the well-off as well as for the less privileged who are more directly helped. I don't find anything sickening about that. What is sickening is the kind of dishonesty that makes this kind of generalized claim that then hurts people.
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@Chip Leon,
Then why are there so many homeless on the streets of California? The streets of San Francisco? I consider your words as hollow and dishonest as you do mine. Thank you.
@Southern Boy, is your entire argument based on homeless people per capita, and is that also your entire rationale for considering my words "hollow"? We in the profession consider that an incomplete analysis. San Francisco has a unique structural homeless problem, which began when Reagan took away funding for services for the mentally disabled. All the progressives I know are trying to find ways to solve this problem, including spending MORE on social services, spending MORE on mental programs, spending MORE to help those who need help. That is our philosophy. It is not working right now for the homeless problem in San Francisco, you got that right; however, it has demonstrably worked when providing Medicaid, Medicare, social services, and generally speaking, help for those who need help.
What stands out to me is that people are "thinking" and "believing" things about their world that can, in fact, actually be measured. There are not two sets of facts or "alternative facts".
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The discovery that the extremes are polarized and hold opposite views doesn't seem like a revelation to me.
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The first few responders here are completely missing the point of his opinion piece, which is great like most of his articles are. It's the extremes on either side who were controlling the narrative and they have polar opposite views when answering the same question. This is stunning because it says to me they have already formed of their views before seriously considering the question. This is no different than how extremely religious people vs not religious people respond to the same question when asked.
Those in the middle (most of us) need to form an opinion independent of what those on the extreme left and right are telling them and voice that opinion to elected officials and through voting. It's not about conservatism (capitalism rules) vs. progressives (equality for all), it's about making sure those loud voices (with money) do not shape the middle's agenda which is largely one of compromise.
Just as business and industry has been centralized, so has our politics with money from the ultra-rich. They control the messaging we all receive and voters line up with one side or the other
There's an awful long distance from the lip to the cup, Mr. Brooks. To defuse and make useful the feudal doctrines of the hard right and left will take quite a bit of ebb and flow before your golden dawn emerges. I'd use the Middle Ages as a reference point.
Well David what you say is true but remarkably incomplete. Was our civil war a dispute only between white abolitionists and white slave owners? Hoping that the non-extreme middle will somehow find a way forward seems to me to be just whistling past the graveyard. The country may not yet be as polarized as the extremes, but is split almost evenly. We need to recognize it.
Wow, I woke up a cultist this morning! Before I finished my first cup of coffee I learned I'm part of a cult.
I read the paper, also two or three books a month, have worked on two continents, and even read contrary opinions such as Douthat and Brooks. I belonged to a "fundamentalist" church for a while.
But I have little evidence of "individual thought." Wow. Would Brooks lump say Martin Luther King and Eleanor Roosevelt into this cult because they epouse many of its values? I guess it's one I'm ok with belonging to.
To be honest, it's not some blinding revelation that there are people as "conservative" as I am liberal. But it never occurred to me to say they belong to a cult and lack individual thought and insult them. Clearly, say Steve Bannon or the Koch brothers have "individual thoughts" and are no more or less part of a cult than say Ruth Warren. I can radically disagree with their plans and thoughts without implying they are thoughtless cultists.
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I would like to see Mr. Brooks review his comments today in light of two things: the dangerous reality of climate change and our drift to fascism under Trump. One hallmark of fascism is an alternate reality cultivated by the authoritarian leader and used to undercut science and rational thought, reinforcing the power of the leader and those who support him.
These are the things that most threaten us today, not the idea that there are polarized cliques on the right and left.
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Moderation is boring. Most people are, I believe, moderates, myself included. Critical thinking is the rule, not the exception, for most Americans. But we are not boring. We are frustrated that in this vast, wonderful yet violent land, our voices are drowned out by the extremes. But as usual Brooks wades into his familiar waters of false equivalency and lays equal blame for the drowning at the feet of both “sides.” From where I stand, however, the far right, with its hands on every lever of federal power, is doing everything it can to quash any semblance of moderate thought in policy or polity. They deal in darkness. The left holds onto hope, lets in some light. It’s on the shoulders of us in the middle, in the great gray and “boring” and questioning expanse, where the future of this dangerously divided nation falls.
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David omits, however, that one group cares about the welfare of others, and the other does not.
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"...more likely to affiliate with a herd..."
David just cannot help himself. People gathered in a collective concern about the future of our political lives are a 'herd.' Kind of a variation on the current Republican chant: the Democratic 'mob,' right David?
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Whatever one thinks about well-off liberals, the Democratic Party has a moderate platform. Voters are not choosing between two extremes.
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@Mike The Democratic Party might have a moderate-for-the-left platform, but the Republican Party has a moderate-for-the-right platform. Moreover, most of the salient, well-advertised planks are diametrically opposed. Voters might not be chosing between two extremes, but they are still chosing between two mutually exclusive ideologies.
@Mike The concern is that only moderate Democrats believe Democrats have a moderate platform. See the problem?
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Typically, Brooks seeks to blame both sides, sort of like Trump and Charlottesville. He sets up dichotomies he likes but ignores others such as scientific truth versus supernatural myths or long range economic planning versus short range capitalist profits or peace versus war. He likes typologies but it would be interesting to see how the survey questions were posed. I would imagine that the survey methodology had much to do with the findings as all questions are to a degree, leading.
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This piece is a far fetched attempt to ascribe legitimacy to the tribe that discards, ethics, honesty, science, women’s rights and egalitarianism... the Fox Tribe.
I don’t buy it, Mr. Brooks. Bad is bad.
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The tribes are pretty well hidden.
I know a lot of Trump voters who said they didn't vote, or that they voted for Johnson. They even keep this lie hidden from spouses, partners, and friends.
I think that there are millions and millions of them.
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This sort of reminds one of Symes "The Roman Revolution" . The elites fouling the nest with their competitions and factions.
95% of the comments denigrating Mr Brooks’ conclusions and the manner, tone, and depth with which they do it -conservatives bad, progressive good- is further evidence for these very same conclusions.
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Brooks' article describes two groups, which by definition are the most politically extreme, and then explicitly makes the assumption - with no evidence at all - that these groups lead our current political conflict. But whereas surveys show that the great majority of Americans are indeed strongly politically polarized, these two groups together account for only 14% of the population. While most Progressive Activists say they are ashamed to be American, I and most of my strongly Democratic friends are very proud to be American and would strongly disagree with the “86% of Progressive Activists who say "life’s outcomes are outside people’s control”. More importantly, have the leaders of the Democratic party ever indicated they are ashamed to be American? I have heard many speeches by Obama, Hillary Clinton, and even Bernie Sanders, and I have never detected these views – indeed all three strike me as patriotic and proud of America.
It is very ironic that Mr. Brooks bemoans our county’s polarization and then tries to make the case for equivalency of our major parties. But it is just that narrative of false equivalency (consider Russian involvement in the Trump organization vs. "Hillary email") which led to the election of a president who has so greatly exacerbated that polarization, who routinely demonizes not just the opposition party, but also half of the American populace.
Leading his troops into battle, while sowing fear and identifying enemies, is an ignorant con man with "no coherent philosophic worldview" who is supported by a rich white tribe of enablers who seek to manage him.
When he finally disappears and is disavowed we can perhaps begin again to seek a new political narrative.
Until then there will be civil war.
You say of progressive activists, "There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity." That is nonsense. Couldn't it be that progressives are not influenced much by group-think or by media? That their eyes, ears and brain cells simply lead decent thinking people to similar conclusions?
So, it's really a battle of the elites--rich, White people on the far left and far right fighting it out to remake the nation in their image. While the rest of us, “the exhausted majority," do basically nothing. Just wait for the rich, White folks to tell us what to do, how to think and who's going to run things. Why do we let the rich, White people be in charge? Why do we fear them and admire them? Why do we vote for them? Why do we believe they are better than we are? Why are we "exhausted majority" just a bunch of sheep?
Excellent column, David. Reader comments make your case.
More disconnected high minded philosophy. The Republican Party is supporting a Fascist president intent on dividing this country and pushing the economic spoils to a white, wealthy, reactionary group of angry people. This after Trump and his family committed tax fraud to build their fortune in the first place. The next political path had better be based on stopping the Republicans from controlling all three branches of government to prevent a slide into fascism which may require lots of sacrifice and pain to reverse. Let's vote as if our lives depend on it, because if the Democratic Party loses the midterms, it may take more than votes to get our liberty back.
David, while you naval gazing about Bohos in Paradise many of us were watching and indeed fighting a relentless right wing wave of propaganda. When will this sink in? You can tout a different social construct every week. But that will bring you further and further from what has and IS taking place. Why is it that the word propaganda carries so little weight with you?
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This is nonsense.
Who really conducted this research?
Who paid for it?
Probably a rich white "conservative" ally of Brooks.
"I don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred."
And that closing statement is just ludicrous.
Brooks needs to get out of his bubble and see this country.
“I don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred.”
Translation: Here Comes Gaiamerica.
Definition: Gaiamerica refers to the toxic extremes of white male elitist Black & White groupthink (a.k.a. “History”) burning itself out beyond repair, allowing for all the non-white male elites to mindfully redesign all three branches of the US government and mash up the best parts of the Agricultural, Industrial & Information Revolutions.
Conclusion: Here Comes Everybody.
Based on this “not-me” fury of comments, all backed with a quotable quip from another rich white guy, I’d say you’ve struck a nerve, Mr Brooks.
The tribe is strong here at the NYT.
As a middle class white guy Id say white the only people less tolerant than the Marsha Blackburn’s of the world are the angry liberal elites.
