As a member of Gen Z, the points Brooks' makes are exactly why I and many of my generation support Bernie and his cause.
I don't want to implement communism: I just want to be able to get a job that actually pays me enough to pay off my student loans, not have 50% of my income go towards rent, and be able to retire. I don't care about keeping my doctor or having to wait for lines to see one: I just don't want to pay $1500+ for an X-ray.
But please, continue to tell us that we don't know what we want, sabotage who we support, and continue to marginalize us. Keep alienating the soon-to-be largest voting block in the US while you're starting to retire and depend on the social systems; I'm sure that will end great for you.
2174
Thank you David Brooks. I've never been your biggest fan, but you've perfectly distilled what so many of us find deeply disturbing about Sanders' candidacy. After the nightmare of the Trump years, these past few weeks have been particularly soul crushing, as I watch my party give it all up for someone who has no chance of winning and will just bring us four more years of chaos and despair.
822
@Island Waters
Fact: Bernie beats Trump in head to head polls. All the fear mongering about Bernie is fear mongering about Reform, which we need badly because of the huge increase in economic inequality and the Supreme Court Citizens United decision that money is free speech which flooded our elections with dark money. Did you notice the millions and millions of dollars spent on political ads for each candidate? Our politics are corrupted and that doesn't benefit ordinary Americans. It means politicians serve donors, not voters.
359
@Island Waters please show me something, some numbers or polls that give you reason to think this other than your own speculation.
142
I can understand why someone might not like Sanders. But I can't understand how any intelligent person, if presented with the choice between Sanders and Trump, would fail to choose Sanders.
1829
@617to416 because it isn't a failure of judgment. It's a failure of character.
129
@617to416 David Brooks is a republican and a conservative, he just finds it lucrative to pretend otherwise. Pretending he is looking for a democratic nominee to vote for is his version of snake oil.
355
@617to416
That’s funny-I see it completely the other way.
Be well
47
Right now we have (1) friends and neighbors who won't see a doctor because it might be viewed as using a public benefit and threaten their immigration status, (2) patients charged over $3,000 for a coronavirus test, (3) a CDC that delayed testing, even after physicians recommended it, (4) an administration more concerned about the stock market and re-election than anything else, and now (5) the VP will determine what information health officials will provide to the public. In light of all this, the only conclusion is, "No, Not Trump, Not Ever."
2103
@M. Toole you're from Portland? I don't believe 1 or 2.
45
Mr. Brooks’ piece is not surprising given the prism through which he has always seen his world view. However, even for him, this is alarmingly riddled with fear mongering, sweeping generalizations and every hallmark of a character hit job. Perhaps Mr. Brooks can take the time to speak with those who are thankful that the Senator is the moving force that has brought the $15 minimum wage, health care as a human right; affordable housing; the issue of grotesque income inequality, environmental justice to cite a few policy positions to every Democratic candidate’s policy agenda. To conflate Trumps brand of populism with anything Senator Sanders stands for is patently wrong.
2134
@Sandy M Take a long look at the history of populism and find me one who was not an authoritarian. I'd like to find at least one. So far Peron, Vargas, Bolsonaro, Trump, Orban, Duterte, Maduro, Modi, Chavez, Castro, Morales, Salazar, Franco, Wikodo, Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini, etc. I am still looking... the point about populism is that when elected the leaders assumes they are the voice of all the people. Dissent is not allowed. Consolidating power in one person is exactly what our Constitution is designed to avoid. You may trust Sanders with such power. I don't. Just as you and I would not trust Don, Jr. with same. Once you expand executive power, it's very hard to claw back. Be careful of what you wish for. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/hard-data-populism-bolsonaro-trump/578878/
147
@Sandy M I suggest the Times take a good look at who they are employing. Brooks is way reactionary and foolish as is Stephens.
146
Over the past 40 years, liberals in this country and the country itself - and the very idea of America - have been dealt a near death by a thousand cuts by a fanatical right wing. As always, you offer skin cream.
I for one am glad you have ceased your incessant ankle biting that started four years ago with ‘single payer is impossible because too many jobs will be lost’ up until last week’s ‘myth’ that the past 40 years has been a disaster for the poor, the working class, the middle class.
I am glad you have finally come clean and out in the open. You can now be quoted by Messrs. Stephens, Douthat and Bruni (who already has latched on to your ‘myth’) and once they do you can quote back.
Echo chambers at the NYT. Silos.
78
This is red-baiting nonsense. The Stalin-Hitler pact? Millions murdered in the gulags? Really?
David Brooks' column is less an appeal to reason supported by facts and more a string of despicable, rightwing tropes.
Medicare for All? A Yale study touts annual savings of $450 billion and 68,000 lives.
Cuba? Sanders noted that Cubans made significant progress in the area of health care and education. Under Batista, Havana was a brothel run by the mob.
Nicaragua? Sanders opposed the US-backed regime of Somoza. If that meant opposing the genocidal murder campaigns of the contras funded by Reagan most normal people would count that as a plus.
Chile? Salvador Allende was a socialist who was elected president in 1970 and overthrown (and murdered) in a coup sponsored by the United States. The murder and torture carried out by Augusto Pinochet were not done at the hands of socialists. Just the opposite.
The democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, was another Latin American leader overthrown by the CIA.
Likewise with the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953. Mossadegh opposed the rapacious stripping of Iranian oil resources by British Petroleum. MI6 wasn't up to the job of getting rid of him so the CIA intervened there with Kermit Roosevelt and installed the torture regime of the Shah. That was the origin of Islamic fundamentalism.
If Brooks wants to make a case against Sanders he's going to have to do better than this.
292
Go Sanders!! Go Sanders!! Absolutely Sanders all the way!!! No body cares what anybody is! All people care about is the policy! People like the writer can do the labels!!!
32
Yet another histrionic article about Bernie Sanders.
Much of the rest of the world would see nothing corrosive about his policies given that they take similar social programs for granted in their own countries.
As to "incessant hatred of your supposed foes", the late Sen. John McCain was reported saying about him, after Sander's and his 2014 bill expanding veterans' access to health care -
“Given how liberal he is, it made the work hard. But he was an honest liberal. I’ve worked with people who tell you they are going to do one thing and then do another, and Bernie did what he said. And he was very effective. ”
And from the NYT in 2016 - "counter to his reputation as a far-left gadfly, Mr. Sanders has done much of his work with Republican partners, generally people with whom he has little, but sometimes just enough, in common.
He worked with Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, to prevent foreign workers from replacing Americans at banks that have had a federal bailout, and with former Representative Ron Paul of Texas, who shared his zeal for monitoring the Federal Reserve".
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/us/politics/bernie-sanders-amendments.html?_r=0
113
Mr. Brooks. You are wrong. And this opinion is wrong-headed. The dangerous, ignorant narcissist we currently have in the White House, plus all the greedy sycophants surrounding him (i.e. the Republican party) compel every American to step up and VOTE them out. Your ideology of "Democratic Liberalism" is just meaningless words tumbling out of your comfortable Ivory Tower. We currently have at least five candidates (Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Biden) who will run circles around this treasonous ignoramus. They all (especially Warren and Sanders) have policies that will bring REAL change to the 90% of us who yearn for it: affordable health care, access to education, corruption controls at the highest levels, affordable child care, racial justice and a tax code that works for the majority rather than one that consistently benefits the top 10%. Enough already. Your columns are becoming increasingly out of touch with everyday people.
147
The Russian Communist nation suffered about 20M dead in the WW2 fight against the right wing Nazi terrorists. Yes, they do not have a squeaky clean history but then neither do most so called democratic nations.
Crooked and inept ideological driven leaders tend to bring down most dynasties. Just look at the USA right now and tell me that Trump could in any way be a better leader than Bernie. At least Sanders is sane and might just have what it takes to save the USA from becoming a failed State.
If Trumps gets another four years then nothing might save your beautifully inclusive democratic republic.
Get over it David: it is in your national interest for those who cherish the USA to vote for whoever the Democrats put up. No more excuses and right wing drivel. It's time to do your duty.
78
Life and space here are short so I'll focus on just one of your off-the-mark comments, Mr. Brooks: Bernie supporters "incessant hatred for your supposed foes."
Er, every candidate has some hateful supporters; no one likes them, but I'll admit if a Bernie Bro does something amiss, it will get media coverage. (It's like pit bull attacks in my neck of the woods: Local media request local hospitals and doctors to report all attacks by pit bulls to them so they can broadcast it. Here's the catch: only pit bulls. If a German Shepherd or Rottweiler attacks a person, media doesn't want to hear about it. It's not newsworthy.)
None of the Bernie Bros I know are violent or hateful. We like what Bernie says: "My family needs to care more about your family, and your family needs to care more about my family." That's politico-speak for love thy neighbor as thyself.
I know: shocking, right, Mr. Brooks? But I know you've gotta have a scapegoat, so use us if you must.
69
I am an independent, but this is awful to see. Democrats should not be tearing each other down, and daily attack pieces on the front runner is foolish at best given the importance of this election. If Dems turn themselves into the party that knows better than their own voters (again), we are in for an awful next four years.
583
Really Mr. Brooks? This fear-mongering and pearl-clutching is so out of touch with the basic needs of the vast majority of Americans-- the working class that actually runs this country. Senator Sanders speaks to the downtrodden masses who have been sucked dry and worked to the bones under both liberal Democratic and conservative Republican Presidents for decades now. He also speaks to us younger voters who see a very bleak future ahead without radical change.
You use the word "populist" as if speaking to what ordinary people want and need right now is somehow a terrible thing we should fear. Slightly left-wing populism/democratic socialism is absolutely not the same as authoritarian communism. And you write off the Scandinavian model without even addressing why we couldn't make it work here.
And Bernie's brand of populism is NOTHING like Trumpism, so please spare us. Just because they both buck the status quo and their parties does not make them the same. (And Trumpism never actually won a majority of votes anyway!)
If Bernie is the death of liberalism, which literally led many people into being hoodwinked into voting for Trump, and if he is capable of winning the majority and electoral college in the general, then I say– GOOD!
884
TIME FOR BROOKS TO GET OFF HIS HIGH HORSE.
David B, how come you praise two of the most successful, and destructive majoritarians in US presidential history, i.e. Obama and F. Roosevelt? Because their rhetoric was handsomely coated in Harvardese?
As to Sanders . . . you get what you pay for - the mind of a 6 year old trapped in a 78 year old body recently weakened by a heart attack. BTW . . . about which way Sanders refuses to face reality and refuses to release records of his medical exams.
Avoiding the truth is standard Sanders.
And oh yes - he did have his legislative proposals passed. His sum total contribution to the law of the land is two laws naming two post offices in VT.
15
Ah yes, David, because your "liberalism" has been so effective the last 40 years.
-Effective at furthering the hollowing out of the middle class by gutting labor unions and offshoring jobs so global corporations could see a bump in their stock prices. I bet *your* portfolio increased.
-Effective at enabling the parasites in finance that suck productive income out of the economy and gamble away people's futures without ever losing anything themselves.
-Effective at green-washing and being environmental hypocrites; preaching unlimited growth on a finite planet and jet-setting to Davos while admonishing the middle and lower classes to "cut their carbon footprints".
-Effective at providing huge giveaways to pharmaceutical and insurance companies as health care costs continue to see double-digit percent increases year over year.
-Effective at encouraging a welfare state with unlimited immigration because hey, if you can't offshore the jobs, bring in cheap unskilled labor instead (or abuse the H1B visa program).
I have never voted for a Republican and never will, but unlike the vast majority of Democrats, they're at least they're honest that their loyalties lie with the billionaires and corporations.
I know why you're afraid of Sanders, you're afraid it means the end of the gravy train for you and the rest of your hypocritical ilk.
78
I love watching the pundit Establishment like Brooks, Friedman and Matthews fearful of justice and equality. The revolution is coming and perhaps that will give birth to a new more responsive, responsible punditry in touch with the masses far removed from investments and Wall Street!
59
How do you work within a system where the majority party in the Senate rewrites the rules to benefit themselves? How do you compromise with a party that ignores justice and the Constitution? David's party has chosen to follow a path of "No Compromise" and proudly and defiantly use it as a campaign slogan. How many years do you demand that the opposition party strive for compromise and reason when that obviously is pointless and you don't expect your own party to live up to that same expectation?
David is hopelessly lost in a world of his own creation and really no longer deserves the platform he has been given at the Times. He reflexively bestows Sanders with the worst possible intentions denying the fact and reality that Sanders has always looked out and fought for the welfare of the least among us. He says that a Sanders administration "would represent the greatest concentration of power in the Washington elite in American history" and "rule by majoritarian domination."
David is little better than Trump stirring fear and dread but with better syntax and vocabulary. Our system is so obviously broken and whereas Trump's vision for America was white power domination, Bernie has always desired a fairer, kinder America where the weak had voice and anyone with hard work could live a full productive life. It is pitiful that David lumps the two men together ignoring the blaring reality that Bernie does want the best for the most even if it means taking down the wealthy.
72
If you ignore all of the noise and get to the core beliefs of this man and his followers, there is a key disturbing element: the belief that somehow anyone well off is that way because he/she unfairly came to be well off at the expense of others. He never mentions or considers that the vast majority of very wealthy people did not inherit or steal their wealth but attained it buy creating value, ideas, and employment for others. If this creativity were absent, the other people would not be better off but worse off. The perpetuation of making creativity look like a bad thing and wealthy people look like villains is not what America is about and never has been. If this crank becomes President, the vast majority of people will pine for the days of Trump, all his failings notwithstanding.
45
Should Sanders be the nominee, I will write in someone else's name. Maybe a kind neighbor.
30
I usually enjoy your commentary, Mr. Brooks. This time you are way off the mark. First of all, power is never given away; it has to be taken. The 1%, the elite - whatever you call them - will continue to control our laws to benefit themselves. If they believed in economic equality, they would done something about it already. The status quo is dead. This greedy capitalism - I got mine, tough on you - needs to die. We cannot educate, cajole, appeal to their guilt to share more of their wealth via better wages, good health care, education. They don't care. Ergo, democratic socialism may be a fix. Overturning Citizens United would be a blessing. Controlling the money in politics would also be a blessing. Do you think the power elite would go along with either? Are you sure you know your American history? FDR was a godsend to the average guy/gal. Meanwhile the industrial titans wanted to assassinate him. Please have a talk with the Koch donor network, then talk to me.
48
The days of neocons and neoliberals are over. It’s a new decade now and we’re ready for democratic socialism in America.
Sanders 2020
54
What has modern day liberalism really gave us? It seems like since the late 70s when Ted Kennedy sank universal healthcare so he could try and run for president so he could have the glory democrats have been in decline. The rush to middle for safety on every issue and the rights entrenched position has shifted us to the right year after year. Obamacare is the basic outline the republicans presented when Clinton went for Universal healthcare. So if it dies who cares?
I'm sorry you are so traumatized from covering the Soviet Union that you can't think rationally. Mr. Sanders say Cuba did good teaching people to read and they have a good healthcare system. He forgot they have some conservation efforts to not only save sea turtles and the reef.
Politically not good things to say I think we can all agree on that. Why can't he say anything positive about it? It seems like you want everyone to repeat the same line or else. I could go on naming horrible things America or religion has done. I'm sure if I did you would be happy to separate all the issues and break them all apart.
Perhaps you are stuck in the Cold War and a Red or Dead state of mind that doesn't allow you to think rationally about what you heard. BTW, I am old enough to remember going to a fall out shelter once a month at school during drills, I saw the wall come done, so I'm not an ignorant kid. I guess I am more concerned that our country is trying to build a wall
37
"Now I have to decide if I’d support Bernie Sanders over Trump."
Now I wonder if pundits in the world are same as Crooks as Mr.Brooks.
8
Sad to say, Brooks speaks for this paper's "liberals".
That old Cold War taunt comes to mind here. Hate the norms of industrialized democracies -- you know, like Western Europe, David? -- then go to Russia or any number of other tyrannical regimes, including ones you've supported over the years, and get all the autocracy you'd ever desire. Your dollars will go far!
