At the end of WW II the U.S. was a melting pot. We emphasized AMERICA and in doing so we were one for all and all for one !
We no longer teach that idea. We need to get back to that concept.
1
Why doesn't Bolton just go on CNN and have an interview with Chris Cuomo , William McRaven , Dan Coats ,John Brennan and James Comey ?
22
Right on, David!!
4
Mr.Brooks, I see deep darkness in American politics and no light at the end of the tunnel. I see white supremacists are rising. The KKK members are not ashamed of themselves. They have taken off their hood. We, as nation deeply divided going backward. Half of the nations are in hibernation. Most of us are politically naive,lazy, ignorant and uninterested. Most of the politicians are crook.greedy, immoral ,dishonest and shameless. Our democracy is in ICU but nobody cares. We love Putin more than our FBI and CIA. Trump and McConnell did not start but they are the ultimate fruit of the bitter division. Our three branches-----Executive, legislative and judiciary are dysfunctional and hyper partisan. We are at the point of no hope. I am really scared.
32
"unrestrained liberalism"; "politics of weaving". Brooksian political equivalent for psychobabble.
11
Nah, Mr. Brooks, I'm not going to listen and learn from Trumpians who espouse racial animus and chant "Jews shall not replace us."
Just not going to. They will get their just rewards in the afterlife they so fervently believe in.
20
David Brooks, you are a dreamer.
In Finland you should be.
If there, like Trump, you are a screamer,
you won’t survive. You see?
America’s kaleidoscope
is cowboys roaming free.
It’s kill the other, rope-a-dope,
like Muhammed Ali.
It’s all about myself and me.
At best it’s being tribal.
If you elicit sympathy,
it’s ‘cause you’re not my rival.
No, David Brooks. Your theory
that weaving is our future,
I fear is just a fantasy.
It’s scalpels and no suture.
12
Hard to imagine anything more underwhelming than David Brooks on the future of American politics. After shamelessly promoting right wing rubbish for decades and then adopting a relentless, numbing "bothsiderism" analysis after Bush-Cheney embarrassed even his corrupt soul, Brooks has no legitimacy on the subject of the future of our politics. The Op-Ed page editors really ought to confine Brooks to those obtuse social science topics Brooks so loves to blather about...he's utterly harmless in that realm.
20
I miss President Obama
30
Dershowitz is wrong. You don't "do anything" to help your client "get off". You get to the truth no matter what that takes. His deluded thinking is how we got into this mess in the first place.
12
Spot on!
2
As Clinton noted, It is the Economy stupid
At the bottom it is an economic war, not a tribal war.
It is the elites who won out on globalization, supported by liberal economists, vs the working Americans who saw their jobs disappear to countries where people were willing to work for less
To cite El Pais /2020/01/23/
"Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008, he is a prominent member of the club of progressive American economists, such as Joseph Stiglitz or Jeffrey Sachs; also, of that legion of democrats who did not see the ravages that globalization - together with robotization - would cause in parts of the American society
El Pais, Google Translation ,
(Nobel de Economía en 2008, es miembro destacado del club de economistas estadounidenses de corte progresista, como el a su vez laureado Joseph Stiglitz o Jeffrey Sachs; también, de esa legión de demócratas que no vieron venir los estragos que la globalización —unida a la robotización— causaría en partes de la sociedad estadounidense)
But until the educated see their own jobs move overseas they will not "see the ravages that globalization - together with robotization - would cause in parts of the American society "
10
Even when they are useful, Mr. Brooks has nothing to offer to the national conversation except for tropes he has trotted out now for more than a decade. A more self-aware author would relinquish his position at the Times so that someone with fresh perspectives can benefit from its platform.
13
Each week I am more and more impressed by your slinky ability, David, to impugn all kinds of bad social, cultural or political characteristics without actually naming They Whose Name You Dare Not Speak (Republicans!). Who are you voting for? Biden? Well, that would make sense since he shares your views.
5
Comparing Bernie Sanders, or any Democrat, with the monster in the White House, is despicable and invalidates everything else Brooks has to say. The cult of false equivalencies is dangerous and unsupportable. I implore the NY Times to stop giving such irresponsible drivel legitimacy.
17
The root problem is that David Brooks and other "Republicans are good people" apologists keep writing about how the Republican embrace of fascism is no different than the Democrats returning to the FDR roots.
There were certainly Germans -- and American fascists -- who acted like David Brooks does and devoted their career in the 1930s to normalizing Hitler because he was not a "radical". Like David Brooks, those Hitler enablers insisted that the reprehensible things that Hitler did was no different than what left politicians like FDR did.
For Republican party apologists like David Brooks, the Republican Party's willingness to condone Trump shooting someone on Fifth Avenue is no different than Bernie's proposals being "too radical".
The fact that Brooks doesn't understand that Germans could not achieve any "weaving together" while they embraced Hitler is the real problem. Brooks normalizes what Trump and the Republican Party have embraced in every single column in which he chides "both sides" and sees no difference between his beloved Republicans saying Tump could shoot someone and Bernie's proposals.
Shame on the NY Times for publishing more "Trump and the Republicans being willing to condone Trump no matter how many laws he breaks are no worse than the evil Democrats" dreck from David Brooks.
14
I couldn't get past the first paragraph in this piece.
11
My how much David Brooks has learned over the years I've been reading him! ...Or was it I?
2
Hobbes!?
David- Please stop trolling. We all agree on your simple premise, that "everyone else gets left behind." Then you go on to say: "This is the flaw of unrestrained liberalism." You sound like a scorned lover who points his finger and projects: "It's your fault."
This is the last column of yours that I will read.
11
David,
..."the white Christian patriots"...is exactly how we got here. The "bad" Liberals want a piece of the pie for all Americans, not just the white Christian patriots. This entire flawed concept of white, Christian, patriots has led directly to the rise of the biggest grifter of all, trump. Along with the rise of antisemitism, white nationalism, the nonsense of religious freedom, misogyny, and racism.
This very nonsense is why we are where we are, a failed democracy aiming directly to an Autocratic nation. So, please take your white, Christian, patriots and form your own white Christian nation of patriots elsewhere. Maybe you can lock up all those individuals that what fairness. Your people are so busy crying and whining that you are unable to see true corruption around you.
9
Compelling and true @nytdavidbrooks. See another comparable call to action on the way forward to heal what divides us with #newpragmatism by @wfmeehan today : https://www.forbes.com/sites/williammeehan/2020/01/31/towards-a-more-perfect-union-the-new-pragmatism-embraces-facts-solutions/#4fc882945835
3
Amen.
4
"That means, first, electing leaders who are masters at cooperation,"....suggests Lord Brooks.
But what does America have right now ?
Leaders who are masters at corruption who engage in orchestrated voter suppression campaigns, voter file purges, Olympic gerrymandering, industrial-disinformation-artists, proud court riggers, suspenders of the Constitution, blindly loyal sycophants to a Presidential miscreant of the first order, and slaves to right-wing billionaires and a Reverse Robin Hood dollarcracy.
As civilized countries - which America is NOT - show us, the way forward is through discourse, democracy, compromise, evolution and lifting one's head out of the ideological sand...all of which are dirty words and thoughts to the Grand Old Pirate party which would prefer to stoke the eternal flames of white fear and loathing rather than pay for civilization, schools, roads, airports, infrastructure, public transportation and human healthcare...the basics in life.
Your bottomless well of false equivalence really should be capped off and sealed, Mr. Brooks.
This country has been an international disgrace since it swallowed Ronald Reagan's Kool-Aid and abandoned society to vulture capitalism.
After forty years of unregulated greed, a little turn to the left with someone like Bernie Sanders and a Democratic Congress is the only way to restore human dignity to the country, the Presidency and the American idea.
Sometimes a political enema is just what the doctor ordered.
14
He’s right about a national service program.... And the illustration on the webpage is quilting, not weaving
2
David Brooks is a bleeding heart. Who knew!
You, Brooks, created this monster. You just refuse to take responsibility. Shame.
5
david why dont you run for pres
1
David and his wish lists/columns...Becoming a boring, predictable meme.
3
Sounds good, Mr. Brooks. I very hope that my grandchildren can live in the culture you describe.
Here in the country we live in, however, billionaires, banksters, and multinationals have stolen or purchased every lever at every level of government. Most of us have stood by and watched them do it; many of us have actively helped them do it. Government increasingly serves only the interests of a very few, very rich white men, men who use that stolen power to dictate what is mandatory for and forbidden to the rest of us. Damned near all of us are, in demonstrable fact, their serfs.
They own everything worth owning, rent what’s left to the rabble, and cause their creatures—both the befuddled and the bought—to support and enact governmental policies designed solely to maintain the power of their own hereditary ruling class (most of whom have never worked a day or created anything at all), while paying the nearest thing to nothing in taxes—that is, when they're not outright and handsomely subsidized by the taxpayers they "trickle down" on daily.
So, yes, Mr. Brooks, I'd agree that we the people ought to stop our petty squabbling and get busy weaving our talents, skills, and resources together to create the America our ancestors fought for and that our descendants deserve. Task number one in this worthy endeavor must be—by the most direct path possible and the least forceful means necessary—to cause our governments at last to serve the many, not the few.
9
It just occurred to me that this is one of these moments of very stupid older person telling everyone else how to live, and think there is a popular phrase for that. Pardon any offense, I intend to aim this primarily at the author.
So let me get this straight, Mr. Brooks. You had decades to build a life and future for yourself. You chose to spend that time as a workaholic and Republican. To the point that people my age (in my 30s) are working ourselves crazy trying to build our own lives. Your approach did not work out so well. Now that you got divorced and are in your 60s and came to the realization your approach does not work, you finally rediscovered mundane human relationships. And decided to make the next year or so of your career all about your mid-life crisis.
And now that I am working crazy to build a life to the point I don't have a lot of time left in the day for relationships, and now that I plan to vote for Bernie Sanders... you are all about relationships and electing moderates. After you so thoroughly screwed things up for both yourself and me and many others.
Um, you clearly don't know what you are talking about. So please stop talking. Also...
Okay, Boomer.
9
Well-written bubbe-meise.
Republicans are optimistic that no witnesses will be called. That should make all of us pessimistic about the future of this country as a democratic republic. If Trump is acquitted in a trial in which John Bolton is thwarted from testifying, we may as well give Trump a sword and scepter and anoint him king.
482
@nzierler No, if Republicans in the Senate follow McConnell's lead to a fraudulent outcome, then we should not anoint Trump but work vigorously for his defeat in November. Turnout, Turnout and Turnout. Otherwise, the "may as well" crowd is simply supporting McConnell, Trump and all who look to them for power and money.
37
@nzierler
The bright side to all of this is that the Republicans are enshrining is stone the policy that Congress no longer has ANY authority to oversee the Executive branch.
No more Benghazi hearings, ever.
(and yes, I know that this "policy" will be thrown out the window the second that there is a Democratic president again, and the Republicans will be screaming for investigations at the first sign of a brown suit or Dijon mustard, but they'll just have to learn how to do it without being able to compel witnesses or documents of any kind)
24
@nzierler
That's an absurd argument, already falsified by James Madison in the Federalist Papers.
The House does the investigation and determination of sufficient cause for impeachment, followed by preparation of articles and submittal to the Senate.
Witnesses in the Senate are not required by either the Constitution or Senate rules.
The charlatan Schiff could have, and should have, called any and all witnesses required to make his case during the House investigation, where he could use subpoena power to compel testimony.
He didn't call Bolton, and many others, despite the simplicity of the procedures.
And Nadler stated flatly that the articles submitted to the Senate contain more than enough compelling evidence to substantiate the charges.
Their duplicity is now on display for all to admire.
Both, in the end, will be judged to be clowns. The sad type.
So David do you believe if its and buts we’re fabulous nuts we’d all have a wonderful Christmas?
3
Only David Brooks could call unbridled capitalism “liberalism”.
Sorry, David, that kind of semantic sophistry just won’t fly.
7
Dive deep into the GOP mind, and what you find is the visceral, if somewhat inchoate, hope that about 150 million Americans simply disappear: African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans, people of Jewish faith and heritage, Lesbians, Gay Men, Bi-Sexuals, Trans, and Atheists and Agnostics. Today’s GOP Conservatives and lawmakers imagine they would enjoy the perfect White City on the Hill, if only “these” people were not here. Today’s GOP Conservatives have never been more prosperous, never more secure in both health and property, and never more full of hate and contempt for those who are not them. No more pablum that we are all just folks and Americans.
3
When the weaving begins, it will be necessary to shrug off some of the political history being made now among Democrats alone. Over the past few years, the party has become divided between inclusively-minded liberals and exclusively-minded progressives.
Democrats have long been a diverse group, but that only means there will be competing agendas among people living in a state of comity. So it was as recently as four years ago. Since then, however, progressive opinion has put out spikes of antagonism toward entire biological sets of people: males, whites, elders. Jews, who are a race-equivalent Other in many minds.
This is something apart from, and apparently heedless of, electoral politics. It's a network of attitudes that serves to channel everyday progressive discourse, not least in the Op-Eds and the comments sections of The New York Times. Among today's archetypal progressives, political engagement has become war on biological class enemies.
America's liberal party, of which I'm a liberal member with progressive tastes in policy, was a long time coming to this (http://thefamilyproperty.blogspot.com/). Now an election season poses a couple of awkward questions:
Will those on the left who have blown up the very idea of commonality find it possible to make common cause with Americans who belong to any of the scorned categories above? And will those Americans find it possible to set aside so much that they've been hearing and reading?
1
It’s been said of Germans that they wanted Hitler, they got Hitler and they liked Hitler.
Tragically, the same thing can now be said of us.
Getting rid of Trumpism -- or at least maintaining it as a sort of Devil’s Island reserved for kooks and malcontents in need of close, careful watching -- will be a long, hard slog; although there are such things as self-limiting diseases, Trumpism does not at present appear to be one of them, so it will take someone energetic and young in spirit, idealistic, optimistic and tough-minded to start us on our way.
Obviously, someone who doesn’t think in traditional political party terms.
An outsider, someone moderate-center-right who is fixated on fixing things, possesses the desire to insist on gun control; a universal health care system that leaves room for people who wish to remain outside of it; a limited program of income supports; and is not adverse to reshaping and abandoning failed programs like farm subsidies as a means of controlling the national debt.
A business President who places a premium on business growth, but insists on shuffling the cards when dealing with his fellow business people.
A President open to bringing in newcomers like Pete Buttigieg to help him run things.
Hillary, I believe, would have been very good, but regrettably the time for that has now passed us by.
Bloomberg and Pete.
That, in fact, would be a very good idea.
3
Has Mr Brooks confused liberalism with libertarianism?
2
In summation.
“It takes a village”
HRC
vs
“ I alone can fix it”
DJT
3
Ah, the dreamers among us ...
1
The sad thing about all this is the Republicans by not calling witnesses, not having a fair trial are jeopardizing their, the Senate's, political future…………
This action is simply and with their concurrence both abdicating and nullifying their Constitutionally granted "oversight" powers……..
They - the Republicans - are basically neutering the separation of powers so carefully crafted by the Founding Fathers, the drafters of our revered Constitution………
History will forever single out - curse ? - the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump for their combined complicity in this abdication of Constitutional powers as the first step in the destruction of American democracy……….
3
Sorry, David, but America has created an underclass that truly do not have a voice.
America stands for 'if you can pay you can stay' - if you can't? No healthcare, no education, no legal representation and know your place,eh?
Just as the GOP has now embraced their cult of personality new fascism, so now shall the rattlings of revolution for the majority of Americans shall now begin.
The blame is on the GOP - period, full stop. Any other rationalization is drivel - including yours my friend.
5
"On the Trumpian right it’s the coastal cultural elite trying to crush and delegitimize the white Christian patriots of the heartland. On the cultural left it’s the whole Michel Foucault legacy."
Wow. I don't even know where to begin. Is that really how you see the divide in America, David? In terms of "white, Christian patriots" vs the heirs of Foucault? "Foucault" is the best descriptor you could come up with? Well, I guess I now have to curse all those self-absorbed leftists who spent their days reading French philosophy instead of, I don't know, agitating for civil rights, reproductive rights, marriage rights, voting rights, the environment, and other such worthless deconstructionist pastimes.
1
Investigate Biden. Investigate his son. Investigate Bolton. Investigate anyone. Let them all testify. Let them. Testify. Let them. Testify. Let them.
1
one note brooks. time to replace him, even if the one note is sometimes correct
1
great piece
It is civil war Mr. Brookes.
You side has strangled the working class to the point that we have no choice but to fight. We will rip down your corrupt system and replace it with something you really dont like.A fair one.
2
"Me before you" looks attractive until you really look at it. At its core it is a lie; thanks Mr. Brooks for pointing this out.
1
I haven't read your column in quite awhile, Mr. Brooks. I'm sorry to see that you're still putting forth the same false equivalencies, and refusals to acknowledge the toxicity and severe harm the Republican party has caused to our nation. Mostly, though, I'm surprised at the plethora of incoherent arguments you put forth. I'd cite some examples but it seems the entire column is full of vapid, messy, invalid claims.
6
“No offense, but if you’re supporting Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders this year, collaboration skills are not high on your list of priorities.”
The fundamental error of David Brooks Op:ED is his failure to accept that Laissez Faire Capitalism is designed and doomed to “eat its own young”. It must end in an aggressive maldistribution of wealth.
Bernie Sanders analysis of the failings of the neo-liberal system are spot on and no amount of wishful thinking will change that. For example: -
1. “Infusing cooperative weaver values into all of our organizations.” Of course, this would be a great thing but it is impossible in the neo-liberal system.
2. “Show all the way up.” Of course, this would be a great thing, but it is impossible in the neo-liberal system
3. “Learn from all voices.” Of course, this would be a great thing, but it is impossible in the neo-liberal system
4. “Treat relationships as wealth.” Of course, this would be a great thing, but it is impossible in the neo-liberal system
5. “Fail forward.” Of course, this would be a great thing, but it is impossible in the neo-liberal system.
Empty Management speak is the fundamental reason for Donald Trumps election. Please David Brooks Get Real!
3
Shorter Brooks: "It takes a village."
1
I get what you're saying Mr. Brooks, but from my perch I see a guy with a Kentucky drawl, some nonsensical impeachment defense arguments, some brainwashed cult-like behaviour blocking any hope for reason and collaboration. Lookin' an awful lot like another 'lost cause' to me.
3
I’ve no idea where to begin explaining the stupidity of this backhand slap at Foucault.
Not what the man wrote, dude. Not even close. I only wish I could produce him from behind a display, to say, “You know nothing of my work.”
3
David. Elitist snob. I am not sure anymore if you know what you are talking about. You provide these words and then give your definition of them. Vague definition by using them again in your definition. The future of the US is untenable. Trumpism is dividing the country into two camps. The other side will react, violently, to the violent dismembering of cultural accommodations. The blue states, rich, will stop subsidizing the red states, poor. Trump started this and it will not end until the US collapses under its own weight.
2
What can I say, I'm a big David Brooks fan!
How about reparations for American Indians. Once again the rest of us are forgetting them. A little collaboration might help.
1
Tell this to the generation of republicans from Gringrich to the our way or the highway libertarian tea party. Then send a special card to the Kochs, CATO and Heritage Foundation.
Dr. Mr. Brooks,
How about less Augustinian pablum and more meaningful (real world) actions? Your soft-core quasi-philosophical treatises on best (human) behavior have begun to bore me.
Sorry, but when a significant portion of a society refutes even the barest notions of Truth and is mutely disinterested in rational interchange of ideas and critical thinking, the words within your column are merely thin vapor drifting across a roaring fire.
3
“...white Christian patriots...? How do you define patriot, Brooks? Blind support for an autocratic immoral narcissistic aspiring dictator?
2
Donald Trump is a proven and profligate liar. He has no integrity or credibility. If you work for and/or defend Donald Trump then you are okay with lying. If you are okay with lying then you have no integrity or credibility. There you go “Republican Party”. This has what you’ve allowed yourselves to become.
2
well said.
It might also help to consider the fate of the Weimar Republic....
1
"This is the flaw of unrestrained liberalism, what the radicals call 'neoliberalism' or 'late capitalism.'”
You wrote a whole column about how opposed communities have to come together, and by the fourth paragraph you managed to divide us. Nice job.
You just had to blame it all on liberalism. Oh, I know what you may have meant -- the British definition of liberalism. But you know your audience, and you know that Americans are going to interpret it as "Liberal Democrats."
Well, at least it's not as though being precise with words is your job.
4
Mr. Brooks, you're right and you're wrong. What we have here in America right now is good versus evil. Trump is a pathologically lying corrupt narcissist sociopathic traitor. He's the head of a Crime Family. He's an evil man that's surrounded himself with mafia type thugs who are also evil. A fish rots from the head. The country is rotting because of Trump and his actions. I say again, he's evil. And until he and his minions including his Congressional Republican enablers are gone, America will continue to rot. Simple and end of story, please continue with your social platitudes.
2
This is what we have now... self-interested capitalism, Republican and libertarian me ‘first-ology’, my rights and power over anyone else’s, “I’ve got mine, Jack..... I’m pulling the ladder up behind”, creative destruction, winner-takes-all, breathless faux patriotism, antediluvian gun laws, misogynistic evangelical control-freaks, victim-blaming, economic inequality resulting in loss of civil discourse, destruction of meaningful social safety nets, racist judicial systems, ‘end-times’ survivalists, environment destruction, never-ending wars, conspiracy theorists, loss of education, destruction of community cohesion, constitution as religious doctrine vs guideline, theory overtaking reality..... division, in a word. The Golden Rule cannot work here.
2
Fine and perhaps effective propositions. However, I refuse to enter into dialog with racists. I just won't.
2
The problem is that the ones that rise to the top, like the president and most members of congress, see other people's ability to cooperate as something to exploit. The leaders of the country see everything through the lens of their own rabid self-interest. Politicians divide people because it is their natural predatory behavior.
I wonder if Brooks is intentionally misusing the word Liberalism in this column or if he's just using it casually? Either way, it's a loaded term and he needs to define how he's using it here. The people who went to see Martin Luther King Jr., myself included, were very Liberal. We also bought in totally to the community ideal that Brooks is selling here. I'm not using selling as a pejorative. I hope that Brooks is not using Liberal as a pejorative here. That would be sneaky and being sneaky would be contrary to the sentiment of the column. Anyway, he should explain. He's probably using Liberal differently than trump and the Republicans use it. But it's the same word so it would be helpful if he would differentiate. Good job!
Learn from all voices? What exactly do you think we need to learn from Donald Trump? Should we assume as Alan Dershowitz does that Donald Trump has the best of intentions? Aspirational platitudes are all well and good but aside from that the only concrete thing that is conspicuous is a clumsy attempt at equating Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
2
The future of American politics begins with electing presidents who are, among other necessary qualities, presidential.
Public name-calling by a U.S. president is unnecessary and unpresidential -- and should constitute an impeachable offense (at the least, cause for censure).
Throughout his nearly 4-year presidency -- and continuing
last night at his Iowa rally -- Trump has waged a nonstop
bully-style verbal war against political opponents that is
wholly unbecoming of an adult, especially one who inhabits
a leadership position.
What's more, a legitimate argument can be made that Trump's incessant disparagements have heightened partisan anger -- possibly even influenced the episodes of partisan violence that have sullied this nation the past 4 years.
Trump's litany of disparaging nicknames for fellow Americans (Sleepy Joe [Biden], Crazy Bernie [Sanders], Cheatin' Obama, etc.) is more than childishly reprehensible. It's coercive. And consummately unAmerican.
The future of American politics? It must begin with a president who tolerates political and policy differences -- without mocking them.
1
Brooks first statement that men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest has no basis. They may be motivated by self interest, but they don't vote that way.
Trumpites must think that voting against self-interest brings some benefit to them. Sticking it to coastal elites, feminazis, people of color, gays, foreigners and all of the "others" that make old white people so bitterly angry, will do them some good.
How else to explain voting republican these days, unless they are rich white guys trying to keep what they have from all the rest of us. Why would former manufacturing workers, coal miners, all those left behind and struggling to get by, as the myth goes, vote so against self-interest?
What has trump done for them? Do they like the exploded debt, fouled environment, growing economic disparity and dislocation? Do they approve the cruel treatment of refugees? Do they like that trump divides us, harangues, rages, and exposes us to his colossal, vulgar need every day?
No amount of weaving is going to bring trumpites together with those of us who are horrified by him and will never give in to his hideous lunacy and those who promote it.
3
You finish with, "Yes, human beings are partly selfish and self-interested. But we are also supremely social and collaborative. This is the part we have to work on now." A small sentence that weighs tons.
When a once honored and respected legal mind (Dershowitz) has the nerve to stand before the country and say that any end can justify the means, we have reached a new low. The same refusal to act on the behalf of the country as is being displayed my McConnell and his puppet Graham and the rest of the Republican Party.
The future of American politics id dire. Tribalism and blind partisanship are on destructive display. One has to wonder if a mere vote will be enough to shift the course.
for starters, we should impeach the selfish and self-interested Donald, who has done more than anyone else in this country to break up our country's unity...
then we can start the process of unification on civility, caring and sharing...
Amen.
1
This is impossible until we rid ourselves from the Newt Gingrinch school of zero sum politics and treat each other as neighbors and fellow citizens.
1
Does David Brooks not realize that the GOP and Trump are staging an irrational and autocratic takeover of the country? The sleazy id of American cultural life has found its grotesque voice in Trump. Enjoy the last few days of rational government.
3
Mr. Brooks writes: "It takes every perspective to see an issue whole. Assume people have the best of intentions, and actively focus on the value they bring."
Explain to me how putting children in cages; making fun of people who are differently abled; joking about personally sexually assaulting women; encouraging physical violence against people who disagree with you; telling lies about factual events, just to name a few things, brings anything of value to the 'whole issue.'
And if these things are someone's 'best of intentions,' I can't even imagine their worst.
2
An analogy for our country I've used is that of a family. The children have all thrown a fit, stormed out & slammed their bedroom doors. In most families it's the mother who manages to bring everyone, through compromise, together at the dinner table with civility. This what we need. No surprise that I feel Amy K. is the one best able to do that.
There are people in this country who no longer want a republic. Republicans are the enemy and are not listening.
1
Yes, I agree that cooperation is inherent in humans. It can also be the most effective and satisfying way to solve a problem. Polarization is also in play in our natures. The polarization that started most recently has been on the right. Now we are seeing it magnified on the left. I agree about the end desirable, "weaving." This is what some of us saw in politics earlier in our lifetimes. No, it wasn't some uptopian state. But it was based on compromise, which is a type of weaving. The voters expected this.
Currently, in Congress we have a situation where the right (McConnell et. al.) refuses to cooperate and worse. The solution currently is not for the left to reach across the aisle. This is like an unhealthy or even abusive relationship if one side tries to compromise but only appeases a bully. In any healthy relationship, there is give and take. The question then becomes: how do we get to that place? This could be a focus rather than a stalemate or worse.
Focusing efforts on voting out those who are unwilling to ever cooperate is one answer, culture change is another. Legislation would be another (term limits, etc.). Right now we have attempted containment by the Dems, impeachment, for instance. This essay is an attempt at culture change and I applaud that. Other things are in play, but we need to do many things other than butt our heads against a brick wall.
2
Mr. Brooks is right. Whether it's individual vs. individual or group vs. group, the common problem here is that all our present systems are designed strictly for competition, when we should be cooperating. Why can't we all just get along?
The day-to-day headlines may look scary, but the fact that we're in a time of great change means that we now have the opportunity to redesign our economic and political systems.
As technology advances, it increases the benefits of cooperation, and decreases the (supposed) benefits of competition. Technology can also help cure the material scarcity that traps us into needlessly competitive and counterproductive bickering.
Rather than fight over incremental changes to our current system, shouldn't we be trying to design new systems to foster cooperation rather than competition?
So, what would that look like? Of course, it'll take a long time to fully figure that out, but my optimistic view is that it is indeed possible. I've got some ideas that are too long to present here, but you can check them out at http://www.whycantwe.org/.