And to respond to the “me?....can’t be” notion that there isn’t a moral equivalence between the two tribes I’d argue this is false. Spite is spite. It doesn’t look good on anybody, particularly not on those with a bachelors degree and a lawn.
History will not be kind to either side in this mess.
Perhaps someone will emerge who is calm, honest, and not the self serving array of white (and black) characters on both sides sitting on the senate judiciary committee.
The canard is the falacious notion of moderation
How is a moderate racist different from a racist?
What is the moderate position on rape?
Am I a moderate if I am disengaged, not paying attention, indecisive?
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"I don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like..."
Unfortunately, there will not be a next political paradigm. The two narratives are not reconcilable and the great mass of people in the middle will do what they always do which is stick their heads in the sand and follow whichever narrative comes out on top.
War, civil or world, is a mere continuation of politics by other means. The old Prussian General was correct and that continuation is around the bend in the road for all of us.
I actually knew very well who had written this insidious attack on the common person. Despite the plethora of high-minded language, perhaps intended to filter your readership to only those who could process strange, the publisher may not advise you of how many hits on your pub lasted longer than the time it took to realize the browser had selected incorrectly.
This being a short day, at the end of the day, I made a decision that your last two lines had the ironic effect of recalling the old phrase…is it middle-class?…nostalgie de la boue (pardon the lack of italics).
Although this is translated as "love for the mud", it is simultaneously used to refer to a displaced entrancement with corruption and deformity, but also to attempt to display an awareness of the fertility that pertains of our roots, the fertile soil.
However, I am actually compelled to attempt to understand how duplicitous you succeed, in the wealth of wealth you have enjoyed, to disparage the "exhausted majority", who "have no narrative."
Of course, I have no idea whether you criticize those disadvantaged who have not attempted to unearth their heritages and build on them, or those who have sufficiently disregarded enticements of the corrupt capitalists and have struggled to contribute despite their impoverishments,
It is apparent to me that you do not care to choose the path which Jesus and Mother Teresa walked, but would rather discard the meagre meals so to go to those places where you are welcomed.
“The structures of inequality and oppression have to be dismantled.”
One question for you sir: Will Jesus Christ endorse the above quote? If he will, then, of the two extreme groups you describe in your writing, who can claim the moral high ground?
My observation about Western culture is that we are turning blind eye to the extraordinary human suffering happening all around us in the name of capitalism, and in the name of “quality of life” . Think about the overall message of Jesus Christ for a moment and the concept of “quality of life “ in politics; are they compatible?
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I belong to this extreme group: the words “tribe”, “Tribal”, “tribalism”, are empty of meaning. They don’t even have enough content to be derided as sweeping generalizations.
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Money IS speech. Both ends are terrified of true democracy unfettered of the controlling invisible (though I think today it is quite visible, including foreign countries spreading their “ideas”) hand of the controlling white wealthy upper class. I live in the heart of the wealthy white left-note how non-diverse it is-how is that? ;) The marketplace of ideas is really just a marketplace, and will always be so until the government (i.e. US Supreme Court; or Constitutional amendment) makes it not so. On that glorious day the N.Y. Times will no longer have to report which party has a bigger war chest, and real democracy will be born. The king must be beheaded.
one defining feature of the devoted conservative group is that it's members are hypocrites.
they support trump with all his moral, economical, political corruptions.
It’s not a question of “cult conformity”; it’s that the Left is right and the Right is wrong!
The exhausted majority need to have someone represent them: respect of science and facts, governing from a position of progress, not regression. Every nation that reverts to a backward hope dissolved and crumbled into ruin.
I am embarrassed with the garbage and hate that pours out of Trump’s mouth. He represents everything that is wrong with society today.
We don’t need someone that polarized the people. We need a reasonable, responsible adult as President.
This is the kind of deliberately simplistic, "very fine people on both sides" reasoning that David Brooks specializes in. The mere fact that two groups are polar opposites, in his view, means that they must both be wrong. But if 98% of Nazis agree that Jews should be eliminated, and 95% of non-Nazis say the opposite, they aren't equally mistaken. The truth is not always in the middle, much as Brooks would like it to be. And if similar questions yield similar results, it is not evidence of "cult conformity," merely of an affinity for reality.
One more example: Brooks says that the two groups he describes both indulge in "narratives of menace — about who needs to be exorcised from society." Yet he never demonstrates that this is the case for Progressive Activists -- he admits that what this group wants to "exorcise" is a "what" (hierarchies), not a "who" (people.) Brooks would like to make both sides look dark and frightened, and bends the facts to suit this narrative.
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I'm weary of David Brooks analysis of social groups, identity, psychology and the like.
"The good news is that once you get outside these two elite groups you find a lot more independent thinking and flexibility"
Mr. Brooks, if you think that the "exhausted majority" which by this study's definition is about 61% of the populace exhibits "independent thinking and flexibility" then you must be the most clueless thinker in the history of thinkers.
The vast majority of people I have met in my life have never had a minute of independent thought in their lives and simply bend to the wind of the closest influencer in their lives (FOX news, MSNBC, priests etc.).
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On second thought, you forgot about American's who actually hater America. Why? Because of other Americans who hate America. You know, the once who shipped jobs overseas so they could personally make a quick buck. The ones who deny climate change so they could make a quick buck. The ones who block common sense gun control so they could make a quick buck. So when cataloging divides, don't forget those who love America versus those who hate it.
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Brooks is too humble. He really knows what the Exhausted Majority thinks, and should do.
I for one am hoping for a civil war.
Actually it will be an UNCIVIL war.
This it what we need. Show those scared white men what they should be scared of. It’s their turn to know what it’s like to be a minority.
Thank goodness we are a nation which is made up of a variety of cultures and races other that WHITE.
I know who I will be standing with.
Despite my Asian appearing name, my family was persecuted because of the final solution. They were not considered WHITE in a country of mostly WHITE people who believe Jesus Christ is their saviour.
The USA has a diverse community of races and religions.
I hope we can stand up against the WHITE fear that is desperately trying to make this country hate again.
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This study is another tool of conservative apologists like Brooks to equate right-wing haters with Democrats.
See, he is saying, people who use the 'n' word, slander all immigrants as job-stealing criminals, and deny the reality of sexual harassment are being politically incorrect. This is just the flip side of liberals requiring men to speak more sensitively about women.
Blather.
Sorry David, I don’t believe it’s a “white mans” civil war, that dynamic changed sometime ago. It’s a “rich mans” civil war between rich conservatives, rich liberals, and everything between, lots of whom are no longer”white, people would us to blame “ whites” because as is so often pointed out people need someone to hate and currently it’s in vogue to use the mostly white mopes who govern America and those unfortunates left behind by globalization, while the fact is that very Rich people are of all nationalities and all colors, whether they are Indian billionaires living in a place that looks like a gated hotel with their hundreds of personal cars surrounded by slums with no toilets, Saudis murdering those who might oppose them, Israelis using their money to sway American policy designed to eliminate their enemies by war when deemed necessary, American businessmen such as Kushner who benefit from laws and a financial system that allows them to amass enormous wealth while contributing nothing of societal value. No David the shills for the rich may be “ white” in America but that doesn’t mean all the bad guys are, take a look around the world, it’s globalized greed. Thomas Piketty pretty well summed it up in his great book Capital in the Twenty First Century”, followed by “Chronicles in Our Troubled Times”. Frankly David, other than more money, themselves, and burnishing their image, I doubt many of the one percent care about much of anything.
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Wait a second. I'm not sure if I'm a progressive activist or just an exhausted person, but one thing's for sure - I have a "narrative." And so does everybody else.
This is so arrogant Mr. Brooks. We all have stories, we all have voices.
Wait - allow me to correct that. We have have stories but our voices aren't heard by you.
Yes, you, arrogant conservative person, will not listen.
Here's a narrative: person loves nature, watches it dying. Person has nurtured and buried most of her family, still burns to create beauty, to preserve life.
Person believes in America, in the promise on our Statue of Liberty, yet what is happening? Your civil war, the war between Newt Gingrich and everybody else, is destroying all those dreams.
I beg you Mr. Principled Conservative, shut up and listen.
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Is it possible one of these "tribes" believes in reason and knowledge and so would be the furthest thing from a "cult" while the other side believes in religion and superstition, which are cult markers?
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“The good news is that once you get outside these two elite groups you find a lot more independent thinking and flexibility. This is not a 50-50 nation. It only appears that way when disenchanted voters are forced to choose between the two extreme cults.” (underscore added)
And in fact the political choices offered now come almost exclusively from the two extreme cults — read the radical Red and Blue.
Absent significant viable alternatives to the contaminated two party lock down on the national political dynamic America is doomed to descend deeper into diametric, terminal dysfunction — most likely some close cousin to full blown fascism.
Citizen’s United has been a poison dart for the country.
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This isn't new. Take a look at the cults in the period before and during the and Civil War (ad its aftermath). Much of that is still with us.
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David, it's entirely possible that your efforts are meant as parody. If so, kudos. Seamless stuff.
Did the questions include those concerning attitudes about ecclesiastical child rape? Now that's the sort of helpful statistic that could shed light on the "cultural choice" questions that say little about moral maturity. Clearly, in America the churches are still standing, and adults still stand in line to go into the little boxes to expose their failings to a man who wears the same uniform as the pederasts.
Next, when Americans consider stories like those told by Dr. Ford, it's likely that at least some of them compare what Bart O'K did to her years ago with the behavior of trusted religious guides--I note that right-wingers are particularly addicted to comparative judgment--and find that she was relatively untouched. Imagine if the man attacking her had been a bishop rather than a future Supreme Court Justice!