Meanwhile, those of us who still desire decent representative government, despised and feared as that may be among your cohorts, will have a chance.
18
Mr Sanders may not have a good grasp on Scandinavia, but the author clearly doesn't either. Norway is the richest Scandinavian country because it sells the UK and Europe a great deal of oil through its state-owned company Statoil. The profits are then poured directly into the population of 5.5 million to provide them with the highest quality of life in the world. I have had the good fortune to be closely associated with this happy country my entire life. If Karl Marx were to return to Norway from the grave, he would assume that his predictions had come true, right up until the point that he read the New York Times.
28
"Rule by majoritarian domination." Let's give it a try! My 'gig' economy friends and I are willing to roll the dice, especially since we don't hold any.
27
It’s interesting that many of the positive qualities you assign to “Liberal Democrats” are qualities that millions upon millions of people see in Bernie Sanders and that many of the negatives that you see in Sanders are things that your chosen candidate, Michael Bloomberg, actually did while he an executive in power. Amazing how someone so educated and experienced can see something so differently (and incorrectly) from masses of people. If it’s Sanders v Trump and we get another 4 years of incompetence the blood of the next four years will be on your hands for not be willing to compromise as you think good liberals should.
24
David Brooks - today's expert on Democratic Liberalism is towing the GOP-lite DNC line with some red-baiting. The more I see the nonsensical and prejudicial arguments against Sanders, the more I like him.
42
The pundits are treating Sanders with the disdain and worry as Hillary Clinton in 2016. Where did that get us? Maybe that is the problem. There is no real problem mistake with Sanders' ideas or personality or age. But it's essy to create anxiety around him. Pundits are shamefully putting him in the same class of worry as Trump. That is tragic and false. Now the "water cooler talk" could lean people to Trump out fear that America will become Cuba. So ridiculous. This irresponsible fear-mongering by the press, by NYT, by Brooks.
28
You nailed it. Thank you so much. I have nothing to add.
24
Because all that socialism must remain concentrated on the rich; the one percent before the poor, always.
22
This article is beyond ignorant, hysterical in its fear. Completely ignored is the mitigating effect of Congress, which while apparently complicit in allowing a right-wing Trump his authoritarian impulses, would never let a Sanders administration "do socialism". It's even dubious whether a Medicare-for-all proposal would get through Congress.
If by a stretch the country implements universal health care, it's hardly a downside. And yet even if Sanders turns out to be ineffectual and can't get anything passed, he would make a far more responsible and reasonable president than Donald Trump. Anybody not traumatized by their Cold War upbringing can see this. By writing this article and taking this stance, David Brooks is complicit in the possible perpetuation of a Trump regime. He should be ashamed that he can't see past his fear.
49
YES. Thank you, David. Sanders is far closer to Trump than his followers would believe. He’s a demagogue and lacks faith in governing for all. He is the left’s crazy response to the Republican Trump insanity. Neither is good for the country, and both Trump and Sanders supporters are racing to see who can be more childish.
37
Sweet! Or as I just told my kids, "David Brooks is almost always wrong about everything, so this practically guarantees Bernie will be elected!"
Seriously, I feel much better about Bernie's prospects if Brooks is predicting the opposite.
More seriously, Trump wants to lock little kids in cages and Bernie wants to provide little kids with health care. This isn't rocket science Brooks, so enough with the false equivalencies. Bernie went on a vacation to Moscow in the early 1980's vs. Trump blows kisses to Putin today... We can play this false equivalency game for hours...
48
Ah yes, so for Mr.Brooks screaming bloody murder at a man best poised to defeat a demagogue (who is currently both tearing down democratic ideals and spewing vitriol to the masses) is a similar or better option than a man who has dedicated his entire senate career to pushing for the American worker against the corporate machine. Representation in our governing body today is based on how much money you raise and from who, yet I think Bernie, and progressives like him (see AOC), understand that this is not how representation should function. For me, unlike Mr.Brooks, I don't have the luxury of trusting representatives who further such ideals. Additionally, I think its foolish to categorize FDR and his policies as an entity other than Sanders. He had many similar revolutionary socialist planks, the difference being that the political climate was much more receptive to an FDR presidency than it would be to a Sanders one. I also find it presumptuous of Mr.Brooks to define "Liberalism" for us, while he unlike so many Americans is not saddled with college debt, faced with the prospect of high health care costs, and will most certainly not be effected by the culture of racism another Trump admin. will promote. Crying populism at Sanders is a weak excuse for allowing another Trump presidency and something that will haunt liberals should they choose to disregard the general consensus that Sanders is the man for the nomination.
25
Oh, come on! Can you seriously believe Bernie could be more dangerous than Trump?! Voting for what looks to you like the lesser of two evils is leagues better than throwing your vote away.
18
I am not a fan of Mr. Sanders. With that said, I would vote for a soda cracker if it were on a ballot opposing Trump. Not voting for the Democratic candidate (whoever that may be) in the upcoming presidential election is a vote for Trump.
41
"No, Not Sanders, Not Ever ... (I prefer Trump even if later I have to twist myself into a human pretzel to not contradict myself)" [parenthesis mine trying to guess what is going on in David's childish fear]. So sad David, so sad.
11
I agree with you 100 percent.
20
David Brooks is too harsh about Bernie Sanders, who does not deserve to be placed in the same noxious pea pod as Donald Trump. For starters, whatever his strengths and flaws, Bernie is not a pathologically incessant liar. In a head-to-head match-up, any voter valuing simple human dignity should choose Sanders over Trump, hands-down.
Still, I hope for a different match-up because I strongly doubt Bernie's prospect of winning a general election. Sure, he seems to be surging in the Democratic primaries but against Trump, as vile and incompetent as he is, Sanders will almost surely scare too many moderates away.
For evidence, look no further than the rise of the Tory, Boris Johnson, in the UK. There, the Conservative Party botched-up every policy it touched dating back to the prime ministership of David Cameron. The Tories couldn't possibly have governed worse even if they had tried. So, what did Labour throw up as a foil? The utterly unelectable Jeremy Corbyn.
Let's not fool ourselves; we are on-track to err similarly here in the USA.
10
Yes, Sanders. Or anyone with a heartbeat over Trump.
19
I'm not voting for Trump, and I'm not voting for Sanders.
No more cult leaders. It's time to reunite our country
29
Scandanavia has much tougher financial regulations than the US and to suggest otherwise is the ignorant position. For instance, in Sweden the government controls rents. In Iceland, the government investigated and convicted corrupt bankers.
Furthermore, suggesting Sanders will murder millions of people is simply insane. Most plausibly this author is concerned about the crimes of the elite being uncovered and held to account. If a Sanders administration investigates and convicts white collar criminals, that is not an overreach of power. It’s justice, long overdue.
29
This will be the least representative of most NYT articles ever. This will be a sea of Neenid people fueling each other with their own historical ignorance. I wish there were a nicer way of saying that, but it’s still true. I have never seen a group back a candidate with such a proud level of ignorance of the times and circumstances as well as social realities around the globe that formed this very flawed, stubborn, angry and manipulative man. Bernie isn’t the only choice, and until you see that you will not begin to grasp the legions of varied people who will not support Bernie. First you’d have to recognize him as a pouting loser who went on to help Trump gain office. Go ahead and rant and rave at me, I won’t ever see it. Bernie people will pound these boards. No other group has set up alerts for their candidate’s name to appear, except perhaps, MAGA.
7
Trump and sanders are two sides of the same coin
16
Quick! Someone fetch Brooks a fainting couch!
I'm so tired of small-minded Americans thinking that national healthcare and secondary education programs are the same as Soviet-style communism. For the rest of the world, these programs are basic infrastructure.
32
This column could have been written at least in part by the Trump 2020 committee for ensnaring moderate Democrats and Independents. In this piece, you are spreading the same talking points, ridden with ignorance and falsehood, as the vanguard of the Trump campaign. No, Sanders is not my choice as a Democratic candidate. But the false equivalency you present is breathtakingly similar to what I might encounter on Fox News, "moderate edition". "Sure Trump is a cancer on America, but Fidel here, leaves me no choice other than in effect, voting for the cancer". You may earn a Medal of Freedom for this column.
13
This is a moral cop out by Brooks. He makes out Saunders to be a villain something on the magnitude of Stalin. Saunders is clearly too ineffectual to be Stalin, even if he wanted to be. Romantisizing leftist governments is not even remotely as bad as the evil of Trump.
No, Brooks. For all decent people, the choice between Saunders and Trump is clear.
12
Harvard economist JK Galbraith once quipped that capitalism was the worst system -- except for the all the others. But he also spent his life promoting the value of social welfare programs. Brooks knows this because I knows he is well read. So, it's disturbing to see an otherwise rational pundit make some of the absurd comparisons of Sanders to Hitler and Stalin, or even Lenin or Castro, who lacked the militarism of the first two but embraced totalitarianism as a necessary means to an end. Sanders pushes for universal health care and free college, two things that are standard in almost every civilized country. Even foreigners get those services when they travel to many of those countries. Sanders isn't even the sort of populist demagogue that Trump is, purposely sowing division with fear mongering, lies and false promises in order to govern by minority rule. Sanders merely sees the value of a more equitable share of the wealth to the entire economy and society -- rather than to categorically disproven trickle down theory. True, universal health care saves money by removing the blood sucking insurance middle-men and college is an investment in the future. This country has plenty of wealthy people who can afford luxuries. I'm one of them and Sanders is not my choice, but only because I want the candidate best able to beat Trump and restore decency to America. Sanders is not Lenin.
12
The truth comes out. What a despicably uninformed/malinforming opinion piece. I no longer believe Mr Brooks operates in good faith. He applied the same "capitalism is evil" label to Sanders that Buttegeig has done, and for which he also lost all good will.
Stop whining about the Sanders movement and ask why it is happening. If you don't like his stance, defend against it directly instead of lying or insidiously comparing him to Stalin.
You can't work within a system when it's locked in to two private organizations, Dems and Republicans. We have no mechanism for finding a new way except by co-opting one of the two parties. Trump did it for racism and the lie of decent populism, Sanders is doing it for unity and for the benefit of all Americans.
23
Mr. Brooks, you describe populists (black or white, friend or enemy) but you have used the wrong term. Aren’t you conflating populism and fascism? You stop short of calling Trump and Sanders fascists. Why not say what you really mean? If you did, the superficially of your argument against Sanders would be revealed. Regardless of the 30-year-old quotes, in the last 30 years in government Sanders has not been authoritarian. If Sanders wins the presidency, the USA will not become a Mussolini fascism, which it will become if Trump is re-elected.
13
Would you vote for a Sanders-Warren ticket, or vice versa?
2
Sanders is doomed no doubt, but not primarily because of where he fits in the Liberal spectrum. Sanders is doomed because our voting processes have been so hideously warped by Trump/Putin/Zuckerberg that the 2020 election MUST be brazenly bought & paid for by Michael Bloomberg if Trump is to be beaten. Trump brought his flamethrower to the Democrats' stick fight in 2016 - the same stick fight Sanders and the rest of the Democratic candidates are still cluelessly fighting - making it inevitable that in 2020 ONLY a bigger & badder messaging & influence / tactics / $billions flamethrower Democrat can possibly win. This is THE crucial component - exponentially more crucial than Bernie's Liberal valence - because the DNC tragically spent 80% of its $1Billion 2016 election budget on 5 consultants with no indication 2020 will be any different. So regardless of their standing among Liberals, ONLY a candidate financially independent enough to act & spend in the campaign moment can beat Trump - and lets face it - Putin. The only real question for voters is 'Do you prefer that Bloomberg buys the Presidency in 2020? Or do you prefer Trump/Putin buys the Presidency again?' Anyone who argues that Bloomberg's wealth is 'unfair' to Bernie or 'against the principal of 1 person 1 vote' or that Bloomberg is as evil as Trump will get who they deserve as President in 2020: Trump.
4
This column is just one more reason a Sanders victory will be sweet.
19
I’m voting even a trained chihuahua on the democratic ticket. Sanders is no Trump.
17
I have a great bumper Bernie sticker :
BETTER THAN TRUMP !?!?...
3
Have you been hanging out with Chris Mathews?
16
The end of liberalism? Good. Liberals are useless. They feign concern but their foremost concern is frankly their own self-interest. Liberals allowed for Vietnam, for McCarthyism, for racial discrimination and more. Yeah sure they offered up the occasional limp protest but they do little. They will come to the revolution but they will drive up in their Teslas and do nothing. Good riddance.
9
Finally, a column from Brooks that is clear and straight forward, rather than meandering along with only a nebulous direction and muddied intentions and conclusions. May your columns going forward be as clear.
5
This from the guy who just wrote "The Case for Mike Bloomberg" elsewhere in this paper.
12
Brooks reaches new heights of sophist stupidity, serving up untested frontiers in false equivalence. Impressive, actually.
24
Liberalism stinks, but, boy, oh boy, are we going to miss it when it’s gone.
9
In a typical psychological twist Brooks accuses Sanders of his own intolerance, resorting to vehement accusations only to discredit someone whose election would result in heaftier taxes for rich guys like him.
25
“ But I just can’t pull the lever for either of the two populisms threatening to tear it down.”
Well if you want to participate in Democracy you will have to pull one of the levers. It’s any easy decision, you can pull the one labeled ..Bernie knowing his”worst” policies wouldn’t be implemented Congress.
20
It is remarkable that Brook’s column has so quickly received over 2500 comments, many highly critical. And it is at least as remarkable that some of the most critical comments have, within a few hours, received over 3000 “Recommended” votes. Do these results reinforce Brook’s main point?
10
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
Bernie's entire adult life and career have been defined by his rejection of Democratic party liberalism and his embrace of socialism.
It's why he was "disgusted" with JFK and admired every socialist and communist regime from Castro to the Sandinistas.
It's why he keeps a plaque in his office, not of FDR, but of Marxist and Soviet dupe Eugene Debs (who Sanders also made a glowing documentary of).
It's why Sanders has never actually held office as, or registered as a Democrat, except for the sole purpose of running for president.
Sanders' upcoming capture of the Democratic nomination for president, while facing no principled opposition, but only blathering about "electability" will be a tragic day for the Democratic Party and for America.
39
Cold War mentality to make the world safe for democracy!
3
Mr. Brooks—
Regarding the remarkable gift to the body politic known as Bernie Sanders, perhaps you should read this recent article in the Washington Post by Robert Reich, who happens to know what he’s talking about:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/26/calm-down-establishment-democrats-bernie-sanders-might-be-safest-choice/
14
Yes, Brooks, the whole system IS corrupt, and it fears Bernie Sander's realism more than it does Donald Trump. You, and others like you, who obviously have never really suffered a day in your life, have no currency in this election. Lately, every time I read a hit-job like this in the Times, I make another donation to Bernie's campaign.
39
Ah, again the standard old-school bashing of leftist. This is just a subtle version of "Go to the Soviet Union".
Sanders have supported some of the reforms made by Castro in the early years of the Castro regime. Any decent person should support these. The same with the Sandinistas. And perhaps you should mention US backed death squadrons in El Salvador and Nicaragua at the same time?
And what about US support of the worst 'communist' regime in the twentieth century - Pol Pot's Kampuchea?
Your assertions about Sanders seems to fit a lot better Reagan, GW Bush, and Trump, not least in the international scene:
"Liberalism celebrates certain values: reasonableness, conversation, compassion, tolerance, intellectual humility and optimism. Liberalism is horrified by cruelty. Sanders’s [Reagan] leadership style embodies the populist values, which are different: rage, bitter and relentless polarization, a demand for ideological purity among your friends and incessant hatred for your supposed foes."
This is Reagan-style politics. Sanders invites people to join a new America where average Americans can share the same educational decency and social security as West Europeans have experienced for over 50 years.
In Europe, 'liberalism' is usually understood as a right wing political movement. I guess that is the place where Mr. Brooks really belong.
18
Mr Brooks, if you don't vote for the Democrat, whoever that turns out to be, you will in fact, have cast a vote for Trump.
Are you following the news?
Do you see the havoc Trump's ego and incompetence is causing?