Henry Lieberman
Research Scientist
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
56
Great piece.
But even our cooperative instincts can work against us - "Often, we collaborate to build shared environments we can enjoy together..."
... and defend them from others. We - especially Americans - are a fearful and suspicious species. Quick to aggression. The recent piece in the FT on flooding and the differences between the Dutch and American attitudes to it is revealing - https://www.ft.com/content/44c2d2ee-422c-11ea-bdb5-169ba7be433d
I fear we are in a Manichean race now - the us and them narrative is dominant. It is a mistake, as it always is.
The weaving has already occurred. It's the weaving of technology so quickly and thoroughly into all aspects of human existence, beginning with television. The wealth class controls it, and us, using technology to divisively manipulate the masses against each other.
2
"dominant species". More akin to an invasive species, which when dominant destroys everything and turns against itself. Although the oldest of invasive species: plant, animal, insect, over centuries of forced adaptation for survival have eventually found their place within a larger ecosystem, which is mutually beneficial. Are we too young a species?
But no, we are superior because we have minds, or so it is said. Real education, one that teaches people to think critically, that evolves and develops minds and hearts (not the learn by rote, Pavlov's dog approach) is the only positive way out of this insanity. We may yet even match the intelligence of the plants, insects and other animals with whom we share this planet.
3
we are in a difficult situation.
the wide open spaces in which our growing population could get opportunity by moving to these spaces and developing them without butting their heads against an already entrenched political and social hierarchy is no more. Our country side has automated away our need for more people.
In a different way, our urban/suburban metropolitan areas are choking themselves with longer commutes and more density for limited kinds of jobs. anonymity rather than community is frequently the tilt in metropolitan areas with making community harder to be powerful.
Finally, the diversity and problems of our population make governance for all very challenging. Where in the past when I was growing up, people were needed and integrated more easily into community.
As we found out in the last few years policies favoring some are more likely to be anti policies for others. In smaller communities with more commonality, its easier to accommodate a broader group of differences where personal ties are important..
1
Comment Part II
It turns out we were not alone in our discomfort. A few nights ago I was watching Frontline's America's Great Divide. This documentary is made up of interviews of leading social analysts, including Robert Reich, David Axelrod, Ben Rhodes, Steve Schmidt, Frank Luntz, Steve Bannon, and others. Their dialog very much addresses the power of social interaction types - altruism, cooperation, spite, and selfishness. And how this typing along with incitement politics impacts social and voting behavior.
What struck me is that these experts were also struggling for answers to social media, often expressing their concerns in terms of fear and horror (Frank Lutz was in tears).
It gives me some comfort that powerful voices recognize the problem and are also working toward solutions - basically, leadership based on truth and compassion - something algorithms cannot do (an algorithm's Achilles' Heel).
You can see the individual interviews (which I recommend) on YouTube, to get the complete perspectives of these experts. For me, if we want to overcome the power of spite and selfishness in politics, media, and social networks, it will be a matter of focused hard work and truthful, strong leadership to drive positive social change - with an emphasis on hard work. This all can be done with our current generation of technology. It is a matter of putting people first.
3
I remember as a young man asking my father about republican proposals and his comment was effectively, they talk a good game.
David Brooks always does that .... but yet seems to support the party most removed from his ideas and ideals. huh
7
Those living in urban america tend to see collaboration and cooperation differently from those living in rural america. One group tends to rely more on civic and governmental efforts. The other group tends to rely more on local groups composed of people familiar and trusted. These divergent approaches to problem solving tend to promote seriously different attitudes toward the role of government. Sigh, Groan, Growl.
2
For the first time in a long while, I basically agree with the main thrust of Brooks' argument. While his characterization of the ideas on the "lest" is flattened by his prejudices, and just wring, his call for the decency of social collaboration is right on. We lost the edge about the time the Republican party figured how to "rig" the system and become winners rather than honorable opponents. Nixon's southern strategy is as good a place as any to start, and its Apex was the Hamlin Garland situation in which the Speaker decided that he had the votes to ignore the usual process of choosing a SC member. From the southern strategy we forged the Racist and thoroughly undemocratic voter suppression, rage against economic inequality into a response to our first Black president (a decent and conscientious man,whatever you happen to think about some of his policies.) And the Citizen's United ruling made it possible to nail down the lid on the coffin of the world's oldest democratic experiment. Nobody, Democrat or Republican, thinks that DJT is a decent, conscientious, honest, or legitimate president. But here we are.
4
There is a difference between the truth and a lie. If you choose a compromise between the two the result will be a halftruth, which is, of course, no truth at all, so the liar always triumphs. I am consistently appalled by the lies of Donald Trump, the complicity of Republican politicians, and the willing gullibility of his base. But I am also profoundly disappointed in much of the hyperbolic distortions from the left. We are being barraged with lies from all sides. Politicians tailor their rhetoric to please their constituencies. Media personalities write and say whatever they think their audience wants to hear. Most of us just accept the propaganda that most comforts us. We need to fervently and courageously seek the truth. But we also need public figures who dare to tell the truth.
4
@Maddy Williams Give an example of what you call hyperbolic distortions from the left. Only your right-wing friends understand you. I have no idea what you are talking about.
So, simply put, we’re a Commonwealth as our Founding Fathers first envisioned our nation. Although that term, today, is too often conflated with Socialism.
3
Selfish seems to be in the ascendancy now. Our political system is deeply flawed and pushes us toward leaders who are more selfish then empathetic. If we are to have a society that is collaborative we need a political system that does not support minority rule.
4
A die-hard Trump fan who is also my friend has taught me to look at the roots of belief, not just the belief itself. That root is usually identified by words that follow, "I trust ....'.
Whatever words follow indicate the news, family, or tribal source of belief.
Mr. Brooks is fundamentally right about cooperation being the highest value in advancing the human family. But in this time of greatest conflict, that seems like yelling, "Can't we just all get along!".
Yes, we can, but first I have to subdue my opponent.
4
Comment Part I
This article puts a lot of great points together. From my days in algorithmic modeling and data analysis in Silicon, I wanted to make one, oversimplified point. In social media there is one set of models (among many) for leveraging human social behavior that I think fits this article. It is often called the Typing of Social Interactions - leveraging Altruism, Cooperation, Spite, and Selfishness (areas all brought up in Davids article).
On any social media platform, there are hundreds of algorithms determining your social interaction interests and uses this information to then "help" you find groups of similar interests - your own tribes. A major reason I left Silicon Valley was that the powers of incitement politics (Trump, Fox, Beck, Limbaugh, etc.) typically drove people to spiteful and selfish relationships and the sites that support these views on a variety of platforms, basically leaving altruism and cooperation in the dust. I as an altruistic and cooperative type person and my peers have no technical remedy for this. This was very discomforting, especially given how much great good Silicon Valley had produced in my time there.
4
Although Mr. Brooks misses the mark on a lot of things in this piece (his characterization of liberalism as “the autonomous individual making his own way” is off by 180 degrees - liberalism is, rather, the unselfish individual willing to contribute for the benefit of all), at least his championing of “weaver politics” as an antidote for our current political ills hits the bull’s eye.
The question is, how do we break free of our solidified opposing camps? In the face of the accelerating political bad faith that is the main feature of contemporary American politics, how do Dems and Republicans find a way to, if not unite in common cause, at least work together? “Weaver politics” sounds great, but is there a person or party that can lead the way?
2
@Pen "liberalism is, rather, the unselfish individual willing to contribute for the benefit of all". Really? I haven't met a liberal yet who actually fits your definition. They all seem rather self involved and put on a show of caring about the greater good.
1
I don't know about this. As I read it, I wanted to open my mind to it, but Mitch McConnell's face kept entering my thoughts and I just couldn't focus.
I just can't shake the feeling that the only one's that have tried to meet the other side half way are the Democrats. Obama chose Romney's healthcare plan. He took illegal immigration seriously. He kept in place Bush's anti-terrorism strategy. He appointed a republican to the Pentagon and other cabinet positions. He tried to give voice to the conservative voices in the education debate about charter schools.
And what did he get in return?
So is it a surprise that Democrats are in no mood to find middle ground? What middle ground is there to find with Mitch?
7
The problem we have is that we have been conditioned to believe everything gained by the other is at our expense. This victim mentality is perpetuated by politicians because it works to keep them in power. How else do you explain poor Whites in red states supporting a party that has always been a party of the rich? Poor Whites need jobs, education and healthcare and the GOP gives them tax cuts and threats to the social safety net. In return the poor Whites get a promise to protect them from the Blacks, Browns, Gays, atheists, gun control activists and other ginned up threats.
We do need a new kind of leadership that is for public policy that focuses on competing in a global economy and growing the pie so it benefits all citizens. This leadership will tell people what they need to do to prepare for a role in a forward moving economy and then provide the means for people to move with the economy. Some free education may be a part of this. Incentives for companies to continually upgrade employee skills also has a role. We need a vision that shows the problems with standing pat and contrast that to a picture of what we can be moving forward. The major thing that stands in our way is money in politics that comes from vested interests who have a bigger stake in leaving things as they are.
1
Brooks conflates liberalism with conservatism when he declares that liberalism undergirds an individualistic society driven by self-interest. Conservatives, not liberals, believe in every man for himself and winner take all.
2
It would be a better world if we could follow the prescriptions laid out in Davids column. However, for the last 40 years, we have had a right wing movement in this country that is hell bent on having complete power, and has ended up being willing to do anything, even what is morally bankrupt and criminal, in order to gain and keep that power. This is evidently clear if you have followed any of the impeachment trial.
The reality of facing this existential threat to our democracy has demanded that we fight back with everything we have. I am afraid that if we try to follow Davids ideas, the right wing will eat our lunch, which is what has been happening the last 40 years. These people need to be thoroughly and resoundingly beaten first and foremost. Then, maybe we can move forward in a more cooperative way.
1
David, I'll tell you what the future of American Politics is going to be....disaster thanks to the gutless republicans in the senate and the king to be in the white house. The democrats are not perfect, but the republicans are an order of magnitude less perfect. And let's not forget Citizen's United brought about by the lack of common sense SCOTUS.
4
It sounds like Brooks is a HUGE fan of Barack Obama. I wonder what the historical record reveals...
If he really wants to put his money where his mouth is, he'd be beating the drum for Deval Patrick, the only candidate for whom this type of politics of collaboration is central.
1
It's easy to say we all need to work together better when one has the basic resources in society to survive and thrive. The sad reality for far too many people is economic and social hardship that would be alleviated by political decisions to redistribute resources to the poor and programs that help them. Without that, going on about cooperation is a middle class / upper class luxury that neglects the ways in which society punishes or neglects those at the bottom.
196
@Kel One of the basic resources is the right to vote.
4
@Kel -
Agree with your comments here. How nice of Mr Brooks to so graciously allow all of us to weave together...never mind the poverty of some. They should just suck it up.
6
@Kel I agree with your comment, and it does seem that most progressives 'talk above' the bottom tier of class wealth. Although it is a natural reflex to think of this and point it out, it does not make their (i.e. David Brooks') analysis incorrect. They do speak in broad narratives. But, a broader perspective actually does include the lower class. I believe this article aims to help the fortunate comfortable classes see beyond their ideology and understand the concerns of their fellow Americans who see things differently. I am certain that the founding fathers were also of the educated elitist sector who formed our government and wrote the Constitution, impressively so that it was to benefit and protect the majority. They were idealists. It is necessary to be idealistic to a degree in order to affect change in a realistic way. I like to think of it as inspiration. We, you and I are in total agreement of 'social hardship that would be alleviated by political decisions'.
9
Trump to his credit and my chill now owns the Republican Party.
How could this happen!
The leader's lawyer gave wit to despots who are excused from ethics and law.
Should a leader conclude that he or she is the best leader for the nation then all bets are off.
Americans have a imperial fool.
The Senate is an old man's club full of avuncular party hacks.
The UK house of Lords is clear about its status under law.
No one can ignore the counsel of the House of Commons elected by vote.
Neither Queen nor the Lords.
Trump makes America look stupid.
Pompeo and Rudy are not calm thinkers but appear to be carpet baggers, bashing the Bidens while wheeling and dealing in Ukraine and undermining the US ambassador.
Rudy has no interest in Ukraine oil.
Not a good look for American leadership.
It is shameful to lump Bernie Sanders together with Trump.
The opinion expressed in this article is one of naivete. Republicans pledged openly at the start of the Obama Presidency that they would do everything they can to thwart him. They followed through on that and had no interest in compromise whatsoever. And they are still not the least bit interested in compromise or working together. When your opponent knows nothing but going to battle, sometimes you are forced to go to battle before there can be peace.
2
Thank you Mr. Brooks in spelling out who we were (a collaborative, hash out a compromise culture) to what we have become (tribal in which self interest and greed dominate). Unfortunately I do not see our current collection of riff raff in Congress capable nor willing to putting the sort of changes you propose in place. I think the very first step will be to establish term limits in Congress. That way many who now feel compelled to stay on the lemming train could get off and act on principal and honesty not caring about re-election.
1
@JRS we have always been tribal. The collaborative melting pot was a myth promulgated by David Brooks and his older versions who simply ignored the elements of society they did not care about.
People have become deeply cynical about so much in the world and that cynicism breeds a self righteous complacency. Everybody else is to blame for the world being such a screwed up place, let them fix it.
Trouble is, stewing in anger and disgust is only going to make us more and more unhappy, less content.
Go out and do something! Join a religious organization or another positive civic organization. Volunteer your time and talents to directly make things better for others. Homeless shelters, rehab centers, food banks, reading programs for disadvantaged children - the places that we are needed and can truly help are endless.
Cynicism, isolation and anger is a road to nowhere. Help others in the world and you'll help yourself.
73
I don’t even have to read the article. Let me guess, Brooks has framed it as “both sides are to blame”. Let’s see if I’m right.
2
@Kurt no, his article is "Liberals are to blame (ok neo-liberals) and only individual choice (and ignoring the damaging policies of conservatives) can save us."
2
"The politics of weaving"? Yeah, good luck with that. My Republican neighbor openly gloats about Trump and the triumph of the alt-right. He flies a Confederate battle flag (even though we live in Pennsylvania), and he loves to talk about how Trump will get rid of "those people" (immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ--take your pick). He sneers at Democrats like me.
The Republican party wants to WIPE OUT the Democrats. They want a permanent, white nationalist minority government. And they ain't budging an inch from their position. Ever since Reagan, the Republicans have been criticizing the Democrats for "not meeting us in the center." The problem is that, for the past 40 years, the Republicans have been moving further and further to the right, while dragging "the center" with them. Nowadays, anything to the left of "tax cuts for the rich" and "let's get rid of all these Mexicans" is considered raging, bomb-throwing Communism.
If Republicans want to "work with" the Democrats, then they have to start moving to the LEFT. And that means denouncing the KKK, the neo-Nazis, and all the other alt-right thugs. It also means overturning Citizens United and kicking corporate "dark money" out of politics. Otherwise, this Democrat ain't moving to the right.
The Republicans need to STOP being Trump's flying monkeys. I don't see that happening anytime soon, so I see no reason to move ONE INCH from my liberal positions. As far as I am concerned, the GOP are the existential danger here.
8
Brooks’ column seems strangely disconnected from the maelstrom of our current environment. It’s as though he’s writing a paean to civility and thoughtful discourse as a wildfire is bearing down on him.
5
@John Terrell
And pray what is wrong with that?
A defining factor of this writing is the the lack of traction with anything that will make a difference in our lifetimes, a sense of leisure, especially when it comes to the urgency of the problems before us. Very soft fixes, and pipe dreams. while the world, and our own country, is going down in flames.
I don't understand why the Times allows endless promotion of this weaving cliche, week after week. We get it, or we don't, its not that great of an idea, and once a year would be plenty. It begins to sounds a bit cultish and desparate.
Meanwhile, the party of the writer is committing fraud on public television, in a way that for most of us is excrutiatingly painful. What comes after this debacle, the way it empowers the corrupt administration, is anyone's nightmare. It is so very similar to the roots of fascist movements when laws are ignored and words have no meaning, all in the interest of an autocrat and his very simple, ugly, ideas.
Not a single useful word about that.
As before, some people feel leisurely when it comes to urgent problems, especially those that cause the suffering of others.
4
Of course the Presidents lawyers are scared of Bolton. He knows the truth. Let. Him. Speak.
2
I would like to thank McConnel & the Senate for giving Trump permission to be a KING with no way out since they stacked the courts with far, far, farthest right-wing wingnuts for life.
I hope they all have long painful ends of life, alone in a facility with no family or friends.
1
Another laughable and hypocritical article by Mr. Brooks , known to ignore the worst parts of the Republican mantra of individualism but here affirming the value of collectivization. The standard bearer of the party of winner-take-all now calls their mantra ill-advised .
2
Did... did David Brooks just call Michel Foucault a 'populist?' I have no interest in going back and checking, but hasn't Brooks written approximately ten thousand columns about how the cultural left is elitist? He can't even keep his ludicrous parodies of the left straight!
Trump voters are primarily driven by fear of cultural change. They don't want their grandchildren to learn Spanish as a primarily language or marry people who celebrate Ramadan. ... and they especially don't want anyone to live in a world where people criticize them for having these beliefs! There is absolutely nothing like this on the left, and Brooks knows it; he just also knows it brings in clicks to act like he doesn't
And here we see the real problem: our divisions have become a talking point more than an actual phenomenon. They're there to be talked about, not to be understood.
3
Yet more false equivalencies, faux philosophizing, and peculiar distortion of political positions and even basic terms from Mr Brooks?
One example:
"...unrestrained liberalism, what the radicals call “neoliberalism” or “late capitalism.”
"Liberalism" is NOT the same as so called "unrestrained liberalism," as this implies. And neoliberalism is NOT really "liberal" or "liberalism" -- that's a real misuse of basic terms, and a (willful?) confusion of them. Neoliberalism is really conservatism masquerading as liberalism, as many have pointed out. There's nothing "liberal" about it
"Liberalism" or "liberal democracy" -- as some have called the (pre-Trump) form of democracy in the USA, Europe, and Japan -- is definitely NOT "unrestrained liberalism" (whatever that means) and is definitely NOT the same as capitalism run amok, without laws, regulation, or a real (unrigged) market of supply and demand.
Liberal democracy is NOT the same as capitalism -- not to mention crony-capitalism kleptocracy -- a "confusion" that many conservatives (and yes, some "neoliberals") try to sew. That really amounts to disinformation.
While American democracy burns, some latter-day Neros want to fiddle with sophistic semantics and ignore the house that's on fire.
4
I think we are seeing the result of an organized minority, the religious right doing the work over decades, while those were a bit more easy going thought the US could never become what it has become. The right has won and with all the judicial appointments the politics of discrimination will drive us nuts for decades. Do the work, win the day. I am reminded again of Dave Von Ronk’s song “Losers”. ”Losers, losers...I lost my money playing 5 card stud. I was playing for money, they were playing for blood...” Republican’s know they are a minority, so they disenfranchise, discriminate, demean and fight the poison fight really well.
1
For goodness sake, Brooks, look in a mirror.
You are not entirely wrong, but really! This drift toward selfishness and self-interest has been the platform of the Republican Party you support, especially since the election of St. Reagan.
He and other Republicans (Grover Norquist) suggested drowning the social contract in the bathtub. They worshipped a mythological meritocracy. They promised that unfettered free enterprise would float everyone's boat.
They lied, they pandered and they fueled a generation of smug conservatives who allowed themselves to believe that their own success was because of their own brilliance and hard work.
They created the delusion that conspicuous consumption would save others. They made America a place where you deserve what you get and get what you deserve.
You and your dulcet-toned cronies created what you now bemoan.
2
Not quite sure what it is that has so worrisomly afflicted many, many American voters that they would abide the likes of this tormented Trump individual as their leader.
Fortunately, the majority of voters in stable Western democracies such as Canada, the U.K. and France would never cede the power of high office to such a disturbingly despotic, ignorant lout.
Never. Ever.
1
Alan Dershowitz, having perfected his role as the Good Witch of the East, has hung his entire case in the support of Donald ("I'm a REAL boy!") Trump on the "Click Your Heels Three Times" defense ( w/ apologies to Mssrs, Baum and Collodi).
It shouldn't be a winning argument, but I have my concerns.
That's a nice lecture for a political science class at a competitive university. Most folks don't understand when you say "liberalism", they'll think you mean liberals, when what you mean is western democratic political society. Stop shooting over peoples' heads with the jargon.
1
So...you're voting for Bloomberg.
Got it.
What is it that makes all Times columnists reflexively equate Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders?? What makes David think a vote for Bernie (who has a long history of incremental compromise and bipartisan cooperation) is not a vote for “collaboration”? Is there something corrosive in the taps over at 40th & 8th? Truly boggles the mind......
1
“That means, first, electing leaders who are masters at cooperation.”
I don’t know, Mr. Brookes, you’re awfully close to describing President Obama.
Keep saying these things and you’ll get labeled a tax and spend liberal, someone who wants to take our hard earned money and give it to those “lazy people” with no work ethic.
... but keep saying it, I’m sure Trump, McConnell, R. Paul, and their ilk will come around soon enough.
If author wants to win hearts and minds, he must come down to earth and begin writing in a vernacular that the average person can understand. You are a journalist before you are an academic, and to resort to all those high falutin polysyllabicisms, long words when short ones would do appears to Alexander Harrison to be a trifle pretentious: 1 privileged white academic writing primarily for the benefit of other, my hunch. other white academics.If you can't say something simply,"pour Monsieur Alexandre,"it's a sign you don't understand it!You have been in the "metier"for decades, Mr.Brooks, so you should understand the difference between good , clear Anglo Saxon prose, and the obscure, unexciting language of the academy.
In the idiom of Rabelais,"Tout ce qui n'est pas clair n'est pas Francais,"and same goes for the idiom of Morley and Shakespeare.Only way I could figure out what you were talking about was by reading the comments.You could learn a lot by reading the "oeuvre" of Breslin, Kempton who always strove for clarity and were not above employing ungrammatical English to make a point, because in doing so their writing would have more punch! Example, after publication of his last book on the underworld, "The Good Rat,"Breslin was asked by an interviewer how he would like to be remembered. His reply:"IT DON'T MATTER CAUSE I WON'T BE HERE!"So my advice to you, Mr. Brooks is to dismount from those "grands chevaux,"and write in a manner comprehensible to everyone!
1
Dear me. So things are falling apart, and it's liberalism that's to blame? Where have we heard this before...?
2
Brooks’ “both sides do it, there are fine people on both sides” is very consistent with Trumpism.
Brooks is constitutionally incapable of seeing what is front of his eyes: the deliberate, intentional, ideologically-driven destruction of democracy and all its institutions by the Right.
Instead, he offers, week after week, pablum sermons more appropriate to a Sunday School class than a major American newspaper.
Brooks has jumped the shark, and should simply move on to his new career: clergyman, where he could hector and cajole, and attempt to influence the wayward masses of his flock from a real pulpit.
But here in 21st century America, Brooks’ party is well on its way to achieving authoritarian rule and the re-election of their tinpot despot.
While Brooks sees fit to castigate both sides for the crimes of one Party, his own.
4
Sorry. This country is not worth fighting for anymore. It once was. Not anymore. The attempt is to live a live worth living. Trump and his supporters are not worth much. The shock to be is how worthless America has become.
3
We have a president currently on trial after being caught red handed committing the felony of extortion on the leader of a foreign country for a personal favor by withholding taxpayer money.
This is reality.
This article on the other is overblown reification.
At some point you need to get real about something, anything. This reified pontifications need to end.
2
I read fairly far into this essay, and frankly, I'm not that interested in a conciliatory approach. I saw Alan Dershowitz spew out filth Hamiltonian monarchist garbage on the Senate floor, this from a guy whose famous exculpatory remark was "I wore my underwear during the massage by Jeffrey Epstein."
His response to a Democratic challenge was "In my tradition we answer a question with a question," obviously alluding to his Yeshiva background/Talmudic dialectic. To that I say, his underwear remark speaks for his relationship to that tradition, no less than the bacon cheeseburgers he probably indulges in between massages & pompously preaching to us about national unity while suppressing the founding fathers' anti-monarchism to champion their alleged hatred of "parliamentary democracy."
That sad, pathetic display deserves to remembered as the disgrace it was to every tradition involved. If he dared to allude to Talmudic process in a secular argument with me, I'd remind him the Torah prohibits Torah discussion in the toilet, & his naked (or "underweared" or whatever) Hamiltonian monarchism is basically a toilet, so he should keep Torah out of it.
There is a disgusting strain of secular Jewish culture that adores power & wealth while repudiating the religious strictures that structure/limit one's relationship to food, wealth, massages etc.; its a package deal; one lacks the moral standing to "preach" anything (even unity) if as an apostate the package deal is rejected.
3
What we have is white christians trying to impose their religious zealotry upon the rest of us. These folks have sided with the oligarchs to get their christian laws imposed, and in exchange the oligarchs get to be above the law like the president.
Brook's definitions of liberalism and neoliberalism besides being absurd do not account for the truer reality described above. Tribal? Meh, more like culty, and cults are good for the oligarchs. The new fascism, Putin's model, will crash soon enough, but only when it has damage a lot. At this point there is no way to avoid it because there are no laws, except those that are convenient for beating down the serfs, who for their part mostly enjoy being beaten down. As witnessed by who they vote for.
3
America elected a community organizing constitutional law scholar in 2008 who did everything he could to move forward with a practical, problem-solving agenda for the country with comity and compromise. But Republicans decided it would be better to question his citizenship and elect a lifelong huckster who once had a gameshow because he promised to undo any achievements they couldn't stop before they happened.
These people can't be worked with. They don't want to be worked with. It's their way or the highway. Though to be honest I'm not even sure they know what their way is; anyway, I don't think they care as long as dark-skinned people know their place and the cups at Starbucks say 'Merry Christmas.'
Nobody can work with them. Not Biden. Not Klobuchar. Not Buttiegieg. If we are going to solve crisis like climate change, growing inequality, and healthcare we need to defeat them soundly. We need Sanders. This is not the time for too little-too late, milquetoast liberals who think they're going to be the one to finally get the Republicans to join them in the spirit of kumbaya. We go big, or this country (and this planet) are boned.
1
Please send this opinion piece to all those named in The Panama Papers. Please send it to Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein et. al. Please send it to the corporate boards of McKinsey, Boston Consulting, PwC et. al. Please compile the replies and get back to us in a follow-up opinion piece, perhaps at the end of the year when you hand out your awards.
1
"This is the flaw of unrestrained liberalism, what the radicals call “neoliberalism” or “late capitalism.” And they are not entirely wrong."
You have spelled "unrestrained Republican" wrong. In the Land of Opportunism, we'll wait for 45's next impeachment.
Mr. Brooks. You're pedaling the same old tired troupes. I thought you were too young for calcification. Apparently, I was wrong.
Please take the log out of your eye when trying to define libralism and today's conservatism
1
How does one "weave" with one-percenters that hold 80% of all the wealth? Is anyone naive enough to think they do not have the basic intelligence to realize the plight of the masses? That they just need a good honest chat?? How pollyannaish.
1
Brooks seems to be channeling Ghandi, or the American utopians here. But I wish, without any intentional irony, that when he uses words like "liberalism" he would tell us what he means.
I'm liberal by nature and education; I can't tell what he's talking about when he attributes the most dire evils to people like me. You blame me? Seriously?
What we suffer from isn't "extreme" laissez-faire. "Is that all there is" party-going. It isn't garden-variety toleration of differences, aka liberalism. It isn't staying out of other people's pants, aka liberalism. It isn't love-thy-neighbor, aka liberalism.
We suffer from an excess of violence. We suffer from the use of force by zealots and committed ideologues. Not just violent episodes of psychotic spewing (like Pompey's the other day) but violent use of military-level firepower against our schools and houses of God and marketplaces; violence against the First Amendment, as when gunsters show up at political gatherings locked and loaded to remind us of just how completely they would settle our hash if they saw a chance; violence when they run us down; violence when they yank children from their parents; violence when they reach up a woman's skirt to attach to her womb their chastity locks against medical procedures. All for what? Their egoistic lust for victory, that's what. Their lust to stomp on the ones they call evil. The triumph of their will.