In the 1980's, M. Scott Peck, who wrote the bestselling philosophy tome, "The Road Less Traveled," published another, lesser-known, book called, "People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil." For me, the book boiled down to one argument: Evil arises from laziness, the unwillingness to come to grips with personal or societal ills that need to be changed.
When those on the right cannot escape evidence, such as this week's conclusive climate change research, they grasp at any ludicrous argument in order to remain lazy. As Peck might say, there you have it.
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Reading Mr. Brooks write about feelings after he supported Kavanaugh’s appointment is distasteful and feels disengeuous.
To me Mr. Brooks is a phone who comes off as lecturing people on morale values.
David is beating around the bush. The problem is the two party system. It's an idea that at least some of the Founders abhorred, it appears nowhere in the Constitution or in the Law and it serves the interests of no one except the politicians. And it leaves the great majority of Americans (including me!) with no representation in our own democracy.
Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. It also makes us look like idiots.
Otherwise, it's working out great!
Another lazy entry by the High Priest of Both-Sides-ism.
If you can draw moral equivalence between the people who cheer forcible separation of families, characterize sexual assault as "boys being boys," and have more of a problem with NFL players in peaceful protest than the state-sanctioned killings that have them upset, and those who oppose all these things, I'm not sure you really merit a platform to speak from.
Please, NYT, do better.
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And fossil fuel driven climate change? One of the biggest issues facing humanity and it a peep from this research? I would guess that it’s primarily only the Devoted Conservatives who are denialists and that most people accept the science and want our government to take effective measures instead of pushing coal and are a lot closer to Progressive Activists on this.
And what about gun regulations? Where do most Americans stand on gun regulations? I think most Americans except for the Devoted Conservatives, want sensible regulations on guns and don’t want a society where people walk around armed in public.
And what about health care? And economic inequality?
Brooks has identified what most historians have known all along: this is a country of moderation, not extremes. We have formed two large political parties that cover many types of political philosophies, unlike European democracies which consist of many political parties seeking separate political goals and compelled to form coalitions in order to govern. that is why we have been such a stable country over time.
We are now experiencing a fundamental breakdown in our overall political moderation as we watch both parties tilting to the extremes as they try to satisfy the more vocal elements of their organizations. As pointed out in the article, the large majority of the country remains outside the political extremes and inside the tent of moderation. What has happened is the extremes have hijacked their respective parties and declared war on each other.
This is most noticeable by the many comments of your readers who declare that there is a moral superiority of those on the extreme left that does not exist on the right. Racism is the archenemy of those on the left, followed by lack of diversity, income inequality and the right to an abortion. To the left, these national defects trump all others and make them morally superior to all others.
But, in order to compromise with the 90% who are not Progressive Activists, they need to respect positions with which they don't agree and stop demonizing those on the moderate right who have a different agenda.
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I'm reminded of the in/famous debate between Wm F Buckley and Gore Vidal eons ago, both brilliant, both occupying, in their way, the extremes Brooks writes about here. The seeking of a middle ground then was as futile as it seems to be now.
Having statistics to quantify our divisiveness appears to give solidity to our entrenchment. But even with data, I'm doubtful. There is always nuance and subtlety to those living in the tribes, and my own hope resides more in those individuals willing to step outside their boundaries to become familiar with 'the other.'
Trump does not promote such hopefulness, nor do many of our misnamed 'leaders.' But it makes it more incumbent for us -- and for Brooks et al. -- to keep sounding the alarm that we have to try harder than we are right now: it's more than a bifurcation of mindsets, it's a need to identify ourselves as individually diverse yet unified as a vast community.
David, reading your recent columns and seeing you with Mark Shields lately, I seriously believe you are suffering from a depressive episode. Like so many of us, you are caught up in these terrible times, but unlike we in the liberal majority who simply fume and wail, you are in a more existential crisis. You must find a path and declaring yourself a Democrat is not, apparently, an option for you. So you retreat to abstract moral philosophy, or try to find little silver linings, or ways to reduce this mess which our friends and neighbors have created to something digestible. No use. Seek help and turn Blue. Whigs are out of the game, hopefully temporarily. Come! Join the resistance with your eloquence!
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Replete with false equivalence. For instance, I didn't choose my parents, how tall I am, where I was born, what color I am, my IQ, and so on. Yet social science shows us these things have an overwhelmingly powerful influence on where we end up; there is no evidence to the contrary. What Brooks' Progressive Activists believe is true. What Devoted Conservatives believe simply isn't.
When one group's central belief system is logic and science (the best set of beliefs ever produced for prediction and figuring out how the world works), and the other group relies on a set of unsubstantiated stories with zero predictive power, no, both aren't viable.
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“Strict values and strong authority”? Where do you see this in today’s Republican Party- except the value of money. And “strict authority”? Trump folds under any leader he sees as stronger than him.
And how do you know that mainly college educated higher income people care about politics? I canvass for my Democratic candidate in a cross section of neighborhoods. I don’t see much difference in interest. If anything, I know that people in highest income neighborhoods will be less likely to open their doors to me....and less likely to chat if they do. If Republican, they simply say “I’m Republican” .
Tax cuts seem to be the main Republican values. I know some people are earnestly antiabortion . Still, I tell them that abortion rates go up under conservative administrations as access to family planning services goes down.
It is not a valid survey of course but Democrats seem to be more likely to say they like the candidate (Tester) they are voting for. And 15 per cent of Tester’s voters are Republican. I am saying that putting people into those camps for politics may not work in a small state where we know our candidates.
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A semi-interesting analysis. It remains couched in the rhetoric of yesteryear....which I maintain is the REAL divide in America. Right and Left have little meaning in the current version of America......we are at the cusp of an irreversible change in our Nation. These changes will happen regardless of which narrow-minded political agenda to which we swear allegiance. the REal divide is between the majority of Americans who have dug in their heals and refuse to look forward, either clinging to a DNC vision of USA circa 1968.........or a cloudy GOP-Bush inspired vision of USA circa post-Reagan. There is a growing minority of Americans that accepts Trump as the president and is looking towards the future and willing to make actual changes to ensure USA is prosperous, safe, and free..........
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@Wherever Hugo
Berlin, 1933.
As a person left of center but not extreme, I have a coherent world view. Simply put, we need to end extreme capitalism which is creating extreme inequity. Think feudalism, the dark ages. This uneven playing field of the extreme rich, and the rest of us is ruining our society. The stressed out people who don't vote are contributing to their own demise by not voting for politicians who actually believe in helping them with social programs and most importantly, taxing the wealthy.
It is so amazing to watch the super rich dupe the rest of us into voting against our own best interests. Can't we somehow redefine socialism as For the Social Good? Because that is what it is. When people are secure, they don't live in fear.
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@Patsy "End capitalism." Not extreme at all! End the thing that's singlehandedly lifted the world out of poverty (look at global poverty statistics since the collapse of Communism if you're in doubt). The mainstream Left has gotten very confused about reality.
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@Patsy "Im not an extreme lefty.. i just believe in revolutionary communism" .. has to be the funniest and most detached thing someone has ever said
Nah. We have a mixed economy and always will. Your abstract capitalism only exists in textbooks. We had hints of it in the Golden Age and it didn't look very appetizing.
No mention here of the pathology now driving the right to undermine the very foundation of the republic. That might deserve some attention, Mr. Brooks.
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The maximum comment size puts a limit ion the number of false equivalencies that I can identify in Mr. Brooks' piece. So, if I have to pick and choose, I'll ask why you suggest that dismantling the structures of inequality and oppression is a bad thing.
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No doubt Mr. Brooks is highly educated and well informed, but please let’s get to the bottom of the argument.
The death of the Fairness Doctrine gave rise to the likes of Fox News and a bounty of right wing hate radio. The defunding of our education system has left a significant portion of our population ignorant. Citizens United along with Buckley have allowed Billions of dollars, mainly from our “corporate persons”, to flood our political system.
Looks, to me, like a corporate attack on the good people of the United States.
The art of war, never let your opponent know they’re under attack.
Not to mention the corporate attack on our environment... you might want to write about that every so often.
We’re under attack on many fronts and you Mr. Brooks, along with your colleagues, need to inform the citizenry.
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Two extreme cults? You must be talking about the one that believes we should all work as a community and combine our resources to develop a comprehensive health care for all citizens versus the side that is focused on ME and believes lower taxes are the answer to everything. In fact, if you can get away with it, don't pay any taxes at all.
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@Jim Yes, Actually. History has shown us what both extremes mean. Individuals have to be held responsible while the community has to allow for enlightened self interest. Anything outside of these is doomed to fail miserably.
The New York Times has many opinion writers, most are like Mr. Brooks, a polite and bland interpreter of the conservative disease who insist, as he has done here, that the left and right are equal and opposite and ultimately healthy voices who cancel out in the American melting pot of ideas. The Times has a few other moderate voices who claim to speak for one down trodden minority or another with a righteous tone that things would be so much better if that white privileged were just spread out a little more. But the Times has no liberal voice who explains how the forces of our predatory capitalism have dismantled the mild protections of the New Deal to produce the anguish and polarized politics of today. And they completely censor any Marxist critique of our system that explains what should be done to fix our culture. And they are firmly part of the repressive establishment that acts to suppress the revolutionary voices who are attempting to organize movements that take direct action against the injustice that is endemic to our system.
So the moderate rationalizations of Mr. Brooks serve as a voice of reason in the skewed opinion tableau that Times readers are allowed to experience. The reality is that the voices of reason are not in these pages at all and that when the populist forces clawing for justice burst apon the scene it will be as much of a surprise to Times pundits as was the candidacy and eventual victory of Trump in the recent election.