In 2016, the people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton, handed the presidency to Trump.
Are you going to repeat that mistake?
Think about it as the Coronavirus marches across our country.
Trump's main concern is not looking bad.
21
Warren is my first choice, but these pundit freak outs and false equivalency articles are totally pushing me more and more towards voting for Bernie.
29
Lucky for us, David Brooks alone does not get to decide who becomes president.
19
You say that Sanders is not like F.D.R. However, if you examine pictures and descriptions of Roosevelt at the Yalta conference, he and Stalin seem to have acted like best friends. Even Winston Churchill seems to have been disgusted; Stalin was a monster. It in no use to say that Roosevelt needed Stalin to defeat Hitler; Hitler was already beaten by the time of the Yalta Conference. FDR just liked Stalin.
5
Ah, let the red-baiting begin!
Brooks has ". . . Sanders apologizing for this sort of slave regime, whether in the Soviet Union, Cuba or Nicaragua."
Nicaragua? Slave regime? When the Sandinistas lost the national elections in 1990 they handed over power to the party who had won it. Some slave regime. But maybe the Nicaraguan 'slave regime' David Brooks is talking about is the Republican-endorsed, Republican-supported and Republican-approved murderous Somoza dictatorship that thrived for 52 years -- now that was a real slave regime. I don't think Senator Bernie did any apologizing for the Somozas' slave regime. Republicans, on the other hand, just loved the Somozas, and Republicans, led by Reagan, did all they could to bring the blessings of right-wing dictatorship back to Nicaragua, all in violation of international and US law, mostly by murdering farmers and nurses and doctors and teachers (and American engineer Ben Linder) and destroying the Nicaraguan economy. Republican saint Ronald Reagan called the contras who did all that killing the "moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers."
Nobody cares who you vote for, David Brooks, but I do thank you for showing us that McCarthyism is still alive.
28
Brooks tells us: “Sanders’s leadership style embodies the populist values, which are different: rage, bitter and relentless polarization, a demand for ideological purity among your friends and incessant hatred for your supposed foes.” Based on...a hunch? Any evidence? Bernie’s going to spend $60 trillion over 10 years on his agenda. Trump has cost the world markets $6 trillion this week by providing lies, stupidity, hubris to the Coronavirus.
Bernie is not Stalin or Castro. He’s a rational idealist who wants to provide for basic human needs like food, water, shelter, clean air, healthcare, education. Bernie’s Medicare For All is also a National Defense plan. Is protecting and defending America limited to armies, or will the federal government have to intervene to address national healthcare in the face of an epidemic, a natural disaster? Is Education a National Security issue?
What is astounding in this column is the alarm, the panic it tries to evoke about Sanders. Brooks has had unkind things to say about Trump and some Republicans but surely they are imperiling the globe by denigrating climate change, legitimizing certain tyrants, championing polluters, cruelty against migrants and children, selfish with food stamps. Any alarm about the tyranny of plutocrats?
Should we spend some Defense dollars on National Health, or Education? Is that a commie idea? Does the Coronavirus tell us that Medicare For All is a National Defense plan?
24
Bernie Sanders (I)
Not (D)
How is he candidate for the Democrats?
I not D.
6
Gotta agree with you here, David. When I started hearing the left talking about doing away with the filibuster if they win the election and have 50 Senators (the veep would break the tie), basically what they were saying was “majority rules”. The idea of Republicans doing that is terrifying - the idea of the left doing it is no less terrifying.
Trump and Bernie really are two sides of the same coin. Neither is looking out for everyone. It’s pure tribalism. “But no!”, Bernie’s supporters say, “he wants to do what the people want, and the other side won’t let him.” Who does that sound like?
How fragile it all is, these “United” States. If there was ever a time that we all need to come together to protect this nation and our shared values and ideals, it’s now.
If you really stop and think, you could truly scare yourself at the possibilities. How sad for us. How sad for our country.
PS The thought that just occurred to me - what about, say a Biden-Sandoval (R-NV) or Buttigieg-Kasich ticket? I don’t know about the names, but I’d vote for a bipartisan ticket right now over anything. Just spitballing. Maybe Joe wins a brokered convention and picks a Republican. I’d go for it. Country over party.
15
I agree! Sanders is a pie in the sky candidate. I have no doubt that he is bad news! Thank you!
17
Thanks Mr. Brooks - for writing so well. For having learned to express things so well.
12
According to the UN’s “World Happiness Report”, the top five happiest countries in the world are Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and The Netherlands, in that order. The Now, what do those top five countries listed above have in a common? The answer: a social welfare system that stands heads and shoulders above that of the United States, given that it is ranked number 19 on the “happiness scale”. That is below Costa Rica, Israel—yes, even in Israel people are happier than in the US, despite the fact that they can be expect to be bombarded on any given day—and and just four places above Mexico, where the drug cartels reign. Thus, what Americans should be thinking of when they hear the word “socialism” is NOT conjure up horror images of Cuba under the Castro brothers, the USSR under Khrushchev and Brechnev, China under Chairman Mao, or, for that matter, North Korea under the Kim “dynasty” (neither should they conflate it with “communism”, as Mayor Bloomberg did at the one but last Democratic debate). Rather, they should be thinking of Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and The Netherlands. It must be said, though, that back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, both the Republican and the Democratic Party have done a marvelous job of putting the fear of God into the American people about the “S” word. The result is that Americans will keep voting against their own interests. One can only hope that that will change some time in the future.
15
Either Mr. Brooks knows nothing about history, which I don't believe, or is purposely distorting it.
With regard to those terrible regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua, we have ourselves to thank. We defended multiple corrupt dictatorships in Cuba including the one Castro overthrew. And we kept dictators in Nicaragua in power for years courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps. And if Cuba doesn't warrant our even any dealings with it, then how can we have dealings with the equally repressive regimes in China and Saudi Arabia.
And as FDR beating back socialists, Norman Thomas, the many time Socialist candidate for president, told FDR he had beaten him by adopting all his positions.
And if what Sanders is calling for, especially Medicare for All, then Mr. Brooks must consider Senator Robert F. Wagner, who called for that in the 1930s and managed much of the New Deal legislation through Congress, to have been a socialist.
And how he manages to tie Sanders to the Hitler-Stalin pact is beyond me. It reminds me of all those right wingers who accuse anyone thinking peace is better than war as being guilty of appeasement
18
I'll be glad when 'liberalism' in its current state ends. Pelosi, Biden, Bloomberg these are your liberals? Terrible people, out of touch with reality and completely for sale. The only reason Sanders has picked up so much speed in recent years is because of the state of our corporatist country. We fool ourselves and say it's capitalism but what competition is there? How can you compete against Disney, Amazon, Exxon? Good luck.
19
In the land of the blind the one eyed Jack is King. Trump and Bernie are blinded by their own ego's. They simply don't get it. What? That America is basically good. With just a few tweaks here and there we can be good enough to lead the world in goodness, kindness, and grace.
6
It's very weird for you to assume that most Democrats will simply approve of anything Sanders would do if he became president. For the most part Democrats are more than willing to toss out the filth and criticize hasty decisions.
4
Sanders way less able to get congress to follow ...
5
My family has suffered greatly under communism and fought that totalitarian system. I will NEVER vote for him and will do everything I can to stop him from infecting America with that failed ideology.
17
Cruelty is not giving people healthcare.
14
Now here is a fresh take! Yet another rich guy who equates giving America lower cost, better outcome healthcare, public education, and Eisenhower-era tax rates with brutal dictatorship.
18
Brooks would have to really think about a choice between Sanders and Trump? Really, really? Because he asserted (rightly) that Cuba had had a good program of education and health care? Admitting that Mussolini made the trains run on time does not make one a fascist. Sanders is hardly the Stalinist caricature put out by those who wish to perpetuate the dysfunctional status quo, Brooks apparently now among them. It reminds one of the Federalist scare that the "jacobin" Thomas Jefferson would be setting up guillotines in the squares of Philadelphia if elected.
If all this wailing and gnashing of teeth puts Trump back in office, Brooks and people like him will be disqualified from ever uttering a peep of protest at his future depredations.
12
Brooks are you looking back fondly to the McCarthy era? Bernie is barely a left wing democrat in no way is he a socialist. I'm a 70 year old Canadian, my earliest hero in 1958 was Fidel Castro. He wasn't a communist at the time, he was a freedom fighter ridding Cuba of Batista and the American mafia. He thought he'd be welcomed and honoured by the USA, but Eisenhower turned his back on him and set him adrift. The Cubans that fled to Florida were Batista and mafia sympathizers. Fidel loved America and wanted to pitch in the majors. america pushed him away. For sixty years Americans have feared a small island 90 miles offshore.Now you guys thanks to Trump are buddy buddies with the worst dictators in the world, including Russia, china and north korea. Give Bernie a break he is not a socialist but is a humanitarian, something that America has lost sight of.
19
According to the UN's "World Happiness Report", the top five happiest countries are (in order of happiness): Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and the Netherlands. Want to know what these five countries have in common? A social welfare system that leaves that of the US in the dust, ranked as it is 19th on the list. That is behind Canada (of course!), which is ranked 9th, "tiny" Costa Rica, ranked 12th, and Israel, ranked 13th. Yes, even in Israel, where bombs can rain on people on any given day, are they happier than in the US. People of the US, I implore you, when you hear the world "socialism", first and foremost, do NOT conflate it with "communism", like Mayor Bloomberg did during the one but last Democratic debate. Second, upon hearing the "S" word, do NOT first and foremost think about Cuba under the Castros, the former USSR under Khrushchev or Brezhnev, China under Chairman Mao, or, for that matter, North Korea under the Kim dynasty. Rather, think of the five happiest countries in the world: Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and the Netherlands. Let's take the best elements of what their social welfare system has to offer, and then create a society in which those who come after us will not have to be overly concerned, as we are today, as to how they will be paying for health and child care, education, housing and so on. It's time to make a change, people!
6
ONLY those who do not #VoteBlueNoMatterWho will be responsible for a second Donald Trump term, and the resulting consequences to our allies, children across the world, our law enforcement, the judiciary, and our environment among other things.
This is an insincere critique. David fully knows that Speaker Pelosi and the "moderates" in the Senate like Coons, Feinstein, Cardin and and will never allow the legislative agenda he proposes.
This is yet another example of why Obama should not have elevated this charlatan.
3
Okay, David, let’s say we accept your comments. (You make some valid points about the brand of Democratic Socialism that the Sanders campaign is pushing, but you reach a little too far into the paranoid for my taste. But okay, you have articulated some valid concerns.)
At this point, we need to take stock of the alternatives. As of 28 Nov 2020, our citizenry is asked to choose between: a Democratic Socialist, three Oligarchs (with a sitting President that leans hard into Fascism and lawlessness with the help of “his” Attorney General), an Old Conservative Dem that is losing his step and has has had his turn in the Whitehouse for EIGHT years already, and then Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Warren.
These last three ‘younger’ sharp and interesting individuals... as people have a lot to offer, for the Presidency or any high office they should aspire to. But Klobuchar and Buttigieg do not have movements and contributors in the multi-millions in small dollar amounts.
Only Sanders and Warren have that. If moderates and conservative Democrats and Independents wanted to undermine Sanders and his brand—they should have thrown in with Warren a long time ago.
They still should throw in with Warren now. Though it is almost perilously late to do so. She is brilliant and she really IS the Unity Candidate that has been the obvious good choice from the get go.
But SC and Super Tuesday is coming fast. Support Warren! Otherwise it is Sanders vs. Fascism.
9
If David Brooks is against Sanders, then Im even more bullish on Sanders!
7
Why does Bernie keep waving the red flag to the bull by proclaiming loudly, persistently that he is a "democratic Socialist"?
He makes it a point to wave the "S" flag in every one's face.
That is what a rebel does, to get noticed, to shake up the status-quo, to energize the youth who love the idea if not the reality of revolutions.
But Sanders is long past that stage now. He needs to reassure the left of middle, not the middle or the far left of middle, that he is serious about getting elected.
Therefore he must be honest about what he WILL NOT DISMANTLE/ATTACK if he becomes the President.
Most left of center Dems do not want to burn down the whole edifice of capitalism. They want to shake it up enough so that Wall Street and Bloombergish Billionaires know that they will have to accept more pain than they have thus far to reduce inequality.
I am a Warren supporter. I would vote for any Dem who is nominated BUT to make me enthusiastic about Bernie I need to see that he is trying to woo voters like me who supported Warren because she is practical and did not talk of socialism but reforming capitalism.
3
"Now I have to decide if I’d support Bernie Sanders over Trump."
David Brooks, you were always going to vote to re-elect Trump. You like to think you're a deep-thinking conservative, but you're not -- you're just taking a long time to go around the barn. And then you'll vote Trump.
12
It’s incredible how all the neo-liberal pundits who where horrified that sanders supporters wouldn’t vote for Hillary and blamed them for Trump now won’t vote for Sanders. Have they no memory or shame?
7
Sanders was a useless congressman and ineffectual senator but somehow he'll be a relentless leader of class war and a autocrat if elected? Bernie is many things but mostly he's well meaning older child of the 60s and NYC activism. The paranoia of some people is fascinating
4
Bernie screams and bellows and makes no room for compromise or admitting he might ever be wrong or could learn — just like someone else we know. The increasing likelihood that we will have to choose between two gravely dangerous demagogues is beyond belief.
15
He’s the end of liberalism? Good! All that liberalism’s been is keeping everything basically the same. We need real change in order to save the planet.
7
He has won more votes than anyone else in this primary. People like his ideas. Do you doubt them?
7
"He excused the Nicaraguan communists when they took away the civil liberties of their citizens."
I'm not sure you want to go there David because under Reagan we funded the Contras, who violated human rights with impunity and killed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Nicaraguans. And next the first Bush pardoned US government officials who were responsible for illegally obtaining and then dispersing the funds to the Contras. Dead people lack civil liberties too.
8
Read UNITED IN HATE, by Jamie Glazov, or THE TRUE BELIEVER, by Eric Hoffer, and you’ll understand who is Bernie Sanders.
3
Trump undermines the Judiciary, attacks the free press, demonzed minority groups, challenges the separation of powers, at least welcomes the intrusion of foreign powers into US elections and as your colleague, Mr. Krugman, points out today he has erected a Cult of Personality. To cap things off Trump attends political rallies with other demagogues like Mr. Modi and is fond of all the others. This is not "populism." This is the real bad stuff of fascist behaviors (although he's not in a fascist system) that you seem congenitally unable to grasp when it comes to Mr. Trump. And to give yourself cover then you equate that political behavior to Sanders' campaign. You may dislike Mr. Sanders, but he has not done this, nor has be built a campaign around the prospect that this is his intent. It's as if you're in a state of denial that the US conservative movement has birthed monsters.You're not so much writing about politics as writing your own apology.
9
At next debate some please ask him:
What is the difference between a social democrat and a democratic socialist? If there is none, why do you insist on the label: democratic socialist?
Jerry Brown on the third ballot at the convention!
He's not old, he's wise.
Vision, compassion, and extreme competence.
You have to paddle the canoe sometimes on the right and sometimes on the left to stay on course.
Cincinnatus we need you!
3
Sanders has changed his mind on gun control and, contrary to Warren, does not want to eliminate the filibuster. So much for his not having an open mind and being a majoritarian ruler. This makes your whole point nonsense. Mr. Brooks, you are just venting. As a life-long Republican, it takes a kind of nerve for you to describe a true liberal democrat. I favor Elizabeth Warren myself, but to not vote for Sanders should he be the candidate makes you a Trumper in my book.
7
I have always respected David Brooks as an objective journalist. Not anymore. I know he is conservative...but honestly, any intelligent person that has been paying attention, that lives in our country understands that there is something wrong here! I think David needs to stop, look and listen to Bernie's message instead of just being reactionary!
The whole "No, Not Sanders, Not Ever, He is not a liberal, he’s the end of liberalism." is a ridiculous partisan statement that is a disservice to himself and the NYTimes.