We suffer from the use of force by zealots and ideologues.
2
David, I’ve always been a Weaver. A healer, a helper, a reliable neighbor, a generous donor, a friend of Animals. And what did that get ME ? Scorn, and labeling as an “ Elite “, although far from any Coast. I haven’t changed, at all. So, what happened ?
Easy. The utilization of hate and fear, by professional propagandists, for money, Ratings and VOTES. Hate Radio, then FOX. The shotgun Marriage Of Evangelicals and the GOP. Demonize “ those people “ scorn “ uppity Women “ and promise a return to the Good Old Days, when White Males Ruled, and had mostly good Jobs with little extra education. Everybody Happy !!
The Birther- In -Chief was a direct result of a Black Man daring to get Himself Elected. TWICE. Now, it’s Trumps Party. They have NO interest in healing this Country, taking care of WE The People, or even just doing their Jobs. Sniveling Cowards.
VOTE BLUE, No Matter Who. Enough of THIS.
5
@Phyliss Dalmatian
That's what I keep saying "Enough."
1
Today's polarization began over half a century ago, when you lost the more informed voters that your trickled-down economics benefited only your party’s plutocratic masters. To find new voters your GOP preyed upon our societies deplorables of bigots, mysogenous, gun nuts, the Christian fundamentalists, etc. and fed them misinformation, propaganda, etc. through your hate for profit misinformation racket of Murdoch faux news and other right-winged media. The voting base created must continue to be fed with fake outrage to win elections. Fake outraged was used with bigotry against our first black president and mysojeny against his successor to elect Trump.
Through elections and policy your GOP moved us further from a Jeffersonian democracy to a plutocracy. The 1% who owns your party controls our economy as well their GOP politician through their dark money as long as they continue to enrich them against our people.
This impeachment trial is a classic example of how your GOP defends crimes against our democracy with nefarious political tactics of fake outrage, false equivalencies, untruths etc. And you wonder why people on the other side are outraged! Take a look in your political mirror and you will find your answer. The good news you have lost a generation of voters under 40 while the crimes your GOP enabled the Trump administration to commit on the nation will not go unpunished. Hopefully in the next election with massive turn out.
2
I take issue with the characterizations of anything left of the mainstream Dems as "Radical." If universal healthcare, stronger safety nets, and reigning in the outsized influence of corporations is radical, is most of Europe and most other developed countries "radical" leftist states? Maybe it's the US mainstream that's become radical in how far to the right the center has moved.
3
A Senate trial without witnesses or documents destroys the idea of checks and balances. This empowers Trump as an authoritarian, a fact that he will use to gain electoral advantage. If the American voters re-elect Trump, our Constitution will have been successfully undermined. I am still hoping that the American voter will find Trump’s behavior inexcusable. If they don’t remove Trump from office, the damage done to the country will become irreparable. It doesn’t matter what follows, our democracy will have failed us.
I take solace in the Republican view: none of this matters to me because I will not be personally affected by the outcome. I care only about myself. I am indifferent regarding the country’s well being so long as I am okay. The poor and the non-white citizens will suffer, but not me because I am fortunate in my circumstances being both white and not poor.
It is a sad state of affairs.
There is nothing I can do about it. The political conversation of the day for Republicans is no longer about ideas, it is about protecting Trump from personal consequences of his personal misdeeds.
3
The future of American politics is bleak unless we, the people, have the strength to tell Trump and Congress ENOUGH! Trump has bullied Congressional Republicans into silence and acquiescence to his lying and corruption. Irrespective of one's views on specific policies (guns, abortion, immigration, religion), we all must decide that it is time to restore honesty, civility and ethics to our gov't. This starts with putting someone else into the WH. For those who say they "do not like Trump's behavior but like his policies", remember that everything Trump is transactional - his positions will change when he sees benefit in a change. For those who have been in the room with him, it is clear that he is not the stable genius he claims. He is, however, a clear and present danger to the US and to the rest of the world. It is time for a change - any Dem, even the most progressive - represents a positive change to Trump. Even the most liberal Dem candidate respects our Constitution and will abide by the checks and balances therein.
After how the Republicans treated Obama, after electing Trump, and after how they have manipulated the impeachment trial, I am inclined more than ever to support Bernie Sanders because I believe that he is the only candidate who can match Republican ruthlessness. And yes Mr Brooks, you are sadly correct — this means war!
1
Most of us NYT readers and commenters treat Mr. Brooks rather harshly. I certainly have. Somehow he has been identified as conservative, whatever that is, and we're all ready to pile up on him.The facts are he is smart, intelligent, cultured,well read and has a basic kindness. Oftentimes, his intelligence seems esoteric, which is a sort of elitism in itself.
I was surprised to read that he is for reparations for blacks. Can you name another "conservative" who would admit to that? You will never find one in today's Republican party.
Where I divert from Mr. Brooks is that he always shows us examples of groups who with no official or government help are "weaving" together basic ideas of communities in a democracy.
That won't get it, that alone won't fix what's wrong in this racist society. Civil rights laws were enacted by big government. Unrestrained corporations had to be regulated by big government. Practically every progressive movement had to be shoved down the throats of conservatives and Republicans by big government.
What I want Mr. Brooks to study now is street smarts.
6
a very noble set of premises. too bad we can't rewrite history, and cancel Ronald Reagan's nullification of the media's 'fair and balanced' act, which opened the airwaves for rush Limbaugh, and the fox media empire, which profits on sewing divisiveness. our 'tribalism' kills our collective potential.
1
Classically, the liberal imagination and liberal politics are exactly what David is calling, weaving. They are open to all views and make their own decisions. As in as liberal education. What he calls liberal is progressive. And populism is just folks left out of all that...’that’ being globalization, politically correct ideas, woke culture, and the upper middle...bonding toward trying to get attention and respect and redress. He’s right about Foucault, though.
We no longer agree on definitions. That’s a big hurtle right there. Mass communication in the hands of huge economic corporate entities feeding us truncated opinions they think we agree with as news stories we don’t even ask for nonstop; that doesn’t help either. And we no longer talk to each other anyway. Just check out Starbucks, heads in screens! I’m with David in his good intent, but it’s way more gone than he groks, I fear.
Encouraging way to think about one’s own behaviour. But I fear we’ll now have to brace our loom hard to the floor to withstand a president who has found an even better, more powerful, bigger, hammer to swing than the Executive Order - the description of anything he wants as “in the public interest.” And we all know he will take this to the furthest extremes he thinks he can get away with. Any law, any financial guardrail, any part of any chain of command - anything - that gets in the way can be set aside as interfering with “the public interest”. And who is going to stop him? Bill Barr? Mitch McConnell? Mike Pence? Dream on.
As AbbA put it, “Money, Money, Money” is the answer for our ills.
It is odd to plead for cooperation as our country slouches towards dictatorship.
3
Are we all in la la land? The right to impeach is now
dead, with such a precedent setting trial, if I may use
that word anymore. Sophistry and nuance and professorial
ego remind me of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, or Mephisto in Goethe's epic. Jesus was tempted and did not fail humanity after forty days with Dershowitz and/or the lawyers guarding Trump. They did the job they were paid for, which is what lawyers should do; in Pilate's time they'd have left citizen Jesus to his fate. And been paid well.
There will not be another impeachment. There will not
be witnesses or documents. The precedent has been set.
I am scared. How many of "us" will just give up, be left to dangle a little false hope for the children?
1
One day, before I die, I hope Brooks will simply come out and say,
"The GOP is simply utterly corrupted and rotten to the core. It can't be fixed and must be torn down, or consigned to the dustbin of history. Therefore I am joining with George Conway and others to create a new, moderate and reasonable party for the people, all of the people."
Instead of these endless false equivalencies. There simply is no big picture comparison between the two parties. One is a mess and its own worst enemy, and the other is totally morally and ethically bankrupt and corrupt.
5
I can't take any of this drivel seriously if you insist on equating a long-term elected official, with a history of working across the aisle, with the conman you claim you'd never vote for.
1
Insightful and mostly true. What is hard to understand is the monolithic determination of the Republicans in the Senate to give Trump a get-out-of-jail free pass. The Republicans used to be a party with the same degree of ethics and discrimination as any other party. Now they uniformly see no evil and hear no evil.
Maybe it's something in the water...
Your article is eloquent and persuasive. But I believe if it were presented to half this country, they wouldn't read beyond the first paragraph. They don't know who Foucault is, they wouldn't get your "tooth and claw" reference or even be able to define the word iterative.
The world has been dumbed down by instant gratification, by the replacement of books by memes, and by the dismantling of our public education. And yes, the deterioration of our community-based moral code.
How do we ensure that this message is received and resonates with all?
1
@Joy Maybe start writing articles in emojis.
1
This article is "the politics of weaving" but the image is of a quilt, which is not woven.
34
@Karen
Literally you are correct, but because in quilting the pieces work together to make a harmonious whole, I think it is fair to use piece-work to illustrate the idea of a woven fabric. Following Brooks's logic, which I do not often do, it implies that Biden, with his proven abilities to mesh opposing personalities and viewpoints (the quilting squares) may be our best hope of restoring a working democracy.
11
@Karen And the opinion expressed was only sew-sew.
11
From "Star Wars" to "The Hunger Games" , Americans have vicariously fought the oppressive establishment through the mystic Jedi Warriors or the courageous cunning of Katniss Everdeen. To what extent do we want our politicians to match these cinematic archetypes to confront our national ills and injustices. Do such visions distort our thinking with heroes and heroines on one side and dastardly villains on the other side? What movies or other artistic expressions provide inspiration for the politics of weaving?
Snap your fingers if you agree. Except I do agree that cooperation would be better than this, than what we have now. I doubt if we can agree about how to get there though.
All nations throughout history show an arc, with a climb toward a peak followed by an inevitable descent to dissolution. The next step after the current fiasco will be the breakup of the United States.
It's all downhill from here.
1
David. Your first sentence agrees with the preponderance of evidence from evolutionary psychology. But there isn't enough evidence from behavioral genetics to support the path to cooperation you suggest in the rest of your essay. Raising children is a process of channeling a wild animal onto a civilized path. I've seen no magic formula for the best way to achieve such channeling. You have suggested endpoints that you think define that path. It is most important that we have respectful debates about the endpoints because the ones you suggest are not self-evident. I do agree that the extremes of right and left prohibit respectful debates because they reek of certainty. As I scientist I live in a world of uncertainty that forces me to respect the conclusions of those who disagree with me, but share the same basis for that uncertainty. In short we need to separate dogma from process. Can the dogma, and work on the process.
3
In his discussion of liberalism, Brooks seems to be taking a page from the nineteenth, rather than the twenty-first century. Classical liberalism did espouse and attempt to practice laissez faire capitalism--the cutthroat kind. Today's liberalism is much different, as I'm sure Brooks understands. It seeks to use the government to assist people at or toward the bottom economically. At its best, it favors a "weaver" society. Neo-liberalism is a term that aims to obfuscate, rather than illuminate.
3
Two comments - one, that our ability to cooperate also disposes us to tribalism, which is manifest in us in ways from the benign (school spirit, team sports) to the malignant (racism, religious wars).
Second, your entreaty for collaboration will resonate with only one political party. The other now seems impervious to it, locked in a virulent form of tribalism. We can only change that by winning, not by entreaty.
3
@JS
Not wholly sure, but I think David's "weaving" doesn't commend the exclusive kind. And I'm not sure what you mean by "winning". Hopefully, not Charlie Sheen or "the Great Divider" Trump types of winning.
Real winning means the party of tribalism loses its base because it's dissuaded from appeals to ignorance and illegitimate fears and angers, so that Republicanism has to appeal to the better angels of conservatism, if there are any.
The future of American politics is bleak unless the current "conservatives" wear a hair-shirt for the next generation to apologize for the politics and economics they have extolled for the past generation.
4
@Mick Essentially it means that the future of American politics is BLEAK. Unless the whole country wears a hair-shirt or hair-underpants or whatever over the next several generations.
Mr. Brooks, did you say critics of deregulated capitalism are "not entirely wrong?" How about saying they are "absolutely correct?" And maybe, "How could I defend deregulated capitalism for my entire career as a professional observer and be blind to the obvious evidence all around us?"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/income-inequality-in-america-how-98-trillion-of-household-wealth-is-distributed/
The concentration of wealth brought on by the 40 year backlash against the civil rights and anti-militarism movement is about to re-constitutionalize the country as an authoritarian oligarchy. "Not entirely wrong," indeed.
6
Great column! Trump is an object lesson on what happens when its everyone for him or her self. The question is will we lean after one dose, or will it take two before we realize that the current system is not working?
If we do decide to change we have to stop being so American about change. We want change and we want it now!!! Some things however take time, we have to respect others being uncomfortable with what we propose and give them time to see the benefits of the change before we introduce more. We are planting a seed and it takes time to grow. Be patient, it will be worth it.
1
What do you do when you’ve lost confidence that people with opposing views want to collaborate? At some level groups have to share a goal to make collaboration work. How do you approach people who’s goal is to dominate the people who think differently? To win at all cost? The Thread ideas are good ones, but I fear that one group’s willingness to adopt them can’t overcome another group’s desire to win no matter what.
5
There is no 'enemy', no 'evil other'. There is only us. Our ignorance is the product of our laziness, and it leads to the fear of others. That fear, if left unchecked, can become anger, then hatred, and sometimes violence.
We must take the time to create spaces free from judgement and acrimony to learn about others, that we may dispel our fears.
1
@Michael Collins: Well said. I presume you're reacting to the great majority of posts that proclaim hatred for the President and his supporters.
Religious institutions were the glue that brought disparate groups together. They allowed for differences in culture, race, class, education, politics, etc. and every weekend, you could sit for an hour next to someone you would otherwise never see or speak to.. Religion has been replaced by a warped version of Humanism that separates us rather than divides us. It forces us to take sides as either pro or con, black or white, right or wrong. In order to unite us in a positive way, we need a new religion that teaches tolerance. It doesn't replace the traditional ones, but provides leadership in developing relationships and common goals. National Service for everyone. No college until you have contributed a couple of years to this country's needs, a job where you'll work alongside people from other cultures and neighborhoods. How's that for a start?
2
David Brooks sees a new epoch every six months or so. But a generation is the relevant time unit for evolution whether cultural or biological - not the news cycle or editorial deadlines As a matter of arithmetic 2024 should be a generational inflection point comparable to 1992 & 1960. Trump and related phenomena - the spectacle in the Senate - are the death rattle of a dying era. While I hope Trump is tossed in November, any successor is likely to be a one termer.
2
At the end of his column, Brooks acknowledges that "human beings are partly selfish and self-interested." But then goes on to argue that "we are also supremely social and collaborative" which is "the part we have to work on now."
The question is why haven't we been working on the latter part all along. And I'd argue it's because those with power have in the past, are now and (sadly) will in the future act in a way where selfishness reigns supreme. Democracy was supposed to distribute that power to all the people so that there would be competition among all our various interests that would end up, eventually, serving all of us to some reasonably fair degree. The problem is that the competition has never really been fair and those who have the power just keep wanting more. Easy proofs of this are the obscene inequality in wealth, lawmakers who are in the pocket of special interests, a court system where the powerful not the disempowered are catered to....
Sorry, but I think that these disparities are baked into the system at this point and that Brooks' solution of tinkering around the edges with programs, institutions and policies isn't going to change that dynamic.
Whether a revolution will make the situation better or worse is irrelevant as given the fear and anger which are so prevalent, a revolution seems inevitable.
Having watched David on Friday "Newshour" broadcasts, I know he wouldn't make a good politician. Not good on the visuals. But having listened to him in many forums, perhaps he might make the social contribution he seeks by being a political adviser to candidates receptive to his ideas. America needs more "weaving", more community ties, and we need more public servants who serve in the background, if not in the stead of most of today's crop of politicians.
Brooks knows quite well that the class war that Sanders talks about is not just a narrative. It is our American history. Before the country countered the influence of the robber barons the lower classes were routinely crushed by the wealthy.
"Why do we still not have a national service program?" A: Because the Republican party has championed the selfishness that does not allow for any concept of self sacrifice, e.g., it's treatment of Jimmy Carter. Wasn't it George Bush who said the American people want their SUV's and he will put them in them (regardless of the impact on the environment)? He knew they were not willing to sacrifice for the greater good so were receptive to the idea that he will give them what they want.
If Brooks gave this speech in front of liberal Democrats and then in front of conservative Republicans, which group do you think would support his opinions? That tells you all you need to know about which group is preventing the collaboration among Americans that Brooks is calling for.
3
"No offense, but if you’re supporting Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders this year, collaboration skills are not high on your list of priorities."
I feel I have enough information (sourced nyt mostly) on how the President collaborates, but not so much for Sanders.
Maybe one reason Trump and Sanders have few to collaborate with is because they are fighting the status quo.
Just because we are anxious about the future doesn't mean the pendulum is simply going center itself. I base that by how I have been affected by this president.
I have never been so alert to the goings on as I have been with this tear it all down President. Especially with regards to the environment (that's my selfish focal point).
I've seen enough of Trump to last a lifetime, maybe Sanders should have a shot at it now.
5
Excellent piece by Mr. Brooks. His theme mirrors the history of the progress of humankind in the book," Th Rational Optimist," by Matt Ridley in which he portrays collaboration as the basis for advancing civilization. Of course the way the partisan national media outlets today presents us with "their" liberal or conservative version of the news its hard to see us seeking middle ground to work together.
"It’s groups struggling for power. Society is an arena where certain groups crush other groups."
What makes this statement especially concerning is the vast number of weapons these "groups" posses and the common refrain of only being able to remove them from ones cold dead hands.
This societal battle among the groups, as Mr. Brooks has pointed out, become even more dangerous when fiction is peddled as facts and groups rise up to confront an invented enemy.
David, I know you mean well, and of course the idea of cooperation within a community that includes everyone has a lot of idealistic appeal. But your thinking is clouded by this idealism in the face of reality. You should start by talking to some evolutionary biologists. You state as a given that humans have become the "world's dominant species." Have we really? We have only existed for about 200 thousand years. That is nothing compared to the hundreds of millions of years that many others have lasted, and we have every reason to doubt that we can ever last anywhere near that long. Have we had an outsize effect on the whole earth and on all other species? Yes, but is that a sign of long-term success? It could be argued that what we're seeing is in fact hard evidence for the likely long-term failure of the human evolutionary path. Might things be better if we could adjust our behavior as you suggest? I'd like to think so, but it probably flies in the face of the way humans are wired. There's a lot more evidence for our natural inclination for tribal warfare than for enlightened cooperation. But please press on with your call for cooperation; we will need all of our evolutionary smarts to overcome our evolutionary competitiveness and defensiveness.
3
Next stop, since Trump has determined that getting reelected is in the public interest, expect him to cancel the election in November and declare himself President again. I'm sure this would be fine with all Republicans, since they are in the process of making him Dictator, maybe for life.
2
The real point of Brooks' piece is to debunk the Sanders movement by equating it with the Trump-ian right.
With the rise of Sanders, Democrat and Republican mainstream news journalists now traffic in this claim.
Basically, establishment Democrats and Republicans and their journalism mouthpieces are both trying to stop a democratic political movement that threatens to reduce the influence of corporations on US politics (lobbying, e.g.), tax them more, and pass legislation like medicare for all.
Enough with the hysterical smears, Brooks - why can't everyone have medical care like yours? Talking about weaving without supporting the most basic political things, like healthcare, to help people is worse than hypocritical - it's bad faith argument.
We can all agree that community is good, but your argument uses that good idea as cover for the manifest ills of a political system you don't truly want to change.
4
I think the root problem is that we have a crisis of absence of morality. I think a majority of people in this country will look the other way for a buck. If something, whatever, gives you a profit go for it. Money talks and as Brooks says human relations don't rank as high as money.
So Trump supporters love him because they think he has facilitated them having more money. Who cares how immoral or awful he is.
And this all in a nation that claims to have moral authority above other nations.
140
@InTheKnow
An absence of morality in politics is not unexpected, speaking as a city-dweller.
I would counter that we have too much morality in politics: what we have is the morality of the false Christians (non-denominational evangelicals) who want to impose their draconian morals on the rest of us, through political action.
Morality plus force is the worst kind of immorality.
13
Brooks is right that we evolved to our status as overlords of the world due to our cooperative natures. He is (reliably) wrong in lumping the current progressive movement with the fascistic Trump cabal. Sure, the rhetoric of the Left makes sure to name the "enemy", but whereas the "enemy" to 45 and his minions are everyday, ordinary citizens that we're told to hate because they're black/brown/gay/liberal/etc., the Left aims its ire at what even Brooks admits is a problem: the unending greed and self-dealing of the 1% and the corporations that control every facet of American life. If you want to truly weave America back together, look to the POLICIES of the Sanders campaign, and you'll find the way there. The trouble is, it would upset Brooks' golfing buddies.
Nice thought, David, but in this polarized America, that’s never going to happen. What we have now is a bunch of red states with a small minority of people ruling the blue states because of the Electoral College, where the Blues can’t win a presidency. Trump and the red Senate have turned our nation into a cesspool of nastiness. Not surprisingly, virtually all of the original confederate states are 150 years later, still red states. With hindsight, Lincoln should have let them go. I think now is the time for the blue states to secede and form its own union with peoples with like minds. Why should California, New York and other blue states prop up red states like Mississippi, Arkansas and Wyoming with blue tax money? They should not. We could split up as did India and Pakistan after WW II.
I am tired of facing red state grifting, not to mention the scam that the US Senate has become. trump republicans are quickly ruining America. Let them have their part; let us prosper without them.
6
@Lawman69 I agree and also feel this huge continent should become four or five separate nations. Ole Abe did no one a favor by demanding it stay intact when it started to split. It might still end up four or five "regions" in 300 years-sort of a delayed correction and for the better. John Poole
Congressman Ro Khanna's proposal for research and technology hubs throughout the country is another top-down, federal-government-knows-best approach. What about trying a from-the-ground-up approach which respects the people and their cultures in rural areas and small towns? It is no wonder that their residents resent bi-coastal elites and experts.
The alternative would be locally lead consortiums with state and federal agencies playing a consulting and supporting role and providing contracts to local businesses to do work which the governments would otherwise contract to remote, big businesses. One example: in coal-mining country, environmental restoration could be the basis of economic revival and, with proper planning, lead a transition to a more diversified economy and a robust community.
See: https://firstimpressionssecondthoughts.blogspot.com/2020/01/helping-other-americas-help-themselves.html
The Great GOP Extinction Mystery.
Centuries from now, archeologists will still be trying to figure out:
What happened to all the Republicans?
Were they hit by a meteorite, did they run out of caviar, or did they just fall in a tar pit?
1
I am no expert on Plato. I was reading a book by Foucault – a series of lectures possibly, which I had read once and recently started reading again more carefully but then put down and have failed to pick up again. He talks somewhere about Plato (The Statesman).
There will be no re-weaving with Republicans in power. Their brand is too exclusive. If you’re rich, male, white, and Christian you might belong; if you’re a woman, brown, and have Mexican ancestry, you most definitely do not. Trump’s election made that clear. We cannot reweave our community with Trump dividing us every day. Just now Trump is at a campaign rally making fun of Buttigieg’s name. Anyone who supports him is dividing us because they support his awful nastiness that is on TV every day.
The only people I want to spend time with are kind, accepting, and decent. I would rather spend the rest of my life with people from Mexico than spend one minute with Trump or any of his Senate enablers. Mitt Romney is the only decent one among them.
1
It took me a couple reads to understand what you're talking about.
Mr. Brooks, Mitch McConnell would eat you and your good intentions for lunch, and pick his teeth with your bones.
The Democrates are up against ruthless political operators with no morals (or witnesses). Sure, we should all weave together. Right to oblivion.
Or we can fight.
6
Collaboration is a fancy word that manipulators like to use to bully people into accepting something other than what one believes in. By using the word "Trumpian" Brooks betrays his desire to crush the President, which has been evident from his words ever since the President descended down the escalator. Mr. Brooks has never shown any interest in collaborating with the President and his supporters.
Ugh. The false equivalence is appalling. It is appalling.
The US Senate has just about ratified a white nationalist dictator.
The Democratic House managers argued courageously and idealistically for our democracy but the fix is in. A truly horrible man is given the freedom to crush the US and you talk about weaving?
Dear Mr. Brooks. Please wake up.
3
The patient has a spear through the guts, and David Brooks, true to form, offers herbal tea and a Hallmark Get Well card.
4
Wonderful. Thank you.
I never know why I bother to read David Brooks. Enlightened self interest is the primary assumption of capitalism, as I understand it. Self interest doesn't shred society unless there is no regulating body (government) able to restrain its excesses.
But I'm not sure anything is different today than was true when I became aware of the world in the 1950's. Nor when the Founders structured a checks and balances system which has endured through some tough times.
I can never tell if Brooks is on a high intellectual level of thinking or a completely trivial one. I go with that last one. He's irrelevant.
1
Disagree. With the inevitable acquittal of Trump, our Democracy is officially over. We may as well let North Korea or Iran nuke us into oblivion. We deserve it.
1
Are you sure the “radical left” is so bad?Every value you propose sounds exactly like what lefties have been advocating for. Acknowledging oppression isn’t about us verses them it’s about being honest about the very dehumanization you’re highlighting. Collective, Community, Diversity, these are themes of the left, the very definition “Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy,” and supporting your neighbors over individualism. But who cares, if these values can become the middle, go ahead, take all the credit.
1
I don't think I've ever read a more disingenuous description of what liberalism is. Thank you Mr. Brooks for again establishing yourself for what it means to be at your base core a Republican.
2
Interesting and encouraging article. Thanks.
A. Hamilton was garbage; please read this part 1 from a NY Times op-ed. He's been the most quoted FF in the trial:
ALEXANDER HAMILTON is all the rage. Sold out for months in advance, the musical “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s remarkable hip-hop dramatization of this founder’s life, is arguably the most celebrated American cultural phenomenon of our time. Reported on from every conceivable angle, the show has helped keep Hamilton on the $10 bill and prompted a new nickname for this weekend’s Broadway awards ceremony: the “Hamiltonys.”
Central to the musical’s power is the way it and its extraordinarily talented multiracial cast use Hamilton’s immigrant hustle to explain the most important political episodes of his life. “I am not throwing away my shot,” Mr. Miranda’s Hamilton sings early on, and it is this motif that animates everything that follows.
In Hamilton’s tumultuous life, Mr. Miranda saw the drive and promise of the immigrant story of America. Already in 1782 the French immigrant Crèvecoeur had defined “the American, this new man” as one who moved to a land in which the “idle may be employed, the useless become useful, & the poor become rich.” Hamilton announces this entrepreneurial ambition early in the show: “Hey, yo, I’m just like my country/I’m young, scrappy and hungry.” The night’s biggest applause line, “Immigrants: We get the job done!,” proclaims that, contra Donald J. Trump, immigrants are the source of America’s greatness and renewal, not its decline.
1
I read The New York Times' Brooks with a sense of awe.
This highly-educated, award-winning journalist writes: "No offense, but if you're supporting . . . Bernie Sanders this year, collaboration skills are not high on your list of priorities."
Yet he writes this in the face of millions of people across the nation collaborating mightily, in an unprecedented collaborative presidential campaign effort rejecting corporate funding, to vote into the U.S. presidency a true representative of their wishes, hopes, aspirations, goals, and future plans—for this nation and for this world.
In the face of this undeniably massive non-corporate funded collaboration of American voter in American politics, Brooks writes what he does here to show us that his real job lies in spreading this corporate propaganda: Bernie Sanders must be stopped on his anti-corporate campaign path to the presidency by all the means The (corporate-owned & corporate sponsored) New York Times has at its disposal.