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the evidence also indicates that one tribe advocates/uses threats, violence, intimidation, harassment, persecution, etc, and the other not so much
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The most dispiriting demoralizing aspect of this "great divide" is that I cannot, am prevented from, and silenced when I try to discuss MY views and feelings on the state of the country. The moment it is known that I "lean" left, my views (unspoken, so really unknown) are fixed in stone. Whe I attempt to discuss the nuances of my views, some of which may actually be in sync with my GOP friends, I am silenced and dismissed. I've even been told that "no, you don't believe that. I don't believe you." It is obvious that I have been judged and sentenced and dismissed to the dungeon of irrelevance. Because I am a Democrat, it is considered I have nothing of importance to say. Is it because these people are so black and white in their thinking that they cannot comprehend those of us that see the nuances of grey and color? Don't believe the "devil" when she pretends to be your friend. She is the devil lying to you to make you doubt (read 'think'). Turn your back lest you be persuaded.
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Mr. Brooks misunderstands how this "research" works: of course the two groups believe with near unanimity their views because their near unanimous views are the matter that the researchers have used to make the groups. Are they even "groups" in any meaningful sense or are they more simply, reductively, idiotically the artificial creation of glorified market researchers who love to denominate into the simplicity of cute group names individual human complexity?
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"Gifts, not fear"? "Hope, not hatred"? Obama tried that, and lost the Senate and the House to a GOP that had no such scruples.
This is just more false equivalence, where Liberals are declared extreme for believing that the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights apply to everyone, not just people conservatives happen to like.
The saddest thing here is that conservatives these days really do find that extreme.
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"There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity. "
One could argue the opposite--if your political opinions are based on certain overarching principles (rather than adopted by whim), it's not surprising that your opinions would resemble those of others who hold those core beliefs. Perhaps the problem is less conformity than arrogance--believing hat no one else's beliefs or opinions have any legitimacy. It infects both ends of the political spectrum and a good bit of the "exhausted majority."
Sadly, it appears Mr. Brooks has joined the ranks of the “exhausted.” To write this column and fail to acknowledge that the “devoted conservatives” control all three branches of the federal government at this time is inexplicable. To compare this group with the “progressive activists” as somehow equivalent is to ignore the differences between an elephant and a mouse. Has it ever occurred to Mr. Brooks that restoring some balance to the political power structure of the USA might be a desirable goal in and of itself?
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It is easy to see the false equivalence here. All of the places we will “end up” David supposes at the end of his piece are progressive values.
2
Mr. Brooks seems to pose this as a problem of a wealthy elite of NAZIS on the right versus wealthy Bolsheviks on the left. To an extent, there are some such people. Far more common than people motivated by ideologies in this age however, are those motivated by self-interest and greed, who use wealth to influence elections via manipulation of voters via social media, television and talk radio. The perfect exemplar is the Koch Brothers, whose money an influence has infiltrated PBS, to the point that programs such as FRONTLINE which once tackled domestic issues with aplomb now shy away from programs that could hurt these sponsor's interests. Greed, more than any other factor, motivates those with the most power to influence.
3
Others in these comments have called Brook's article as favoring a false equivalence between progressive openness to the needs of society and conservative me first selfishness. Conservatives glory in calling the other side bleeding heart liberals as if a concern for something other than our selves is a sin, but what is the real sin here?
The real sin is that we do not care enough about each other and this will be our ultimate ruin.
Conservatives take advantage of the left's openness and willingness to discuss things and turn it against them as they have been doing for decades. It is the reason that we now have one party leadership despite the majority belief in progressive ideals. This was especially true in the 2016 election where Trump conducted a trash campaign playing upon the me first ethic of his base and trashing every idea that smacked of caring for others.
Now many say that democrats and progressives need to be tougher, but the real need is that we as a society need to grow a heart.
3
You do not seem to understand that the Party of Lincoln represents the minority of Americans and has done so by nefarious means for over 50 years . No, the Democrats are not perfect, but the means to which your party has gone to get complete control by any means possible with total disregard of the rights of all the people from disenfranchising voters, to appealing to the darkside of fear and hate in our population, and
disregard for the rule of law and scientific facts would make Lincoln turn over in his grave . This is not a Representative Democracy. With the worship of money above all, this is the closest to fascism that I have ever seen.
2
Big takeaway is messaging for the dems: big tent policy platforms and stay away from any issue you have no power over. Most importantly: attack your opponent, not his/her supporters.
1
"Progressive Activists are nearly three times as likely to say they are ashamed to be American as the average voter."
Mr. Brooks, you go from giving us the actual numbers, to this. Is it because, to use a hypothetical, 1% of average voters are ashamed, and 2.7% of Progressive Liberals are? I'm just wondering if you're creating a misleading impression.
[Note to NYT moderators: if this comment isn't published, would you please let me know why? Have I been banned?]
First, if there are devoted conservatives why aren't the others called devoted liberals? The term activists is loaded, implies radicalism and causes presumptions. Are not the devoted conservative radical? Or are they an angry Trumpian mob?
Second, it is my view that Howard Richards is correct in calling the mass in the center the "middle-wing extremists" because they have more inertia pulling our hopes and dreams and visions into their black hole of despair, or as this study refers to it, into their exhaustion. This suffocating mass pulls so hard into the mushy and mucky swamp through sheer force of its gravitational pull that it is a form of extremism that reaches out to all but the very edges of patriotism that this editorial focuses on, the folks with missions in their lives on the left and right. There is no real honesty in claiming the middle-wing extremists have missions they're willing to fight for, unless you construe their slothful smothering a worthy civic patriotic goal worthy of our nation's ideals.
I am one of those few percent on the left, and I can say for myself, I find it easier to respect my few adversaries on the far right than it is the deadening sucking and exhausted mass wallowing in the center draining the life force out of our society on Big Mac at a time.
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It's not just the wealthy or elite on the left who support identity politics. It's much of the progressive left, and indeed, identity politics is becoming mainstream due to the willingness of Democrats and those on the left to cave in to what are and should be viewed as extremist positions.
Those on both left and right need to "get smarter" and moderate their positions, look more deeply into issues, not let themselves be led by the nose with political rhetoric that appeal on the surface, but are full of contradictions and bad ideas.
"Unfortunately, people in the exhausted majority have no narrative. They have no coherent to organize their thinking and compel action."
Perhaps that is the correct way to go about it? Perhaps that means that the Exhausted Majority do not rely on preprogrammed, strictly enforced, narrowly focused doctrines of the extremes but rather look at individual issues/etc and modify their "philosophic worldview" to fit reality ... rather than the other way around.
In other words, instead of the "all I have is a hammer, so all problems are nails" way of thinking, the exhausted middle says "that's a screw, so I need s screw driver, this is a nail, so I need a hammer, over there is a nut, I better get a wrench ..."
The basic problem with the "More in Common" survey, and in turn with the entire column and the process itself, is the tendency to divide the electorate into clusters.
At the basic level, we are are in a cluster of one voter. I have never found another person who agrees with every one of my views and I suspect I never will. Politicians analyze this sort of study and craft their message based on it, then wonder why they lose.
She's a female candidate, so she will carry the female vote. He has put down illegal immigrants, so the Hispanic vote will turn on him. These sorts of analysis would be laughable, if they didn't influence the candidates public performances so much.
If a candidate wants to reach me, he or she needs to tell me, not what I want to hear, but what they really think and want to do. If the message resonates with me, there's my vote; if not, I'll find someone who does.
I am not part of a group, I am an individual.
We are in the midst of a Second Civil War led by the new Constitutional nullfiers Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and what has now become a 21st century racist, nativist, misogynist Trumpublican Party. It's the party of the Gilded Age where the Robber Barons have morphed into oligarchs; of segregationists now clothed as opponents of immigration by black and brown people from sh**hole countries; of those opposed to the woman's suffrage movement to obtain the right to vote who now are the bare-knuckled white male patriarchy opposed to the #MeToo movement demanding human decency, equality and respect for women. It's the Second Civil War to free women from sexual bondage whether its control over their bodies including the right to an abortion or to confront male sexual predators. This is war and the next major battle takes place on November 6 where the forces of darkness arrayed with their weapons of gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and purged voter rolls hope to defeat women and the men who love and care for them from obtaining the freedom and equality that are the bedrock values of our democracy. Yes, it's political; yes, like the first Civil War it's led by those of wealth; and yes, like the first Civil War it is to save the Union so that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
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Worst democracy money can buy.
If America is a beacon of Democracy, then Democracy sucks and gets bought by the rich.
My argument is that Democracy requires strict controls over commerce and investment because the 'natural' way is totalitarian, like all rich people think.
1
Why not a greater effort to reach that "exhausted majority " ? You and Mark Shields do it all to briefly one night per week. Years ago before his involvement in politics Michael Dukakis had a program on PBS where certain subjects were debated with civility. Panels were made up of conservatives and liberals representing both sides of the issue and allowed an adequate amount of time to make their points. Five minutes of substance between commercials does't do it for me.
"Unfortunately, people in the exhausted majority have no narrative."
The reason people in the center have no narrative is because a narrative forces you to the edges. Centerist liberals and centerist conservatives can agree on some things and work together. If you're not careful, once you define a platform for yourself, you lock it in place, and anyone who doesn't go along is an opponent.
Even my previous statement about locking a narrative in place isn't absolute. You need core beliefs, but you need to examine them against new information and the current conditions to ensure that they remain relevant and workable. This makes for a flexible narrative, which is difficult to explain and sell to a wide audience.
Tolstoy had an interesting take on this phenomenon. He said that both liberalism and conservative come with their own set of advantages and problems. When one or the other has been dominant for too long, the problems accumulate until they become too odious, then the other replaces it. It starts fixing the problems of the other side, and it starts accumulating the problems unique to itself.