8
Socialism is as American as apple pie. The Socialist movement in America goes back to the 19th century. US journalists should study Bernie Sander's role model, the labor and Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs.
10
Excellent article ! Nothing to add or criticize . This is the real Bernie Sanders , a bigger threat to our country than even Trump. I am and always were a registered Democrat . I will NEVER vote for Sanders .
9
Equating the dangers of Trump and Sanders is like equating the plague with a mild cold. Thanks for doing your part to hasten the end of our democracy!
13
I’m convinced. I was hesitant to support a Sanders candidacy, mainly because his cranky, lecturing style turns me off. But if David Brooks is dead set against him, that’s all the evidence I need as to what should be the correct choice.
Go Bernie! If you win the nomination, this long-time Republican will not just vote for you, but will campaign for you as well.
17
The idea that if he's elected we're headed down the road to Soviet style Communism is ridiculous and Brooks knows that. The idea that he'd be as divisive, dishonest and corrupt as Trump is flat-out lying. Raging and bitter? C'mon.
Remember checks and balances, David?
I'm for Bernie because he completely changes the conversation and our national priorities to the issues that affect all; healthcare, education and climate change. I'm counting on Congress to check his more revolutionary positions. With Trump there is no hope of any of that.
Ideological purity? Maybe for some but not for most. The moderate Dems offer nothing but more of the same lite. It's Bernie or Warren. But I will vote for whoever is nominated.
9
But, Mr. Brooks, aren't you throwing ideological labels around just as carelessly as you accuse Trump and Sanders of doing?
7
"Populists like Sanders speak as if the whole system is irredeemably corrupt."
That is the point David.
Based on recent history, that stance is not too far off. How is it that DT was able to become POTUS? When was the last time that the people of this country actually had a voice? Dem's have played the game just like the Repubs and here we sit. Tell the 98% of the people in this country who are the mercy of special interests and "corporations are people" laws allowing them to buy representation. Then consider gerrymandering, lobbyists, barrels of money needed just to be able to run for office, wealth disparity, rising costs of living with no COLA by greedy corps, stock bubbles, deregulation, healthcare costs that bankrupt people who find themselves unable to pay for health crisis events, corrupt bankers who suffer no consequences for tanking the economy and on and on. If the shoe fits....
13
Mr. Brooks, you have said yourself that Bernie is not a real socialist. You have said he does not seek to control the means of production. To now equate Bernie with Trump as two equal evils, is both disingenuous and a scaremongering tactic.
11
Fidel, gasp, ended the Mafia's colonial rule over Cuba which it treated as a large money laundering machine and a pleasure palace that forced the vast majority of Cubans into low paid agricultural work, casino work, or prostitution. The US, some of us recall, was so outraged by the gall of Fidel's kicking out the Mafia and redistributing land, that it sponsored a half-baked invasion that was easily repelled by Cubans with no help from anybody - and then, in a further fit of anger spent decades enforcing a cruel embargo on Cuba and making multiple attempts to assassinate Fidel - all in the hope that the Mafia could get their assets back.
Cuba has been defending itself in a war with the US since 1962. Sometimes, when a country is at war, it curtails the rights of its citizens... I can think of a country (its initials are "U" and "S" which has done that with great regularity and has even done it for fake wars like the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror".
That in the midst of the US embargo - itself an act of war under international law - Cuba managed to bring literacy to 98% of its people and to create a health care system that is the envy of much of Latin America (and which is actually a system, unlike the chaos we call a health care system in the US) is truly remarkable and worthy of praise.
11
This is spot on. All of us wish for affordable medical care, college and good jobs. Do Bernie voters genuinely believe that the only thing stopping our Country from having those things is his election?
Policymakers have a duty to affect positive change by being practical, making concessions and working with other lawmakers. The Bernie voters seem to think that they can win one seat in one election and they won't have to work with anybody. How can so many be so foolish to believe that voting one person into office will suddenly turn us into a Socialist paradise where nobody is hungry or sick? The facts are not on their side. Bernie is incredibly polarizing. He is extremely sick and old. He has a decades long track record of making a fuss and getting absolutely nothing done. He genuinely doesn't have any plan beyond "everything will be free." I just don't get what people see in him.
I am a 29 year old Obama-Obama-Clinton voter who has been absolutely disgusted and numbed by the past 3 years. Unfortunately, I see Senator Sanders as the worst possible way forward and I wouldn't hesitate to vote for Trump if Bernie became the nominee. I hope others realize I am not alone in this thinking and that the current primary candidates sort out how to defeat him. Our Country cannot afford to have either of these two men to occupy the White House past January.
10
Your GOP’s trickled-down economy gave wealth and power to corporations creating monopolies and oligopolies where we pay higher in basic necessaries, like healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc. than all developed countries. Capitalism became undemocratic creating our plutocracy.
Tax cuts, and military spending exploding deficits, left nothing for infrastructure, health care, education, etc. worse than third world countries. Giving us the highest wealth disparity in advanced economies, less than 10% of people own more than 85% of our wealth.
Winning elections is always to kowtow to the populist right intoxicating them with wedge issues of bigotry, misogyny, white nationalism, Christian fascism etc. The pinnacle being election of our first non-white president with your GOP tea-party winning congress in 2014 and presidency with in 2016 with Trump. However, you cannot continue to con voters that we are better off especially when our economic inequity became much worse.
GOP failures give birth to progressive populism, first with Warren who wants democratic capitalism by equaling the playing field. Fearing her competence, your GOP and corporate democrats went into attack mode, reducing her popularity which popularize an even more progressive Bernie with his democratic socialist.
Bernie's programs are a total reverse of GOP plutocracy. Sit back and relax and let the young, women, people of color, the educated finally come to power to make America a better place.
10
Wouldn't an authoritarian leftist want to get rid of the filibuster? Sanders supports democracy and our democratic traditions. Brooks and others are scaremongering.
4
What I think I am seeing is that most democrats are pretty committed to voting for anyone who makes it into the final race. My number one pick is Warren, my last pick is the horrifying Bloomberg, and yet I'd still vote for him enthusiastically over Trump who is mounting an assault on humanity itself. I get the sense that a lot of democrats are sitting out the primary because they are reserved to vote for anyone who isn't Trump, but I haven't seen specific polls on that. Articles like this are the most terrifying to me, whether I see Bernie bros saying they'll never support another candidate, or old white men with money saying they refuse to support Bernie, this is the kind of sentiment that will destroy us, not destroy democrats, but destroy all of us.
4
Any Democrat before Sanders, but always Sanders before Trump.
3
I can think of no better endorsement of Bernie Sanders than a condemnation by David Brooks.
11
Agreed. Sanders is a populist who will get nothing done again!
4
The moderates did well for the already privileged yet terrible for everyone else that is good for people who believe they are actually special and the country club mentality continues calling themselves liberal haha. The country needs help, not just token political correctness. The incompetence of the party and the media gave us Trump and now they're having a hissy fit and will probably ruin any chance of electing a progressive. For decades progressives were forced to vote for centralists as the bottom fell out yet moderates refuse any change that would be a threat to the status quo.
4
"Beware the new leaders, for they may be greater tyrants than the old leaders."
1
Every once and awhile I agree with Brooks. This is one of those times. Populism from the left is as mindless as populism from the right.
8
No, not David Brooks and his political platitudes! Beyond Anglo-Saxon thinkers on sociology, economics, and political theory, he should read Continental intellectuals such as the Frenchmen, Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, and the Spaniard, Donoso-Cortés who advanced Socialist theory long before Marx and Engels. From the late eighteenth century until the 1850's, not all heuristic thought of the late eighteenth century and during the first half of the nineteenth century is predicated on individualist laissez-faire.
3
Yes Sanders is another version of Trump constant ranting about rich folks the way Trump rants about brown folks. Sanders wants to have a rally and give a new car to everyone charging it to Bloomberg and redistribute the wealth of the rich to poor folks. By executive order the govt will seize the wealth of the top 10 % and give it to the bottom 10% solving income inequality in one swoop. Growing up poor Sanders has disliked the rich and while Bloomberg gave 8 billion to progressive causes Sanders gave nothing and after 40 tears of ranting this 80 yr old socialist has accomplished nothing.
5
David Brooks, you are painting Bernie in an absurdist, highly distorted way. Bernie’s whole life has been devoted to social, economic, and environmental justice. He abhors authoritarianism. Our movement to elect Bernie and other progressives is motivated by the Golden Rule, compassion, and a fierce desire to keep our planet habitable. Please join us or step aside.
5
David makes the case i have been arguing for years: The Conservative movement is amoral at best and deeply at odds with basic human values. Trump's authoritarian and narcissistic personality disorders threaten to destroy the Republic. His incompetence in the face of a potential pandemic threatens human life. His indifference to climate change threatens the planet. But, you know, we need our tax cuts and deregulation, so....
3
Most every poll shows that while Sanders' "base" is 'yugely' passionate (not unlike the cult of You-Know-Who), unfortunately he still has a ceiling within both the Dems and the mainstream electorate. And no amount of screaming conspiracy theories and 'fake news' is gonna change that. Which is also why FOX News, the GOP, and most of conservative media continues to be the only ones 'promoting' him.
3
Although Bernie is not my first choice the choice between Bernie, should he be elected, is so clear and why can't you see it? It is a choice not between Right and Left but between Right and Wrong. It is a choice between public service and self serving. It is a choice between pure evil, criminally, treason and xenophobia and a vision of a fairer and just America.
4
Right back at you, Brooks.
The canting hypocrisy that drips from your column belies the years you spent as a neocon scribe for the Weekly Standard, touting the virtues of neoconservatism as espoused by editor William Kristol and a gaggle of others, some of whom went on to serve in the Bush administration and engineer the slaughterhouse that was the Iraq war.
Are we then to conclude that the intellectual and moral suppositions that you engendered in those years necessarily preclude your legitimacy as a born-again supporter of democratic liberalism?
Moreover, you’re asking us to tar-and-feather Bernie Sanders as a “populist” and “feed off (his) villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue” – something you yourself characterized as delusional right here in 2004.
11
Im with
I’m with David.
2
Oh, David.. so now, liberalism has all these wonderful qualities, huh? Wasn't that long ago it was all a big joke to you.
Well, better late than never, I guess.
1
Mr. Brooks, calm down. Drink some chamomile tea. It's going to be OK. Nobody is planning to elect Stalin for POTUS.
3
We will either have a bit more socialism or a LOT more fascism. America has to choose.
9
Oh my dear...really...you are tossing up between Trump and Sanders. Only in the insular US would you even call Sanders die hard socialist. His views seem to reflect that of many centre left parties in the West. Not perfect..but in a different universe to that racist, bigoted, sexist excuse for a President. Just a reminder the US will be led by Trump and Pence in combating the spreading virus. Any reasonable person would have more faith in Dumb and Dumber or Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy or Moe and Curly...take your pick.
3
So instead you will vote for a liar and a cheat?
2
What's that I hear? The cri de coeur from the buttoned-down crowd! Mr. Brooks, what do you care about liberals? You've never been one.
5
I hope the DNC does not name Bernie to run against Trump because I think he has no chance of winning. I'm sure that he's too far left and would not get a sufficient # of votes from middle America - they would either give in and vote for Trump or not vote at all. My ideal ticket would be Bloomberg for president and Klobishar for vice president...pragmatic, successful middle of the roaders
5
I read your pieces for a clear-eyed look at the world from a perspective to the right of mine...but you seem to be developing cataracts. You believe in an American myth - Sanders believes in the American idea. You chop logic your way from democratic socialism to communism - in this mindset Rand Paul is an anarchist, Mitt Romney a nazi. The US defeated the nazis and have given the world an great model of the promise of democracy ...they also help murder Allende and many others in Chili, created dictators in Iran and elsewhere - Sanders does not gloss over these travesties but he believes in the potential of this country.
5
Bernie is a demagogue. So is Trump. I hope it doesn't take one to beat one.
Free! Revolution! Bernie is all about shaking and stirring, making it all seem radical and easy at the same time. Ain't nothing free, and most revolutions end badly. Our country of full of people descended from those who fled revolutions that turned bloody.
If Bernie is the Democratic nominee, I'm writing in Al Gore. I live in Massachusetts. If Bernie needs my vote to win here, he has lost.
5
Really....Reallly???
David, when Republican governors rejected the Medicaid expansion part of Obamacare, rural hospitals started closing at greater rates. With the Covid-19, the danger of Trump’s demagoguery is on full display.
Democratic socialism, not totalitarian dictatorship, is what Bernie is advocating. Though you talk about studying history, have you seen what Trump is doing to our Constitutional form of government? If you’re not voting against the institution of anti-democratic norms this administration is implementing, then you are part of the problem.
The status quo got us into the income inequality and social justice problems we have. It’s time for a political revolution to swing us back to the middle.
8
Oh so now we have David Brooks to mansplain what a liberal is and should be, from the standpoint of one of the many non-liberal, conservative columnists at the Times. Umkay.
9
Hmmm... reading this opinion, I found it interesting Mr. Brooks talks about Castro and Stalin-Hitler and their significance for Mr. Sanders.
Flash forward today and replace those two names with Kim Jung Un and Vladimir Putin. Aren't these dictators the ones our current President holds in great esteem? Where is Mr. Brooks' outrage at this pathetic state of affairs?
7
Democratic Liberalism is an oxymoron.
2
When Brooks opposes a populist like Sanders in the NYT then you know that he is dead in the water. Besides being a well written article it is just plain common sense. Those who support Sanders are in need of a political science/history education.
2
Mr. Brooks, your angry article convinced me to vote for Bernie. I’ll bring out all my friends too!
10
Well, we all knew this was coming, whoever's the Democratic nominee.
3
Over the last three years, this nation produced a tremendous surge of wealth and used that wealth for great things.
Real disposable personal income surged in 2018 by the largest amount in history: $597 billion. Amazing!
Families purchased a record 57 million new and used superclean cars sending a record high pollution clunkers to the shredder
Result? levels of lead, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide and ozone fell to record lows. Below levels of the Obama administration and below health standards
Business investment in efficient buildings and machinery hit a record $2.9 trillion. Result? the energy for a dollar of gdp fell to a record low of 5,400 btu, down from 12,000 btu in 1980
Our "rich" reinvest all their profits to create jobs, paying a record $1 trillion in personal income taxes in 2019, up from $47 billion in 1980.
Result? The richest "poor". World poor live in shacks without electricity or running water, eat rats to survive and suffer perpetual intestinal diseases from rancid water.
Our poor possess toilets, showers, sinks, beds, shoes, refrigerators, stoves, TVs, cellphones, cars and too many calories for health.
Such wealth produces a foaming jealousy in tribal man. Universities, seeing a shrinking student base, demand their pound of flesh.
Using a facade of outcomes for the poor, the poverty industrial complex screams for its pound of flesh.
So, we do the U.S. thing and slaughter our golden geese for a decade.
2
Great article and spot on!!
2
So what are you going to do, Mr. Brooks? Vote for Trump after all? Seems that way. Yikes.
3
David Brooks should be smart enough to realize that Sanders is basically a FDR Democrat. If he was a Trump supporter all along, he should just be honest about it, instead of resorting to this hyperbolic slander.
8
David, I am sorry you wrote this column. It will be picked up and used against Sanders in the primaries and in the general election. And that will only benefit the the racist, anti-intellectual Trump regime. The media likes casting Sanders and Warren as socialist, but pales at naming the racist, misogynistic, climate-destroying, religious fundamentalist administration as fascist, even as they cage children and ban Nigerians from entering the country. We need the intelligent people to speak out against the real evil before it consumes us all.
6
Booooooo. Sanders is a populist and he's winning on that merit; get over it. This primary has opened my eyes to the toxicity of Neo Liberal snakes like Brooks that prioritize the protection of their wealth and share more with Trump and the Republicans than the working people of this country.
9
In the Democratic debate a few days ago in South Carolina, Senator Sanders said this:
“In Israel, through Bibi Netanyahu, you have a reactionary racist who is now running that country.”
Mr. Sanders seems to think that comments such as this will help him get elected President of the United States.