I am a dyed-in-the-wool co-operator, and a proud, un-reformed hippie. At some point, co-operation might be just the thing, and I applaud your values. But at the moment, we are under political and cultural assault by a fascist cult. You can't assume good intentions for people who knowingly destroy priceless institutions in order to cover for their malignant leader, and who will mindlessly attack anyone who challenges the ludicrous fiction that Trump is actually a President, rather than a sophomoric imbecile playing at the job. The fact that this group has stolen the name of a one-proud political party does not mean it is to be co-operated with. Rather, it needs to be crushed and decimated, both electorally and culturally, punished mercilessly, so that it never again allows such an unimaginably horrible human being to get close to the reins of power.
4
Well David Brooks muses on the future of American politics, think on this: by refusing to admit witnesses the Republican senators in Congress have decided two gang rape the Constitution in the name of protecting Donald Trump and the autocracy that he is steadily creating. If you’re thinking about the future of American politics think about one word: fascism.
David Brooks can write a book about the rest but for now we need to be concerned with something far more serious!
1
That David Brooks continues to sell the absurd myth that Liberalism is the root of evil and that Republican conservative obstructionism and willful driving to eliminate all actual liberal programs is non-existent is insulting and base. In the face of actual corruption by the Republican party at the highest levels of governance that Brooks and the New York Times desperately presents a bizarre argument that 'liberalism' is destroying the country has gone beyond insulting to both absurd and downright threatening to the institutions of the USA. It's possible that Trump is correct when he describes the New York Times as an enemy of the people.
2
Please David, what am I missing? “Weaving”? Are you kidding me? Is this the vision for America? If it is then we are truly doomed.
1
"America has an enormous task of institutional reform ahead of it..."
Lincoln at Gettysburg: "...testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived, can long endure..."
With this charade of a senate trial and the Nazi-like rallies, safe to say America, so conceived, is over. I am heartbroken. Trump, the GOP, "the base", Fox and the right wing media have instituted a new form of government, deeply unAmerican as she was conceived.
Mr. Brooks, this is a revolution unfolding, the overthrow of a democracy, there will be no tinkering with reforms.
Mr. Books badly needs to re-read his Foucault.
I am curious as to why David Brooks told only two-thirds of his story. He mentions "unrestrained liberalism" and "unrestrained populism," but he leaves out unrestrained conservatism. a.k.a. authoritarinism/fascism/Trumpism. Unrestrained conservatism also makes us miserable.
2
Let's work together to make sure no one in this country has to go without food, shelter, education, and healthcare. What do you say, David? Is that collaborative enough for you?
2
I have no idea what Brooks means by liberals and liberalism -- his portrayal sounds much more like the insanely rich right
with a carve out for rich Hollywood stars
when an impeached president is acquitted thanks in part to an argument which states that anything a president does to ensure his own reelection is in the pubic's best interest, i say "america is dead."
David, I wish it were so easy. I fear you are fiddling while Rome burns.
1
"Unrestrained liberalism" is the problem? Then that would make Trump his cronies in the Senate the most unrestrained liberals of all.
2
"Your group will never pulverize and eliminate your opposing group. There’s no choice but to set up better collaborative systems across difference."
Donald Trump and his slavish minions are putting the lie to that statement right now. Tribalism is ascendant. The massive, worldwide social experiment that is social media continues to silo people ever further into ideological clusters.
No choice? Mr. Brooks, the political philosophy that you support led to Donald Trump. It is convenient now to wash your hands of it and talk of weaving, no? Your party is in the process of further empowering a kleptocratic conman who paints himself orange and spends his days trolling on Twitter. I'm still waiting for the column where you take responsibility. Where you admit you did nothing to stave off the 40 year Southern Strategy of the Republican Party that led us here. It's Republicans who are disenfranchising voters. It's Republicans who are gerrymandering districts. It's Republicans who are depending on the politics of division to win votes. Republicans are the bad guys. You're one of the bad guys. This column about weaving is awesomely hypocritical. Man up, David. Admit you were wrong and have been part of the problem.
1
And some of us are caught in life and death struggles with self-important, know-it-all categorical dismissal clowns.
"On the Trumpian right it’s the coastal cultural elite trying to crush and delegitimize the white Christian patriots of the heartland. On the cultural left it’s the whole Michel Foucault legacy. Language is a tool the oppressor class uses to permanently marginalize the oppressed. On the economic left it’s the Bernie Sanders class war."
Wow, that is a mouthful! From trump to Foucault to Bernie, really? Just one clarification: Michel Foucault? Language? Did you mean Noam Chomsky?
“Cooperation makes things happen”
~ Lyric from Sesame Street
Tribalism, partisanship Isolationism yada yada yada. The great capitalistic system raises all boat is the metaphor of even if your not doing well your doing better because of the rich guys benevolence. The crash of 08 separated the wheat for the chafe and those without a life jacket sunk to the bottom. See the view from the bottom is I didn't do anything wrong so why am I left without the ability to survive. The bank created the catastrophe but sail the high seas. The politicians swooped in and gathered these lost souls into a ill informed mob. The great protector of the mob is a illiterate bully who demand blind following and the ignorant fools can't see that they are going further into the abyss
It's time for David Brooks to take his talents to Hollywood. The movie industry loves fantastical, impossible, magical narratives.
1
Look who has publicly given up on Univ of Chicago Brutal Economic Theory! But he still won’t admit that he has been supporting the con most of his adult life.
Not even a passing mention to "Why Liberalism Failed" by Professor Patrick Deneen, whom Mr. Brooks has clearly been inspired by in this piece and is indebted to? The first half of this piece reads as a summary of the book, and I believe Mr. Brooks has read it, as his review is on the cover! Minor quibbles...
1
For David Brooks. Black is White, Up is Down, Left is Right. Ascribing "Liberalism" with all the flaws and faults of modern conservationism is simply ludicrous. David has spent too much time listening to the likes of Alan Dershowitz and to little time in critical thought.
The current structure of American politics cannot be analyzed without including the Civil War from 1861 to 1865.
Without recapping the causes of the war, it is important to note that the conflict continues to the present day. The 'Lost Cause' has become Fake News. The Union forces controlled by president Lincoln from Washington, DC have become the 'Deep State' myth. The morphing analogs are endless, and any Slave State Conservative, the Neo-Confederates, will be happy to give you the full course.
The signal event that shapes our country now was Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964, however. Goldwater won Arizona and 5 states of the Deep South, defectors from the Dixiecrat Democrats to the Republican banner.
Why do so many writers in the NYT and elsewhere fail to understand American history, or conveniently forget it?
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Forgive me David, If today of all days, I refuse to 'weave' with a party that enables a corrupt, incompetent executive, a party that denied a sitting president a Supreme Court nominee and hundreds of Federal judiciary appointments, a party that denies Climate change, a party that thinks schoolchildren should be armed, a party that parrots Putin's disinformation on the floor of the Senate, a party of fiscal restraint only when the executive branch is in the hands of the opposition, a party that behaves more and more like a 20th Century fascist state, a party that relies on disinformation to maintain control.
Lastly, I have never heard anyone describe crony capitalism as "neoliberalism."
Yes, the problems in society didn't just happen; they really were consciously engineered by the Evil Other. His name is Mitch McConnell. Also Rupert Murdoch and Charles Koch. There really are people deliberately warping our government to disenfranchise others while grabbing for themselves.
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Hey David,
People like you are responsible for the excesses of ‘neoliberalism’. A term you’re twenty years or so late to put into quotes. If you didn’t want the current state of affairs you should have listened to the so-call left radicals a long while ago, before the war on terror began, before we allowed the finance industry to gut regulation, before we cut the safety net, before we unleashed predatory insurance companies on families struggling with illness, and before we were looking over the precipice of ‘neofascism.’
A better model for reconciliation would be the end of apartheid in South Africa. Truth and Reconciliation is in order. That will require some deep soul searching for folks like you who helped guide our society from your pulpit into the dangerous situation we are in today.
I read The New York Times' Brook's stuff with a profound sense of awe.
How could a highly-educated, award-winning journalist write: "No offense, but if you're supporting . . . Bernie Sanders this year, collaboration skills are not high on your list of priorities"?
He writes this in the face of millions of people across the nation collaborating mightily, in an unprecedented collaborative effort in presidential campaigning, to push into the U.S. presidency a true representative of their wishes, hopes, aspirations, goals, and future plans—for this nation and for this world.
But in the face of this undeniably massive collaboration in American politics, Brooks writes what he does here to show us all that his real job lies in spreading this corporate propaganda: Bernie Sanders must be stopped on his way to the presidency by all the means The (corporate-supported) New York Times has at its disposal.
1
Once again, a misrepresentation of Bernie's record. Check this from 4 years ago...
https://www.salon.com/test/2016/01/30/paul_krugmans_dead_wrong_about_bernie_why_sanders_track_record_proves_hes_not_just_about_happy_dreams/
This is the most ridiculous vapor cloud ever from this man. Planet on fire, US democracy going down the tubes, tyrants and strong men back in fashion everywhere, and all he's got is "weaver culture?" Okay boomer.
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Dear DAVID,
You are one smart guy.
But your initial conclusive statement seems backwards;
"This is the flaw of unrestrained liberalism, what the radicals call “neoliberalism” or “late capitalism.”
I would have said;
"This is the flaw of unrestrained conservatism, what the Trumpian's call “MAGA” where the voters still believe whites should dominate and pretend that “capitalism” is the solution - they still believe in the myth of the American Dream.
Why are you calling a lack of logic based in facts and reason used by conservatives - liberalism? Groups don't think but individuals can line up to eliminate their own independent thought. I think they do this because they have lost themselves and are useless as contributing individuals; a form of group-think.
1
Brooks to the rescue again: "Be nice, everybody!" Well, that's settled then! Nothing to be concerned about! Time for ice cream!
2
David just made a wonderful argument for the dissolution of both the Republican Party and the parasite Capitalism of Wall Street. Does he really believe what he wrote?
Brannon is winning.
Don't worry David. In times such as this it's alright if you go little insane now and then. Just don't do any harm to yourself okay? You're a good man and you're allowed to have been mistaken.
You've got to try to laugh. Remember the folks at The Simpsons imagined Donald Trump as a future POTUS as a joke and then it came true! And a lot of really smart folks once imagined Milton Friedman was even smarter than them! What a crack up!
It helps to remember that our brains are mostly only evolved for a nomadic life of hunting and gathering on a savannah, for about thirty hours a week, amongst about only forty other individuals, whom we've known our whole lives! Who said we were cut out for complicated careers in a largely anonymous global civilisation of billions anyway?
Console yourself David. It was probably a liberal. Or a radical. It sure wasn't a conservative.
1
Tell that to the lawyers Mr. Brooks. Good luck!
Send this article to the republicans who have lead the gop since Gringrich. Make sure every member of the my or highway do nothing tea party receives notice. Then send an engraved copy to the Koch network, CATO and the heritage foundation.
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Consider Jan. 2020 as the start of the end. First (post-1865) shot at the Republic was fired by Dershowitz 2 days ago, possibly in a hologram taken at his villa in occupied Ukraine. That will be cited in the books: "There ain't no USA left, get over it."
Second shot, from the corrupt Republican congress, "acquitting" their own emperor. It's over. Dersh is now obfuscating on what he did; but he's the one, he turned Washington into a palace with an emperor and lackeys.
1
Mr. Brooks; just a thought; maybe we should let women run the world for a hundred years or so. Just a thought after reading your essay.
I am speechless.
If your hero Mr Reagan could see you now!
It is the very definition of false equivalency to equate the current GOP's totally corrupt authoritarian rule with a "far left" that is basically asking for universal healthcare and decent education.
Your GOP cabal of Christian fundamentalist and gun rights fanatics have been skillfully manipulated by the 1% oligarchs to allow them unrestricted access to the US Treasury.
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Right now Republican Senators are arguing that if Trump is removed from office it would further divide us. I’m afraid the truth is exactly the opposite. Because now we will be divided along a new fault line: those who believe in a fair trial and a law-abiding executive and those who don’t. Lamar Alexander agrees the Trump did extort Ukraine in exchange for political investigations, but that it is not an impeachable crime. Now it is plainly evident that Republicans en masse think only Democrats are bad, and wrong, and can be impeached for the pettiest of wrongs, while clearly and deeply corrupt Republicans can’t. Today Republican will vote nearly unanimously along those horrendous lines. Living in a country where the law is used only against Democrats and doesn’t apply to Republicans will drive us further and further apart.
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It would be nice if we could all get along after all no matter who is in control we are still going to be here together.That said just this week 5 people I talked to said they are all in for Trump and they like his policies race is a big part, right wing media or I say propaganda has given them the green light that it is OK to think that way and say so in the open. Keeping people divided works to keep the money on the top. A friend said of Fox news we have a voice now that speaks volumes.
The prisoner's dilemma states that the optimal move when the other person doesn't cooperate is to no longer offer cooperation.
If one side has repeatedly refused to cooperate, then it is no longer reasonable to offer your hand until such time as they are willing to accept it.
2
The UNDERLYING cause is built into the founding documents - " .... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness .... ".
It is that last endeavor that is the root of problems. HOW does one define happiness. Wealth. Health. Family & friends relationships? In that the basic 'eudaimonia' is lost.
We all have a portion of our efforts dedicated to selfish and altruistic purposes.
"Men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest. No other partial truth has done as much damage as this one." suggests MOST of it is 'selfish'. Not so. When I 'do good' for others, by say volunteering, I FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYSELF. So is it selfish or altruistic? Perhaps both.
Let us venture to 'leave the world a better place than we were dropped into' rather than 'leave the world with more wealth than our parents'.
You wont take it with you any way.
I am in total agreement with your premise in the article "The Future of American Politics". From my own perspective the concepts of "weaving" and "collaboration" are at the core of human existence. They are also at the heart of all religious beliefs. So why can't we get it right? Why do self-interest, greed, and avarice rule the world? Why can't we put down our arms and collaborate with each other for the common good?
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for your wisdom.
Christine
Mexico City
The emotional outrage demonstrated by so many makes it very hard to even discuss rational participation in mending our country. Nevertheless, I am quite again impressed with this article. For me, 1 in 2 article from David are excellent and insightful. If he was representative of the other side of the aisle, we could add together our insights instead of subtracting them.
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The Founding Fathers in fact DID recognize that we largely governed by self interest, and tried to design a system of divided government, as in 3 branches of government at the national level, and Federalism, which divides power between the states and national government. For this to work, there must be effective checks in place to prevent one body from overrunning the other.
Things are starting to come apart, because the executive has been allowed to have too much power, and Senate has become wildly unrepresentative of the country. But by far, the single greatest problem is money in politics. We have to start there by somehow nullifying or overturning Citizens United.
4
At the basis of this polarizing conundrum lies the problem of adequate and unbiased information.
To get properly informed one needs time and accessibility to the sources of information.
Many of us are fossilized getting informed by the same sources, that reinforce our beliefs and deepen the divide.
We just lost Jim Lehrer , one of the best journalists America ever had . For decades I have watched the McNeil - Lehrer report and subsequent News Hour , the best source of unbiased information.
Now with internet and some ability in foreign languages I can get different opinions from many other sources worldwide .
I wish Americans will realize that polarization is equal to manipulation by the top 1% , who can only profit from this societal fracture .
2
Nice article - we definitely need to step back and look at the bigger picture now and again, rather than remain mired in the current Us vs Them. So the twin ideas that we need to balance the needs of individual versus the needs of the group together with the fact that us humans are pretty unique among the animal kingdom in being able to cooperate well in large groups.
The fundamental problem we need to overcome, however, is that us humans are also pretty unique in our ability to act and react with unsurpassed aggression towards other groups who we fear may adversely affect our own.
So far, we're not proving to be too good at doing this, unless we have a common goal which we all agree is a common goal.
1
Inspiring and excellently framed, Mr. Brooks - bravo!
As I read this essay I was reminded of a NYT article from several ago about a Muslim cleric named Qtub whose writings and philosophy were thought to be central to Osama Bin Laden’s quest to destroy the US.
Qtub’s thesis was that mankind had lost its way and was now engaged in an existential struggle for survival. The central premise was that politics, society and religion were always meant to be closely intertwined, and the it was Evil West that chose to separate out religion, thereby leading to the decline of humanity.
This set up the call for tribal warfare, to stop at nothing to defeat those who denied this fundamental truth.
Reading your description of tribal war here it occurs to me that there isn’t much difference in the underlying mindset of “us vs. them” as it plays out here and the way it has been playing out between the US and our averred enemies.
1
Mr. Brooks......If it is cooperation that you want, the best example of codified cooperation comes in the form of Socialism. It allows the individualism of a regulated Capitalism while ensuring that we share some burdens and costs.......defense, police, health care, education and infrastructure etc. It is no coincidence that the 'happiest' countries tend to be those like Denmark that have a strong Socialist umbrella.
3
Thank-you so much, David, for your continued contributions and service to our country. Your message is so inspiring and helpful. I couldn’t agree with you more. (I also loved your book, “The Second Mountain”).
1
Mr Brooks. At the risk of sounding tribal - Your politics of weaving best describes the Democratic party, which is quickly becoming the governing coalition (such as it is) in Washington. I hope a few Republicans read your analysis and take an honest look at themselves. I fear they will become a small and lonely opposition party if they don't.
3
I am 60+ years old and have seen quite a lot in my time. After reading Brooks' column I am more unsettled than before reading it. I realize he's trying to shed light on bridging ideological divides in America. But even with his recommendations at the end, I fail to see how real change will ever take place. Like climate change, no matter how much we say if we do this or do that we still have time to tip back the scale, nothing will be done to stop it, nothing will change. It's like saying we need to save rain forests around the world. We've been saying that since the 1970's. So we know that, governments know that, but the rain forests continue to be decimated. It's too late for stemming climate change, too late for saving the rainforests (they go hand-in-hand with climate change), as it is too late to bridge these ideological divides Brooks mentions. The news media and social media are only going to hasten that divide and there's nothing we can do to stop that from happening. For me silver linings are tarnishing and decaying at a rapid rate.
4
Mr. Brooks. I agree that fault can be found on both sides, but as usual your intellectual relativism goes too far. A well functioning and healthy society requires the cooperation of a variety of stakeholders. This is true. And a government elected by the people is charged, ideally, with managing the concerns of the varying interest groups. This is often imperfect but it's all we've got.
So I ask you, which political party and their intellectual standard bearers have actively undermined the intention and role of government over the last 40 years? And which party has embraced and propagated an Ayn Randian world view that you seem to discredit?
4
I agree. Humans accomplish things-- good and bad-- almost invariably only when they work cooperatively towards a common goal. This means, among other things, openly and honestly sharing information and ideas, listening to the opinions and points of view of others, and working to fuse various ideas into a desired whole. We seem to be in a political moment in which some long established institutions are not serving their intended function and do not embody or foster cooperation-- Congress and political parties come to mind. Perhaps, to move forward, we need to let or cause them to go away, so we can build something that will work. Maybe we are really witnessing that process, which may explain how ugly politics have become, similar to a forest fire destroying to allow for new growth. If a relatively moderate senator like Lamar Alexander, who is not running for re-election, says Trump did what impeachment Article I alleges, but that his corrupt actions do not warrant Trump's removal from office, or even a fulsome inquiry, then Congress no longer has a meaningful oversight role with respect to the Executive Branch. In that case, we need to acknowledge the destruction of Congress and create a new institution that will work. The alternative is to accept a dictatorship, which I am not ready or willing to do. I hope and expect most Americans are not prepared for that either.
On the other hand, it's impossible to deal with someone whose basic values are at odds with one's own. America was founded upon a set of values, a set of ideals, which has served us well over the past two-and-a-half centuries. Currently, some very powerful people have found various ways to use the two basic human motivators, 'greed' and 'fear', to manipulate and subvert those ideals.
Forget about the 'nice, nice' societal interaction stuff for now. If core values have changed, voluntarily or involuntarily through deceit and manipulation, then we have a truly serious problem, indeed.
Over the prior century, when other countries found themselves at an impasse, we attempted to help. Most of the time, we were successful, but several times, we weren't. Now, who is here to help us as we struggle in this morass? Certainly, it wouldn't be beneficial for the world if another Civil War develops.
5
@Stop and Think
"This is Captain America calling: I bailed you out when you were down on your knees; won't you help me now I'm falling?"
Ray Davies
1
...Still other institutions have become dehumanized. Our schools, hospitals, prisons and welfare systems don’t embed people in thick relationships."
Indeed: these systems have become "for profit" and as long as that's in place, there will be no human compassion or even a guarantee of human decency. When everything is driven by a buck -- for sale -- there's no room for cooperation and relationships, no matter what better angels you're trying to appeal to. Education, healthcare and penitentiaries must not be money-making machines, otherwise it's an assurance that self-interest -- and the worst possible form of it, greed -- will be the foremost motivator. I'm surprised Brooks talks about a national service program...really? He's the one of the influential voices advocating for unbridled capitalism for as long as I've been reading him, so why the surprise?
For me one of the most troubling manifestations of this destructive and divisive tribalism is the attorney general, William Barr.
Putatively the country’s top administrator of “justice” he calls atheism a “social pathology” and sets one group of citizens against another with his public pronouncements that secular humanists are an existential threat to the republic, responsible from everything to mental illness and drug addiction to “senseless violence”.
Why is the nation’s representative of “law and order” going around the country whipping up animosity and social discord? Why are citizens paying his salary to do this?
281
@h leznoff Decided to become a partisan agent of the president, and has been willing to lower the standing of the office in the process. Exactly stuff that the authors of the Federalist papers were against - whipping up passions of factions.
10
Because the Republicans voted him in.
4
@Rebelhut
Almost. The various kinds of cheating did the final job.
3
Humans survived because they cooperated in finding food and protecting one another. That shared experience is the foundation of tribalism. We are a large country where local experiences and beliefs can differ widely. But extreme tribalism is dangerous and it led to our Civil War.
Tribalism paused during the Depression and World War II when everyone experienced poverty and war. Our nation came together and led the world out of both crises
Now, we have slipped back into extreme tribalism again, with "winner take all" politics fought with social media and news clips. These distractions have blinded us to the unprecedented global crisis ahead.
Climate change threatens to extinguish the human race. Australia and California are on fire; Europe and Alaska are overheating; drought is rampant in Asia and Africa. Already these changes have led to mass human migrations in Central America, the Middle East and Africa. All are related to starvation and local wars. .
Who's responsible for all of this? As the cartoon character Pogo, once said "We have met the enemy... and he is us".
Our country is behind in leading the global effort to prevent this crisis that, left unchecked, will be irreversible during this century.
The stakes couldn't be higher. If we don't deal with climate change now, our descendants will experience the global chaos of mass extinction.
That is the "existential" threat to our nation and our planet.
4
In the past, I have disagreed with Mr. Brooks on his opinions. Of late, he increasingly disagrees with facts. To blame the damage caused by unrestrained (unregulated) capitalism on liberalism is a shocking demonstration of the intellectual contortions that formerly intelligent conservatives now resort to. And it is these arguments that feed the conspiracy machine that the rest of his party thrives on.
4
Neo-liberalism is not liberalism.
Often a problem may exist, but it is not recognized as a hindrance until someone begins to say so.
It is possible, for example, that a group could have been doing very well in a temperature of 50 degrees. Then suddenly someone comes along and declares that it is fundamentally unfair that people should be living in 50-degree environments, when the "more fortunate" or oppressors are living in 70-degree environments.
I think people are quite content with their stations in life until someone begins to tell them they should not be. So, busy bodies create "problems to be solved" where non existed.
The arts can lead the way to celebrating our varied ways of living our lives. The arts can (and do) present imagination, discussion, debate, and hope. The arts are a wonderful way to learn about each other. The problem isn't in what is being created, but in how it is being promoted. Sadly, in this era of ego, where being Number One is considered the only justification for any action, the crass promotion of the arts reinforces this kind of selfish thinking. We live in a society where only Number One matters, and being anything else is considered absolute failure. The trappings of this kind of promotion lives in the images we see on television, People and US magazines, and within the arts sections of newspapers. The Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, Tonys, and other prizes are all background noise to the promotion of winner-takes-all thinking. They ignore the depth of the arts in favor of temporary champions everyone forgets within a day or two. This kind of thinking places instant gratification above everything else, and it's a fools game. Think about it - rather than focus on the images being presented, the sounds being heard, and the ideas being proposed, everything is reduced to a contest of clothing choices, interviews, and competition for the sake of winning a little statue or some money. Do people go into the arts to win prizes? Or do they do it to communicate and learn? I say toss the awards. Use the arts as a form of community celebration to show the way for all of us.
I issue this warning periodically and people don't like to hear it but Dershowitz's comments, which he now denies saying, make it more possible. Steve Bannon, right after the 2016 election said they were exploring the possibility of calling off the 2020 election or postponing it.
Dershowitz and Barr believe in an all powerful president with no checks and the republicans are falling in line as part of the trump court.
After the republicans capitulate and give trump total control, it will be his decision whether to have the 2020 election and no one will have the power to stop him.
1
“Human beings didn’t evolve into the world’s dominant species because we are more autonomous. We didn’t do it because we’re more vicious in tooth and claw. We thrived as a species because we are better at cooperation.” David Brooks
First, one could argue that humans aren’t the dominant species; insects are. They are estimated to have over 5 million species, while we have just one. I know, that’s just by the numbers, and they cooperate really well. But still, 5 million?
Second, cooperation isn’t a goal of evolution: survival and reproduction is. In the modern world, the tools needed for “survival” have changed dramatically because of the speed of advances in information technology.
It may be that we no longer have time to cooperate because we spend most of our time just trying to communicate at densities of data flow increasingly beyond human comprehension. Where will you spend more time today: online or cooperating with others?
2
This is Neo conservatism not liberalism that is based in competitive individuality, the meritocracy.
You conservatives always mis label.
3
I totally agree. The premise of the article that our problems are centered around “self-interest” and a lack of empathy for others is true, but as I continued to read the article I thought where is he coming up with the label of “Liberalism” for this problem? Then I thought WHY is he using the label “Liberalism”, and of course its pretty obvious. While not even realizing it, the author validates his own observation that one of our barriers to peaceful discourse is people labeling others to vilify or degrade them...essentially what we described in our youth as “calling him or her names”. Unfortunately, the author cannot step out of his own paradigm, or that of our great “divider in Chief”.
1
Social isolation as the result of an extreme ideology of individualism seems to be Brooks argument that is driving today's dystopian politics. Scary and does not bode well for our democracy. In "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Hannah Arendt writes that a "terror-ruled movement" is reached when "people have lost contact with their fellow men as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between true and false(i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist."
Wishful thinking will not solve the problem that "we the people" has been replaced by Tyrant Trump.
Consult Merriam-Webster: Fascism - a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. If the definition fits .....
2
Mr. Brooks, do you find the actions of Senator Mitch McConnell over the past 15 years in any way social or collaborative?
5
This piece is well-meaning, but it again falls into the false equivalence trap. The individualistic extremism, with its underlying belief in the selfishness of all individuals, is Trump’s Republican Party. The ruthlessness of Mitch McConnell and his ilk arises from the belief that only people like him deserve power and wealth. The fact is that the left of the political spectrum has always espoused the communal values you highlight here. They want close knit communities where people of all races and classes live together in comfort, health and harmony. It’s the right-wingers who oppose those values out of fear and selfishness. Don’t try to act as if both sides are equally to blame.
5
@Jan
"It Takes A Village"
Hillary Clinton
1
David, if only moderation would help right now. We have a Republican Leader who is the meanest and most corrupt President we have ever had.
A Majority Leader who does not do his job, when he refuses to have bills presented to the full Senate as they are sent over by the Majority of Democrats in Congress.
And you want the rest of us to be Moderate? These are desperate times David. And Desperate times call for desperate times call for desperate measures.
It is not radical to want all Americans to have good health care, to have their voting rights protected, to have women a right to their bodies without the Religious Right believing they have the right to push their beliefs down our throats, to have children have great education, for the low-income to have adequate and affordable housing.
These are moderate ideas, but will only happen if a Warren or a Sanders gets elected. Or any FDR like candidate.
Partisanship has always been the case and that will not change. But the difference is that there were once Republicans who actually cared about these same issues in Congress and in the White House.