If con-men like the hideous Trump keep emerging with the snake-oil the US public seems to crave, then nothing will change and will most like get even worse.
The rich will never be satisfied until every loose $ is under their control. They will continue to install obedient stooges who will shovel more and more money their way. No matter if the country and the environment is destroyed. They want MORE.
You used to be able to buy torches and pitchforks in the Sears Catalog...
The amazing thing here is how small the groups on the extreme are. And yet our campaign laws after the activist Robert’s Courts Citizen United debacle has given the uber rich on both extremes enormous voice
Where is the money to simultaneously combat these extremes ever going to come from? Just seems hopeless
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I have heard that 93% of all statistics are just made up. This column makes me wonder if the Trump Administration is representing Committed Conservatives why they seem so eager to blow up the status quo and why Progressive Activists seem to have more faith in big government and regulation...
You cannot make an assertion such as ‘93% of statistics are made up’, without reference consisting of evidence and proof. Your subsequent statements assume this assertion is true.
If A, then B.
I assert A, without proof.
Therefore B.
It’s called magical thinking. Not logic, and not Reason.
I think president Obama understood perfectly that the way to win an election is to appeal to the centrists and not the extremists. Unfortunately, Democrats seem to have already forgotten that. They think they can out-Trump Trump. Obama's motto was "hope and change", for today's Democrats it's "kick 'em when they're down". I only hope Democrats come to their senses soon. Those of us who are moderates would really like someone to vote for.
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"People in the exhausted majority have no narrative". Really David where have you been? Their narrative has moved the economy, world politics and restored America's position as a world leader. Granted it isn't what the liberal left envisions, but they had eight years in the sun with Obama so let your right leaning brethren have their turn.
‘Restored America’s position as a world leader’? Read the comments from readers outside the US on this thread; and then revisit your assertion.
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@Albert K Henning
I have revisited and here's what I've learned Al - no one likes being caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Trump did and they don't like it.
Dear David Brooks: This nation would not have formed were it not for "radical" Enlightenment ideals and the power of the individual to help shape the society. Call it a "cult" if you will, but these cults form the backbone of our laws and liberties.
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"When they get one I suspect it will look totally unlike the two dominant narratives today. These narratives are threat narratives."
Here are a few threat narratives:
You are old and you don't know if your savings + social security will be enough for your remaining years.
You are young and working two low paid jobs and you don't have time to parent your kids.
You are a well-paid 50-year-old middle manager and you just got downsized.
You just graduated from college and you have a mountain of debt and an unpaid internship.
You are sick and have to choose between food and medicine.
You are human and would like to think that civilization will survive a couple of generations before the Four Horsemen, following climate change, solve our species' problems permanently.
And in much of the world these would still count as high-class problems.
Remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs? First we deal with the basics - food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Then we sit around and consider what to do with all the abundance.
A very interesting intellectual response to the divide that is now shattering America.
But the truth of the matter is this 'Rich White Civil War' is still primarily between races and not progressives and conservatives -- and so is the divide.
If anything, this president has shown us just how far we've drifted away from the next political paradigm that you, and many Americans yearn for, one that is based on abundance, gifts, and hope. And might I add, equality.
It's hard to achieve all these things for all people when the leadership isn't there.
And regardless of the two dominant narratives going on in our society today, it isn't.
That's why the only abundance there is, is an abundance of hatred...SAD.
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Mr. Brooks is trying. I’ll give him that. But it’s intellectual gobbily-good formed from a book he read. There is no way the US government is morally defendable right now. And I’m not on one side or the other politically. I’m not even an American. But the NYT allows me to have a voice. Your government’s actions concerns all of us. Thank you.
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"But the people who make positive change usually focus on gifts, not deficits. They tell stories about the assets we have and how we can use them together."
So Liberals, you mean.
Another example of false equivalency. Mr. Brooks is like the middle child who tells the younger sibling to make peace in the family by tolerating the agression and lies of the bullying eldest sibling.
Enough already! Beliefs are fine, but facts cannot be negated by faith. In the past I’ve been impressed by Brooks’ rational thought, but lately he’s become ungrounded. Time to recenter your thoughts around opinions about the facts rather than people’s beliefs, David.
This is a pithy editorial. One of the problems sustaining the cultist divide is the battle between the moderate media and Fox News. The battle heated up during the George W. Bush Presidency. The moderate media found a way to temper the battle with shows like Jon Stewart's. It was the collapse of the economy in 2008 that shifted the balance allowing Obama to win. Possibly it will take the economy collapsing under Trump to mitigate the hold on the right wing cults by Fox News. I think this editorial hits on the central forces creating havoc in our country with outside encouragement by Russian operatives.
The right is given to violence, preferably institutional: The left is given (in this country at least)to Gumbaya. I prefer issues and I would argue that a majority ot the electorate do also. I also think the 'center' is not at all center. I offer polls on healthcare, education, gun control as evidence. All are to the far left of most opinion leaders and politicians. I abhor violence - institutional or otherwise, though I'm, admittedly, capable of it myself when sufficiently provoked. And I vastly prefer jazz and classical to Gumbaya (exposure causes me to break out into mental hives).
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TEACHER: OK, class, what did we learn from this article?
[SILENCE]
TEACHER: Come on, we must have learned something.
JOSH: Um... if you divide a population into sections, you can ask questions of people in each section, to try to learn something...
TEACHER: That's right, Josh. And these categories were based on the political views of the people.
VICTORIA: Also, if you ask political questions to people in the most extreme sections, they will have different answers.
TEACHER: Right.
TREVOR: Isn't that kind of obvious?
TEACHER: What do you mean?
TREVOR: They put them into these political-categories, so obviously people with the most extreme views would answer extremely. Duh. And people in the middle are more in common. double-duh.
TEACHER: Very good point, Trevor. I felt that part of the article was not well communicated.
VICTORIA: What about data?
TEACHER: What do you mean?
VICTORIA: It cited a study, but there was no data presented... it seemed vague. There weren't question and answer statistics.
TEACHER: Very good. Virtually no hard data was cited. Some percentages, but simply population sizes, not analysis.
MARK: Just re-stating this random study right?
TEACHER: Yes, primarily commentary without supporting data.... Did we learn anything else?
[SILENCE]
TEACHER: Can anyone summarize?
VICTORIA: Not the best content?
MARK: Therefore, lame and bogus.
[CLASS LAUGHS]
TEACHER: We would state it a bit more carefully, Mark, but that seems to be the consensus.
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@Chip Leon -- all good points, cleverly made. But beyond that, did you notice that what Brooks claims it says, is not what it says?
@Lee Harrison, Thank you. Yes, you are exactly right. Brooks' columns these days almost always manipulate a narrative without foundation, instead of examining facts. In years past I used to admire Brooks for his somewhat broader perspective. Sadly, now, I find all of his columns deeply disturbing for their disregard for the truth hidden behind a pretense of reasonableness.
And where exactly in the spectrum do YOU fall Mr. Brooks? The champion of compassion and empathy that you claim to be would have to fall into the progressive camp.
Sidebar to Mr. Brook's note about the current situation being similar to the religious wars after the invention of the printing press. You can make an argument that government in the US is similar to the rule of the medieval church: corrupt at its core, bought and paid for.
There used to be an extreme left, and that was the communism of Lenin and Stalin. In the US the most extreme were the SDS, a group that advocated violence to oppose the Vietnam war. All that remains today of the extreme left are a few intemperate hotheads. Progressive Democrats may advocate policies that are left of the main stream but they are by no means radical nonsense. Brooks looks for an equivalence between extreme right and extreme left in the US, but at this time there is only one extreme that presents a danger to US norms and it comes from the right, not so much in the form of an ideology but rather as an assault on what used to be taken for granted: respect for facts, accepting that there is such a thing as a legitimate opposition, religious tolerance, compassion for human beings in distress. That is the real divide today.
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@serban He is actually right and you are proving it by painting the contrast instead of caring where most Americans land on the scale. If most Americans are indeed moderates then why is the majority voiceless?
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“ don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred.”
This "next" paradigm is already here, David.
It more likely describes the progressive side by... let's look at the research...around 98% vs the conservative one by around 3%.
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Seems to me likely you are partly or largely studying the definitions. Yes, the extremes are (well) extreme and people do tend to think like people they talk to. However, their DEFINITIONS make them extreme, at least in part, not their thoughts, which largely put them into their categories. I say this as a moderate, who holds strongly holds to positions chosen from both extremes, and who would likely not make it to either extreme. Rich, old, white male, as if that matters.
The Republican Party has worked singlemindedly to concentrate wealth in the hands of a tiny elite and have largely succeeded. Of course most Americans are exhausted. They are stripped of their resources and leisure time. Congratulations, GOP.i
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The most crucial issue is regard for truth, for evidence, for a distinction between valid and invalid arguments, for science. There is no equivalency here. It is a given that Trump lies whenever it suits him and even when it doesn't. No surprise. But what is astonishing is the support or acceptance he has from people who should know better. The Saudi journalist case is the latest example. This acceptance of Trump's disregard for truth and facts is why I have heard not a single good faith defender of Trump. If you can name one, please do.