3
Bernie supporters seem to think that Trump has been so bad that this is the perfect moment to spring a glorious socialist revolution. Many older liberals have no intention to vote for a candidate who they don't like. Do they think that our fear of the radical right will force us to vote radical left? This is a very stupid assumption.
4
Excellent article, Mr. Brooks. I particularly like the idea that the liberals just stay home and do not vote for either of these terrible people.
2
This piece is cynical or delusion, and the same is true for its credulous audience. The former know who they are.
3
Wow. Intellectualism and this American experiment are dead.
I hope that extra sliver in your tax return is worth it, David.
8
I'm no fan of Bernie and agree that his ideological purity is no friend of liberal democracy. However, in contrast to Trump, he is not a cruel, malignantly narcissistic, pathological liar. To refuse to vote for Bernie (should he be the nominee) is a vote for Trump. Mr. Brooks, can you really live with yourself if you do that?
2
Shame on you Mr. Brooks. I look to you for your thoughtfulness and insight to help me make sense of the deluge of fear mongering and exaggerated truths that get shared so much these days. Now you are propagating the same fears. What you shared has no basis in reality. We have an authoritarian racist in the Oval Office and you fear a lifelong politician who at every turn has espoused the need to level the economic playing field and treat all American citizens with compassion including immigrants. You have cheapened your power as a columnist and have become yet another pundit who uses fear rather then reason to make your points.
11
Get out the vote is called increasing representative democracy, not socialism, Mr. Brooks. If you are so unAmerican as to think that GOTV is a destruction of all that makes life worth living in your world, maybe you can pick out a different country to live in where plutocracy still feels more respected. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out...
6
It is so unfortunate that someone who prides himself on intellectualism would stoop to this level of false equivalence and fear-mongering. Mr Brooks, you are spreading disinformation.
Here's how the Democratic Socialists of America define themselves:
"Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives.
Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. All over the world, wherever the idea of democracy has taken root, the vision of socialism has taken root as well—everywhere but in the United States. Because of this, many false ideas about socialism have developed in the US."
For more information, visit https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism/
10
After reading Brooks' inane thoughts since his Iraq War and Bush apologia in 2003 or so, honestly, this piece gives me another, incredibly gratifying, reason for my vote -- Bernie all the way!
9
This is absolute fear mongering, There are democratic socialist countries that thrive. And they have *gasp* socialized healthcare and free education but didn't turn into an authoritarian regime! It's disparaging how quickly people will far for these scare tactics. You should be ashamed of yourself for perpetuating more misinformation, especially in a time when that's one of the greatest threats we face.
10
Read article titled "Bernie Sanders Can Beat Trump. Here’s the Math" by Steve Phillips in the NYT today. It's based on data, and not personal opinion. Refreshing!
10
Ok, Mr. Brooks, we know now you are really a Trump supporter (and always have been; better any conservative of any color, right?). Bernie is not the end of liberalism: he is the beginning (here) of social democracy.
9
"He's still making excuses for castro" no - Bernie said literacy is good, and so are literacy programs. But if you're willing to say that because Castro endorsed literacy it's bad then please stop asking people to read this column - reading is sooooo Socialist apparently. Reminds me of conservatives with health problems who won't do doctor prescribed yoga or stretching because "its for liberal wusses"
9
More mainstream goodness from David Brooks. Equating nationalized healthcare as has existed for decades in our first world allies as akin to the Gulag is simply absurd and meant for no other reason than to frighten the undecided into voting for a do nothing, nibble on the margins, moderate centrist who will protect the status quo. The single greatest threat to our democracy--a mentally ill, corrupt, dissembling, ignorant demagogue who has steered his party to and the country to the precipice of autocracy has somehow been normalized by Brooks et al and the response he advocates is a return to the dilute, ineffectual corporatist policies which led to Trump in the first place. all this hand wringing and pearl clutching so evident in the pages of the NYT--I'm looking at you Bruni, Leonhardt, Egan, Stephens--betrays the obvious truth. This is not about finding a way forward in a country riddled with corruption, injustice, polarization and facing immense challenges on multiple fronts, its about protecting power, influence and privilege in the overwhelmingly White chattering classes. Justice delayed is Justice denied Mr Brooks, get out of the way so the mess you helped create can be cleaned up.
8
David Brooks There were no Nicaraguan communists Get our facts straight Daniel and the gang were revolutionaries not communists. Russia was broke All it could do for Nica was send doctors and teachers and educate Nicaraguans in Havana I was thrilled to meet Ortega and not I am appalled he was such a hero to me and so many. But he was not a communist Get your facts straight
3
Another excellent observation that will be relegated to "Conservative David Brooks just hates Bernie."
It's too bad. As Mr. Brooks essentially makes clear, the "godless liberals" in the Soviet Union killed just as many - if not more - as the "faithful fascists" from Germany did.
3
If there were ever an opinion piece guaranteed to put Sanders in the White House it's "Please won't somebody think of the Liberalism" handwringing from David "No, It's The Children Who Are Wrong" Brooks.
3
Ridiculous to see Brooks and Stephens both try and make the case the Bernie Sanders is anything even remotely similar to the threat that another 4 years of Kaiser Trump poses. Do these two really believe this? Trump is a pathological lier, who has filled his cabinet and agencies with corrupt people, who cares nothing about the welfare of Americans and states that don't support his reelection, and is in all ways unfit to lead our country for another second let alone 4 years. But somehow, a progressive liberal who wants higher taxes on the wealthy and a large expansion of social programs - all of which would be tempered by Congress - is a greater threat?? Total and complete bunk.
If Brooks and Stephens would rather not vote than vote for Sanders, they should search their souls if, God forbid, Trump wins reelection (or cheats - more likely).
6
You're confusing "socialism" with "fascism masquerading as socialism".
Foolish, irresponsible, unintelligent.
5
Thanks David. You hit it on the proverbial head! The Democrats are about to blow it again. This time, if they do nominate Sanders, I’ll have no choice but to vote for him, but we’ll ALL lose!
My brother, who is now and has always been a Republican called Bernie a Communist. Where did he get that from? He’s a Socialist for sure, but a Communist? My brother is a retired Doctor. Very intelligent. Where in the world did he arrive at the idea that Bernie Sanders is a Communist?
It’s easy!
Most of the German people during the late 30’s and early 40’s loved Hitler. Why not? He brought respect and money back to Germany. Imagine Bernie talking about how Hitler did some very good things during his reign to an audience of Jews!
If you talk to any Cuban living in Florida about how Castro did some good things, you’re going to have a real fight on your hands.
You want Reality? Do you really want to beat Trump? You only have two choices: Joe Biden or Mike Bloomberg. My bet is on Mike. He’s actually run the largest city in the U.S. Just look at his record! Has he made some mistakes? Do you personally know any mortal of the realm who hasn’t? He’s apologized for those. What else do you want him to do Elizabeth, or Joe, or Mayor Pete, or Amy?
The morning after the election in 2015 I said “This will never happen again!”
Don’t EVER SAY it won’t happen again! It’s going to unless we act together!
1
If it's Sanders v Trump, look for a third centrist party to emerge that has some legs.
Donald Trump and his regime keeps children in cages. That is ALL that needs to be said on the matter.
2
On the eve of WWII, the French socialist premier Leon Blum -- whose government enacted such 'radical' policies as the right to form unions, to strike, and the 40 hour workweek -- was systematically confronted by French conservatives chanting 'Better Hitler than Blum'.
They got what they wanted.
4
Almost everything written by Mr.Brooks in this piece is either inaccurate or outright untrue. This is method that the mongrel living in our White House uses. Apparently, it has rubbed off on our old friend, Mr. Brooks.
11
It's daft to compare Sanders' movement to some kind of Bolshevik revolution. Also, provide actual quotes if you're going to claim that Sanders is quoting questionable figures. This article is lazy and unprofessional.
My guess is that the editors are allowing this guy to continue to publish idiotic articles because they get more engagement.
Stop with the juvenile, self-indulgent musing over your own 'great responsibility' as a voter and public figure. It's embarrassing.
12
Quit fear-mongering David.
16
The headline does not agree with the content of the piece, especially the last line.
Shame on the editors if they did that.
3
David Brooks, you are so out of touch with what this country wants. Please take a break and get in touch with reality. Start having conversations with people out of your tax bracket.
11
Bravo!
2
Yeah, I don't share this opinion.
3
So David Brooks is against Sanders? Shocking!!!!
3
The Times’s pretend nevertrumpers are doing a terrible job maintaining their cover. Who is your audience, Mr Brooks? No Republican has ever listened to your advice, yet you think you can lecture Dems about our nominee? You supported the invasion of Iraq. End of story.
8
What was 'morally unfathomable ' in the eighties was the way this country under Ronald Raegan funded a mercenary army to destroy the elected government of Nicaragua and propped up right wing dictatorships in El Salvador and Guatemala who perpetrated human rights violations that leave those countries crippled to this day.
Leave the right wing blather for the Trump supporters. Your ludicrous hyperbole will help Trump get re elected. Or better yet, just admit your a republican.
10
I don't give a hoot about Cuba.
4
The best Brooks ever..
How tired I am of David Brooks' whining--and his lack of insight. Bernie Sanders another Stalin, Castro, Chavez? Puh-leeze.
Admiring those who stand up to international money and the imperial power of the U.S. does not mean one will push for gulags, concentration camps, or mass executions.
Brooks points out the millions of deaths involved in building the Soviet empire but seems blissfully unaware of the millions of lives crushed by the Spanish, British, French, and American empires? Has he ever visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL dedicated to the 4,400 documented cases of lynching between 1870 and World War II?
Brooks' "rah-rah America" is unworthy of the NYT.
11
Brooks is a NeverBernie. Well that is just great. Enjoy four more years of Trump. It must be easy writing opinion articles with Trump as President. Enjoy the free ride.
3
Sir, yours is a knee-jerk reaction. You react to labels invented by the 18th century capitalists, who thought every living breathing human being is a fat goose to be plucked.
7
Bernie, if he wins, will not be a dictator in the Trump mode. Truimp is paranoid, ignorant and doesn't care that he is, mean, vindictive, petty, immoral, a giant egotist.
He lusts for the three biggest corruptions, power, money and sex.
He is lustful and not joyful. How many times do you see him smile joyfully?
He does not care for commonly held facts as he knows best.
And Brooks thinks that Bernie is in the same league?
8
So it has been liberals who were trying to save democracy all this time. I know it took you a while to get here, Mr Brooks, but happy to have you here now.
2
This is what privilege looks like
11
And this is how we get another four years of an amoral lying grifter who is trying to tear apart our system of government for his own personal gain. Thank you so much for your contribution to our democracy, Mr. Brooks.
12
And yet, he continues to win. Those young liberals want their free college, I guess.
3
I stopped taking David Brooks seriously ever since his bad-faith or obtuse criticisms of Obama.
Is David Brooks really just honestly ignorant or willfully so?
To claim that Sanders is anything but a social Democrat is just silly.
David Books rails against cynicism but I suspect he is just cynically using his power to push a narrative friendly to the class interests that allow him to be where he is.
10
If the NYT keeps on going after Sanders, he'll get an electoral boost. This 2016 to the inverse.
8
Amen.
End the chaos. Defeat Trump. Defeat Putin. Nominate a Democrat.
3
See article titled "Bernie Sanders Can Beat Trump. Here’s the Math" by Steve Phillips in the NYT today. It's based on data, and not personal opinion. Refreshing!
11
It is encouraging to see Brooks' admonitions fall flat with most of the better informed readers of the NYT. Could it really be that our present disastrous moment really is the blackness that precedes the dawn?
12
The Soviets also defeated the Nazis. Krushchev denounced Stalin in 1956. Sanders praised the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev years. Get some perspective. (Credentials: PhD in Eastern European History)
12
If you are incredulous that the US has been a force of ill in world affairs, then you are not a student of history. I highly suggest you reach out to any historian at an university in the United States. What a joke.
-PhD in History
11
Fair enough. But you cannot vote for Trump under any circumstances. Trump is a dangerous dictator in the making.
4
"He's the end of liberalism"—
That's a ridiculous statement, Mr. Brooks, and you know it.
[At least I hope you know it.]
9
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable"
-John F. Kennedy
6
Can't decide which lever to pull David?? You like history - let me give you an example. In 1931 the SPD - the mass socialist party of German who were fifteen clicks left of Bernie Sanders had a decision to make. The could run their own candidate or even back the Communists but they were terrified that if they did this Hitler and the Nazis would get in. They instead backed the sitting President Hindenburg a reactionary old monarchists who opposed almost their entire program. The voted for him because they believed he would follow the laws and the constitution of the Weimar Republic and Hitler would not. On that they were 100% right. The coalition that backed Hindenburg won even though the Nazis in a series of unfortunate events would of course come to power. While Trump's no Hitler his respect for the rule of law is nil. On this basis alone you should not hesitate one second to pull the blue lever even if Bernie Sanders is at the top of the ticket. With this imminent threat you have no choice.
11
This author, and his article, are the end of reason.
Go Bernie
13
Another strong endorsement for Bernie from NYT. Keep it up guys, each article by some neoliberal NYT dinosaur gets him more of my support and probably 100 more votes. Good work!
14
Oh David Brooks, Never say never!
Especially when there are some 27 million (27,000,000--look at all those zeroes!--) uninsured. And 2/3 of Americans are a 500$ medical bill away from bankruptcy.
14
The true David Brooks, unveiled: Donald Trump over Bernie Sanders...
8
Your column highlights your privilege. You get to "decide" if you'd vote for Sanders over Trump because you have never been the target of Islamophobic violence. You have never received a health care bill that made you contemplate suicide. You have never been an immigrant in Trump's border concentration camps. Let me know when the rest of us have the luxury to "decide" if we'd support Sanders over Trump.
14
Mr. Brooks is purposely trying to confuse us with liberalism and neo-liberalism.
9
Twilight of the Idols.
1
If Bernie can win back the blue collar workers and coal miners that the Democrats lost to Trump at the expense of losing the pompous conservative fools like David Brooks, I say that’s a good deal.
10
Because it’s really starting to look like Bernie has the best chance of beating Trump, here comes the Republican army to falsely accuse him of the scariest things they can imagine: being a Commie.
We have already read that comic book, and its pages have yellowed and rotted in the garage since the 1950s.
20
Just another boomer/apologetic Republican making some noise... nothing to see here
Soviet totalitarianism and socialism ARE NOT the same thing.
And this isn't the cold war, man
22
Here is the link to a video on Sanders produced by Reason TV (libertarian organization) as you watch this think of how many ads can the Trump campaign harvest from it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2d3DMC6qyg&t=6s
Now keep in mind the fact that the majority of voters in presidential elections are middle age or older so they will know what this is about.
1
You must vote for Sanders over Trump. You must vote for Bloomberg over Trump. Steyers. Gabbard. An empty shoebox. Four more years of Trump is the end of the world as we know it. And then won't you feel dumb for refusing to vote for a socialist.
11
clever use of "spector". a bit of baiting going on of the Red kind
6
Blue no matter who!
9
Are you kidding me, Dave? Actually , in 1964 Bernie would have been well to the right of Al Lowenstein. He is more like a Javits Repbulican.
He is a Social Democrat for Christmass sake's. ya know, ever hear of Denmark? Finland? Best public school system. Kids actually learn. What is your problem. You want Trump? You got em already...Anyway, do you think anyone cares who YOU are gonna vote for. i wish there were far less pompous op eds and far more actually well written and trenchant analyses.
18
Yes! Vote for the guys who want to shred the Constitution and have no use for the Rule of Law! MAGA!!!
4
Walmart has spoken
6
Bernie Sanders king of free loaders.
3
Who on Earth is David Brooks to tell us about liberalism?
That he would sit out an election between a compassionate democratic socialist and a grotesque fascist is simply horrifying.
17
The only good thing about this obnoxiously smug treatise on "liberalism" from David Brooks' ivory tower is that it brings out such wonderful, thoughtful, often eloquent and humorous responses from readers who see it for the hypocritical bilge it is. NYT, you had a great deal to do with bringing us Trump in 2016. He turned out to be far worse than we feared. Don't you see the genuine catastrophe awaiting us if you help him get a second term?