They now are a shell of their former selves
4
Divisions are what unite us now. One has to pick sides even though we don't go along with everything that each side represents. Middle ground or having a negative opinion against the side you are on is not permitted. Reasoning, open acceptance, understanding and conversation when it falls on deaf ears doesn't resolve any of the issues we all face. There are only winners and losers....this is where we are now in America.
1
This is al very nice David, just not terribly realistic at present. I do understand that you are trying to salvage something positive from your life as a conservative, having actually helped midwife a burst of, possibly irreversible, fascism in a nuclear armed, hyper-militarized country that can actually blow up the world, and may very well do just that.
To do some weaving, we have to defeat this Fascism first. It is so dangerous, because it has the tendency to work on the realistic side of human nature. One half of our political system, at least at a federal level, has dropped all pretense and is showing it's true nature. Unabashed, Fascist corruption, which will smoothly transition into repression.
Perhaps the only hope here is a crisis so severe, that the MAGA cult will have no choice but to flip into personal survival mode. It will come eventually but, whether any weaving is going to come out of it remains to be seen, and human history is not exactly encouraging here.
Kumbaya would be nice bu, at this juncture, it is simply false hope.
2
There is a majority in America. It did not vote for Donny J.
The system is not designed to conduct the peoples business. It is designed to deny citizens and enrich the few. It will not get better. Time to reboot.
1
David,
You lost me when you put Trump and Bernie in the same boat.
Bernie is authentic and consistent. Trump...
Otherwise a good column
There are many advantages of taking a "longer" look at things (in this case a mile high view). Things become more "objective" (valueless), easier to analyze. But, of course, the lessons learned (conclusions) from such a view, are difficult to apply to the real world where values are abundant. From the mile high view, politics is an interesting game to watch and if, for example, the current political momentum would lead to an ugly type of society (totalitarian, brutal, inhuman -- one seemingly favored by Trump and the "new" GOP) it is an interesting phenomenon. Except of course when one lives in the real world, then all of a sudden it is not really interesting anymore, but just plain ugly.
1
I agree with everything said in this column concerning the praiseworthy attributes of weavers. But in the eyes of those who control the levers of power, weavers are simply viewed as chumps and losers. Ronnie “greed is good” Reagan painted legal aid lawyers and community activists trying to give the poor a voice as misguided or worse, bashing their clients as welfare queens. Over the years since, corporate greed has been encouraged and enhanced by Republican picks for the Supreme Court, who have systematically shielded businesses from having to shoulder responsibility for their rampant, greed-driven conduct. Now we are at a place where payday lenders can wreak financial mayhem on their victims of their 400% loans with impunity, confident that arbitration clauses in their loan “agreements” will function as intended - to close the courthouse door to the poor. The Seventh Amendment right to bring a financial tormenter before a jury of one’s peers has been silently and effectively repealed. All the weaver kumbaya in the world is not going to bring it back. It will take a fighter like Elizabeth Warren to do that.
2
Brooks calls all those negative things as Liberalism. Lately, Brooks true ideology has been shining clearly through his articles. For a while he was exploring human compassions and feelings and such things in his opinion pieces. Now, since its election year, he's gone back to one-side-versus-the-other style of political/entertainment opinionating. I used to respect his views here and on PBS but I see that his style of conservatism is actually very destructive to the national discourse.
1
Well, I wanted to pound my head on the keyboard after reading this article. I was with him in the beginning - greed, self interest and distain for the common good are ruining this country. But then I was gobsmacked by the claim that this was caused by liberals. No, Mr. Brooks, this is caused by Republicans. Their support for cutting assistance to the poor, for tax cuts for the already very rich, their belief in gutting all environmental rules which protect all citizens and their overwhelming adherence to the idea that we are not all in this together but that if you need help, it is your own fault. The Republican and conservative view of the world is one of extreme self interest at the expense of everyone else.
1
@msdillo1 This always reminds me of a quotation from John Kenneth Galbraith (I believe) that I picked up somewhere along the line. "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." Except that now we can drop the "moral" part.
Check out Adam Smith's "other book" -- "A Theory of Moral Sentiments." If taken together, his two books form a basis for a more righteous capitalism. Self interest for Smith would have included using profits for community good. And history shows that societies with Christian underpinning have done that.
1
@Robert Currie
Where?
Sadly our country has turned into a police state and our citizens are in denial and as long as we have a "justice" system like ours nothing will ever get better only worse.
1
The politics of hating the other has become a political tool exploited by our political leaders, especially our current President. Cooperation and understanding are born of necessity and hardship. In today’s political environment of extremely negative attack adds, smear campaigns, sexism, racism, every ism imaginable, it is hard to imagine unity under the current ruling political party. We have a very long way to go to get back to where we started as a country. The only saving grace is, the current ruling political party is an ever shrinking minority, as they die off hopefully their politics will die off with them.
If self-interest were all there was to liberalism, then Trump would be the greatest liberal of all time. Rather Trump is a laissez-faire, ruthless capitalist who uses populism as a political tool to manipulate large portions of the population.
Western liberalism was envisioned to raise all boat by creating better systems that would benefit most people and make the world a better place. Through it’s own arrogance and a big dose of its own ruthless capitalism, it failed to set up adequate systems to bring the displaced along. Leaving an economic void that demagogues like Trump have filled.
I see no weaving in the near future. Suspicions are too high and exploitable.
1
“Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders”...Hard as he tries , Brooks can’t rid himself of the conservatives’ fundamental justification for its hollow, pernicious bromides : the false equivalence.
Brooks has taken to overtly characterizing and positioning himself as a “conservative” to distance himself from the stench of the GOP label , a party for which he has been a lifelong champion.
Brooks is right : self preservation is the great motivator and he’s scrambling to to preserve his reputation as “the thoughtful Republican”. Too little too late.
2
Bernie must be scaring the dickens out of the likes of Stephens and Brooks. All of a sudden we have these self avowed capitalists/corporatists having Kumbaya moments as if to say” can’t we all just her along”. Give me a break. Their only concern is maintaining their Masters of the Universe society where the bottom half scrounges for crumbs. It is The hard right and their hypocrisy which has waged war on decent society, and Brooks decides to conduct a false equivalence between Liberalism, which is the only political movement to right the abuses of society with conservatism which serves to enrich the wealthy. Democrats get elected and they seek consensus. Republicans get elected and they say go pound salt.
We are experiencing this in Michigan where a new Democratic governor sought consensus with a gerrymandered republican legislature. She put down a proposal for road repair finance, they wanted to rob the teacher’s pension fund, an old Republican greatest hits approach, and were summarily rejected. Instead of negotiating in good faith, their response to her requests for a more practical proposal was “ she won’t negotiate with us”. It is a disgusting display, and if the electorate buys this nonsense then they deserve the dystopian future republicans will provide.
2
Anyone who is paying attention knows that in this country after Citizens United that the system is rigged. Everyone of the miscreants involved in the Trump scandals got his attention by how much money they contributed to his campaign.
The rest of the essay reads to this old cynic like New Age verbiage.
We act in self interest even when we act for the common good. We pay high property taxes here for very good public schools that not only benefitted my children but all the children. I would object to changing my residential zoning to put in a factory that would benefit the community because it would reduce my pleasure of my living and reduce the value of my home.
1
I predict that a lot of USA folks will start to regard Canada as a GREAT place to move to. We welcome all those who are of this mindset!!! Anyone who thinks politics in the wealthiest, scariest, most influential nation on the planet are doing just fine, and that democracy is alive and well there.... they can stay home.
We need a phrase to describe what is going on here. How about “epistemic inversion”? It is a phenomenon where people start conceptualizing the world in terms that are diametrically opposed to reality - ie: up is down, right is left, and right is wrong.
Mr. Brooks is doing it here with his ‘definition’ of liberalism. In the Senate, Republicans are arguing Biden is the one who should be impeached. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says the coronavirus outbreak is good for America.
It’s fascinating to watch the party of Ayn Rand’s ‘Objectivism’ in their flight from reality. It’s horrifying too, because we are all riding along as they obliviously fly through the fog of unreality they’ve created, towards the hillside, like Kobe Bryant all unaware.
And they have no warning systems telling them to pull up.
1
According to this column, the problem the left or Democrats had was that they liked Obama. They liked his class, his eloquence. This appreciation was deemed as partisan, and every effort was made to destroy the supporters of this president. We should have known he was "too radical."
The Dems certainly thought that Obama was being compromising when he proposed the ACA: a similar plan to a Republican one in Massachusetts. But the other side thought it was too radical to make health care affordable to the poor and middle class, and protested bitterly about providing medical insurance for the entire nation.
When Obama engaged in his signing statements that was anathema to the other side. They thus had one plan in mind: destroy everything Obama did with the most brash, inexperienced and disliked candidate they could muster.
Meanwhile, they stood in direct opposition to everything he proposed, trying to make him a one-term president, and not accepting his presidency. They even behaved consitutionally hostile by disallowing his nomination of Merrick Garland.
The Republican base, and they alone, created this immense division because they basically tarred and feathered the previous president with the current bully-in-chief. This disruption will create the necessity to have an antidote, another extreme president, to turn back this extremism.
1
@Srose
Not "another" extreme president; Obama was only extreme in the eyes of the extreme right.
Mr. Brooks cleverly ignores all the anything-but-selfish social programs Sanders has championed for generations now in favor of his "newly woke" agenda of social awareness. Furthermore, the author's use of the old "liberalism" definition is just a ruse to further confuse those more inclined to the definition of that word that has been here...oh...maybe sixty years. Nice try, David; you're still not fooling those of us who've watched you for a while.
1
Nietzsche thought humans were motivated by power; Marx thought it was money. Freud thought it was sex. We are currently in an extravaganza of the correctness of the insights of these men. Sorry, Mr. Brooks, of those in current control of our country, few are looking out for either democracy or other people. The Founding Fathers would weep.
Collaboration instead of clobbering the other guy over the head, working together with respect for each others' expertise and perspectives instead of insisting on a rigid hierarchy of power--are these in line with Judeo-Christian values though? They're patriarchal values and they've dominated for millennia.
I can't imagine any of the Democratic candidates having their first meeting with Mitch McConnell, whose ego and legacy are rooted in patriarchy, saying, "OK, the people are behind me, so you have to pass legislation to stop people from buying guns and ammo that allow them to commit mass shootings" and getting anywhere. "Sen. McConnell, I'm here to fight for the people, so you'd better listen up"--that's sure to make him laugh.
We need a Patriarchal Jerk whisperer, someone who knows how to work with an egotistical guy who thinks he speaks for God.
And then we need more politicians who actually want to collaborate for the good of the whole.
1
Well, Mr. Brooks this is all nice and fuzzy semi-intellectual chatter, but the following sentence from this piece really shows how wrong you are:
“No offense, but if you’re supporting Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders this year, collaboration skills are not high on your list of priorities.”
That truly is an enormous insult to Bernie Sanders and his supporters. The mere fact that you are equating Sanders with Trump is very revealing. Trump is the most horribly, viciously divisive person I have ever seen in politics. He is absolutely not interested in just the smallest bit of your “weaving”. The contrast with Bernie and his supporters could not be bigger.
What you are doing here is pretending that there are two equally divisive groups. If you are for “weaving” the Democratic party is your only choice, but you will never admit that.
2
@Ton van Lierop
I am far from a Bernie supporter, but I agree. Brooks and his pal Stephens always use Sanders in their false both-sides-ism articles. It is so easy to dupe the Fox News-addled crowd by waving Bernie around as a socialist. Too bad they ignore Trump's love of communists, embodied by the Ukraine situation.
20 years ago "Fight or Flight" was finally recognized as only half of the fear response in humans. The other half is "Tend and Befriend". Amen to you, brother David Brooks.
Mr. Brooks is an inveterate bothsider. He seems blind to the fact that our partisanship is due to the hellish mix of Republicans + Fox News. Obama wasn't the most partisan politician in the history on US politics, he appeared partisan because of the of Republican intransigence (remember Obamacare was basically a Republican plan). The current impeachment was not partisan, it appeared partisan due to Republican stonewalling intransigence. Read Norm Ornstein with an open mind and learn.
2
Take the money out of politics. Term limit congress. Problem solved.
1
Leave it to DB to start with a false assumption "Men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest."
I once had a native New Yorker call Brooks a "sneaky conservative" when I complimented him. I don't know if this article is "sneaky" but he made his point. All one need do is read the comments to prove him accurate. Maybe he stuck Bernie's name in there to make his point, knowing the comments to come.
I'm just listening to Trump's name calling at his rally last night. Speaking so disrespectfully of the democratic candidates...and not because of their policies but because of their names or their looks or some other superficial thing. When our leader speaks like an immature and disrespectful person and poke are laughing and gobbling it up, how can I feel hopeful for our nation's discourse, morals, and values.
1
What's with Brooks referring to liberalism in this way? Sometimes I think he really lives in a different universe than the rest of us.
2
David,
This is a pleasant fiction, what can I say? Weaver politics? LBJ weaved through intimidation, people fell in line as a means of remaining in their jobs, or getting something for themselves, their constituents. Getting something for themselves, that sounds familiar right? People are selfish and autonomous, that's the American way, it's what we revere. Rugged individualism right? I certainly agree about needing to come together, as Bernie says, we're all in this together. Trump is more, all us rich white folks are in this together, we need to get rid of or re-suppress the rest of them. They are not equal and opposite. And your tale is pleasant but without operational teeth.
2
Neoliberalism seems a gross mislabeling. World trade, free markets, the self made man, the dominance of the business culture, unrestrained capitalism, flat taxes vs progressive etc. are more hallmarks of the conservative side of the ledger.
Secondly populism is not comparable to liberalism or conservatism. It’s an entirely new beast based on anger, resentment and mistrust. How could it not be good? Features of this movement include isolationism, racism and class warfare. If populists are to “co-operate” it will be to harass and attempt to eradicate minorities, punish the educated and wealthy and install a new authoritarian code of conduct. It brings to mind book burnings, minority ghettos and kristallnacht of the 1930’s.
1
Thank you, David. You could have summarized it very succinctly: it's the Buddhist Middle Way.
We have one political party that is to the far right of European parties.....who condemns all opportunity to collaborate or compromise ......as losing.
It’s not the liberals that refuse......it’s McConnell’s policy.
2
This is a much better essay than your I’m a capitalist essay several weeks ago. For our most urgent problems we need more cooperation, community, collaboration, compassion, and less selfish centered capitalism. “Curvism” is a way forward!
Well Mr. Brooks it seems your Party is on the cusp of definitely establishing itself as the supreme Rule over the USA into the foreseeable future. The USO, United States of Oligarchs will no doubt take become the new sacrosanct by the next two generations.
How will future its future educators & pundits theorize this new development. Getting back to economic basics, framework by plantation owners? A New Communism, one Party rule has proven to make public governing easier everywhere its instituted.
Maybe you can form a group for building a new monument, a towering Reagan or Trump? And a few noble words by you can have the honor of inscribing a few words on it. “ A few rich men are better....” or Whatever? Its the inherent power of the statue whereby Mankind’s best future resides. After all, the fewer the thoughts means the lesser confusion in decision making and that’s a Fact!
A Presumptive Congratulations !!!
1
Under the autocratic form of government outlined in the Republican lawyers' case for the president's acquittal, the spirit of cooperation promoted by David Brooks would be seditious. Rebuilding a more cohesive nation will require that we first repel that argument, which is demonstrably treasonous in its effort to turn back the country's clock to royalist rule. For a start, Harvard should strip Alan Dershowitz of his honorific as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus. The late justice would be appalled by Dershowitz's utterly specious speech to the Senate on behalf of the would-be tyrant in the White House.
2
Undefined terms are confusing and divisive. "Liberalism" and "liberals" have been trashed in America. I take Brooks's use of "liberalism" to be more akin to modern libertarianism, and very like the British Liberalism that dominated UK politics through the years of Gladstone, Asquith, and Lloyd George. And of course, America is badly divided. But David's maxim: "Your group will never pulverize and eliminate your opposing group" applies to many groups who support Trump and McConnell and who are unlikely to read the NYT. White Supremacists and gun extremists do not agree with David on this matter. And preaching to me is not going to bring about the change he seems to want.
2
Before we can move our society in a better direction, we have to get rid of the corrupt GOP which is determined to hold power for its own sake as long as it can and it can only do that by sewing hatred among its base. If any one thing is obvious from the last three years of this massively immoral administration, it's that the world David Brooks talks about isn't coming if Trump is re-elected and the Senate doesn't flip. We will be a dictatorship, and following Donald in office will be Ivanka, or worse yet, Donald Jr. Ready for that David? Then don't vote for Bernie if he is the nominee. Turn your back on your dream USA if the GOP and Trump continue in power. Vote blue no matter who, David, or kiss the USA good-bye (and maybe your job - do you think you'll be allowed to write anything that isn't glowing Trumpisms if we continue down this road of corruption we're on? Or that you won't be under the bus by this time in 2022?)
1
Honesty requires,Mr Brooks, that you say that you will NOT urge your readers to vote for Sanders should he be the nominee. Like Douthat and Stephens, you would rather have Trump, if push comes to shove. Are you truly honest,Mr Brooks?
2
This is why Elizabeth Warren will be an excellent president. She has a strong vision and policies to undo the damage from the GOP's corporate greed and racist agenda. She also has the compassion to heal the nation. We need compassion combined with strength the most right now.
This sounds so simple. There is one big problem in American politics: no one ever wants to admit being wrong. Why? Because if a politician admits to being wrong said politician is often savaged in the press, online, on the radio and on television and certainly when it comes to re-election. In this reader's opinion, this is why there is not an honest discourse anywhere in our governments about the problems that need to be dealt with.
1/30/2020 8:20pm first submit
2
Politics in a dictatorship are pretty one sided.
Fail forwards and 'learn', David Brooks?
Give me a break!
It's you and yours who reject learning and are willfully ignorant and unable to discuss economics, white supremacy, and the real evidence that fascism is growing by the day in the GOP-dominated, institutions have all failed USA.
What we, who truly care about justice & peace, climate sanity, about science and facts and Truth, about economic opportunity, about civil society, about the law, about morality and our children's very survival and our parent's sacrifice -- need to do is ask the most important question, instead of this continual myth spinning and feckless analysis: we need to organize.
This is about power. We need to organize general strikes, economic boycotts, huge voting drives, massive and sustained peaceful demonstrations and protests that disrupt. We need to stand up.
The fascism has arrived on our door.
A republic if you can keep it. Officially now, we have not and possibly can not.
Organize!
1
What is the old saying? Fight fire with fire. Sanders is fighting fire with fire. Fact is that many Americans are finally realizing that our entire political system is rigged against everyone not in the top 1% of earners. Politicians have been taking their bribes from the Top 1% to remake our tax code to benefit them. Citizens have been convinced that a $800 Billion annual military budget is sustainable but that Medicare & Social security are not. Citizens have been convinced that a Reality TV Show host who has literally bankrupt a Casino & created a fake charity to benefit himself is good for the economy and for the 99%. That a President who wants to become a Dictator and now has a Senate complicit in re-writing the Constitution the same way the Nazis re-wrote Germany's through the enabling act is actually a Patriot. The reason Bernie Sanders resonates is that he is unapologetic about waging war on the 1%. The 1% has been waging war on America for 40 years. Now Brooks wants to make these same people into weavers of a community? Democrats don't want a Weaver. They realize that they need a fighter. They realize that we the people who believe in fair play are tired of losing the game to a small group of cheaters. This is why Bernie currently is leading. Bernie realizes that we have been in a class struggle for 40 years. Apparently Brooks doesn't.
1
we cooperate with others only to advance our personal self-interest
When corruption is in your face every day, when the politicians don't care about the public. How in the world do you think people who are not elite and white can work with a elected political country that just doesn't care.
The thoughts of Me .Brooks outline a world that hasnt existed in decades because the ugliness of the GOP has destroyed what made America special.
At this point the corruption of the GOP just make you so sad that a place that could be so great has been reduced to a pathetic group of white men who are determined to destroy democracy in the country .
1
David, you just endorsed Bernie Sanders after unendorsing him.
OK, raise your hand if you're tired of Brooks mischaracterizing "liberalism?"
(And let's also throw in Stephens and Douthat; like Brooks, they also paint false pictures of "liberalism" that are unrecognizable (and often antithetical) to our liberal values.)
On the one hand, Brooks (and the Right) are busy promulgating a meme that we Liberals push for "an individualistic culture that shreds the relationships and community between people. You will wind up with a capitalism in which superstar performers get concentrated in superstar cities and everybody else gets left behind. The sense of common community and equal dignity is annihilated."
But wait a second: You've also complained that we Liberals are trying to turn our country into a Socialist society?! Isn't Socialism antithetical to Capitalism? And haven't you derided us for our philosophy that "it takes a village to raise a child?"
And which one demonstrates "cooperative weaver values in our organizations" more: a leftist member-owned food coop, or a rightist stock-optioned multinational corporation?
But wait another second: Brooks also supports paying reparation to African-Americans for our sins of slavery? Haven't we evil, wealth-redistributing Leftists been suggesting that for years?
Brooks's sudden discovery of liberal ideals is self-repudiation of his previous Conservative stance, which led us to Trumpism. Fine; but stop lying that we liberals haven't been supporting these ideals all along, because we have been!
1
@Paul-A
Thank you. Brooks, Douthat and Stephens are SO predictable in their both-sides-ism, false equivalences, and labeling socialism as the biggest threat to America. I am baffled by the commentators here falling all over Mr Brooks. Haven't they read any of his other articles? They are all the same in soft soaping the GOP while condemning Democrats. The NYT conservative big three are all partly responsible for Trump's accession; they now protest too loudly to believe they have changed their Libertarian stripes.
We can tell Bernie is now the favorite in Iowa as he merits a cheap shot from Brooks. A few months ago Warren would have been in his place.
1
Me thinks Mr. Brooks has confused Liberalism with Conservatism. It is conservatism that supports economic darwinism.
1
Brooks again delivers the podium to his indwelling Pollyanna.
An alternate view, doubtless well-known to all:
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever. ” – George Orwell
Look it up, even the context of the quote fits our moment like a custom-tailored straightjacket.
Alexander's office 202-224-4944. Trial without witnesses is a reckless destruction of our constitution and our democracy.
Let him know our grandchildren will not appreciate his thoughtless cult vote .
All the evidence supported conviction and Bolton's testimony would have provided more facts .
It is also pathetic that the Mulvaney ,Pompeo , Perry and others were not held accountable .
I must say where are the Sam Donaldson's of our day. The press goes around sticking microphones in these Republican members faces and you let them lie and lie and lie. It makes no darn sense if they are lying stop them and correct with the facts . The House managers and the witnesses proof he was guilty and Mueller report also provided all 4 or 5 times he was guilty of obstruction.
1
@libel
Senator Alexander sets the example.
Conscious , character , courage and country and the Republican Senators have none of the first three and don't care about the last one our country.
2
I don't know David. Voting one's pocketbook has so long been a standard for many that your utopian take misses them altogether.
Working for the greater good has always had a cultural Marxism tint to it, if not paint and taint. From each according to his ability to each according to his need has a kind of millennial appeal but is anathema to the pocketbook voters and the older generation of savers who see the group politics as destructive and anti-American. "Cant't we just get along" is a nice thought, though.
Gee, imagine if we elected a diverse community organizer as President. Surely, everyone would be on board with that.
1
All true. But people need something that binds them together, other than just “being human.” Culture, tradition, and religion are what turn individuals into societies and make people care about each other. Sure, some conservative elements have propagated the “us vs them” narrative. But it really is the liberals who are to blame for shredding the foundations of our society.
Bernie Sanders, as Mayor of Burlington, collaborated with a multimillionaire owner of a chain of supermarkets & real estate developer: his name, Antonio Pomerleau, a Republican.
Bernie also brought that collaborative ethos to Capitol Hill. It's why he is Congress's longest serving Independent. He can work & play with members on both sides of the aisle.
Please stop painting Bernie as an extremist
1
How are research and technology hubs going to benefit rural America? Most likely the jobs in R&T require an education far beyond what most in rural America want to acquire, never mind the anti-intellectualism. What do your call it when whites are priced off their trailer home parks or off their farms? Post-racial gentrification?
@Chuck
"What do your call it when whites are priced off their trailer home parks or off their farms?"
I call it the inevitable end product of GOP libertarianism. Maybe they need a Democrat in office so they can look forward to free public college educations, making them competitive for hub jobs. Voting GOP has not moved them forward for 50 years. Continuing to do so out of spite is merely signing their own death warrants.
David,this is America. Community doesn’t mean much.
Human beings are "supremely" social and collaborative? What weed have you been smoking, Mr. Brooks?
I agree with most of your philosophy, sir, but where in the world do you get the premise that "a system based purely on competitive individual self-interest" is most characteristic of "unrestrained liberalism." I think it is most characteristic of unrestrained conservatism.
2
I am sorry, but I call baloney on all of the conservative voices speaking about “healing” the nation when it has been conservatives who rendered it apart in the first place. Pure and simple hypocrisy. It’s time to part ways and leave those who believe in Enlightenment principles to move on. You conservatives want states’ rights? Fine. Then let us in California have our states rights and you go about your merry backward ways in whatever state you want to live in.
2
If only all could understand that life is not a zero sum game
Please explain to me the difference between my discussions with my very Republican grandfather and father---which were spirited, but, interesting policy discussions. We always left these discussions seeing pieces of each other's logic that made sense--e.g. deficit spending, government welfare programs, importance of NATO (my Dad was a WW II veteran), fear of Russia. These are not the same discussions I have with a Trumper follower---who readily admit that his policies are erratic and his behavior is terrible, but he is our man, our hope to drain the swamp. I try to find some common ground in these conversations. but Trumper's give no ground at all.
1
"Yes, human beings are partly selfish and self-interested. But we are also supremely social and collaborative. This is the part we have to work on now."
Will 10th grade never end for Mr. Brooks? We are about to witness a fatal blow to our democratic system in the Senate and this is the kind of drivel Mr. Brooks chooses to write about?
We cannot be social and collaborative in a political system that does not support free and fair elections or the rule of law. Now that's something worth writing about.
1
Brooks loves to philosophize and build castles in the air, the journalistic version of holding hands and singing kumbaya. He refuses to accurately identify the GOP as the major culprit of sowing hate and divisiveness to distract the masses while they dine on steak and caviar, compliments of the dark money funneled into their pockets from the corporations to whom they give tax breaks while the rest of us eat cake. Our futures became bleak as soon as Reagan convinced the heartland that government is the problem, not the solution.
Mr Brooks, how do you propose we cooperate with the likes of Trump, surrounded by thugs, McConnell, Graham and a GOP who prioritizes absolute power and hegemony over the rule of law? They are not weavers. They are humans hell bent on destroying our institutions to maintain control over a country that no longer looks pearly white. Mr. Brooks, how, specifically, do you recommend we start knitting and purling with your fellow Republicans, who worship at the feet of corporate rather than human interests? Specifics, sir, rather than pretty words strung together are vital to preserving what’s left of our experiment in democracy.
2
I agree with Mr. Brooks. Our co-operative culture is breaking down. He presents it in political terms but it’s much more societal and the result of a changing mindset.
Strong family bonds which teach us to co-operate and see the value in it are breaking down. Electronic gadgets isolate us. Just look around you as you sip your coffee in the coffee shop. The world of family farms and farmer’s co-ops has given way to the conglomerate farming of Cargill and ADM. Religion which has inspired the recognition of a common bond is on the wane and what’s left seems more akin to a political movement. Strongly intertwined rural communities are struggling and shrinking as Walmart and Amazon kill jobs and many flee to the big cities. All of this is neither bad nor good on the face of it, if we can adapt to the change and still thrive.
Underpinning it all, it seems to me though, is a drive to excess. Buddhists talk about the Middle May, self discipline and concern for the other. This is not America. We want our economy ever expanding, cars splashier, our houses bigger, our phones faster, our income neverendingly increasing, our bodies never to grow old, our sex lives to never end, our social media remarks to be brash and controversial etc. etc. Why ? It seems it’s all a vain attempt to increase our sense of self worth. It’s an increasingly and excessively competitive rather than co-operative approach that is more prominent in America than elsewhere. Some moderation would be welcomed.