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As a logic professor I am heartened to find so many people pointing out the 'false equivalency' fallacy at the heart of this editorial. To the sound points already made about the differences between the two parties I would add that the fundamental difference between left and right is that the right begins with preconceived ideas that they hold fast to based on motivations that are largely emotional (love of country, disdain for otherness, fear of losing privilege...) and then cherry pick their arguments to shore up that narrative in deductive fashion; the left, with a bit more humility to begin with, allows facts and evidence to enter the conversation first, and then derives evidence-based conclusions in inductive fashion. One example: abortion--no one really "likes" abortions--but the right clings to their disgust and then just vilifies their opponents and resorts to angry rhetoric to shout down the other side (like Planned Parenthood, which does a whole lot more than provide abortions); meanwhile the left, recognizing that "abstinence only sex ed" has never provided evidence of being effective, supports a woman's right to her own reproductive freedom, while also supporting sex ed that is honest, condom distribution, etc. that has evidence to support its effectiveness in reducing unwanted pregnancy. The right is a religious cult based on beliefs; the left accepts the evidence of science to draw a conclusion. You cannot tell me that these "extreme" views are the same.
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There is more than a little moral equivalency here, and it assumes that Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives "all do it" in terms of tactics and behavior. Progressive Activists don't try to prevent Americans from voting, exercise personal choice, the right to organize, or earn a decent wage. Nor do they consider unlimited corporate money as "free speech." The Progressive Activists also do not have their own news network (MSNBC is analogous to FOX). Despite wrapping themselves in the flag, Devoted Conservatives are anti-Democratic: They want the power and money concentrated at the top, with the illusion of "freedom" at the bottom via the right to own a firearm and burn coal.
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@Gordon Swanson Power concentrates at the top in both parties. The point isn’t about who is right or wrong. The point is that neither extreme represents the majority of people and if we want democracy then shouldn’t that be the goal? Shouldn’t government represent the moderate majority?
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The extremes are where the big donors are, so politics gets more polarized to conform to their views.
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"ideas really do drive history."
Today, though, Mr. Brooks - it's technology and technology alone that's driving history. The rise of the "extreme cults" can't be explained separate from the rise of extreme technologies.
The next political paradigm can be found in the clouds, stars and beyond. Actually, it's here. You just can't see it. None of us can.
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Fine, but it doesn't explain Trump--how he won the primaries and the general election.
Simple.
He lied like crazy, whipped up racist hatred, played on the smugness of the Left, and played a lot of the media for suckers. Also, little things like a whopping heap of gerrymandering and some interesting help from some guy named Putin.
Add in legit grievances from working people who think they been screwed—they’re right, but the Right has been prepping them to blame everybody but the actual culprits for twenty years or so—et voila!
Le Président Greedhead.
David Brooks provides a different way of looking at things, which often challenges my ideas and either changes my mind or clarifies my thinking. Lately, however, he's fallen into a pattern of falsely equivocating the left and the right. A belief in abundance, gifts, and hope? That pretty much describes me and every leftist I know. A belief in deficits, fear, and hatred? Spot-on description of every conservative I know, which includes most of my family.
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Brooks leaves an impression of extreme differences in American identity, I suspect falsely, in paragraph eleven. After a long string of comparisons between the two extremes using exact percentages for various beliefs, Brooks says, "Progressive Activists are nearly three times as likely to say they are ashamed to be American as the average voter." This difference is nothing like the other comparisons, which are on the order of 76% vs. 3%, 86% vs. 13%, 91% vs. 12%. I have so far been unable to find this statistic in the actual report, but I suspect that "shame" in being an American is very rare in both camps.
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I don't hear either of the rich factions clamoring to overhaul and simplify the tax code, eliminating tax breaks for themselves. The social issues/culture war are convenient distractions for the masses, as they merrily cache money where the tax man goeth not.
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Actually, Obama did. Paul Krugman did. Buffett did. Many wealthy lefties did. Look it up.
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It comes down to basics.
The Republican/Right/Conservative view is narrow and easy to follow: I/we want to protect what is mine/ours. Money, “rights”, control.
The Democratic/Left/Liberal view is broad, diverse, and allows for different ways to follow: I/and more often We - want to include more and protect more, and control should be used to ensure that happens. It is harder to do this. It takes work and understanding, and here’s a word - compassion.
A unity of ideals is easy to herd - when one wants the protection of the flock, and when one trusts the shepherd. Diversity of ideals in the real world of people is tougher.
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If what you say is true - and I would love to believe their is room for a centrist, more differentiated political conversation - then why are there no dominant voting majorities that set the tone for either left or right?
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Thanks, David, for sharing these findings. I am torn by your interpretation of the results. I fit into the Progressive Activist category. Having my thought process and current stances thought to be “cultish” offends me. I have arrived at this mindset at this moment in our political history (at the age of 61) as the result of a long journey brimming with experiences. Nothing I believe today is due to any desire to strengthen my liberal creds. Most of it comes from a morphing of values I was raised with.
Born into a very conservative Irish Catholic family, I attended Catholic schools from Kindergarten through Graduate School. My early values were all those of Catholic Orthodoxy. I became more and more frustrated through the years with the stifling patriarchy controlling the church, as I experienced such cluelessness among the clergy about the real world, not to mention early signs close to me of clergy sex abuse atrocities.
I spent my career in the public school system. Our school was filled with many vibrant immigrant families. Our gay students and gay teachers were just wonderful, smart, kind, creative people. I got to know so many homeless families living in shelters, and families struggling without healthcare. My rupture with my traditional Catholic values and my transition to the progressive side was the result of my broader Christian values. I seek a society that is kind, that helps the sick and the poor, that judges not, that expects much for those who have much. Cult?
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“ don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred.” Mr. Brooks, we had a glimmer of your proposition under the Obama Administration. It was crushed by a GOP led Congress in their craven capitulation to this Administration.
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"My second big takeaway from the report is that ideas really do drive history. Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives organize around coherent philosophical narratives."
...appears difficult to resolve with:
"In many cases, 97 to 99 percent of Progressive Activists said one thing and 93 to 95 percent of Dedicated Conservatives said the opposite. There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity. "
2
I think this opinion piece is spot on. Those on the extremes want us to believe that our options are limited to those extremes. They play off of the black and white stark contrasts as if there aren’t thousands of shades of grey to choose from. Our choices aren’t just Trump’s world view vs Sanders’ world view. There is a lot of space in between. That’s where the vast majority of the nation exists. Democrats are actually right that the nation is due for a course correction in their favor. Democrats are wrong to believe that this is an opening to push the policies of the extreme left.
3
I know it may not have been your aim, David - but thank you for, even if inadvertently, pointing out that as much as conservatives malign identity politics, that it truly is the force driving them the most as well as for those on the left.
3
Sounds like a compelling case for mandatory voting.
Was just thinking today that Hickenlooper, the sane Colorado Gov, would make a great Dem Unity ticket with Warren, Sanders or another left candidate. The future maybe the party that can unite their center and extreme parts that are more likely to vote.
4
These characterizations never seem to reflect any people I actually know. Everyone I know has mixed views of the world.
And what is up with this widely bandied about hate for “PC” that keeps getting discussed by pundits? PC is what I was taught by my grandmother (born 1903): You should be polite to others. Don’t shout, don’t call them names, treat everyone - children, elderly, rich, poor - with respect. How the heck has that become the object of such universal hatred?
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Thank you. Was thinking the same thing. I have many conservative friends who rant on and on about political correctness. If only that rage could be directed toward the fact that, say, we have no national health care.
@Cooofnj "PC" has been redefined to an unpopular term via Fox News and other conservative media outlets. It is now only popularly defined only as the excesses of the radical left fringe in prohibiting certain forms of speech and behavior. Examples are: wearing cornrows in your hair if you are not black is "Cultural appropriation". Mistakenly calling a transgender person by the wrong pronoun (even if they don't look particularly like their preferred gender) is bigotry. I grew up with your definition of "PC". It would be great if we could take the term back.
Thank you David Brooks!
Please help me with a question.
Applying the notion of CULT to the two extremes suggests that neither have a brain or are thinking as you suggest. What if this CULT concept should not be applied symmetrically? What if one direction is better?
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Individuality in pursuit of character and individuality in pursuit of financial and social capital, an earlier distinction of Brooks, is still individuality, and undergirds this column on tribalism. A tribalism based on individuality is still individuality. The problem, to my mind (you guessed it) is Brooks’ view of individuality and its importance to present cultural movements. Tribbalism also needs attention (some would call it “community”).
There’s no easy solution in a culture where “the soul” has been replaced by “the self” and, following Mark Lilla, a “Facebook self” at that, which can apparently be constructed according to whim.
John Dewey had a better, more sophisticated, understanding of individuality. It would be a good corrective.
The study is very interesting but I wonder what tribes are being marketed to with the inflammatory title? The hopeful content seems at odds with the title.
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Beto is delivering just this message. Listen, learn, lead with humanity rather than dehumanization. He's setting the model for leadership that we need.
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Add one more issue to the civil war mentality. Guns.
A majority of Devoted Conservatives think their guns may be confiscated by anyone not affiliated with the NRA. Devoted Progressives and nearly everyone else think, "What? Common sense says we need to regulate dangerous weapons."
(To quote Trump, you don't give an arsonist matches. This applies to gun control. Thank you, Donald... I'm finally able to quote you.)
So, what I get from Mr Brook's piece is that our politicians have to cater to the fringes. They have to grab the votes and make a bigger tent, so they seek out the extremists and blow a few dog whistles to get them on board. To some extent dog whistle politics are sustaining the Devoted Conservatives and Devoted Progressives. Now, why again is it so hard to elect decent people to office. It's the two party duopoly.
Here is to wishing their was a vaccine for the duopoly, close-mindedness and extremism.
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Brooks has finally surpassed himself. The ultimate, uber False Equivalence. He's so good at that. Some on the left are rich and white, yeah. But mostly THEY'RE working for economic justice...not to preserve THEIRS.