14
No, Not Brooks, Not Ever.
12
Gee, whom should liberals take advice from, conservative nerd David Brooks or our Democratic Party leader in Congress, Nancy Pelosi?
8
Sanders' mantra "the millionaires and the billionaires" later changed to trashing billionaires after it was revealed that Sanders was himself a millionaire, resonates with the mantra of the bolsheviks and the Nazis. That is how they got to power. Sanders is no liberal democrat and there is no country that is socialist and democratic at the same time.
5
Proof, as if it were really needed after all these years, that Brooks is too full of himself as well as full of it.
11
Mr. Brooks, your best column ever.
3
Nixon proposed a universal healthcare plan much more liberal than Obamacare - was he a commie as well Mr Brooks? All of this red-baiting is getting pretty pathetic at this point
17
To write this column as the Trump administration flails idiotically in face of Coronavirus requires a special form of idiocy. The false parallel between Trump and Sanders only makes sense to self-involved pundits of the so-called center.
11
You know you're out of touch with your audience when your hit piece is interpreted by your own readers as yet another reason to vote for him.
13
“Liberalism is horrified by cruelty”
Until it comes to abortion.
3
Says the guy who wrote a piece making a case for Mike Bloomberg for presidency. What a joke.
8
Kim Jong Un's best friend says what?
Are you seriously going to tell us that Sanders is "praising authoritarians" bc he praised the same literacy program Obama did and pretend that Trump isn't actively courting dictators around the world? Trump is owned by Putin, best friends w Kim Jong Un, partners w MBS, and allows Erdogan carte blanche in the US to beat up protestors? You've never been more pathetic than you are right now, Brooks. Sanders is a realist and Trump is a fascist. Like you.
3
Well if you can't vote for Bernie you can simply write in Jill Stein or, better yet, Ralph Nader. Those 2 have a proven track record of appealing to the morally superior voter like you David.
3
Good article. Trump is worse
While I disagree with everything Brooks says, I feel it’s unfair to judge him without having walked a mile in his Harry Winston ruby slippers.
12
Ok Mr. Brooks time to write that endorsement of Trump. We all need to see it in writing.
6
are you saying Sanders will break constitutional system? Trump couldn't and niether would Bernie. You say that Sander's style is "rage, bitter and relentless polarization, a demand for ideological purity among your friends and incessant hatred for your supposed foes." That sounds just like any liberal dem to me and that is what one should be when you are in opposition struggling for power. You say he is not bringing scandinavian model but fall short of explaining why. And most importantly you claim Sanders is apologetic to horrors of failed Marxist dictatorship regimes - that is a cheap shot. so take Inquisition - should that have discredited Christianity completly? You made a nice living and have served your masters and your (ny)time and influence is up. Bernie will be endorsed and he may lose, but he has already changed politics forever and it is more valuable for this country than to simply push Trump out.
3
I am not a Sanders supporter but this morbid fear of him is unjustified. And to put him on the same level as Trump? Please! This is fear-mongering at its worst. You are better than this.
4
Mr Brooks pretends to be smarter than the average Trump supporters, benighted by social media. He could get out and talk to some real people who are suffering in this economy. But it’s more pleasant to stay in his cozy little pampered bubble.
Being open-minded is hard work. Maybe he could look at how capitalism needs some guard rails. But he might tick somebody off at the country club. In the end, his argumentation is no better than the song you sing while your fingers are stuck in your ears.
7
If David Brooks truly doesn’t know whether he would vote for Trump or Sanders he needs to see a Doctor immediately. And not for bone spurs.
6
So you will vote for Mr. Trump, Mr. Brooks, directly or indirectly? Trump and big money Democrats thank you for this hit piece.
4
I agree that Sanders seems like an intolerant leftist, but if nothing else the system will constrain him, as will his party's moderate wing, unlike the GOP which has failed miserably to offer any resistance to Trump as he rides rough-shod over democracy and the Constitution. Do not pretend they represent equally bad options for America, because even if that were true, Democrats never roll over for tyrants.
And lets have a remember a little history. Stalin was a murderous tyrant, but socialism was an appealing economic system to the impoverished masses of Europe. Castro overthrew a murderous dictator, Batista, before morphing into a rigid tyrant, no doubt in response to the CIA's attempt to kill him. Guatemala is a gang-infested mess because Eisenhower sent the Marines to overthrow a land-reformer giving United Fruit planatations to peasants. And the Sandanistas were the antidote to Reagan and Oliver North's right wing death squads. The only thing worse than clinging to a defense of the left in these places is siding with the tyrants the US ennabled....
Bernie is my last choice among the democratic survivors. But I would NEVER pretend he poses a threat in any way comparable to the monstrous DJT....
3
Sadly, Bernie seems as mean as Trump.
His 'followers' seem especially rabid. And after reading this piece in the Times about this scary Trump supporter https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/trump-rally-campaign-data.html
I really don't want the mirror image on the left, complete with such loyal 'followers' calling the shots for the next term.
It would be great to break out the 'cult' mentality that seems to have gripped both sides and simply elect a sane, sentient, reasonable and competent person to office.
It doesn't have to be love, and it absolutely shouldn't be worship.
Now, who does that leave? And how do we get that person nominated????
6
Americans are ready to burn the status quo in both parties to ashes for a reason. Because they don't offer anything. Trump offered something—a wall, a travel ban, better healthcare, a tax cut. (All of it was nonsense or worse of course, but it was something.) The other candidates in the GOP primary—I can't recall a single idea they had to offer.
Bernie has something to offer. And he's offering it to people who are truly desperate, living paycheck to paycheck, under fear of medical debts and student loans, and overpaying for rent. Bernie's platform offers to solve all of the above. Most of the other more establishment candidates—what was it they were putting in the table? Maybe they offered their identity or good public speaking skills?
But here's where Brooks goes off track. None of Bernie's proposals for health care, student loans, etc., should be controversial, not even remotely. They're just basic services that nearly every other developed country's government provides everywhere else on Earth.
There's no communist revolution proposed here. There's no need to reference Hitler, Stalin, et al. My God, can a writer get away with using those cliches for exaggeration here! We don't need to sound the alarm bells when someone demands basic government services and feels they're done with both parties offering nothing. If that were the case, then you can go ahead pull out the Hitler and Stalin cliches on nearly every American.
6
What a ridiculous argument. (I hesitate to use the word, "argument." More like a savage smear job.)
I live in Canada, where Sanders' discourse is mainstream. And thoroughly democratic, certainly compared to what the once great American republic has become. Sanders is simply pointing out the truth: democracy in America is on its death bed, because of corruption. The corporate elite buys power, or elites run for office themselves, outspending their opponents exponentially. How can one expect that the laws they produce or the policies they promote represent the will of the people? Or that the stacked judiciary will see constitutional justice as its obligation?
Warren and Sanders are both right. Warren, for calling for structural change, Sanders for speaking truth to power.
8
Dear David,
No need to worry about Bernie.
In a head-to-head contest between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump next November, Trump will finish next-to-last.
Guaranteed.
1
The United States of America is and has always been a force for ill in world affairs. Our "liberal democracy" was built on a slave labor economy, the genocide of the indigenous population of this continent, and the continuous exploitation of people and land in every corner of the world. One only has to be a student of history, not a majoritarian strongman, to hold this view.
2
Mr. Brooks, what is the difference politically between Sanders and FDR? Really!? Please comment on your, in my opinion, totally misguided and misplaced fear about a Sanders presidency?
I just don’t get you at all.
6
You write that "Populists like Sanders speak as if the whole system is irredeemably corrupt."
Guess what. He's right.
5
I know it's your job to analyse things to death, but can we please just focus on getting behind someone who can beat Trump? A president Sanders is not going to be able to accomplish all of the socialist things he'd like to. He's also not going to throw money at a wall or incite ethnic and racial violence. Let's keep that in mind.
3
Wow, Mr. Brooks! You’ve really shown a dark side that I have not detected in all the years of reading your columns. I could retort each of your “Bernie” rants but it would be time wasted. I still remain a loyal reader and will continue to appreciate your well thought out opinions regardless of the occasional skewed logic.
3
For someone supposedly opposed to Donald Trump's presidency, Brooks sure does spend a lot of time writing campaign ads for him.
7
Mr. Brooks, This column points out precisely what is wrong with Democratic voters: some odd purity test that says if there is something amiss with candidate A I can never vote for him / her. This is what gave us Trump. Eligible voters stayed home and HRC lost the electoral college. Stop it!
4 years ago I held my nose and voted for HRC as the lesser of the evils. The key here is I voted. As a never Trumper and and never Bernie where does that leave you and us? With Donald for another four years. And it will be your fault!
3
What is so radical about universal healthcare, disrupting the incredible economic inequity of the current US, free college education like Me Brooks and I received. As for Cuba. It is apparently an anger trigger to some. We tried to invade (Bay of Pigs) although we embargoed it into starvation for half a century and Castro replaced, dare I say, something even worse.
And no credit for Bernie’s no war in Iraq vote unlike, let me think, Oh yes, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton...
4
This column is so unconscionable that you should really be fired for it, David. Why was the "useless" House member called the Amendment King? Have you ever attended or bothered to listen to a Bernie rally? Rage? Relentless polarization? Demand for ideological purity? Absolute nonsense. Bernie's entire message is that we need to promise to care for others we don't even know. He repeatedly tells us that we need to work together to bring all ethnicities, races, genders, sexualities, etc. into one coalition. At his town halls citizens openly weep when telling their healthcare nightmares; he often hugs them. Bernie is angry at only one group -- the obscenely wealthy. And the young people who overwhelmingly support him are angry as well. Because of the greed of the rich, public universities are no longer affordable, decent, middle-class jobs have been shipped overseas, and politicians are bought and sold to the highest bidders. Your disgusting portrait of Bernie (which you have to know is absurd) ignores the obvious. Bernie is the only politician out there who actually believes in democracy and knows that our current system is entirely corrupt. You failed to mention the most important reason to vote for Bernie. He relies on $15 donations from millions of people. He will throw the billionaires out of DC and bring back government of the people, by the people, for the people. You know, the vision of our actual (not your fantastical) founding fathers.
8
Mr Brooks, he doesn’t operate within the system because the system is corrupt.
You would better serve the Americans people if you would write about that.
Rather than trash one of the few who have the guts to stand up to it.
Bernie Sanders is a good man and has the heart of the American people in his mind.
He doesn’t let the art of politics get in his way!
2
Mr. Brooks, you are a fading voice from the past. stuck in the old ideology that has failed America time and time again. Trump is the obvious consequence, but you refuse to see it. The times of paying attention and being influenced by voices like yours are long past. We think for ourselves now. And the political class, Democratic and Republican, has let us down. Time for the naysayers to frankly shut up.
4
I agree about Sanders; he is a bit of a jerk and will severely damage the Democratic Party. But then there's Trump. If Sanders were elected Democrats would lose control of both houses of Congress and he could do none of his policies. Bad, but still think about Trump. Let's nominate Klobuchar, or even Bloomberg.
Those who won´t ¨pull the level¨ for Sanders if he is the nominee are acting like selfish little children throwing a temper tantrum because their candidate didn´t win. He isn´t the threat to our democracy, however much you may disagree with his policies or past statements. This is false equivalence at its worst.
4
So Sanders is just the mirror image of Trump? Sorry, David, I’m not buying what your selling. Your essay is the worst example of creating a straw man against which to argue I have ever seen. If anything, Sanders has worked and is working WITHIN the system to change it. That is as legitimate as legitimate can be. I get that you disagree vehemently with his stance on almost all issues. Opposing his election on those grounds is well within the normal approach toward politics and governing. Painting him as the same sort of evil as Trump? That’s sophistry.
3
This opinion is selfish and short sighted. I am also not a Sanders supporter. But I believe that Trump, and Trumpism, is one of the most serious threats our country has ever faced. 4 more years of this will destroy us. All positions on policy should be secondary to removing Trump from office. Is it fair that people should have to vote for a person they don’t wholly agree with? No of course not. But it’s a sacrifice that has to be made for the good of our country. I don’t agree with Bernie on many of his issues, but if elected I don’t believe he will try to tear down and destroy the pillars of our government, intentionally divide and enrage the citizens, and promote civil war. The right has become so arrogant and angry the war may come anyway, but I will do everything in my power to prevent it. If Bernie takes the nomination, I will bite my lip and vote for him.
1
This is what happens when a “reasonable” conservative tries to tell “reasonable” liberals THE TRUTH. Mr. Brooks is turning a small history lesson into a reason to vote for a proto-Fascist.
For all the things David said, he left out something that surprises me: Trump, if elected, will continue to overturn our judiciary system by continuing to appoint young, inexperienced conservative lackeys to the courts. Between that and climate change, I’ll hold my nose and vote for Bernie. There is no Dem candidate who’s worse than Trump. What is David Brooks thinking?
2
Then, who should be the candidate? Is it obviously Mr. Biden?
An affluent Republican doesn't like a candidate who is basically a New Deal liberal?
Will wonders never cease!
2
I get it. The Times' execs are compelled to demonstrate they are a balanced news organization by featuring Brooks, Stephens, and Douthat. But do any of these columnists think they will dissuade us from voting against Trump by bashing Sanders as a socialist? I would vote for an avowed communist to rid us of the most corrupt, dangerous president in American history.
2
This is classic fear mongering Mr. Brooks. You have clearly not spent any time speaking with the multi-racial, multigenerational supporters who are filled with hope for a better country, a next new deal. I lose all respect for you and your so-called ideals if you don’t get behind whoever the nominee is to displace the most dangerous president in our history.
1
"Populists like Sanders speak as if the whole system is irredeemably corrupt." and I HUMBLY agree
All I want is for the U.S. to at least enter mid 20th century and acknowledge that universal healthcare is a human right.
The only reason we don't have universal healthcare is because the racist population would rather not have it if it means people of color will have access to it. How sick is that?
And David Brooks is misleading his readers. Now that's SAD!
1
"Democratic socialism"? You mean, living wages, good schools, clean air and water, and affordable healthcare, for everyone? Oh, the horror!
4
"Populists like Sanders speak as if the whole system is irredeemably corrupt" - it's not??
Why can’t we make them understand, David? Why can’t we make them see that fighting inequality and trying to provide the kind of healthcare most other industrialized nations have is a form of oppression equal to fascist oppression?! Keep on fighting the good fight, sir, or else the world might be less safe for extremely wealthy white men! (Well, maybe not less safe. Let’s say less welcoming to our unapologetic selfishness. Either way, sound the alarms! Save us, David!)
1
Whew! How radical is this column?
You have an extremist President, full of insane ideas and behavior and he is adored by millions. Do you think being "rational" is going to make a difference in an opponent?
Yes, Bernie can be a bit much but he is campaigning for the average person and yes, he does have a real problem with billionaires who hoard their wealth.
Since you have likely never lived on a Walmart wage or held a janitorial job, were a server at McDonald's or a grocery store checker. You have never had to pay for food, clothing, shelter, phone, and health care on that job. Or two jobs. How would any person who has never had to live that way, paycheck to paycheck, understand Sanders? He of the "terrible Lenin-communist school". Not.
Sorry, Mr. Brooks, you cannot possibly understand Bernie's appeal. Elizabeth should be running equal to him but the media scared people with her "health care for all" which is a shame. We can certainly tax the billionaires and corporations to pay for heath care without scaring people. Does the Pentagon really need a jet that costs a billion dollars? Do we really need the stupid wall?
Next time you have vacation, try working at Burger King. See how you do. You might hear Bernie differently.
3
David Brooks not wanting to ever vote for Bernie is a great reason to vote for Bernie in my book!
2
Yes - the conservative Brooks finds a fascist preferable to a watered-down socialist like Bernie. The ruling elites of Germany made the same choice in the 1930s. How did that end?