Another kumbaya-sounding slap at the left. Unfortunately, the tribalism of our politics WAS intentionally created by a group -- the Republican Party and its clients -- which determined in the 1960s that racial animosity and the culture wars were the only way to hold on to power when the mass of Americans no longer believed in its economic ideas. The more people left behind by Republican policies, the more the GOP must double down on this strategy through its media echo chamber and voter suppression efforts. Today, a Republican must toss out the Constitution, the rule of law, common decency and morality, and even a belief in reality, to maintain membership in that tribe. If we want to begin weaving, we must begin by dealing with the people who stand to lose from our solidarity and mutual support.
4
@Mark you nailed it. We have two choices. Join the cult or out vote it. I vote for out voting it as well.
1
Great article but the only Dems who can weave based on prior relationships are Biden and Klobuchar.
When the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, you have an immediate problem that is way beyond just collaboration. How does the bottom 40% collaborate when they would have trouble scraping $400 together in an emergency? How do the lower classes, working 2-3 jobs just to survive, have time to collaborate? This huge tranche of people needs a highly effectivet advocate class with the economic power to institute business and governance change on their behalf. Groups like the Patriotic Millionaires* are what we need to start moving the capitalist ship on a different course that emphasizes lower class health and reduction of wealth inequality. Otherwise, tribal division and civic unrest will only get worse.
*-All citizens should enjoy political power equal to that enjoyed by millionaires.
-All citizens who work full time should be able to afford their basic needs.
-Tax receipts from millionaires, billionaires, and corporations should make up a greater proportion of federal tax receipts.
4
Mr. Brooks does not mention the need for reforming government sructures that allow isolated groups to wield control over the rest of society. The Electoral College, the position of "Majority Leader" in the Senate, a Supreme Court that can "reinterpret" the Constitution to suit their agenda. Human greed is less important if the greedy ones are weaker.
5
The idea that people vote primarily for their self-interest, is certainly disproven. That people vote for power may also be true but it is not the immediate force of decision making.
People vote because of their beliefs. Those beliefs may be realistic and based on facts and immediate realities but they often are not. Values, as well as religious and personal beliefs, are the controlling factors when people vote.
1
@Hugh Nazor
If people voted for their self-interest no Republicans would be in congress.
Sure, go ahead and blame all groups equally.
In the end it accomplishes nothing when the current Republican leadership works daily against the most important element needed to accomplish any of this.
The right to vote.
Not even a mention of it in this column.
The GOP "conservatives" work day in and day out to restrict it. Rigging the census, casting doubt on the vote's legitimacy, purging voting rolls, is all part of a day's work for the GOP conservatives.
Weave that.
7
I am glad that Mr. Brooks recognized the contributions of anthropology. It is an all to often maligned and ignored area of study that has great insights into human beings.
1
"Men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest. " Certainly true of other primates, but group altruism and our
capacity to see ourselves from an independent perspective, as the moral philosopher Adam Smith observed ( note, misidentified as an economist), explains the extraordinary evolutionary triumph of homo sapiens. Albeit it comes with a downside, as there are now too many of us for the planet. We have to evolve out of this situation. How? Through collective self interest, which, by the way, used to be called socialism.
1
"Men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest. " Certainly true of other primates, but group altruism and our
capacity to see ourselves from an independent perspective, as the moral philosopher Adam Smith observed ( note, misidentified as an economist), explains the extraordinary evolutionary triumph of homo sapiens. Albeit it comes with a downside, as there are now too many of us for the planet. We have to evolve out of this situation. How? Through collective self interest, which, by the way, used to be called socialism.
This provocatively useful article suggests the value of being more careful about labels being used in conversations such as this one.
Strongly negative reactions to "populist radicals", "neoliberalism", and even indeed "liberal" and "conservative" by those being referred to as such are warnings that in our current climate of extremely heightened partisanship insufficiently cautious labeling will only add fuel to the burning fires, instead of dampening them.
As only a particularly clear example, the recent adoption of "neoliberalism" as a usually pejorative reference to intensely nationalistic economic policies seems sometimes a (perhaps in part unintentional) means of further demonizing the word "liberal" (which since Reagan has been assiduously converted into a word of slander). To connect in this way modern neoliberalism with current U.S. "liberals" is somewhat like connecting "communists" with "utopian communitarians" (with perhaps similar purposes). Maybe Brooks' essay would have been better drawing contrasts between "individualistic" and "communalistic" strains in American political history (though even those also can have unintended resonances). More careful definitions and greater caution in labeling are surely warranted.
1
The usual pseudo-analytical psychobabble from Mr. Brooks: either/or dichotomies. The fix is to mix and muddle in the middle on the one hand and and on the other. Compare individual with ant behavior. We have recently witnessed mass protest marches, in the U.S., in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, but among the demonstrators in any location, there is as much diversity as common cause in their motives, except that prevailing conditions are unsatisfactory. The solution? Move forward in all directions?
Where are the modern versions of the irate leaders of the 13 colonies in the 1770s and 80s who had the foresight to draft a fixed and amendable Constitution with the principle, based not on a human model, but on the rule of law? Or as Lincoln said, on the better angels of our nature.
1
Here's something that a relatively small group of people could do that would greatly increase cooperation in this county: Republican politicians and their backers could give up exploiting racism and xenophobia to get support for their plutocratic economic policies. Of course this is somewhat unrealistic, as if the current Republican leaders changed or resigned they would be replaced by others. But the group of Republican pundits including Brooks could help by explicitly recognizing what has been going on instead of blaming the polarization on the "extreme" policies and proposals of liberals, which generally are those which call on more cooperation instead of competition. Republican ideology is what calls for unrestricted competition and for those at the top to pursue profits and suppress the wage gains, etc, which could help the majority. Beyond that, Brooks' party has been deliberately exploiting the human tribal instincts that lie behind racism and xenophobia and thus sabotaging cooperation and he has been abetting that party.
3
Mr. Brooks, I disagree. "My group" (settlers) did indeed pulverize and eliminate opposing groups pretty thoroughly. Was there ever a chance of collaboration with the aboriginals on this continent and my group determined to take over? Nope! We're still that type of tribe but have expanded the pool of enemies to vanquish. We seek adversaries around the globe to vanquish. We can't help ourselves. John Poole
People originally became collaborative to survive -- hunting, gathering, building, making clothing. Some of these people had greater skillsets, be it at hunting, reproducing, craftsmanship or negotiation.
Those with superior skillsets were simultaneously depended on for survival, and envied by those not as talented. The envious talked with fellow jealous persons, and perhaps the first tribal coup came about -- taking down the guy with the most stuff.
Some sort of trust, or law, had to be developed to permit doing quotidienne activities without fear of death or theft. All of this cooperation was based on survival.
But, humans are curious and inventive, and some developed the value that acquisition was good. Cooperation, superior navigational, shipbuilding and warrior skills were developed to explore the seas, find new lands and exploit any inhabitants there.
People were still cooperating, but their goals shifted to acquiring more than they needed for survival. The winners also wanted power.
All along, the non-powerful have had to content themselves with phrases like, "it's the little things in life that count, the intangibles". What else could they do?
This powerful versus powerless pattern continues to this day, occasionally interrupted by revolutions, coups and anarchy.
This article's final four points are worthy ones. But if they haven't become popular throughout the centuries, it will indeed take an extremely iterative approach to make them so.
1
David, your thoughts today have helped me step out of the anxiety and anger I have been experiencing for weeks... no, for months. Your analysis and the recommendations for realigning our national ethic and resolve, seem to me to represent the core ideals this country embodies at it’s best. I think it’s critical in these dangerous times for people like you to tirelessly remind us of what America can be, and that for our country to be great, we have to allow these ideals to become incarnate in us. The hope you are offering is that if enough of us can do this, the critical mass is there for a truly great America.
3
While I agree there is value in serving purpose beyond ourselves, wishing for more collaboration and 'weaving' in politics cannot make it so. The argument would be improved by referencing electoral and political structures which promote self-interest over collaboration, and how they might change. Some recent political science identifies reasonable improvements, the question more on point is how to create change.
1
"Often, we collaborate to build shared environments we can enjoy together. Often, we pick a challenge just so we can have the joy of collaborating."
This is a recent development. For a long time people "worked together" either in small, tribal groups or under the yolk of a dominant power group. The pyramids, the aqueducts, the train tracks, i.e. the majority of civilizations, were not built by people who enjoyed collaborating together.
Now that we are able, more or less, to organize into effective political groups, there can be no doubt that there is no real counterweight, in most of the world, to the enormous power of global corporations. The question now is: if and how a counterbalancing political influence can develop, such as labor used to be. If not, then the question becomes: can global corporatism, which has evolved from liberalism to a new kind of fascism, be restrained from within and become a "benevolent dictator" under which the rest of us can at least live in peace and prosperity?
1
I would suggest the real issue is "Unchecked Capitalism" where huge corporations obscenely reward the top 1% (or .1%) to the detriment of everyone else - rather than an issue of the next 10-15% vs the rest. Not everyone in those 'superstar cities' is a 'superstar'. And there are plenty of very attractive cities that offer a lot - that aren't San Francisco, LA, Chicago, Boston, NYC, or DC.
There's also much greater opportunity & mobility at all levels below that top 1% (which could be distinguished by truly living in a detached bubble of their own creation). Even the rest of folks in the 85th-90th percentile are rooted and interact organically/meaningfully with a much broader range of people.
Lastly - it's that 1% that really has to money, interest, and time to directly affect policy and politics to their advantage.
3
I understand how passionately well intentioned progressives are, fired by a dream of love, peace, tolerance and full participation for all. The best way for them to weave a thread of connection with others is to admit that building a better society is always a work in progress and even progressives make possible mistakes because were are all human. For example, in New York, progressives have ended bail requirements for 90 percent of criminal defendants, been unable to deal with an increasingly homeless population, embraced strict rent regulation laws that have caused massive loss of investment in affected properties and fervently embraced partial birth abortion. Perhaps, nonetheless, these progressive policies are the right ones but wouldn't an ability to discuss and reevaluate these issues within the progressive community show that they are willing to also engage in an open minded discussion with others holding more conservative ideas? Progressives, as a group, are extraordinarily well educated and wealthy and are in an ideal position to take the lead in building a more cohesive society.
For those who haven't already, I recommend Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain" and the long dialogues between Naphta and Settembrini which, 100 years ago, were essentially the same argument we're having today, the dichotomy that Brooks writes about.
1
In his opening paragraphs, Mr. Brooks seems to have "woke" to the deep problems with Conservative ideology and thus may be out of a job. Oh thank God, he is only calling for cooperation of a sort and not for an end of unfettered capitalism.
Brooks wants people to cooperate for a shared goal. Exactly what does he think political parties are? One of the parties stands for "rugged individualism" where people are on their own, partially economically. The other party stands for "sharing the wealth" and opportunity for all, not just the super elite. If Brooks really believes in his opening paragraphs, then he must be for the second party which consistently tries to correct the problems stated in his opening.
3
"Men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest. No other partial truth has done as much damage as this one." With that opener, I'm going back to my comic book.
1
@Michael this is the fundamental mistake of judeo Christian faith. Somehow people are misled that they exist alone.
2
Where is the idea of conservatism in all this? Are conservatives now just part what is called neo-liberalism? I am a left leaning Democrat, but I do miss principled conservatives.
It seems to me that Mr Brooks advocates a vision for the future that, while compelling, can never be as long as your political system is based on party politics.
So here's a suggestion: stop joining, registering as and making contributions to any political party. Perhaps if the majority of the electorate were registered as "independent" you would attract and reward politicians who were less interested in pandering to their tribal party base, and more interested in presenting policies that served everyone and wove together the strands of your diverse society.
4
".... we are also supremely social and collaborative."
Yes, we are; but only as long as we are weak and need support to survive. But, once we become rich and powerful, we play the game differently. We socialize only with very few who are similarly rich and powerful and we cooperate only in those areas that ensure we retain our new status.
In other words, our survival instinct calibrates how selfish and self-interested we can be. And demagogue politicians know how to poke our survival instinct and make us selfish, for their own advantage.
3
Extreme self interest enhanced by the our political party's media echo chambers is pretty much a description of the political environment in our country, and for the time being I don't see much chance of a weaving revival. After listening to the posturing from both sides during the current Impeachment Hearings, one potential conclusion from watching Justice Roberts read questions from the Senators is that almost a bigger problem than special interests, gerrymandering, improper voter restrictions, are our two monopoly political parties themselves and their your for us or dead, no quarter attitude. There is no individual conscience that is operative in politicians that belong to a political party, almost all of them need to be sent to a cult de-programmer to have their separation from the pack anxiety addressed, so they potentially might have some use to their constituents and use their own free will at some time before they leave office. The conclusion for anyone really paying attention to the direction of this country's politics in the past few decades is that weaving or coming together for the greater good is getting increasingly less possible unless we have more parties with diversity of thought or none at all, so that officeholders could potentially decide their position on issues without looking over their shoulder.
1
Wow. Reminds me of the year I spent working in Sweden and Norway. Many of the people I worked with were just like that.
But, that sort of mommy government, highly taxed, heavily regulated government is exactly what Movement Conservatives have been working against for since Wm. F. Buckley. Norway has socialized its oil. They put everyone's taxes on the internet. There are all kinds of unions, where workers cooperate with management for the improvement of the company. I worked with white collar union people.
The country runs budget surpluses.
Conservatives want none of that. Decades working against it.
So, I have no idea what Mr. Brooks is talking about. It seems he wants all this stuff by doing exactly the opposite of what it takes to get it.
6
I appreciate your comment but what I wonder is what part the size of “the other” plays in all this. When “the others” in Norway get “too big” as they seem to be getting in the US what will happen?
@gratis
I was in Norway recently. Citizens told me that before and after WW II, Norway was a poor country. But then "the United States discovered oil for us" and things changed. Norway profits from oil, yet encourages electric cars, having more than any other country. Norway's populace profits from oil, because their liberal government made it so; when the country got richer all of it's citizens were enriched. When oil is pulled out of public lands in the United States, the Kochs get richer; the rest of us pay gasoline taxes to pollute an already filthy environment because the same Kochs and their bought politicians are against electric cars cutting into their profits.
"Men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest. No other partial truth has done as much damage as this one."
We should all remember that next time someone complains that Republican supporters vote against their own (economic) interests!
1
.
If you believe the words/idea that "people are motivated by self-interest" have done harm, then distinguish "self" from "True self".
True self is a balance of three continuums:
self & others
mind & heart
body & soul
"self" alone is out of balance because it needs to be considered along with "others" (relationships).
A better, more wholistic and balanced model of human identity can help here.
1
I've always seen the Dem / Foxpublican divide as "it takes a village" vs "it takes a family." That is to say society vs individual. I think Mr. Brooks is right when he says that Foxpublicans have flipped to be a tribe centered group. Somehow that makes liberalism the driver of individualism because it created some guard rails for people to live, though liberals today would express only concerns about justice, human rights, decent pay, and Republicans have always railed against liberalism in favor of some American ideal of the individual as long as it's a he who is white, or at least rich.
Perhaps this is some kind of inversion taking place, as when Republicans ended slavery and now they are literally undermining our democracy, and Dems were the party of the racist south.
I'm not sure Mr. Brooks has done justice to the critical difference between classic liberalism which is basically a system of rules so oligarchs don't take a cut of everything leading accidentally to human rights, and Neoliberalism where Boeing can regulate itself and safety is an obstacle to profit, scientific truth can be purchased, the environment is an externality, and the only real citizen of the body politic is the dollar bill.
Neoliberalism sold out the american worker, gave its technology to communists for temporary profits, gave rise to the shareholder as god model, and divided America so bitterly one could rightly call it a civil war. Yes we need weavers. We also need to see clearly.
3
@Brad Cazden So beautifully written. Thank you.
“Men an women are primarily motivated by self-interest. No other partial truth as done as much damage as this one.” I totally agree with your opening two sentences.
However what you fail to mention is that the men who wrote the American constitution were guided essentially by the principle that “Men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest.” Well they actually believed that men are guided by self-interest and women are guided by their emotions, but that’s a whole other discussion. I think you get the point regarding the constitution.
Thus, because of the work of our founders, we have the quandary we’re currently in and thus we have a Trump presidency.
1
Too little, too late Mr. Brooks. The divisions are too deep to bridge - urban v. rural, wealthy v. poor, college educated v. non-college uneducated, secular v. religious. This division will only deepen after Trump is re-elected despite losing the popular vote by perhaps as many as 5 million votes. It is time to move on apart from one another. The focus should be on how to peacefully divide the country. The United States was, at times, a noble experiment, but no state lasts forever. All things must pass.
6
Well, that’s encouraging.
We live in a world that is still on 20th Century thinking and has not caught up to the speed that change is bringing with the rise of the computer age. Our lives are dominated by little machines that keep us constantly looking for the next fix of news around us. We do not take time to contemplate life or even spend a few minutes in a long discussion (by phone) of someone we love. It's all bang bang hurry up. It must be nice to contemplate life as Brooks does and tell the rest of us how to be better people. That is not enough in the confusion of today. We need to draw close to those we love and connect with those we don't care for. If these divisions cannot be healed we are headed for another period of dismal lives, killing, blame, and hatred. Look to the history of the United States and you will find all of that in a short period of the past. Remain where we are and we will be destroyed.
This is one of the better pieces I've read lately, as it identifies the natural instinct of humans for team play over our individualism temptations. There is nothing humans need to avoid more than greed and mindless consumerism as the right of "success".
We can have a very good world, but not as a collection of walled off individuals, or as a collection of walled-off identity groups.
4
No offense, but if you were supporting Republicans in Congress since Reagan, cooperation and collaboration was never a priority. If you are still supporting Republicans in Congress, collaboration is not your priority.
If you were part of how we got here (I'm looking at you David Brooks) you cannot pretend it is an equal problem on both sides of the aisle and then ask people to "be fully .. honest". But always happy for anyone to start thinking collaboration in our politics is a good thing.
9
Mr. Brooks, once again you suggest this all occurred somehow organically on “both sides” when Ayn Rand acolytes have made her philosophy the mantra of the political right. And the fact is that those acolytes are focused maniacally on getting theirs even if it involves stealing in effect from others. Those others are chumps and get what they deserve. On the other hand, the left is largely focused on social justice at its core. Is there egocentrism on the left? Sure. But which philosophy should form the basis for policy?
In a true democracy, only the latter comes anywhere close.
Ayn Rand was about as “liberal” as Attila the Hun.
9
As a member of the coastal liberal elite who has strong family ties in the Heartland, I find the operative word in David's piece to be the word "invisible". Through educational attainment, technological advancement and globalization tens of millions of people largely in those coastal areas have benefitted greatly while whole areas in the Heartland and Southeast have and are still rapidly becoming obsolete. Obsolescence eventually causes invisibility. And when tens of millions of people are simply ignored (invisible) they will eventually make themselves known to the rest of us.
The United States and indeed the rest of the industrialized world was not remotely prepared for the disruption to 20th century occupations of farming, mining, manufacturing, transportation, retailing, etc., and now service occupations that a knowledge based economy has wrought.
So, now what do those of us well-off coastal educated elites that have won the game and are living the good life in the knowledge based economy do for the tens of millions who are left behind, obsolete and invisible trapped in a decaying, dwindling 20th century economic model?
6
@SparkyTheWonderPup May I suggest we help the ones "left behind" by doing such things as enhanced Medicad or significantly lowering medical costs. Whoops...those "left behind" are against those items that might significantly help their day-to-day lives. In fact they seem to be against everything accept rolling back time to the 1960s. That isn't happening.
In fact if they want a decent future they either have to move, change their job skills or vote Democratic. From where I am sitting they are doing none of that. You can only help those who are willing to help themselves.
4
It's not just those who are advantaged who get ahead, but those who have drive and persevere.
1
@robgee99
I suppose I could say I got ahead to some extent because I had drive and perservered. But considering where and when I was born, what would have been my chances to get ahead if I was born black or physically or mentally disadvantaged? Probably little to none!
I completely agree, David -- see my higher ed project just launched in DC last week: www.thelasthumans.org. Higher ed leading the world in mitigating the effects of climate change. And, yes, doing that through cooperation.
1
This column brings to mind the material in the Historian Yuval Noah Harari's book "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind", which summarizes the success of our species in defeating and eradicating several co-existing human species because of the ability to cooperate, apparently unique to the homo sapiens group.
As David Brooks suggests, cooperation and collaboration must become less selective. To allow this to happen in national politics and policy, large changes in our system must occur, including how we vet and elect our representatives, how long they serve for, and how we fund political campaigns.
Reforming tribal thinking and enhancing the ability to work with others of different religious beliefs, ethnicity, and customs must begin in our schools with an openness to learn about and respect these differences. Openness to these differences is facilitated by a basic level of economic security for all, and that points right back to our national policies.
I live in New Hampshire, so advocates for nearly all of the candidates knock on our door most weekends. The one universal message we hear from supporters of Biden, Yang, Klobuchar, Warren, Mayor Pete and others is that they'll be working hard to elect the Dem candidate, whoever it turns out to be. While some of the Bernie canvassers admit this, too, others have the attitude that it's Bernie or nobody, and they'll sit this one out (again) if he isn't the nominee. Bernie is not a uniter, and I fear that this attitude will contribute to another loss in November. (If he's the nominee, I will support him, but would prefer any of the other front runners.)
12
The 'weaver' politics suggestions are largely spot on.
But the bruel, dualistic, angry analysis leading up to those seem to reveal a side of the author that belies the more benevolent recommendations.
I prefer to read the more engaging works of scientist E.O.Wilson -- equally accessible, more biologically based, and more humanely articulated, on the same general subject of self-interest and community commitment. And there's no anti-Bernie agenda working.
With Mr Brooks, who I often enjoy though quibble with, I'm turned off here by a spite and divisiveness I get enough of already, every day, everywhere.
4
In "Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind", Yuval Harari makes a case that myth, our ability to imagine entities that we collectively believe in (national identity, religions, corporations, etc.), is what allows large groups of us to function cooperatively.
Perhaps there are too many myths (using Harari's definition) today.
3
Democrats have to defend themselves and the nation against right-wing ruthlessness, white nationalism, plutocracy, and corruption.
At the same time, they have to pursue their plans to help all of us, and our planet, with universal health care, economic policies for the 99%, etc.
Democrats won't get anywhere by trying to cooperate or compromise with right-wing politicians who take no prisoners and who don't actually believe in democracy or abide by our Constitution. That's a recipe for powerlessness and defeat.
But they can put our country back on a much better path if they defend themselves and fight back against the right-wing onslaught while working hard to promote the pro-social programs, policies, and values they believe in, like universal health care, separation of church and state, women's rights, and so much more.
This is not the time to pretend we can all just get along. This is the time to do what's necessary to make it possible for us to get along.
13
@Ken Your comment exemplifies the problem Mr. Brooks is addressing.
@Dr B
And until Brooks and the Republicans change, this problem will remain. Obama reached across the aisle in a attempt to get along with the other side; he was spit at. There will be no reconciliation until the current Trump GOP is expunged. Sorry to harsh your mellow, but that is the truth. Those who can't see it, as embodied in many comments here, and those who can't acknowledge it, like the conservative Mr Brooks, are guaranteeing the death of Democracy in the United States.
1
This piece give me hope especially since I see myself and others in my sphere as weavers. We are working with the Catholic Church to make them change agents for climate change working church by church, school by school to introduce energy and water efficiencies and waste reduction. Our pastors are using the power of the pulpit to instruct the people to do the same in their homes. We Catholics are 1.3 billion strong and we have our leader Pope Francis setting the example of simple living. We have to light the darkness with goodness and action.
2
Powerfully stated and true. Yet, systemic changes that reflect the value of relationships will be impossible without vocal "champions" and leaders who show the way and work to destroy the "survival narrative' that pervades our culture. If we get four more years of the current administration I fear there will be no chance for collaboration, let alone civility, to be seen. When our media diet prioritizes mocking or devaluing others rather than acknowledging our similarities or celebrating goodness in others this hateful stew will continue to brew.
2
Missing from this analysis, I think, is the currently controlling influence of corporate person-hood, particularly as politically enthroned by Citizens United. The Corporate person does not cooperate with competitors, is not patriotic or compassionate, and will indeed "pulverize and eliminate the opposing group." Its interest is solely short term profit. As long as this money controls political parties, people of good intentions will stay out of politics, and intrinsic human motivations will have no influence.
11
Mr Brooks gently writes about the importance of reforming institutions “so they encourage collaboration” and he muses about “infusing cooperative weaver values into all of our organizations”. Beautiful words. What again was the title of his piece? Oops, It is “The Future of American Politics”.
Mr Brooks sounds like a doctor who is precribing asperine for a patient that is dying of malnutrition.
As far as I can tell, conservatives - particularly members of the Republican side of the house - have been taking their cues from Gover Norquists’ maxim: “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
This is the problem: You just can’t have a civilized society if you starve government of funds needed to govern. And you can’t have a proper political discourse if politicians disregard the real needs of citizens (housing, education, health) and prioritize calls from campaign donors and lobbying groups.
Sorry Mr Brooks. The problem runs deeper.
14
I can't make up my mind: is Brooks deliberately misusing labels like "liberalism" and "neoliberalism" in order to advance his conservative ideology, or does he simply not know what the words mean?
Left critics of modern capitalism use the term "neoliberalism" to refer to the reassertion of laizzez-faire economics in the late 20th century under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, who initiated the roll-back of the welfare state and the wholesale deregulation of the economy that continues to this day. Brooks himself was once a vocal champion of these policies and remains sympathetic to them.
"Liberalism" is a political, not an economic doctrine and was birthed more than a century before the era of free markets. Liberalism does not endorse radical or "atomistic" individualism. It emphasizes the importance of political liberty and individual rights, which are necessary as a shield against the abuse of state power. And it embraces the idea of popular sovereignty and responsible government. Liberals believe that the power exercised by government is bestowed on it in trust by the people, who retain the right to judge the performance of their government.
Some liberals, like J.S. Mill, dearly value personal autonomy, but they do not take this to mean independence from society, much less an abhorrence of community and collaboration. Autonomous persons cooperate with others out of choice, not mindlessly in conformity with tradition or in blind obedience to authority.
12
Our concern is America used to look forward, try new things and new ways of doing things. The current conservative apparently looks backward and inward and wants to build houses on sand that will be overcome by the inexorable change of time.
3
Another pseudo sociological essay by Brooks. The rich and the corporations have used their economic power to have the most influence over the Federal Government and many state governments. They have acted in their self interest.
Under Trump they have a tax law that is regressive and not progressive. Trump has also rid regulations that protect workers and the environment. The list is endless for corporations.
Many people vote for politicians based upon social issues- abortion, gay marriage, gun rights- and against their economic self interests. Brooks support of Ryan was a gross mistake. This so called economic wonk enacted a tax law which will greatly expand the national debt. Trump's response is not to reduce the bloated military budget but to cut programs for the poor.
6
I like this piece and the notion of weaving. But I think the underlying fabric is "change" vs. "not-change". Progressives/liberals want change and there's a spectrum there. Change is inevitable, so this should be the party of planning how to take advantage of the natural momentum.
Conservatives don't want change because they are embedded in their system - money, power, religion, way of life. They should be a dampener rather than a goal because if this world gives us anything, it's change and like gravity it is inescapable.
So, I think the weaving is conversation and as others have mentioned conversation only happens when you're engaged, when you share the same basic set of facts, and you talk about what to do next.
The Democratic party *should* be well equipped for this if they get serious and do even 1/2 the planning the Republicans do. The Republican leadership needs to be ostracized for baldly lying to 1/2 of the country. I suggest also to find some way to pull the plug on FOX news (and not let a Left-leaning outlet fill the vacuum) and for Facebook to get their head out of the trough and to start thinking about what they are doing to their country.
3
I agree with DB’s statement “ We thrived as a species because we are better at cooperation.” I need your children to be educated because they will vote and shape my future, General quality of life. We need each other.
The denial and denigration of that and promotion of short term quarterly “ make the numbers” profiting are the two indictments of our times.