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This is ridiculous. "Progressive Activists" are a fictional category of More in Common and David Brooks that describe a group of high profile, disciples of mainstream media's moral agenda. These fashion-minded, educated professionals are identity politics socialites - not socialists. They haven't a clue about Marx, Debs, Haymarket Square, the American labor movement, the New Deal, etc.. True progressives concern themselves with the plight of the average American, our median (and not mean) statistics, the working men and women of the country - those that get paid by the bushel or by the hour. Salaried folks, consultants and those paid with stock options/dividends have very different concerns - and Brooks listens to them and, not surprisingly, finds hypocrisy. It's one of his straw men.
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In a column in which Brooks sets up his favorite punching bag, he shows us the wide divergence between Progressive Activists on the one hand and Devoted Conservatives on the other. In the midst of this rant against both extremes, he throws in this:
"Progressive Activists are nearly three times as likely to say they are ashamed to be American as the average voter."
Without reason, without explanation, and most likely without fact, Progressive Activists are now posed against the "average voter" who one suspects, hopes, is not a Devoted Conservative.
How odd. But terribly consistent. Brooks has always always always ranted against progressive polices and candidates. He often depicts criticism of policy or administration to be anti-American, especially when it comes to our never ending war. Occasionally he puts down the Devoted Conservative, but only when it serves his attack on progressive policies, especially those designed to lessen economic inequality (which doesn't seem to bother him) or promote climate control.
I feel like I've just read a lecture given to rich white Yale students and their parents.
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@Mark Rabine -- I am really ashamed that our country put Trump in office.
David misuses that report -- you need to go read it to see how falsely -- but on this narrow is he does actually quote "correctly" in a technical sense ... but makes that common underhanded trick of partial quotation:
"Almost three times more likely to be “ashamed to be an American” - 69% V. 24%"
24% of all Americans say they are "ashamed to be an American" ... since only 8% of Americans are identified as "Progressive Activists" ... the large majority of people who say this are NOT Progressive Activists!
David should be embarrassed by this piece. If he wrote it in grade-school or high school it would get a D, for gross misattributions, and just making bleep up and claiming somebody else said it.
1
No shock. Most major political revolutions around the world and throughout history (French, Russian, Iranian revolutions, etc) have been led by the wealthy educated upper classes.
Only the American media has decided to ignore this fact and pretend that "poor populists" are the leaders. Poor people don't even vote at the same rates as middle and upper income folks! :)
I’m fed up with right wingers like Brooks shilling the false equivalency / equal threat argument, while minimizing the dangers and corruption of the Trump administration just so they can make a specious argument that somehow the Left is equally bad. Baloney. Any bad behaviors on the party of Dems going back to FDR pales in comparison to the stunning list of extremes Trump and co have gotten up to in the past two years. That Brooks can’t see (or admit) that merely confirms what so many have thought of him for so long, just another partisan hack.
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The coming political/economic reality, if not narrative, in the U.S. regardless of political/economic thought and action by any political party or all political parties put together?
Take the most vicious criminal, conceive of such a person any way you like, in fact it matters little whether your conception of this person conforms to reality or is a conglomeration of characteristics from the imagination. Now conceive of the opposite type person, what you consider a good person, and again it matters little whether you are speaking of an ideal or hewing close to reality, what is actual possibility. Now what do these opposite poles have in common, or rather how can we expect society to respond, to be formed, regardless of the direction, "good" or "evil" faced?
The answer to that is obvious: Take a look at a zoo. Take a look at separation of aggressive from passive animals in a laboratory. What the most evil person and the "best" person have in common is that they must be separated, that the one must be protected from the other, that exclusion or division must occur, and that no matter how sophisticated society becomes, no matter how fine and just its perception, no matter the good or evil of a person or people, it appears so far just walls, cells, are created, that humans are boxed in, parceled out, contained, controlled, and that obviously any number of things can only make this sad destiny worse, such as overpopulation...
Twiddle dum, twiddle dee mathematician.
We need a charismatic firebrand to excite and motivate the "exhausted majority". Please! Now! More than ever!
21 yrs of crazy fox news has brought us to this point. Discourse was much more civil prior to
Fox. The fake outrage, hyperbole & jingoism has
given the over 50 crowd high blood pressure & rage as they listen to Rush during the day & Fox at night.
5
“ ... [and there are] others [progressives] who thought we need to be emancipated from oppressive structures so we can be free.”
This is nonsense. Liberals don’t argue for Hippie Freedom from all Structures. We contend that the country needs proper, responsive government structures, fair democratic representation in Congress and the Senate (no gerrymandering, no voter suppression, please), and compassionate national policies to try to insure that every citizen has food, housing, and healthcare.
This approach seems to work pretty well in Sweden.
But Mr. Brooks is arguing, as usual, that black is white and up is down, they’re all the same, liberals and conservatives. Those darned Lefties just want freedom. Dancin’ in the streets! Conservatives just want stability.
Balogna. And baloney.
Mr. Brooks has earned his living for years as a man who straddles a high fence and brags about it. I quietly hope that position is uncomfortable but expect he’s used to it.
5
I HOPE you're right, David!
So on one extreme the progressives are “activists” and on the other the conservatives are “devoted.” Are the progressives not also devoted, and are the conservatives not also activists? Why the distinction?
3
Another book report from David Brooks. His adoption of the book's premise that "[T]he good news is that once you get outside these two elite groups you find a lot more independent thinking and flexibility" is pure pipe dream. The middle has been co-opted by the creeping fascism of the plutocracy. They are being pitted against anyone who is seen as 'not us' by thosee who are also robbing them blind.
3
Brooks is at it again. Trying to draw an absurd moral equivalency between the hard-right and progressives. His entire premise is fallacious - comparing an immigrant hating cohort to a LGBT supportive cohort - and using well respected data to draw out these misleading conclusions is sinister, at the very least. It’s a classic case of cherry-picking credible data to hammer out a pre-determined line of thinking.
Mr Brooks, you can do better than this sham.
4
@Sameer -- go read the report he cites -- it doesn't say what he claims it says.
"hope not hatred" - wasn't that Obama's mantra? Whatever happened to that? Where did it go to?
4
Once again we see that the “intellectual elite” are, in fact, completely incapable of recognizing the difference between legal immigrants and illegal aliens.
Folks, it just ain’t that difficult.
Regulated legal immigration is a reasonable policy and legal immigrants may be beneficial to the country that admits them. Illegal aliens are criminals who commit criminal acts when illegally entering the country.
Unfortunately, articles and editorials in the liberal media intentionally conflate these terms in hopes of confusing the discussion and avoiding the obviously criminal status of illegal aliens.
1
@Again -- is everyone who has broken any law "a criminal?"
I find it improbable that you are not "a criminal" by that definition.
Furthermore large numbers of the illegal aliens in the USA were brought here as children. They cannot be identified as criminals by any reasonable definition.
The problems of these illegal aliens are real, both for them and for us. Instead of simply engaging in sophomoric word games why don't you tell us what policies you support in their regard?
These ideological definitions are severely strained — like everything else today — by the singularity of Donald Trump.
Devoted Conservatives, with their supposedly deep commitments to traditional Judeo-Christian values, military service and personal responsibility, “should have” nominated a devout and morally upstanding retired Marine general for President.
That they instead nominated and worship a corrupt, philandering, whiny draft-dodger who kowtows to foreign dictators and fires staffers by Tweet says more about bigotry and greed as motives than about any coherent philosophy.
6
Check out Beto for the next paradigm.
Add youth to your list.
1
While I agree that it maybe the rich whites who are battling, only the liberal/progressive camp that is fighting for EVERYONE, to have their basic needs met and are willing to pay their tax dollars to make it so!
And to emphasize my camp designation-
I still don’t even know what the term policy correct means... seems like a desire to be straight up racist and or mean.
1
think? Americans do not think. I call it the "dont squeeze the charmin" phenomenon. Proctor and Gamble invested hundreds of millions to get Americans to think "Charmin" when they bought toilet paper. conservatives have invested billions to convince Americans to think that Hillary Clinton is a criminal and not "one of us". Conservatives have been extremely effective in directing the conversation and language. From welfare queens, climate change is a hoax, lock her up, immigrants are bad. it's very easy to corrupt to public mind. very difficult to build a coherent culture. easy to break. hard to fix. the problem is the elite conservatives have broken what was exceptional.
4
It is insulting to say that people with strong views on the left or the right are not thinking for themselves. Please.
2
Nailed it! The 1% is for the 1%- have you checked out the "donation" required to attend the Obama's upcoming speaking tour? or Hillary's? Wishing for moral high ground and none in sight.
1
Sorry, Mr. Brooks, your adjectives reveal the bias you seem to try to avoid. "Activist" vs. "Devoted." Now, let’s see: which side are we supposed to trust? And so what if you didn’t make up these categories, you present them to make your case. Which is...I don’t know, "Don’t worry, be happy?" Have you read the reports on climate change? Get serious.
4
"There have always been some people who thought we need hierarchical structures to keep us safe and others who thought we need to be emancipated from oppressive structures so we can be free."
Yes and one of those people on the latter side said that a man who is willing to sacrifice liberty for security deserves neither. You look it up.
3
Every person of color I know is a progressive. Almost none of them are wealthy. Statistics back me up on this. David Brooks' thesis FAILS yet again...I am so weary of this "a pox on both their houses" false narrative.
8
I sincerely hope that the exhausted majority comes to believe that immigration is overall a good thing, that Islam is at it's core no more or less violent than any other religion, that children should be civil as well as creative, that racism and sexism are persistent problems that will take all of our efforts to overcome and that our fates are in our control but we need to work on making our society more just. Kind of 85% progressive with a sprinkling of 15% conservative.