1
Sanders does not have a magic wand and is not running for magician in chief, nor is he running for dictator. He will never get the support of his own party to realize his economic fantasies, . Surely it would be a wasted vote to vote for a third candidate, or an act of futile idealism to not vote at all. Far better to vote for the economic mad man if it is the only possible way to get that utter monstrocity out of office. I would vote for a ham sandwich nominated by the Democrats even one of stale bread and rotten meat.
2
I like Brooks, I really do. I bring his essays into my classroom and let students analyze and rebut the claims that he makes, but his views are the status quo of ten years ago and his analogies are always bordering on hyperbolic--remember when he compared the social media call-out culture to Mao and Stalin's purges? You're too much, Mr. Brooks.
1
We must all band together to do whatever we must to block working people from securing healthy bodies or educated minds free from economic ruin.
2
if you don't like Trump, don't vote for him.
1
Lies! Why is it that right wingers can't handle the truth. This is not about the actual Bernie Sanders; it is about a straw man created by Brooks for propaganda.
This column is another example of why I don't find reading Brooks to be worthwhile.
2
This is the best column of yours I have ever read and I congratulate you for hitting all the important marks regarding Sanders ideology.
He is an angry old man who wants to tear down our capitalistic system and replace it with his brand of a welfare state, taking away our freedoms and ramming his brand of so-called "social justice" down our throats.
1
Vote Blue whoever wins. The bottom line is Trump is too dangerous and the Republicans too evil to keep in place. The Republican party and their rubber stamp partisan court must be shut down. By the way the Supreme Court of the 30's backed down when FDR was going to pack the court. That is what the Democrats are going to have to do to regain power.
Our partisan and corrupt court must be thrown down.
1
It doesn't matter if the Dems nominate Sanders, because the avalanche of negative stories and old baggage that the Trump campaign digs up on him will destroy his chances with the electoral college. Sanders is a loser before he even gets the nomination. Don't be fooled - running Bernie against Trump is a guaranteed win for Trump.
Well, sports fans, there's your Mr. Brooks.
Constitutionally incapable of admitting that his party became irredeemable not with the arrival of Trump, but with Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell.
Trump is nothing more than a one eyed pirate flag that they've raised to announce their true intentions and to keep their base whipped up into a frenzy.
And drawing a bright line from Bernie Sanders to Stalin's death cult is utterly despicable, there's no other way to say it.
You've never fooled anybody except yourself.
You can’t be serious. Bernie Sanders, who has spent a lifetime fighting for justice, versus the most corrupt president ever?
Even if you don’t care for Bernie, come on now, Trump is far, far worse. Please.
1
oh no Scary Sanders wants public healthcare like every other developed nation on the planet has had for years. We better stop him!
3
Let them eat cake, right Mr. Royalty. As another reader points out, you have healthcare and I am sure adequate wealth in stocks. Life is good Mr. Brooks, right? Don't want to really change anything, just some little modifications to make the rabble believe the politicians really work for them. For all the noise you have made about the corrupt egomaniac in the Whitehouse, when push comes to shove, its your wealth and well being that has a higher priority than saving democracy. What a shame.
2
“Now I have to decide if I’d support Bernie Sanders over Trump” is a terrible statement in the context. Trump has been proven a dictator-style narcissism. We must get rid of him from the White House.
1
Mr. Brooks,
I am not as convinced as you that Sanders is the authoritarian you suppose him to be.
I know that Trump is that authoritarian.
I do not think Sanders' policies will contribute to the misery of working class America.
I know that Trump's policies have done nothing about inequality, the opioid epidemic or quality of schooling (Trump University!).
I do not believe that Sanders is cruel.
I know that Trump is cruel.
Your argument is preposterous. You talk about seeing shades of gray. They are right in front of you, but you insist on seeing Sanders only in black and white.
Dan KRavitz
2
The system IS irreversibly corrupt. The corporations and special interests have taken over the government in all its branches. The Supreme Court is stacked with puppets. Congress is bought and sold with every election. The President is elected by a small minority of total voters. Oligopolies loot the middle class daily in ways big and small. And the peoples "radical" choice Bernie has the gall to demand a government that actually works for the people instead of corporations? How dare he!
2
I'm not a fan of Sanders, but he is not in any way a threat to democracy. Trump is.
But nobody could doubt, having read your columns long enough, that you would not be ready to defend pesky democracy. Shame on you.
Mr Brooks - I think you let your conservative / Republican-leaning ideology get the best of you here. Let's face it, you let your vehement dislike for Bernie taint your perspective and then decided to share that in a very skewed column. By the way, Bernie is not a true socialist so stop painting that picture.
If anyone decides to vote for Trump over Bernie, if Bernie is the candidate - they are voting for a more ruinous path, one that even you will regret.
Ah yes, David Brooks, who thinks that only nice college-educated people can be trusted with legalized marijuana.
The greatest lesson of the political history of the 20th Century is this: When facing a choice between a populist fascist and anyone else, choose anyone else. Someone who refuses to vote for Sanders over Trump has put themselves outside of rational humane society.
Are you kidding me right now? Is this the column you want to put out there? Trump is destroying everything this country purports to be. There is no human worse than he -- anywhere, ever, in every way.
Please stop criticizing any or his opponents and use your voice to help save our nation.
Put your ego in your pocket for a change.
This is an incredible dangerous editorial that completely mischaracterizes Bernie Sanders, the notion of revolution, liberalism, and history entirely.
1
“Populists like Sanders speak as if the whole system is irredeemably corrupt.” perhaps because it is
1
Sanders will be worse than Trump if elected...God help us all.
"rage, bitter and relentless polarization, a demand for ideological purity among your friends and incessant hatred for your supposed foes."
This sums up the whole post-Trump Democratic Party.
Wow, David Brooks really channeled Chris Matthews on this one, right down to the nervous elite-y alarmism and clunky WW2 metaphors, not to mention the shameless false equivalencies with the proto-fascist in the White House.
To start his criticism of Sanders with a reference to Soviet-style totalitarianism, Brooks is either making an argument he knows is disingenuous or he’s proving himself too disconnected to serve as a political commentator.
It’s ridiculous to imply that Sanders would represent a departure from real democracy — if anything his healthcare and minimum wage plans would give Americans greater personal and economic freedom. Who cares about the expansion of federal power at the expense of way-less-benevolent corporate power? Brooks might be surprised to learn this, but most Americans already live under the oppressive heel he fears in his Cold-War era nightmares. For someone who likes to think of himself as the Everyman-whisperer, he can’t see how Americans plainly suffer in our age of vast inequality, hypercapitalism and unaccountable tech oligarchs. No, he thinks that’s what democracy is.
Looking forward to a Sanders presidency, one that more closely aligns with real democracy than the special-interest versus wage-slave welfare state we have now. Also looking forward to a time when Brooks has to pay more taxes and his opinions become outdated and irrelevant
4
First, this is article is not simply more heat than light. If you want to denounce Sanders, have the intellectual integrity to address his actions that indicate this kind of authoritarian rule. Instead you simply engage in name-calling. Second, your account insinuates that if on the left either one is a liberal or not once again suggests anyone who is a progressive is not. That's offensive. (In this I'm not talking about Bernie Sanders.). Third and most offensive, your term "slave-states" for the Soviet Union is appalling in its own right. It did not regularly deny citizenship nor engage in mass rape. It was a horrible, murderous regime under Stalin, corrupt thereafter; but to call it a "slave state" obscures what it was, diminishes the centuries-long atrocities of slavery whose effects this country has not fully understood, and it's the kind of sensationalism that may help you get readers is shameful in how you've done it.
Trump v Sanders is the equivalent of Mussolini v FDR. If that choice is difficult for you, I don't know what to say.
1
Thank you for offering an eloquent voice for my naive thoughts. Given the problem of President Trump, are we to favor an Eastern Front solution, or a Western Front solution? I am with Eisenhower a-l-l---t-h-e---w-a-y.
1
So David will sit this one out. Consider it Half a vote for trump. How perfect. On such compromises fascism takes permanent hold. So much for the thoughtful conservative. The man has forfeited all claim to any remaining moral integrity or intelligence.
Imagine an America where anti-populist oligarchy apologist corporate stooges no longer have a legitimate journalistic platform to sow lies of desperation trying to maintain their power. We're almost there. Imagine this wealthy white man having to pay his fair share of taxes or maybe even having to work a job that actually benefits the people. We're almost there. Imagine the justice of dismantling and rebuilding the DNC from the ground up and kicking to the curb all of the mobsters and their cronies infesting it. We're almost there.
I'll vote for Bernie instead of Trump.
Not surprised that you have decided you can’t participate in helping rid us of trump. I remember when you were in The News Hour almost in tears about how Bush responded to Hurricane Katrina and were done with the Republicans. The next week, you were a republican again. And you still are.
This From the Man who supported GW Bush, the Iraq war, Afghanistan invasion, and possibly Trump. David please keep your advice to yourself. We have seen the results of your choices the 2008 economic melt down a 30 year war with no end in sight, Iran in control of the Middle East. Heath care is a disaster. Please lets see what going in a different direction might take us.
Chuck From Ohio
The millennials will turn out in large numbers/ and so will those who are terrified of Bernie’s Democratic Socialism and want to crush it
Reading these comments,on both sides, is depressing.
1
I really do not care what you think. Your ideology has past you by. You think the public doesn't know the system is rigged. Whatever happened to the Trillion of dollars that companies left overseas so not to pay Federal taxes. They got a hand out from the government to bring it back. They didn't use their money for R&D or to invest in their future, so you want to place your future in the hands of corporate culture. And then this week the Market goes down over illogical fears of the future, so gains are wipped out. You Republicans want the government to hand out money when the market isnt fair to the corporations, Bailouts of the Airline and Car industries. Your economic invisible hand has never been tested because in the end you all turn Corporate Socialists.
So much for "Vote Blue no matter who." The elites show their true colors.
I watch you every Friday on PBS News. As a Republican, you struggle with not supporting trump.You really, really have a hard time supporting Democrats. But you're smarter than this. If trump wins in November, the survival of our country as we've known it, is clearly at stake.
"And then they came for the op-ed writers in the New York Times, but I said nothing because they just came to tell him to get a clue."
"Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
-B.Dylan
3
Yes, Bernie was a fan of the Sandinistas. Let's remind Mr. Brooks of who ruled Nicaragua before them. That would be the Somoza family. They held the presidency for 30 years and amassed half a billion dollars while the rest of the country lived in abject poverty. And of course people like Brooks and his hero, Reagan, cheered them on as stalwart anticommunists. Should we really care whether or not he likes Bernie?
3
David, There is class war. On the part of the wealthy it is an unnecessary habit. As a habit it is extremely destructive. I'm tired of it. I'm sick of Mitch McConnell & Trump.
The struggle now is for the control of the US Treasury. The US Treasury has the fiat power to pay for Education & Defense. Healthcare Is Defense.
A Sanders Warren ticket would be unbeatable. No other ticket is going to be as competitive. I hazard to say that any other ticket will be as risky and likely to lose as was the Clinton Unit II & Tim Kaine ticket was.
Further no other ticket will secure for us, the majority the control of the US Treasury that has been long now handed over to the banks and the wealthy.
I am not surprised that you are so afraid of Bernie Sanders. I heard Anand Giridharadas Time Magazine's editor at large describe persons in your category as suffering from "Cold War Trauma."
I simply do not see in Sanders any sort of Stalinist characteristics.
I see a man who knows what side of the class war he is on, and what it is going to take to win it.
1
Obama spoke favorably about Cuban education and they're health system .
Mr. Brooks does it follow that you would make the same unsubstantiated claims about him.
Is it possible that you don't know what Democratic Socialism means or has your PTSD like rant made it impossible for you to think clearly about either a real democracy or Socialism?
david brooks is a conservative republican who has criticized liberalism reflexively, as a job, for decades
So sanctimonious. "To sympathize with these revolutions in the 1920s was acceptable"... so 40 and 60 years before the Sandinistas and Cuban revolution existed? I assume you supported the American revolution, even after the recorded horrors of that and the French revolution? You support Reagan even knowing he illegally funded right wing death squads in Nicaragua to oppose and overthrow the democratically elected Sandinistas. W after illegal war and torture, the deaths of hundreds of thousands, displacement of millions. Clinton after he turned the US into planet prison for black, brown, and all poor people. Johnson and Nixon for two million dead Vietnamese. Teddy Roosevelt after killing hundreds of thousands of Phillipinos. The US for continent wide genocide of its first peoples and the brutal torture and enslavement of millions of African people whose ancestors are still being murdered indiscriminately in the streets by police who are exhonerated time and time again a campaign of terror over our entire history. Or a country that causes deaths of tens of thousands of its citizens annually by refusing to take on moral obligation of caring for it's citizens' medical needs as a whole so a minority can live like emperors. So yes, I don't have a simplistic and jingoistic view of our history and current reality. Study how Sanders governed in Burlington, not a wild eyed radical at all. So yes, I will vote for Bernie, with pride and hope, thank you.
1
Bernie has been elected and re-elected in Vermont for 40 years. Vermont is a largely rural, conservative state. Vermonters are not cult followers or wild lefties. All the evidence shows that in Vermont and in the Senate, Bernie was and is a responsible, intelligent public servant. Okay, I'm going to come right out and say it. When Obama ran for office a deep bed of unconscious racism was exposed that Americans pretended didn't exist. I think what we're seeing here is an equally subconscious anti-semitism that's always been deep in the US collective psyche. Obama was the first A-A president. If elected, Bernie will be the first Jewish president. I think a lot of people have a problem with that, though they'll never admit it.
1
This is what Democratic Party voter suppression looks like.
1
History has repeatedly demonstrated that democracies can vote their way into socialism, but they generally need to shoot their way out of it.
1
Like most Democrats, I've been waiting around for David Brooks to tell me who to vote for and not vote for.
"No, Not Sanders, Not Ever", said the frightened Trump supporter.
You said it early on: once the choices begin with "moral rot" the debate is over.
Well said. Agree with you 100%
The single initiative most associated with Sanders is universal healthcare. Truman was the first to suggest this. Is this where we’ve come? The moderate columnist for the liberal NY Times decries Truman Democrats. Hmmm . . .
Then do your part and help Elizabeth Warren make progress on her campaign.
Has David written a single piece that didn't mention Sanders in the past year? Each one gets a little more tenuous, and now, finally, he's openly comparing Sanders to Stalin. This sort of reactionary strawmanning didn't look good on MSNBC last week, and it certainly doesn't look good now.
David is obviously a extremist right-wing pundit. Why should I care at all about his views on the Democratic primary?
You said it, David Brooks.
Thank you for speaking for us.
It's going to be okay David --I remember when you were also the last person on earth to acknowledge the folly of invading Iraq.
Brooks is out of touch with reality. 62 percent of bankruptcies due to medical issues. What say you Mr. Brooks? This happens in no other Western Country. Explain!
A great sidebar to Bernie is that he’s helped reveal who you truly are Mr Brooks - a very comfortable member of society who is living in no pain and is quite pleased with the stays quo. That is the clear underbelly of near every piece you write. Shame.
Mr. Brooks, if you believe in the checks and balances of the constitution, your premises are incorrect. If you support the Trump autocracy, the country is doomed.
I would have never guessed David Brooks might vote Democrat regardless of the nominee
1
It's funny watching you Republicans look for any excuse to support Trump. I haven't seen anything from Sanders that shows he does not support the rule of law.
If you believe in our institutions. If you believe in the rule of law. There is only one clear choice.
Shame on you Brooks!
David Brooks writing a column attacking Bernie Sanders is the best thing that could happen to the Bernie Sanders campaign.
2
For three years Mr. Brooks has been screaming on top of his lungs that "Elites" were out of touch with Trump Supporters and only if they had listened to what these poor souls had to say. But the moment the next election comes around the corner, Mr. Brooks, the real elite, decides that he will not listen to Bernie supporters but just assume the worst. Yeah right. Bernie is Stalin. Great Analysis genius. Thanks a bunch for your insight.
Ahh...the find-old-quotes trick. Let's remember that Brooks is a Republican who happens not to like Trump.
Dear Mr. Brooks:
Go ahead and vote for Trump in November. And please spare us this phony soul searching.