Oh and decency, we have lost our commitment to honesty and decency..
2
Mr. Brooks is a political philosopher. He is trying to help. The weaver idea of human society has been put forward by feminist philosophers since the 1970s. Indigenous folk do this. It is a reasonable philosophy and could work should humans as a whole see through the grand individual (always male, with exemplar philosophies being the Divine Right of Kings in the West and the Mandate of Heaven in the East) and supreme group (Right-wing Abrahamic--which includes Jewish, Christian, and Islamic groups, and the Han in China) political philosophies. Our problem is these traditional political philosophies have been in use for thousands of years. We have been bred and conditioned, rewarded or punished to the extent we have conformed to whichever prevailing political philosophy has been used in our particular groups to shape and guide individual and group lives. This is a serious moment in human evolution. Can we change ourselves to optimize the fact that we can be cooperative at scale? What mechanism(s) could help us make this critical change because we are faced with the dire consequences of uncontrolled individuals who are (and have been) moving fast and breaking things, and groups who are and were determined to off other groups in the context of the environment we have broken? Scientific evidence suggests we need to fix ourselves so we don't off ourselves, and we don't have thousands of years to make this change. The generous view is we have about fifty years. What will we do?
3
I woke up in the dark actually and
metaphorically. I am distraught by what I have been witnessing in the chamber of the Senate. David's article captures some of what I am feeling. Helpless is a good descriptor,but upon reflection I also feel betrayed. I wanted to believe that there were some men and women of integrity who could act in the interests of the country. I think this one of the times in our history that we have elected someone with the capability to destroy our country and he has a cadre of willing minions to carry out his agenda. David's ideas are a potential path back. I fear we may have gone as a country to far to the dark side.
7
"This is the flaw of unrestrained liberalism, . . "
No. This is the flaw of self-serving labeling, the flaw exposed in "Bobos and Bohemians" and in various iterations of "meritocracy," once greeted as the avenging creed which would rescue us from our decadent moorings in culture and society. This is the harvest of the ill-prepared climber.
3
I genuinely worry that for democracy to work, people have to need each other. Wealth in developed countries, on average, has accrued to the point where we need each other less than we have in the past.
Wow ... I didn't like Brooks "character" op-eds (too much preaching, not enough facts/science), but THIS one is 100% science based, and sums up one of the main underlying political problems of our times.
Darwin has already shown that for most higher mammals intra-species collaboration is crucial for survival. Dach Keltner and many others at Berkeley university have now proven that compassion and kindness are hard-wired (not only in human beings, but even in rats ... !).
That literally means that our immune system gets a boost (= our body defends itself better against foreign attacks from bugs etc.) whenever we act kindly/compassionately - towards ourselves, AND towards others.
In other words: it IS in our best "self-interest" to care about others (not just our closest family, but others in general).
Politically, that indeed means radically ENDING the current tendency to suggest that those who disagree with you, must be "evil".
And yes, both the GOP and Sanders are constantly doing this (although Sanders in a much more subtle way, and without any deliberate lying or fake news).
Obama did not. He was a master in "the art of the weaving". That' why he managed to get all his signature campaign promises signed into law, and obtained historical multilateral international agreements (on nuclear weapons, climate change, ...).
The GOP didn't achieve anything, in terms of real (= legislative) change, under Trump. It's because they believing lying is the only option.
It isn't.
2
Mr. Brooks applauds the tribalism that got us out of the primitive hunter gathering stage, yet forgets about the last several millenia of human struggle.
From the slave built pyramids, Alexander's armies, the Mongols, the Roman conquests, the crusades, the dark ages and Hundred Year wars, the western pillaging of Asia and South America, the obliteration of native american tribes, world wars and destruction of our environment, humans have acted and fought out of narrow self interests. Capitalism legitimizes zero sum conflicts.
The attempts of the League of Nations and the UN to unite the world in common efforts is a new development in our history.
People can cooperate, but often are mislead by rapacious leaders into responding to fear and anger rather than cooperation. Democratic socialist countries, the ones that Brooks is advocating for, are far and few in our world today. Again, let's examine the leaders who have brought us to this cliff and ask ourselves why we vote them in.
America Firsters and the current venture capitalists running the US government will not cooperate. The MIght Makes Right maxim, as evidenced in today's Senate Sham, will trump collaboration everyday.
8
While the agency is noted, the artist who created this superb image should be credited as well.
1
As I was reading Mr. Brook's piece, I couldn't help but have visions of how the Republicans, since Reagan, c. 1980, have been working to convert this country to a one-party, pseudo-democratic republic. With the sham trial that, according to news reports as of this morning (31 January 2020), will end without witnesses and with our "Dear Leader's" acquittal, we will have placed the final nail in the coffin of our dual-party democratic republic that has, heretofore, relied on free and fair elections. A glance at Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" clarifies this process.
The Democrats have been asleep, rightfully moving our country more toward the community-oriented, cooperative society of which Mr. Brooks wrote. But while we have been working toward that ideal, we have also been bringing knives to the gunfights. The Republicans have been working toward this coup since 1980 at all levels of government; the Democrats have been working only toward unity through the election of presidents and federal legislators and senators.
We now find our country under near-complete control by the Republican/Trumpist party. The Departments of Justice and State are under the full control of the "Dear Leader," the Judiciary, perhaps not SCOTUS - yet, but at lower levels, is stacked with unqualified Trumpists and the Senate is now just Trump's lapdog that will bend willingly (and sickeningly) to his will because of Derrick Bell's interest convergence.
We're in deep, deep trouble.
10
My wife and I served at a small church in exurban Charlotte, NC and discovered a Bowenian family process at play that we had never experienced before. The church routinely identified the craziest and most dangerous people in the family and put them in charge. These "leaders" held 50 year old grudges that they kept alive in the day-to-day life of the church, using them to sort the congregation into us/them groups. From 2007-2014 we watched the church tear itself apart in a precise microcosm of America's national politics since 2016. Despite our best efforts to foster reconciliation and rapprochement, the church eventually drove off half of the congregation and left its parent denomination in favor of much more conservative national church. Edwin Friedman documented the indestructibility of such family processes in "Generation to Generation." You can't weave people together if their inherited family system is set on shredding every social bond.
1
Mr. Brooks does not acknowledge that the Democratic Party, for all its many flaws, is a collaboration of many different groups: racial, ethic, social, economic, theological, and intellectual. Meanwhile the Republican Party has closed ranks behind its white Christian core, leaving no room for collaboration or weaving others into it. It is now defined by exclusion, fear of, and hatred of everything about the others. Good luck working on that.
9
I find it fascinating that this is called neoliberalism. I agree that a focus on the individual has had negative consequences, but I've always felt that this focus took off under Regan as he extolled taxation, which is a way of focusing society on what community values, and making it the enemy. Conservatism has championed individual rights over collective responsibilities for years. So I agree about individualistic culture being toxic to democracy, but I feel strongly that if one end of the political spectrum is responsible, it's simply not the left.
4
Mr. Brooks ignores the "conservative" ideology that urged and brought us unrestrained capitalism and the extreme division and inequality that has followed.
More importantly and inexplicably, however, his attachment of "liberal" to the malaise based on the notion that liberals favor individual human rights is mind numbing and nothing less than (hopefully) unwitting "doublespeak."
I'm sure he must know that US democracy is premised on equality while unrestrained capitalism is premised on inequality. That conflict, never fully resolved, becomes destructive when those holding the vast economic wealth exaggerate their economic freedom for power and reduce the economic and political freedom of others. That the wealthy claim unrestrained corporate freedom from social responsibility and regulation reminds me of a passage from "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," along the lines of, "those who claim unbounded freedom are usually those who already have it."
However, the real tragedy is that the labels of the political spectrum are the subject of discussion among pundits, parties and politicians (now used mostly as pejoratives by various "sides"), while decades of party intransigence have passed without addressing the necessities of aging infrastructure, unsustainable health care and military costs and dealing with the educational and economic adjustments for fast changing technology and help overcoming the US racial and religious prejudices so prevalent in the news today.
4
I love the optimism of this op-ed. I love it so much that I don't want to read all the comments from readers who will all point out what Brooks gets wrong (and Brooks always gets some stuff wrong). We need the optimism.
3
Using the analogy of weaving at present the Republican Senate, Justice and Supreme Court are both the warps and wefts constituting the fabric of our government. How to you propose to have McConnell, Barr, Gorsuch, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Graham, Meadows, Nunes, Trump, Pompeo, Mulvaney, Ross, those with their authoritarian ideals to include any other threads in what should be an all inclusive fabric? Tell me please, middle of the road liberals don't have the teeth and jaws to seize the grip those Conservatives have on our society.
1
The media have always pushed us into two camps but today those divisions are reinforced and exacerbated by social media. Never has remote hating ever been so successful from anyone instantaneously from anywhere on the planet. It is so hard to hate face to face and so easy on social media.
I submit that 5 liberal and 5 conservative citizens could, face to face, agree upon compromises to move the country forward. And most of the nation would agree with those compromises. Tell me I am wrong.
Mr. Brooks, it was your column several years ago which introduced me to the non-profit, non-partisan organization No Labels.com. It’s mission attempts to achieve what you advocate now in this column. I became a member, as it is among the few organizations that encourage compromise and cooperation, rather than political warfare, which leads us nowhere.
Voting for the likes of Trump and Sanders perpetuate this warfare, which is why I feel Moderates represent our best hope for the nation’s future, a belief clearly not shared among the Progressives who read the Times. Until we start acknowledging the differences among us and attempt to reconcile them, we are lost. As long as we continue to elect extremist warriors on the Left and the Right, we have little hope of ever overcoming our differences.
3
It's funny, sometimes I find myself wishing I could have a few meaningful friendships with Trump supporters. I really think it would make me a better, more well-rounded person. I wonder if there's a presidential candidate who could float the idea of "matching" a few coastal Democrats with a few heartland Republicans. They would have a few Skype calls, see what they have in common, and at least begin to break down this frightful "Us vs. Them" situation that our country has gotten into. People talking to people - that's how change happens. It's awfully low-tech but maybe it's just what we need.
1
Funny. All this time I thought it was conservatives who were for "rugged individualism" and liberals who wanted to work for the common good, who shared the values of "Thread." Maybe we need to get rid of the labels and focus on re-inventing a country that stands for "liberty and justice for all."
4
How do we "weave" when we have a strident, self-righteous religious right that considers itself the final arbiter of the nation's morality and is on a crusade to subvert the separation of church and state in order to impose its worldview on the unreceptive majority?
9
It is pretty difficult to mend and recover something that has been burned and consumed by fire. Democracy has has been torched by the the GOP and wealthy elites. Mr . Brooks would ask the restoration crew to work together to revive and patch together Democracy. A tall order for that crew if some of it's members complained about Democracy, participated in it's arson, and is not skilled at repair and restoration of damaged goods. Hard to cooperate with that.
5
@Jon What's more, they are still actively setting fires. A precondition for cooperation is that they stop setting fires, and help us put out the ones still smoldering. But no, they're still chucking the Molotov cocktails that created this disaster.
1
After WWII the government made a great effort to provide society with the tools and opportunities it needed to get back to raising families, educating citizens, and offering affordable housing. This is a summarized view, but my point is government thought about what the citizens of this country needed to regain a peaceful footing. We didn't speak in sound bites and labels that reduced conversation to school yard taunting. The issues the country faced required adult thinking. Adult as in mature, not chronological age. We have lost our way. I'd say things turned during Reagan's reign, when the haves and have-nots divided and moved apart. The country wasn't perfect then, by any means, but I wouldn't mind seeing the best of that mindset return. Watching the Senate act like simpletons these past days, agreeing with arguments that make no sense, doesn't give me hope.
4
Trump to Bernie is bad enough(covered well in other comments), but defining raw capitalism as "liberalism" is ill defined as well. Liberalism is inclusive and cooperative. Profiteering is not. It is true that some on the left are peddling some bizarre concepts, as any movement has extremes, but that doesn't fit most of us who want to make sure everyone is cared for. Which sounds to me like what Father Brooks is preaching here.
cooperation with empathy and vision and the cornerstones to civiliazation. Originally of high promise, mass media has instead become our Tower Of Babel.
1
There is no dominant majority, it's true. But we have a large minority intent on sabotage, and for the moment they seem to be succeeding.
There is a clear majority of the country that does not want what they are doing, and that majority is growing while the group of saboteurs is shrinking. But that majority does not agree on what we want instead. Brooks has some good advice for approaching each other to build a more robust coalition, recognizing that there will still be policy disagreements to resolve.
But the purpose of building a broad, united coalition is to drive out a group that has chosen to dismantle our constitutional and social order in pursuit of power. We'll take converts from that group, people who have woken up and realized how far we've slipped into fascism. But the group itself needs to be broken up and driven from power, because it really is as bad as its worst critics say.
3
We evolved as social creatures because it was a survival-positive trait. As animals in tribal units, we evolved a fear of "the other", also because it was survival-positive. We also evolved as pattern-seeking beings, because recognizing a lion's silhouette in the tall grass was survival-positive, and being mistaken didn't carry a survival penalty. All of these traits exist today because they made the humans who have them more likely to survive long enough to procreate.
Given these facts, you and other conservatives who share your concerns about the destructive parts of capitalism and tribalism should probably come out against Fox News. Their entire brand is about fear of the "other" and seeing false positives in the tall grass. They've done more to destroy the fabric of our society than any other company or group that I can think of.
If you want to discourage these traits in future Americans, don't let Fox News continue to provide them with a safe space.
2
I largely agree with the call for a greater sense of community. The question I'd ask you is whether the right and left don't have a point: people are being left behind because of factors that are beyond their control--changes in technology, the destructive elements inherent in dynamic capitalism, increased mobility, multiple and hyphenated identities, the decline of faith in large institutions-- church, state, voluntary organizations, the expanded work week and the decline of corporate paternalism and unionism etc. Sectors central for increasing "pie"so that more people can share in the value created by the economic system: i.e. education, health care, the cost of urban housing have exploded. On the other hand, poverty world-wide has decreased dramatically, information is more universally available and low cost forms of education and self-education are more readily available. So, I guess the question is how to preserve traditional forms of community without tribalism. I'm not sure your suggestions address the central issues involved.
David is correct in thinking there are good human intentions that should be nurtured. He fails to see why at the moment they are not. The primary reason is polluting propaganda.
Large swaths of America are bound in echo chambers, deluged with baloney, and cannot even hear themselves think, or see what is in front of them.
That, unfortunately, is not accidental.
512
@John♻️Brews
It's not only not accidental, it is BASED on the myth that what drives people is self-interest.
The GOP propaganda basically tells us that IF you, as an American individual, want to live exactly how you decide to live, then you must fight against all those who disagree with that kind of desire and right.
Supporting "big government", from the perspective of this propaganda, by definition means putting a group in control of individuals. So it limits our liberty, instead of increasing it. And those who support it cannot but be driven by controlling others, so are bad people.
It's what Isaiah Berlin called the difference between "freedom from" and "freedom to".
Conservatism, when it was founded, used to believe that most people are bad, and only a small minority good (the aristocrats - literally "the best"). It's why they supported an aristocratic political regime and hated the idea of a democracy. It often led to totalitarian regimes.
Today, conservatism STILL fundamentally believes that the majority of ordinary citizens aren't "good enough" to know how to govern; only conservatives know how to do so. They're terrified of a real democracy, and cannot but associate it with reducing the freedom from external control, rather than increasing the freedom to study, be healthy etc.
So they need massive fake news, gerrymandering and voter suppression to still fire up their base and get "democratically" elected anyhow.
It's BECAUSE they ignore what Brooks says here.
50
@John♻️Brews
Well said. Human's need to cooperate and belong are being exploited by media,politicians,corporations who have discovered that personal communication technology can be used as a tool of manipulation and amplification.
We need to wise up. No one is completely immune from the manipulation and people are being set against one another by different interests who are not always interested in what's good for the country and the world.
18
@John♻️Brews
Good point. And, the fact that the consumption of propaganda is elective is, to me, the most tragic aspect.
13
As one of millions of Bernie Sanders supporters, I have to wonder why Brooks continues to portray us as populist radicals. We seek a woven society, healed from the decades-long damage done to it by a deliberate neo-liberal program to dismantle the social compact. I can only deduce that Brooks is an ideologue, with no real understanding of the Progressive Left. I ask Brooks: How is providing medical coverage for all, a livable wage for all, labor rights, free tuition for college, an end to the forever wars, an end to big money in politics, and a pragmatic program to address climate change a representation of class war? We need structural change Mr. Brooks, not some wishy-washy "weaving" that does nothing to address neo-liberalism.
534
@Robert The definition of populism: "A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite." Is that not Bernie Sanders?
20
KA - that may be a strict definition of the term but it’s not how it’s deployed in our political conversation.
“In popular discourse—where the term has often been used pejoratively—it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy, to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with opportunism, to characterize politicians who seek to please voters without rational consideration as to the best course of action.”
You may feel that these terms apply to Sanders, but his supporters disagree.
36
@Robert I agree. Simply wishy-washy weaving isn't likely to do the trick. Perhaps 'bobbing' would work better.
11
Americans and our politicians join hands, reach out to one another, and cooperate in times of crises. During WWII, unity was a shared passion, and women made strides in the workplace; during the Cuban missile crises, the threat of nuclear attack held us together; and right after 9/11, drivers became more courteous, even waved to other drivers, and in Congress, all joined in singing God Bless America: America was singing with a single voice. It may take another crisis to help us function as a more unified and cooperative society.
@William
just wait trump is bring his next one on. How do you change people who are making so much money off of trump to even care what happens to the rest of us?
1
Mr. Brooks, your reference to white Christians in the heartland only perpetuates the schism in this country. There are many, many of us who embrace the tenets of Christianity and find Trumpism repulsive. And I am pretty sure that Nunez, Jordan, McConnell and many others will never, ever weave with us.
781
@Mik Excellent comment. There really are many Christians who, as you say, find Trumpism repulsive. I am proud to say that I and many others I know, are one of them.
37
@Mik Amen to that. 45, Nunez, Gym Jordan and Moscow Mitch are the voice of the so-called American People? God help us, Christians or not, we as a country
are in a full-blown schism.
23
@Lizabeth The question then is: who will you vote for this coming election? Because the dems need to know who could win against this Machiavellan subterfuge.
11
Obama had the skills you listed in spades.
Up against an obstructionist Republican Congress.
Just think what he could have accomplished if any of them, specifically Mitch McConnell, and even an iota of those skills.
We certainly wouldn't be here.
Oh how far we have fallen, thanks to the GOP.
652
@Fromjersey And are continuing to fall. Seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel so long as the GOP maintains it's current head of steam.
13
@Fromjersey I agree. Obama offered the Congress the opportunity for cooperation that Brooks writes about. He was then refuted by a vindictive McConnell and an ambitious Ryan. He provided a cabinet and staff of capable and responsible people that worked for the nation. The republican party of No blocked and obstructed his actions to nearly throw the country into a deep recession. There were no indictments, no criminal accomplices. The couple of scandals were manufactured by the republicans to cover their own malfeasant actions. Obama was the Jackie Robinson of U.S. politics, acting like an adult and expecting others to be responsible to the positions they held. When they did not do that, he did not falter, he did not act like a victim, he did not compromise or demean the value of others. As a person and a U.S. president, he could not be perfect, but he was one of our best.
40
@Fromjersey
typo! meant to say "had even an iota ..."
Attitudes trickle from the top down.
In President Obama, we had a leader who saw no red or blue America, only the United States of America.
And in Trump, we have an individual who pits people against one another and whose approach to power is divide and conquer.
This year’s election is indeed a contest for the country’s heart and soul.
1301
the criticism of Obama was that while he inspired millions with his rhetoric his engagement with Congress was too impersonal.
for all his flaws Biden seems to be the one who can be most effective in healing the bipartisanship
27
@NM
Yes, weave together. But it might be a democracy weave.
Please listen to the "Democracy" song of Leonard Cohen.
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
Cohen's song is prophetic, and maybe the time is now.
Why doesn't the Times discuss the song possibility?
David Brooks, I am trying to reach you with this simple idea.
You speak in abstract terms, but why not with these words.
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
Hello?
13
@NM "Attitudes trickle from the top down." NM, that was the premise of my (a bit wordy) comment, too. It starts from the top to lead, to set an example, to embrace fairness, justice, and equal rights. Yes, we are responsible to reach the ideal of cooperation and unification. But we are first and foremost human, not unlike children in looking to parents for guidance. If the attitude from an administration is that of "anything goes," well, what can one expect? If the "president," the senator, the congressman, the Cabinet member can exploit or manipulate, why can't we? That is our paradigm now. It is disease-like, but curable. And it is up to us to help make the changes we need so much right now.
33
At this point in our American history it's hard to be hopeful about the state of our politics because the divisions have basically torn us all asunder, and there is no politician in sight who can remedy a change as quickly as one is needed.
Not Donald Trump, whose interests are by and large restricted to himself.
Not Bernie Sanders, who has no use for Democrats who aren't part of his progressive agenda.
What we have now is a broken confederacy of tribes divided by race, religion, social-standing and religion that have, and want little to do with each other.
How we are supposed to prosper like this, I do not know.
And ostensibly, neither does anyone else
2
I'm not sure that schadenfreude is in order, but something of the sort certainly is. After roughly 50 years of an ongoing march to greater individualism, lead by the right and followed faithfully by the neoliberal left, one of its public intellectuals is now ready to thrown in the towel. It's about time.
David, you have carried water for the very philosophy you now find wanting. Redemption is good. Keep it up. But as you do, look to see who were the lonely voices in the wilderness trying to move the country in this direction all along.
5
Thank you for a magnificent article. The lessons go far beyond the two massive oceans. This should be the message in all countries and cultures. In our post Industrial Age, societies are fractured due to the mere fact that different segments are moving at different speeds. The concept of “us” vs “them” has come alive again in various forms and has ignited a great deal of hatred. But it is important to keep in mind that what unites us all is a much stronger bond than that which divides us. Our common humanity is predicated upon certain universal truths: our superior abilities to reason, our desire to improve and learn and an inherent ability to cooperate and work together. Many animal species live in social units and support these units. Some level of collaboration is witnessed among primates. But it is only humans who perfected the art of working together to create all the trappings of the world as we know it. For millions of years our pre-human ancestors roamed the globe but only changed it very little. Then humans came along and working together they built entire civilizations and the many conveniences we take fore granted in our daily lives. To forget that fact and allow our individualism and tribalism to rip us apart is a dishonor to all the giants on whose shoulders we stand today. This is a universal message. It applies equally well in Washington as it does in Beirut or Beijing.
4
Yet another instance of Brooks' false equivalence. It's the Republican Party that has been acting as if it were at war, in which anything goes (for example, not even a hearing for Garland), and acting as if rank dishonesty is justified (as it is in war). Trump (echoed by Fox and some Republican members of Congress) refers to Democrats as corrupt, as liars, and as haters, even saying that they hate our country. Whereas of course the truth is that it is he and Fox who are fomenting hatred in the Republican base, they who are the liars. Trump screams that the press is fake when it is he who is a fake, etc. So yes, we've been driven apart. But the Democrats have not been doing the driving. One unscrupulous party is responsible. Brooks should name them!
12
@Greg Weis Oh dear. Please re-read Brooks' article. If by the end you still feel the Democrats are the good guys and the Republicans are the bad guys, sorry to say, but you are part of the problem. Peace.
Definition of false equivalence in this article: Trump is to the right what Sanders is to the left. Please! Trump is amoral, arrogant, devoid of human condition, without empathy for other human beings and only worried about Trump. Bernie can be obstinate, not pleasant to hear sometimes, abrasive (maybe not very "nice", whatever that means) but never insulting, and not sold to the highest bidder. This false equivalence will be the mantra of the elitist "never Trump Republicans" if Sanders is elected as the Democratic candidate. Sanders might not be my first option, but I would vote for him in a nanosecond over someone like Trump. Not a valid equivalence there Mr. Brooks.
11
@LAP
Well said in deed. My exact thoughts.
1
Brooks demeans the notion that the economic game is 'rigged" and that there is a class of wealthy individuals who are doing the rigging.
Everyone, Brooks included, should read the book "Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal" by NYU historian Kim Phillips-Fein.
The book traces the history of an enduring effort of the wealthy propertied and managerial elite to destroy the social contract established in the New Deal legislation of the 1930s. It quotes the participants as wanting to reduce American workers to a class of wage slaves, ignorant and too busy struggling to survive to find time to make trouble for their employers. Making trouble includes unionizing, public demonstrations, letters to media, even voting. Why do you think that so much effort is put into voter suppression as we speak?
6
I admit to being part of the problem that Mr. Brooks is highlighting. It is difficult to find common ground and opportunities for compromise with the new conservatism. Its leaders deny science, undo decades of clean air and water protections and lie about the health implications. The religious right has made intolerance holy. It's a Christianity that is unrecognizable to me. It has no grace, compassion, or charity, but is confrontational, vindictive, and militant. I do not understand the values these people have. They have their constituents terrified and angry, largely about problems that simply do not exist. I find the leadership power mad and morally corrupt. Unfortunately, leaders on the left are ineffectual in countering this blizzard of misinformation and intolerance. Their messaging incompetence has allowed a groundswell of extreme conservative ideology to become mainstream. I cannot imagine sitting in a room with the new American conservative and saying " so, your contribution is to get rid of clean air and water, codify discrimination against gay people which we will call "religious freedom", and to insist that people seeking asylum in the country have enough money to move here. Okay, that's acceptable to me if you agree to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour". There appears to be no forward thinking by conservatives in the era of Trump, just a desire to roll back the clock to when old white men told us all how to live.
10
Another piece equivocating Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump. It's not even close. Sanders advocates pluralistic causes, and has an extremely diverse pool of supporters; everyone from AOC to Joe Rogan. The same can't be said for Donald Trump.
You call the people that put a name to the faults of 'unrestrained liberalism' "radicals," and then go on to blame the "Us versus Them" mentality. That seems incredibly hypocritical to me
5
The future is very gloomy...just watching this truly exhausting process of trying to explain to senators what is happening to the country, to senators who don't want to hear or see, who prefer to be willfully deaf and blind, simply exasperating!
The immense danger that this president represents to the citizens is just falling on deaf ears.
Nothing else left to say, it feels tragic and bitterly dismal.
4
My takeaway from this column is quite simply, that whatever bad things happen to our country, it's always the Democrats fault, even in the minds of many former Republicans who reject Trumpism. And somehow, we're all bunched in, on top of each other along a coastline and we're all elites. We hate, loathe and despise all our fellow citizens who live in the rest of the country even though that is where many of us live, too. It's nonsense but making your base believe the other party despises them, wins a lot of elections.
Divisively, sowing hatred in their ranks against Democrats began with Nixon, blossomed under Reagan, Gingrich, Palin and the Tea Party to become the abomination of the cult of Trump. That's how we got where we are today. Republicans can't blame the Democrats for that.
3
That’s great, but with the Republican Senate giving Trump carte blanche I suspect dictatorship is the future of American politics.
5
I am bereft. I see the Republicans running roughshod ever the a Democrats. There’s no concern for reality or law. The Founding Fathers would be horrified. The logic of the necessary reelection of Trump as justification for his actions is insane. When did morality disappear? Why does no one believe in right and wrong? Even if we come out of this, 40 percent of U.S. citizens have lost their moral compass, because of bigotry or stupidity, or unquestioned belief in propaganda. I never thought I would find Romney a hero. There he is, the lone reasonable Republican. I long for Nixon. I never thought I would say that. He is a Boy Scout compared to Trump. Is there a way out? I am terrified for my 19-year-old son’s future. Even if Trump is defeated in an election tarnished by Facebook and foreign influence, will he leave? Will we need a second revolution to free us from tyranny? Benefit. I am completely bereft.
8
I almost wish Mr. Brooks simplistic delusional view of American politics was right but it isn't. I happen to know from first hand experience (something Mr. Brooks might try some time) many seniors who are first generation immigrants living on social security, Medicare or Medicaid, and government subsidized housing - in other words everything Trump and the Republican Party hates and wants to destroy - who are virulent supporters of Trump and the Republican Party.