3
At last Brooks finds a study that spouts his idea of tribalism. Low and behold it turns out what we have are two tribes of fighting Whites, Progressive Activists vs. Devoted Conservatives (Donald Trump presumably being one of the latter). “There’s little evidence of individual thought, just cult conformity,” says Brooks of both sides. Which sounds to me a lot like Trump’s “both sides” were to blame for the violence in Charlottesville. At least Brooks is finally cottoning to idea that race has something to do with the problem. Maybe if the white folks would just stick together, things would be fine.
Democrats and cries of race war go together like tea and crumpets.
But let's examine one small microcosm, New York City.
The Democrats have had a stranglehold on politics in NYC since the days of Tammany Hall, which in fact have never ended.
So it isn't the political actions of rich white Republicans who have caused NYC to evolve the way it has.
Yet after promising prosperity the entire time what do we find ? The Democrats who run NYC have left the ghettos and the people in them, to rot. They haven;t llifted a finger to elevate the lives of the people who live there.
Occasionally, they bulldoze one so that rich Democrats can build new multimillion dollar townhouses, though.
They get the votes so the strategy works. But only because the people watching the magic show are watching the hats instead of the hands.
Clear eyed viewers see that the only way that the Democratic party has survived is to propagate racism and then blame it on someone else.
Gulliani, Bloomberg, and all the other NYC Democrats.
@Objectivist -- wow ... Fiorello H. La Guardia, John Lindsay (first term), Rudy Giuliani, Bloomberg.
Guess you never heard of them, eh?
Why is it that EVERY right-wing argument we see put forward here makes some bizarre whopping bald-faced lie like "The Democrats have had a stranglehold on politics in NYC since the days of Tammany Hall?"
Why is it that right-wingery today seems to live in its bubble of made-up nonsense, immersed in it so thoroughly that they can make claims like this in public, thinking it will do anything other than just draw howls of derision?
@Corbin
Who cares, mayors come and go. And Bloomberg is RINO Republican, like Charlie Baker.
It's City Council that counts, and it has always been overwhelmingly populated with Democrats.
Besides, since 1900 there have only been been six Republican mayors in NYC.
Whoa! What sort of a scale posits creative on one side and well behaved on the other???? Every creative bone in my body urges me to pitch a fit......and yet, I choose to write a note expressing my dismay!
2
Of course there are white well educated people on the right. Those are the ones in power and want to maintain control through keeping the populous poorly educated and in poor health. Those people are easier to control.
Reverse Citizens United before it is too late.
Before our plutocracy ruins us all.
Democrats: Progressive intellectual reasoners.
Republicans: Regressive emotional reasoners.
6
@Rick -- you consider Donald Trump "well educated?" Really?
Slick, shallow, and perpetuating stereotypes already too strong in our national conversation. The Powerful (who have historically been white and rich in the U.S.) have always dominated the extremes of conversation. They dominate bec they are powerful, i.e., white and rich. D-u-h.
Perhaps if Brooks had reversed his #1 (tribalism) and #2 (force of ideas), he would have written a more meaningful essay.
1
Brooks claims that this report says that It’s a war between privileged Progressive Activists and privileged Devoted Conservatives:
"These two groups are the richest of all the groups. They are the whitest of the groups. Their members have among the highest education levels, and they report high levels of personal security."
HIDDEN TRIBES DOES NOT SAY THAT!
DCs are identified as –
(pg 9) white, retired, highly engaged, uncompromising,
patriotic.
(pg 54) "– 19% more likely to be white - 88% V. 69%, 14% more likely to be older than 65 - 34% V. 20% - and much less likely to be born between 1985 and 2000 - 11% V. 27%, More likely to come from the South - 45% V. 38%
PAs are identified as:
(Pg 9) younger, highly engaged, secular, cosmopolitan, angry
(Pg 30) 11% more likely to be white - 80% V. 69%, 7% more likely to be between ages 18 and 29 - 28% V. 21%, Twice as likely to have completed college - 59% V. 29%
Brooks' claim about "security" does not come from this report at all! "Security" only appears (pg 67) in the context of "Religious Identity and Security" ... and " religion has been strongly connected to national security debates, because of the association between Islam and terrorism. " The rest of this is too long to summarize here, but nothing like what Brooks claims.
David, this is ridiculous. You'd get a D or worse in any grade-school for this. I'll never trust an attribution or claim from you again.
16
And the only group that is identified as well off are the "Traditional Conservatives," NOT the "Devoted Conservatives."
What David claims this report says is nothing like what it does say -- he simply goes off on his own making up "stuff" and attributing much of it to this report and taking it's lingo.
In it's own way this is as big an abuse as the first two columns of Bret Stephens, in which he made egregious false claims about what citations said, and actually misquoted one. This generated a firestorm of protest, and Bret ended up making an admission/correction ... sort of. I'll admit though that this one is less harmful, given the subject matter.
One of the bad moments of that Stephens imbroglio was Bennett claiming that op-ed pieces were fact-checked! That generated howls of laughter, of course they aren't., and the errors in Stevens' pieces were proof. (Yeah, right ... Maureen Dowd's pieces must pass fact checking?)
But David Brooks and the New York Times break trust with their readers when pieces like this grossly misuse citations.
Basically this is the kind of thing you expect from the National Enquirer or the Daily Caller or 4Chan. Even FOX News is more subtle than this.
David Brooks always engages in the same false equivalencies. No, this is not just a rich, white civil war. No, both sides don’t behave the same way. Rather, a determined group of wealthy white men have successfully orchestrated a far-reaching propaganda campaign in order to achieve control of the government by copying those susceptible to fear of minorities and imaginary “elites.” End of story.
23
@Richard Cohen
Amen. It's always cries from the right of "they both do it." They may be opposite, but they are not the same.
3
Oh, good. More labels.
1
"I don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred."
That was Obama's message.
It didn't work, and that was not because Progressive Activists rejected it. Devoted Conservatives ridiculed it ("Hopey, Changey"), and brought us Trump. Enough false equivalency. Our nation is being hijacked by the Devoted Conservatives for their personal benefit and demonizing the impotent Progressive Activists is their m.o. This column just feeds that beast.
7
The major variable in this is the fact that the Conservatives have been hijacked by the religious right. This is no longer about ideas, but perversion of society and the subjufication of women.
5
So, what you are really saying is that rich, white liberals -- who are largely unconfined by the structures of racism and class inequality and growing wealth inequality and a hugely unbalanced capital-labor equation -- are much more empathetic than rich, white conservatives?
2
Someone should do a study of the likelihood that David Brooks will look at two extremes and immediately detect a complete equivalency.
1
"I don’t know what the next political paradigm will look like, but I bet it will be based on abundance, not deficits; gifts, not fear; hope, not hatred."
What kind of Conservative are you?
Conservatives have been selling fear of Evolution, climate science, colored people, women, protests involving symbols, condoms, college, food pickers, marijuana, etc for years. That they exempt sexual assault, guns,pollution, white color crime, vote suppression, racism and flag worship is some sort of version of "hope"?
Deplorable -- and I hope you are one of the conservatives that doesn't mean it in a good way.
4
Isn't this kind of a tautology? Defining two extremes and then demonstrating that they have opposite points of view?
1
David Brooks goes to marvelous lengths to claim “both sides do it.”
Mr. Brooks was a key architect of today’s Republican Party. Rather than admit responsibility, he writes column after column pretending that someone else created the Republican Party and, just as important, that Democrats are really bad, too.
So he now identifies two tiny slivers of the electorate, ideologically opposed, and concludes “Haha! That sliver represents all Democrats and that sliver represents all Republicans so there you go, they’re the same!”
This is the worst kind of statistical game-playing. On Election Day we don’t vote for slivers. We vote for a big Democratic Party or a big Republican Party. One party believes in science, the other does not. One party believes in economics, the other does not. One party is racist to its core, the other is not. For all its flaws, one party represents the Enlightenment, the other its opposite. One party is led by Donald Trump, the other is not.
Mr. Brooks spends enormous intellectual effort to avoid the obvious: today’s Republican Party is a monstrosity, and Mr. Brooks helped create it.
5
This is what I have been saying. That the center left and center right form a larger majority than what exists on either pole. I wonder if the answer is a new political party borne of moderates on both sides of the aisle ...
1
@Dean -- the center is apathetic, much of it is simply checked-out.
There's also the problem of a "pox on both your bodies" coupled to a complete absence of any ideas or policies. Much of the center wants stuff, but has no willingness to pursue it, nor any sense of trade-offs.
Do remember Jim Hightower's line: "there's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos?"
That doesn't need to be universally true, but it is unfortunately true today.
1
On the right, folks wake up every morning and say "I've got mine, you get yours". Got my education. Got my job. Got my employer-sponsored health care. Etc.
On the left, folks wonder why the 21st century has to resemble the 14th: beggars in the streets crying "alms for the poor", people dependent on what coins are deposited in the poor box.
Those in the middle are just less-committed versions of the left and right.
1
@Chris -- so why is it that there are people like me? "Got my education. Got my job. Got my employer-sponsored health care. Etc." ... but I'm pretty liberal. (not quite there with Bernie or Ocasio-Cortez)
Please stop comparing the right and the left as equally culpable for our current political climate. The right wing conservatives leading this country at this time are racist, sexist, rich, lying bullies. Liberals are out of power and are vainly struggling to contain the damage being inflicted on our country. Donald Trump and the Republican Party are acting in a blatantly anti-American way and they wholly to blame for the hatred and unrest in our communities.
4
Where are liberals out of power? NYC? LA? San Francisco? Seattle? Chicago? Democrat's hire teachers, police, sanitation workers and everyone else who provides services to the people. Democrat's make the decisions dealing with homelessness or where subsidized housing is located.