To them, just being a member of the Democratic Party makes you a "Communist", never mind that everything they depend on to survive is the result of Democratic polices.
In other words, everything they believe in goes against their self interest.
On the other hand, there are countless millionaires and billionaires supporting Democrats who think we need to raise their taxes. In other words, going against their self interest.
No, I think the problem is both far simpler and far more complex. In a word, its called "HATE". The rise of every despot in history has been driven by appeal to the one simple and yet extraordinarily complex human need to find someone to hate, never minding the hypocrisy of it all.
4
Trump is McCarthy reborn. He’s down the seeds of hate and fear. We reap his harvest in a cowardly Congress. Those who vote to acquit Trump are doing so out of self interest - or so they think. Will the voters give them their due at the polls - I will.
6
Brooks' suggestions are all good ideas that few will have reason to reject. They are mostly just common sense.
But before we are ready to embark on a different, more collaborative political course, we need to come to grips with the problem that the two "tribes" now live in two distinct factual universes. There will never be agreement on policy as long as there is no agreement on the relevant facts. And at least one "tribe" has staked its very existence on denying even the most basic, obvious facts, including global scientific consensus.
How do we recover from this tribal delusionism? Without an answer to this question I fear our politics will continue to go nowhere.
1
If there’s anything resembling the rule of law after this last republican made disaster of a presidency I want my pound of flesh.
I want to see trump and McConnell prosecuted and jailed. I want to see the demise of the Republican Party. I want to see the end of supply side economic theory and a massive tax on wealthy people. I also want our planet to be saved from greedy corporations.
I’m very, very tired of being told that we need to work together with lying, racist conservatives. I’m done. Vote them out in November. If that doesn’t work, take to the streets and revolt!
6
Another piece equivocating Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump. It's not even close. Sanders advocates pluralistic causes, and has an extremely diverse pool of supporters; everyone from AOC to Joe Rogan. The same can't be said for Donald Trump.
You call the people that put a name to the faults of 'unrestrained liberalism' "radicals," and then go on to blame the "Us versus Them" mentality. The hypocrisy is palpable
6
I think I've heard this from Mr. Brooks before, same sentiments wrapped in different paper. It's good and noble stuff to be sure but I think it's all a bit overwrought. I'm sure that I don't have all the answers but there are some things about America and we Americans that stand out to me every day: America is a nation of spoiled children tallying up what all the other children have and and crying when we don't have the same things. We spend much of our time playing with toys to the exclusion of real adult life. We have relationships that are substantially comprised of communicating through our toys. We don't have real relationships, we don't even have real conversations. Life is a game to win, not an adventure to experience. We live to have as much as possible so we can prove that we've won the game and be the envy of all the other spoiled greedy children. Unscrupulous politicians recognize us for what we are and work to feed and manipulate our inadequacies to attain power and control us. They tell us how good and honorable we are, how exceptional and decent we are, never meaning a single word of it. In truth they have little respect for us because we are so simple-minded, self-serving, and so easily manipulated. Then the ultimate lying conman politician promising us everything, that we all get to magically win the game. We are captivated by the prospect as he fleeces us, sells lies and snake oil to us, the greedy gullible masses. And here we are.
1
I disagree with the assumption that we go through life only asserting our own self interest. How can I be content knowing others are suffering? Oh, this must sound terribly socialistic I know, but a healthy society looks out for all it's citizens not just the privileged; we must lift up the less fortunate.
America, stop diminishing and pushing aside the nations who look at their societies as a whole rather than separating the haves for the have-nots.
Your future of your politics is based on power and money; all else matters not.
3
When the dust finally settles, if it's Trump vs. Sanders, Bernie gets my vote every time. In fairness, if it was Trump vs. the croaking frog in my back yard, I'd vote for the croaking frog.
4
If Democrats don't win back the Senate and Oval Office and cede control to Republicans for another 4 years . . . this country is as good as demised. Republicans have long since shown they can't be counted on to live up to their oath of office, much less respect established law and act for the country over party. They will sell the country to Russia if a tax cut can be had for the top 1%. Democrats need to win in 2020 and start a march to a supermajority in both houses and start a campaign to turn more states blue so we can amend the Constitution to rid us of the electoral college and make the Constitution Trump and W proof. Republican would gladly pen legislation to make Trump president for life as if this was a Third World dictatorship. People need to wake up and start to realize we are in real jeopardy of Clown Rule in this country being the norm.
3
Wow! Except for the small slam on Bernie, which seems a bit ironic, given the way his campaign is more "weaverly," more dependent on collectivity than any other, there is little here that I, as an atheist, democratic socialist, (albeit a Bulwark reader who admires Edmund Burke), wouldn't stand up and cheer for.
However, I recall, Mr. Brooks, that you once held up the model of the Federalist Society as an example of what could be done when like minded people got together and worked over a period of time to bring about change. While I doubt that you would hold them up as a model for their use of "collaboration skills" (in the way you refer to them in this article), with every Federal judge from their list that is quickly approved by the Senate, they certainly are demonstrating the effects of what can be done with common goals and a bit of work.
Battle lines have been drawn.
I feel a thick kinship with others ready to work toward the common goal of removing a dangerous, unqualified, venal buffoon from the office he befouls. He, his dog pack, and the dog-handlers, do indeed attempt to "pulverize who we are and are made to be." And it needs to stop.
I look forward to weaving, or re-weaving thick institutions, and discovering how we can again bring those things we do best together to improve life for us all...after the war.
1
We begin to weave when we agree to hope for a brighter tomorrow.
"I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic."
- Studs Terkel
1
The sides are not equally responsible for where we are. I'd like to figure out a way to talk Republicans out of extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression, census rigging, court packing and consistent lying but I have not. Maybe a few electoral punches in the nose will snap them out of it? If not, our democracy is toast because Republicans are clearly showing they do not value it.
5
David I would love to believe that most Americans want to work together to build a better country.. However when I look at the actions of the Republican Party I hang my head in shame. They speak only for the rich white one %.
They refuse to even look at any of the 300 bills that the House has sent them. Unfortunately many of the men and women that back them are racist, and one other thing David Pres. Trump gets most of his marching orders from the large corporations. All of these things serve to keep this country separated. I just don't see those in power, building new schools , new roads and bridges and the biggest lie that climate change is a hoax. I cannot see how are anybody with children, and grandchildren would not want to stop global warming.
5
@John Metz Clark
Hi John,
I agree with much of what you’ve said here.
Particularly your last line about children and grandchildren.
I wish that all politicians with children and/or grandchildren would use two filters for their decision making:
1) How will my choices affect my grandchildren?
2) How would I defend my choices to my grandchildren if they asked why I voted the way that I did.
Today’s Republican Party seems to make choices with no consideration of future generations.
2
More of the tiresome false-equivalency trope. Lumping Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders together at opposite ends of the same spectrum is manifestly, spectacularly dishonest and reprehensible.
3
It is unrestrained conservatism that has destroyed the sense of common community and equal dignity in this country. Despite liberal attempts to regulate deleterious economic activities and to protect the environment, unrestrained capitalism and conservative economic and social policies have shown the world that America cares only for itself and for money. The world sees we are cruel and greedy, willing and able to elevate the richest first. Starting endless wars, ignoring the climate threat, pandering to Know Nothings...the doings of neo-conservatives.
2
I look forward to David Brooks' columns but this one struck me as a bit "hi-falutin". Too many labels and academic speak. Write clearly David! Maybe you meant to say that the next president (ala JFK) should ask us to participate in some effort that unites us and requires a little sacrifice. A common goal, well thought out and likely to catch on. A new national renewable energy focus is one example. Looking forward to your next piece!
Typical Brooks - thinking he's coaching the world on how to be better. The reality is that he has spent his entire career attempting to rationalize the GOP march to tyranny. Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for helping create our new American Monarchy. You knew he was a snake, but you invited him in anyway.
5
More transparently false equivalency pablum. Not surprised, because Brooks can't bear to open his eyes to the dumpster fire that is the political philosophy and political party that he's lifted up all these years. Over the past decade it has become clear that it is the Republican Party — as an institution, as a movement, as a collection of politicians — that has done unique, extensive and possibly irreparable damage to the American political system. The rapidity of that destruction is playing out before our eyes in the Senate, and this is how a democracy dies.
3
This sounds like the sort of speech an intelligent but naive apologist might give at Davos, or possibly the Century Club.
With the defeat of the union movement to outsourcing, and the subversion of democracy through money in politics and related gerrymandering, power in this country has shifted entirely to the corner office, which is inhabited by a strange, cruel, and astonishingly short-sighted tribe of servant-leaders who somehow do not understand that the middle class is a wolf to feed, not a dog to kick. Now some will probably use this piece, and its false equivalences, to embrace notions of "weaving"as rhetorical cover for the ongoing soulless principles of predatory self-reward that in fact dominate American life.
2
This piece is unfortunately irrelevant. We are in a state of civil war. It’s hard, but necessary. We fight now for the soul of the nation. The “weaving” is the work of future generations.
2
I have no issue with the advice but do not argue that Sanders is the Trump of the Left. That is pure nonsense.
2
David - you are consistently one of the most interesting commentators. Look forward to seeing you and Shields tonight on PBS. Thanks for your thoughtful pieces.
1
David Brooks is one of my favorite writers. I value his opinions because I don't think this way. He tries to make us all better by thinking in a way I no longer think.
Well, Mr Brooks you forgot something. We love co-operation, shared goals, sharing and getting along, working on your dreams to be your best you. Sounds great. But first we have to get paid. Not being paid for what you do, is a permanent insult, a put-down. I belong to this great society; but I don't make much money and my life and health are insecure. I'm one car bill, hospital bill away from being ruined.
Boy I'd love to be so self-actualizing. But first, you gotta pay me what I'm worth. Give back all you've drained away over all the years after squeezing us so hard here down on the bottom. An editorial "you", by the way. By "you", I mean "us". I didn't start out this way, it is what "us" made "me". And by "me", I mean I.
1
Has nothing to do with tribes. What smoke and mirrors Brooks is putting out again
It money and power. The rich have rigged the courts, the tax code and the electoral system. It will end when the people realize that they also have power. Ten fifteen or twenty million people marching on Washington d.c. would get Medicare for all signed into law in a day. They would rewrite the tax laws and forgive student debt as long as we stop building the gallows in the courtyard.
3
Nice optimistic try, Mr. Brooks. But I live in Kentucky where the legislature is controlled by a Republican supermajority. Diversity is not something they tolerate, let alone embrace. Currently their #1 priority is passing a bill that would require civilian employees of Government & certain institutions to “report” any suspicions of illegal immigrants. Another bill would prohibit doctors from assisting trans youth from undergoing any transitional procedures including hormone therapy. They’re also rushing through a voter ID bill before the November election. Because of non-existent voter fraud.
This is the same crowd that expanded gun rights and sued to enforce their fetal heartbeat bill. These are their priorities. They show no respect for or understanding of issues and needs of the “big” cities of Louisville and Lexington. (These are Democratic strongholds whose taxes support the rest of the state). What about the REAL needs of Kentuckians statewide, where poverty and drug abuse is destroying lives, including a tragically high number of children? No wonder KY is ranked at the bottom in nearly every indicator.
Sorry. I think the chance of holding hands and singing kumbaya are slim to none.
4
Once again . . . the casual equation of Trump and Sanders is dishonest and irresponsible.
2
You notice David heaps a ton of blame on liberals and populists, calling out both by name, but never uses the word conservative, which he is one.
So all of our problems are caused by the "other" but not by the man staring back at you in the mirror?
David, I've got news for you. Conservatives were wrong about the Crusades, wrong about the Dark Ages, wrong about slavery, wrong about Civil Rights, wrong about Trump, etc. ad infinitum.
Atone for yourself and your fellow brother conservatives and maybe we'll take your columns a bit more seriously.
3
Mr. Brooks do you believe the majority of the current Senate, GOP constituency or this administration would ever understand, or accept one iota of your essay‘s thesis?
Unfortunately I don’t think so.
1
Ridiculous. I'll never forgive the garbage heap that is the trump admin and his supporters. Wishful thinking by a pathetic author who feels/sees what is coming- i.e. the deluge of a majority backlash, the likes of which the republican party has never seen.
5
"Men and women are primarily motivated by self-interest."
"This is the flaw of unrestrained liberalism."
Selfishness? blame it on..."the liberals". Not Ayn Rand, not William Buckley, not the Powell memo, not Milton Friedman, not the Chicago School, not the Koch brothers, not the Center for American Progress, the Chamber of Commerce, The Business Roundtable, Americans for Prosperity, not Grover Norquist or Jack Kemp or boy wonder Paul Ryan. Not the "prosperity gospelizers".
All of the exaggerated and harmful inequality we face is due to selfishness; selfishness promoted by the likes of Noam Chomsky, or--God forbid--Bernie Sanders! Don't forget greedy unions.
Actually the Weavers were once a folk group. Were a folk group--until they were blacklisted for being REDS!
2
"The best future politics puts collaborative pluralism, weaving, at the center. That means, first, electing leaders who are masters at cooperation.... Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders [ain't it]"
Joe Biden has got it. He maybe a bit old but he can hack it. Focus on the running mate he picks. Amy Klobuchar or Pete Buttigieg would do it. Others are risky, though their resume may fit better.
2
If Mr. Brooks were writing his column 200 or 300 years ago in Europe, the use of the word "liberalism" as he uses it would make sense. But this the year 2020, the Times' readers are almost all USAmericans, and the only purpose I can see in Mr. Brooks using the word so inappropriately is to sow confusion. He's quite good at that, which is unfortunate because this column does make some very good points regarding the importance of cooperation. Why he ruined his own attempt to build bridges is a mystery to me.
1
How many different ways can conservatives dress up and camouflage their "both sides do it" meme?
Brooks pushes it up to 101.
1
Bipartisanship can no longer function with a Republican party that is off the rails. Trump has destroyed any ability for collaboration. This is your party Mr. Brooks.
2
Stop it, man. This is not a “both sides” issue. The “extreme left” in American society is not a danger to democracy. It wants more of it. Trump’s extreme right thinks democracy is for the weak. The end.
3
Most people do not read newspapers anymore. In fact, there is little evidence that people read in general.
Most trump Party supporters I know and deal with come off as caring and sincere but if they have to pay for something or something makes them uncomfortable they become belligerent and recoil from it.
Too many Americans just want to hear, see and do what they want. Pull into their garage and shut the door.
When you look at the facts have we ever been that shinning city on a hill?
All Blue 2020.
2
The future of American politics is foreign-led Russia, China and Israel or Israelis or diaspora people are the Central players in deciding how our country should be governed. Sad, very sad because it’s been very destructive so far.
Lost me when you put Trump and Sanders in the same box.
2
“Learn from all voices ... It takes every perspective to see an issue whole. Assume people have the best of intentions, … be intentional about being with those different from you.”
Really? In America today?
The first voice Mr. Brooks might learn from is Thomas Piketty and his analysis of empirical data in Capital in the Twenty-First Century” and subsequent work by him and other authors. Look at the U-shaped curves and then “Learn from all voices” that the 1% and 0.1% own the world and, utterly devoid of Brooks' "best intentions”, compete among themselves with zero regard for Mr. Brooks’ ideals and hopes for “being intentional with those different”.
Mr. Brooks left behind in his life a modern Canada and her Federal elections system of regulated financing and ridings (your districts) in simple natural geometric shapes which are not gerrymandered. Our Federal Government actively prevents Russian election interference while your leader openly invites it, in public, on your media. We seek reconciliation with our First Nations Peoples and health care at a high modern standard is available to all.
Mr. Brooks is so embedded in the struggles created by your (or rather Australia’s) media mogul and your corporate overlords (who are polarized between 19th Century resource extraction and the 21st Century digital economy), that he fails to see a wonderful country and her great peoples fading from sight on a track rushing away from modernity.
1
I don't always agree with Mr. Brooks, but this column could not be more on target, and relevant to our nation's current situation.
Do you truly feel, in your heart of hearts, that the attributes you cite regarding the Core organization are practiced, or even liked, by trump supporters? Those sound like the very definition of a Democrat to me.
You like to blame both sides, but as papa used to say, "the fish stinks from the head." They hate is coming from the WH on down, Mr. Brooks.
3
This is another installment in a long series of columns where Brooks essentially says: We should all take a deep breath, step back, and maybe try and be a little nicer and more understanding of one anther.
The choral response from the comments is predictably: Sounds great. We'll give it a shot as soon as we're done stomping out everyone who disagrees with our vision for the country.
All very nice, warm and fuzzy. Want to really make a difference?
VOTE Blue, no matter WHO.
NOVEMBER.
2
I fear we are lost among the trees and do not realize we are in the forest. Beginning with Nixon the Republican Presidents and politicians have consistently and repeatedly lied, deceived, and cheated to maintain power at all costs for the benefit of the wealthy and big business.
Consider the last 5 elected Republican Presidents:
Nixon: multiple crimes to ensure re-election;
Reagan: secretly sells arms to Iran in hopes of getting return of
hostages, and contrary to an express Congressional prohibition,
uses the profits from the sales to fund a civil war in South
America;
Bush I: lies about his knowledge of Iran-Contra and (with the help
Bill Barr) pardons all of the conspirators who were involved;
Bush II: manipulates intelligence and lies about Iraq’s “weapons”
of mass destruction to obtain authorization to invade Iraq.
This is not even close to defining the hypocrisy and corruption of the Republican Party. For example, an objection examination of spending, taxation, and deficits since 1981 establishes that notwithstanding their claim of financial conservatism, the GOP is responsible for the growth of our nation’s debt. Another example is the number of people in Republican administrations convicted of corruption. Think James Watt.
All of this is open and obvious yet in 2016 the most dishonest and corrupt President, a Republican, is elected. Wake up America.
2
We are witnessing the attempted murder of American democracy. The GOP has tried everything: poison injected into the body politic by mass media propaganda, death-by-a-thousand-cuts in the form of voter suppression, the sabotage method of gerrymandering, and the starvation method of wealth transfers to the rich.
This time, they may have finally succeeded in killing it. Lamar Alexander's duplicitous statement marks the moment when the Republican Party refused to hold to account — indeed, knowingly supported — the most venal, criminal administration in the nation’s history, the attempted final suffocation of our republic.
The outright lies, red herrings and gross distortions offered up by White House lawyers at the impeachment proceeding all indicate jaw-dropping arrogance and cynicism, and no regard whatsoever for fundamental American principles.
Where there once was some semblance of democracy, freedom and equality, a corrupt and brutal oligarchy is rising. I’ve never seen anything like it in my 70+ years.
We might, just might, have one last chance to resuscitate the victim in November. But who knows what other tactics the GOP will use to make sure that doesn’t happen; I’m not optimistic.
Reprinted without permission from
Critical Rationalist
Columbus, Ohio
2
There could be no more direct path to Mr. Brooks' communitarian utopia than to recover education as a collective responsibility. Restore support for public schooling, raise the status of the teaching profession and send the "school choice" BSers packing.
2
We still don’t have a national service program because Republicans think it’s another example of do-gooder big government socialism, just like Medicaid and Social Security and the ACA and universal pre-school and paid family leave and affirmative action and practically every other idea progressives have ever come up with to increase human welfare and reduce economic stress so people can build the kinds of healthy, nurturing families and communities David Brooks is always lamenting we don’t have.
2
Congress and the Senate pack their bags and go home for the next 10 months and may next 5 years based on what the Senate just rendered. No need for them to perform checks and balances. The Monarch has our back!
1
The term ``trumpian'' gives too much credit to the go-between. It really should be called what it is, namely ``putinian''. America governmental infrastructure has proven to be no match for putin's kgb training. He won.
1
How’d Foucault get thrown in here?
It would be cool and 90’s-retro if we could start blaming French philosophers and bad postmodernists again for all our problems.
1
Sorry, but there will be no more United States Democracy, there will only be the Trump Autocracy.
2
Who is going to take the first step? (Part answer: if you are going to be 'primaried' it won't be you.)
At a time when mourning feels appropriate, given the dismantling of justice and accountability that is being ratified this week in Washington DC, there's something indecent about this column.
A madman and criminal who is the product of these very politics is being handed permission to infect our elections, start war without consulting Congress, or really whatever he wants, with the untold power that has been given him, by people who evade responsibility, and try to change the subject, just as this writer does.
I am so tired and sad. None of this is a remedy.
2
We co-operate, all right, but we do it to beat the competing team to the mastadon, kill the mastadon, and eat it while bashing the other team over their heads with the ribs. I don't see what has changed, and I doubt anything will.
Since when can an impeachment proceeding involving the president result in what is essentionally an amendment to the Constitution that effectively nullifies the impeachment provisions of the Constitution?
NEVER!
The Constitution cannot be amended via a Senate "trial" regarding the impeachment of the president.
This issue must immediatly be referred by the House directly to the Supreme Court requesting a ruling, as a matter of constitutional law, concerning the constitutional validity of the president's claims.
C'mon, you folks can figure this stuff out.
Prisoner's Dilema. What happens when one side wants to collaborate and the other wants to pulverize?
1
Whatever.
You helped get us here.
There is only one essay you should be writing: "I am sorry. The party I helped bring to power is corrupt and hurting America."
2
Sure Brooks, the Mensch running Not Me, Us. Isn't about collaboration. The dude's whole schtick is WE have to come together and make change happen. It the grand WE, from the ground up. Not from the top down. Repeatedly in all his rallies and speeches he'll tell you/us that he can't do it without Us.
It also negates his whole Amendment King record; earned under heavily partisan Republican held congress. He HAD to form coalitions to get his mostly progressive bills inserted and passed in a Republican controlled House.
Guess you missed the bipartisan Yemen War Powers Act Bernie got passed. The first time in 45 years since it was authored. Nor the recent 140 congress wo/men who rallied behind Sanders and his effort to stop Trump from cutting SNAP and other welfare benefits.
Isn't collaborative? Can't form coalitions? How the heck do you think he transformed Burlington in is 4 consecutive terms as mayor? From police to small business, to corp. landowners to deeply red hunters and the hippies out in the forest...they ALL came together to transform Burlington. From the ground up they beat the old establishment system. Together.
It's coming Mr. Brooks. You keep making a case for Bernie; you just don't realize it. He IS what you keep talking about.
NotMeUs
2
I wonder if Brooks notices that his optimistic notion of human potential largely rules out Trump-supporting politicians as sub-human?
1
The US is about to seal a tautological rationale that Republican presidents are not removable for any reason because they are servants of God.
1
"We thrived as a species because we are better at cooperation."
What history are you looking at -lol?
We barely survived as a species up to now.because of a small percentage of brilliant enlightened men and women to whom the majority followed mostly blindly.
AND now that they've achieved the thoughtless power of digitization think they have found their own answers.
Which are -of course based on their emotional state at any given place and time.
Fear and greed and ignorance.
Democrats don’t need to worry about cooperating with a party that’s driving itself into generational, historical oblivion. What would the point be?
2
I would suggest that Brooks and others look at the science supporting his assertions: Deep Learning in a Disorienting World, published this month by Cambridge University Press.
1
While i love you David, equating Obama liberal/Democrats to Trump/Evangelical Republicans is a disservice. You know they are not the same. Stop the false equivalence, pull your head out of the sand, and be honest with yourself.
The Obama administration genuinely tried to work with the former Republican party. The Republican party openly wanted to "break" Obama.
One group wants a exclusionary, reactionary Theocracy, the other wants a radically inclusive Democracy.
You have to choose, David. What side you are on?
2
Someone ought to inform Mr. Brooks that putting flowers in his hair is conduct unbecoming of a conservative. Not only that, but it doesn't fool anyone.
1
I wish that there was a nice way to say this but David Brooks uses his intelligence to insult his readers with phrases like "unrestrained liberalism" when he is actually talking about unrestrained capitalism. If he means "neoliberalism" ... then he should say neoliberalism. Leaving off the "neo" is essentially an attempt to associate the problem that greedy corporatists have left at our doorstep as a problem of liberal thought when it is exactly the opposite. Blather and misdirection has replaced thoughtful commentary.
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Mr. Brooks, your mention of Michel Foucault – who Noam Chomsky called "….completely amoral…as if he was from a different species…" – could easily describe your president, who is also impaired by an immoral IQ. Donald Trump called it when at a campaign stop in Sioux City Iowa in January 2016 he said: "I Could Stand In the Middle Of Fifth Avenue And Shoot Somebody And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters". We now know that as far as the Republicans and his voters are concerned, he truly can get away with whatever he wants.
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Demographics is destiny. Until Republicans will acknowledge that they can't govern with only white conservatives, this endless gridlock will continue.
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More both side-isms from you know who. Red Staters do not believe in science or in facts that contradict their prejudices. E.g. The earth is 6,000 years old and Jesus is coming soon. Climate change is a hoax. Evolution is the devil's work among libs. White people are superior. Jesus was white. We should build all kinds of walls to keep THEM OUT!. Education beyond job training is evil. Social programs just help people of color who are too stupid to know that libs just want their vote and that Trump and the GOP are their true friends. Parks, Schools, health care, Social Services (say the post office) rob people of the dignity of their struggle and they should all be privatized. We must do away with even the idea of common water, common air, on a shared planet of co-evolving life. God made this planet just for white xtians everything on it was put here like a warehouse full of products for private advantage (by white people). These prejudices do not reflect a difference in hermeneutics but are plain bigotry.
The GOP which has identified itself with these views, & makes the story entirely one-sided. Libs are prepared to have discourse with people who interpret facts differently (think of Warren), but not with those who have their own facts (think of Trump). Any weaving that is to be made must be made among an informed and equal electorate. We are a part of an interrelated system of nested sets. That is not an opinion. Ecology is real. We won't make a suicide pact with you.
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Face facts, it's human nature to be both good and bad. A person can be magnanimous one day and selfish the next. In short, humans can be...well...human.
Nonsense.
No Americans prove the central callous cynical cruel hypocritical hoax of 'a land of the free and home of the brave' where all men, women and children are divinely created equal persons with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than the heirs of black African enslaved and separate and unequal Americans along with the brown heirs of multiple aboriginal Indigenous Native nations in America.
Black Africans and brown Indigenous Americans are expected to be grateful, invisible and silent.
David Brooks knows next to nothing about real human 'weaving' and 'weavers'.
While the white European Judeo-Christian majority can continue to reign and rule without any consideration and consideration of the iconic regional quilts that minority African American women and the unique ethnic tribal blankets that Indigenous women are known for.
My black African American great grandmother knitted a quilt to mark my birth. She died in Atlanta Georgia in 1964 never having voted in an election while separate and unequal in every civil secular plural time and space of her long American life.
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The populism of Trump and Bernie are both destructive to America. Putin certainly thought so.
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"In a system based purely on competitive individual self-interest, those who are advantaged get to race out further ahead year by year. The sense of common community and equal dignity is annihilated. This is the flaw of unrestrained liberalism."
What? Wait a minute! That is not "liberalism" — it's "libertarianism." Liberalism actually emphasizes our common community and works towards ensuring the benefits of our society can reach everyone. You should know better, David! Don't use an otherwise thoughtful opinion piece to distort and malign "liberal" positions.
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We are social creatures, and it is most likely that our ability to bond and to work together for our survival is what enabled us to successfully pass through the most vulnerable stages of our evolution. Along with the bonding came the need for strong male aggression to protect the group from predators, and from our primate and mammalian ancestors came the powerful instinct of territoriality, which for animals is a physical and geographical sense, but which we have translated into an intellectual sense. That combination, which probably saved the hominid line from extinction, is now, unfortunately more of a hindrance. Male aggression and a strong sense of territory are traits which we need to understand and seek to mitigate if we are to survive a present world very different from the one in which we became human. We are not the 'blank slate', but an amalgam of ancient and modern traits which are often at odds within each of us. Demagogues like Donald Trump understand this all too well, a knowledge which his rallies very effectively demonstrate.
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@James Quinn I quite agree with Mr. Quinn. Brooks also glosses over a trait we humans evolved that plays a major role in our interactions, and that is empathy. Particularly directed toward children and in many cases, other animals.
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