If you can't tell the difference between Trump and Sanders, then Trump is definitely your candidate.
David Brooks:
"Am I out of touch? No, it is the young people who are wrong."
Seriously, David?? You are suggesting that Sanders is unacceptable for suggesting that communist regimes have occasionally done some things that were good. That’s called being honest.
Trump accepted Russian help to get elected and has done everything he can to isolate America and destroy our alliances. He couldn’t have done more to accommodate Putin if he had been taking direct orders, which remains a possibility.
Trumps exchanged love letters with Kim Jung Un, looked the other way as North Korea has tested new weapons and betrayed our Kurdish allies, yet you’re more worried that Sanders thinks Castro tackling illiteracy in Cuba is worrisome.
Get real. We have a criminal in the White House in real time. He’s extorting allies to conduct sham investigations of Biden, but you’re worried that Sanders thinks universal healthcare is a good thing.
Honestly, this is beneath you.
Dear Mr. Brooks: well I guess you like the idea Social Security
and Medicare and all the security net laws that started with
FDR....; well now that is just what Bernie Sanders is all about
and just like FDR (whom you, Mr. Brooks would say ...hmmmm
well FDR was necessary to solve the depression brought on
by the stock market crash in 1929; well now hmm guess what's happening....the stock market is looking not so great
now....and there is a terrible income problem;
So Bernie might just have some pretty good ideas about
evening out the playing field....and I don't think he is unlike
FDR in his thinking ….; so re think your characterization of
Bernie....because Bernie is a lot like Franklin as well as
Eleanor....just doesn't sound as patrician as those former
Democrats who have a compassionate social conscience.
Think again Brooks....think like Eleanor and Franklin.
1
Hey Brooks why don't you convince Romney and Kasich to run only in Utah and Ohio as independents, in order to throw race into House's
Unless you're a Democrat now, who cares what you think about the Democratic Primary.
For the most part I agree with Mr. Brooks, although I think his reference to the soviet purges in a critique of Mr. Sander is a bit hysterical. I differ in one large respect. Mr. Trump is a despicable criminal who is demonstratively harming this country. I must therefore vote for anyone who is better than that. This, of course, includes Mr. Sanders.
So you'd rather vote for Trump, who is almost certainly controlled by the authoritarian leader of formerly Communist Russia. David Brooks, you shock me.
Mr. Brooks: I don't understand how you can support someone who lied about her ethnicity to get a job at Harvard. Not only did she reveal herself to be consumed by moral rot, she stole a position from someone with genuine qualifications. This is unacceptable to the American people and is why Warren's candicy is dead.
This article could’ve been written in seven words:
I’m very fond of the status quo.
1
I am probably like a lot of the readers commenting today - I doubt they did more than skim your column to get to the end exactly as i did - because whatever 'back-to-my-roots-david-brooks-intellectual honesty' you are pushing is flawed in classic Brooks style, i.e., 'here's my argument but ignore the facts and ideas that I have left out' because on the debate stage winning the argument is what matters and reality or consequences do not matter in the least. A carefully chosen recitation of some details, some history, some statements & speeches - easy to do with today's digital databases but not always worth the electricity used.
Undoubtedly the most pompous and irresponsible editorial you have ever penned - overly and apparently intellectual in the extreme to reach a dangerous conclusion in a public forum where you have an obligation to the greater community good (of which you so often like to pontificate and exhort the rest of us to abide). And for what purpose really? So that you can sleep at night with your Intellectual Consistency and Allegiance to Principles and Ideas still intact? Have you not been watching the shredding of every moral and ethical value approaching the Good and the Just for the last three years by an unchained narcissist created by a Koch-funded half-century of undermining every truly democratic institution in the American playbook?
"Liberalism celebrates certain values: reasonableness, conversation, compassion, tolerance, intellectual humility and optimism."
This reads like St. Paul's paean on love. Which Christian virtue should be displayed by the GOP. the party of "christians." And is not, rather the antithesis.
Mr. Brooks, you seem to have fallen into the same frame as too many of your brethren: sacrificial virtue must be displayed by your enemy; it's OK for our side to lie, cheat, steal, demonize, slander ...
America is an out-of-control locomotive, and your concerned about the weather.
To me you lost any credibility when you said you have to think hard to choose between Trump and Sanders.
1
Thank you for an alternate view of Bernie Sanders. I hope readers will give Bloomberg a chance. To a great extent he is viewed as the opposite of a liberal candidate who is not seeking to help average citizens, but many of his past results say the opposite, except for "stop and frisk". ... https://lstrn.us/3c4pK8w
David, nobody believes in classical liberalism anymore. The university professors who believed in liberalism have been utterly destroyed and driven out of academia by the multicultural, feminist, critical race theory deconstructionists.
Until this new illiberal leftism is crushed completely, classical, rational liberalism will remain absent from the public sphere.
Trump is not ideal, but he is NOT a dictator, and he’s our last chance and shaming and humiliating the new left into submission.
Read this article and then tune into PBS for the actual facts. This Election requires well researched effort and the facts, less panic and hyperbole. PBS is what parents entrust to learning children and it should be the number one place for information minus horrific commercial bend of which this article is reminiscent.
40% of Americans don’t have $400 in the bank for an emergency. Mr Brooks, try living off Uber and Walmart wages for a year. Then I’ll be interested in your opinions on the Democratic Party.
1
"No, Not Sanders, Not Ever"?
Did I miss your "No, Not Trump, Not Ever" column, Mr Brooks?
All your qualification about *your* anointing vote and all your equivocation about coming flat-out against the "moral" rot, utter corruption, and anti-democracy of Trump and his gang is sophistical contortion worthy of Gumby, even among self-styled conservative or "traditional" pundits.
Sorry to sound annoyed, but readers have gotten fed up with all this dissimulating rhetoric and sophistry! (At least this reader has.) You're either FOR Trump and all his ill-doings at this point or you're not. It's that simple at this point? Which is it? Try addressing this question like George Orwell might -- clearly and directly! -- not the sophistical Protagoras.
And while I'm at it why all the name-calling (again!) about "liberalism"? We're talking about democracy, pure and simple. No need for the conservative bogey-man labeling, please!
And your blithe assertion that "culture is more important than politics" utterly ignores the key point about democracy and basic integrity! A respect for democracy and a fundamental personal integrity are what "politics" are all about at its most fundamental level.
How can you possibly opine in support of a candidate (not to mention a president) who's utterly deficient in terms of respect for democracy or basic integrity? Talk about "moral rot" looming its ugly head.
4
Of course he's not a liberal. That's why people like him. If the Times is going to keep running these anti-Sanders pieces it would behoove them to have a basic understanding of his political appeal.
Mr. Brooks—
Since your William F. Buckley conservative world has caved-in so completely—
Perhaps you should return to your Greenwich Village roots and begin anew. It's a different era, Mr. Brooks. Like Joe Biden, you're living in the past.
3
It's interesting to see a self-claimed Democrat who doesn't believe in democracy.
First off, Mr. Brooks, my father fled the Bolsheviks; his brother-in-law was one of Stalin's victims. That said, you are stuck in the past. The issue this year is 4 more years of racist, xenophobic, homophobic, environmentally destructive and unconstitutional rule by a corrupt crook and his accomplices. The recent court decision allowing ICE to play target practice on Mexican kids, is every bit as evil as Stalin's purges. We are not involved in a polite game of cribbage here. The occupant in the WH thinks he can simply change how Congressional appropriations are spent on his whim and the 'packed' SCOTUS will back him. The GOP has said off the record that they depend on suppressing the votes of the poor and non-whites to retain power while when they don't like what duly elected legislators wish to pass they leave for Idaho.
As to fear of socialism, had FDR not dabbled in socialist projects such as TVA, Bonneville etc, rural parts of the US would still be without electricity as they are without broadband--because capitalism doesn't work.
I should add that having been born with a pre-existing retinal disease, the ONLY medical coverage I have ever been able to obtain was Medicaid before ageing into Medicare. Only Bernie (maybe Warren) understand the necessity of Medicare for all.
We don't have a multi party parliamentary system, you only get two very ugly patchwork choices. If you don't vote against the GOP, you acquiesce to evil
1
Not pulling the level for Sanders means pulling it for Trump. And this article is just as bloviating as Sanders is.
So is it “democratic liberalism” that we have to thank for giving us wealth inequality that is greater than Brazil’s?
Mr. Brooks, when the coronavirus has run its course, take a little trip to Scandinavia. It's a little north of England. There you will find thriving socialist nations with high taxes and even higher social services. And they haven't killed a lot of people for many, many centuries. You might even like them.
Hey David, remember 4 years ago when you realized you were out of touch with the average American and said that you were going to spend some time trying to understand the forces that got Trump elected?
Did you ever get around to that?
6
It’s feels like darkness at noon. There is no middle. And no place to run.
David. Your Cold War mindset in 2020 is about as relevant as WWI trench war tactics were during the days of containment.
Sanders is not a communist, he's a humanist. He believes in collective well-being, not the end of markets. Democratic socialism and liberalism are basically the same, one just has a few more safety nets baked in. Broad brush painting is dangerous, you know that.
Have a heart, bro.
2
David Brooks: Bernie is bad because he viewed Castro's legacy in shades of gray instead of black and white!
Also David Brooks: Bernie is bad because his worldview is black and white and he doesn't see shades of gray!
1
When Bernie was asked about these comments he specifically denounced the authoritarian nature of this regimes. Kind of makes this whole article irrelevant. Before writing op-eds, try reading the actual news.
1
Sanders is not my pick but seriously you would be okay with another 4 years of Trump?
"Now I have to decide if I’d support Bernie Sanders over Trump."
Mr Brooks: Please reconsider voting for Trump..
David
You don't have to put on the red hat
Those days are over
You don't have to sell your soul to the Right
David
You don't have to wear that hat tonight
Walk Wall Street for money
You don't care if it's wrong or if it's Right
Yes, Sanders will become POTUS 46
David you also said tump would never make it out of the primaries; week after week. Then you changed to he would never be elected president. I love you, but your credibility has a track record.
Liberalism as construed by Brooks mostly demands the rabble be grateful for the crumbs trickled down to them by their overlords, to whom D. Brooks remains a loyal lapdog messenger.
He knows who butters his bread, must assure himself by tripe such as this of a financially comfortable dotage in Trumpistan.
4
Oh, he's a liberal all right. A great unifier of souls kindred, broken yet unbowed.
As a member of what Mayor Pete calls "the nostalgia of the 60's", I'm actually shocked that Bernie has managed to bundle the liberal agenda of the period, plop it into the airwaves for a new generation and tell them, let's finish the job.
What Mayor Pete has relegated to the ashes of nostalgia is the mother's milk of young (and old) liberals everywhere. Oddly enough, he's also managed to grab old hipsters, the gay community, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, disenfranchised Dems who held their nose and voted for either Trump or Hillary and Republicans ashamed to be associated with you-know-who.
Its the economy stupid. The economics of exhaustion without compensation as opposed to the non-tax paying megaliths far from the plow. He's defined the axis, and around it those who see now revolve. A great unifier. No wonder the market is being sucked lower and lower down the tube. Its time to cash out. The people are coming like Godzilla from beneath a turbulent sea.
On March 1st. Bernie's Los Angeles rally will feature Dick Van Dyke and Public Enemy. If you can't see liberalism and unification in that lineup...you must be a Republicrat or some other kind of political hydra.
3
Full disclosure...
I voted for Bernie in 2016 and then stayed home confident that Hillary will get her nomination.
Who knew, not even the best of the best could off predicted this complete 2016 Armageddon.
Being strong progressive, I'm still reluctant to dismiss Bloomberg.
Watching his interview with Kasie Hunt and being fully aware of his not such clean record on many issue that I deeply care about a.k.a. racial injustice, sexism, his republican affinity, him not endorsing Obama instead supporting Bush at 2004 RNC convention...
Nevertheless his obscene fortune, does presents a stark contrast of a self-made, talented, extremely savvy manager/ businessman vs. inherited wealth being wipe out in multiple bankruptcy by the fake, filled with foreign money character in a WH.
Also very important how do we think he can handle a pandemic crisis. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/what-democrats-said-about-coronavirus-outbreak-at-the-debate.html
"Michael Bloomberg was the first to bring up the crisis, unprompted, in order to raise alarm about President Trump’s lack of preparation.
“There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded the CDC.”
Michael Bloomberg's charity donates $50m to fight opioid crisis...
So if we as a nation believe that it's the billionaire election time, let's at least vote for the real one!
Once again, no matter what happens we will all unite around the nominee.
Paper ballots should be the key!!!
3
Full disclosure...I voted for Bernie in 2016 and then stayed home confident that Hillary will get her nomination.
Who knew, not even the best of the best could off predicted this complete 2016 Armageddon.
Being strong progressive, I'm still reluctant to dismiss Bloomberg.
Watching his interview with Kasie Hunt and being fully aware of his not such clean record on many issue that I deeply care about a.k.a. racial injustice, sexism, his republican affinity, him not endorsing Obama instead supporting Bush at 2004 RNC convention...
Nevertheless his obscene fortune, does presents a stark contrast of a self-made, talented, extremely savvy manager/ businessman vs. inherited wealth being wipe out in multiple bankruptcy by the fake, filled with foreign money character in a WH.
Also, very important how do we think he can handle a pandemic crisis. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/what-democrats-said-about-coronavirus-outbreak-at-the-debate.html
Michael Bloomberg was the first to bring up the crisis, unprompted, in order to raise alarm about President Trump’s lack of preparation. “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded the CDC.
”Michael Bloomberg's charity donates $50m to fight opioid crisis...
So if we as a nation believe that it's the billionaire election time, let's at least vote for the real one!
Once again, no matter what happens we will all unite around the nominee.
Paper ballots should be the key!!!
1
Sanders' only redeeming quality is that Democrats won't put up with the kind of erosion of our Democracy Republicans put up with under Trump. Our Democratic representatives in Congress would keep him in line.
Totally disagree.
The fear of anything that has a slight scent of “social” or even “socialism” seems to be sitting deep in too many US Americans.
And now people think a President Sanders would turn the US into a socialist nightmare - assuming that the Democratic Party would abandon work completely and simply become a “President Fan Club” just like the GOP did? No way!
Instead of tearing into a possibly successful candidate with a real chance to bring down Trump all Dems need to stop delivering ammunition to the Trump campaign. Democrats: See who comes out of Super Tuesday as the best candidate, unite behind that person and declare him/ her your candidate. Then ALL OF YOU CURRENT CANDIDATES start working the swing states with a message of unity.
And stop hammering Sanders.
3
Sanders is being accused of being an illiberal absolutist, the left wing mirror image of Trump. So isn’t it odd that he is being attacked for trying to make the subtle point that even a repressive regime like Cuba can deliver quality education and healthcare to all its citizens, while an open, free country like ours has failed to do so? It is Brooks and his ilk that view the world in black and white. While Sanders categorically condemns dictatorships, he asks a simple question: can we not make healthcare and education universal and still remain a free country? Apparently Brooks doesn’t believe we can. Sanders and his voters know it can and must be done.
9
A poet from St. Cloud penned the words, "Capitalism is loss of the heart. Socialism is loss of the soul". At best, your opinion strikes me as analogous to this statement, although I disagree that Bernie represents the extreme he is so often characterized as.
Mis-characterization aside, I struggle to understand why the statement is worth considering in this context though. The story is not why extremes are bad (no offense, but... duh), but why the culture and political structure of America has pushed citizens to lose patience with moderation. We've rotted our core and sit here fascinated by an ouroboros of analysis that we perform on the edges instead of trying to understand how we got here. As far as I'm concerned, your words are a part of the problem.
2
Fear not. Super delegates won't let Bernie win the nomination, and a lot of voters will stay home (again).
I can't remove the image shown on the wikipedia page of countries that have universal health care and countries that don't.
It's literally parts of Africa, a handful of countries in Asia and the U.S. left on the map as red (Countries without free or universal healthcare).
Have a look for yourself - I really don't see what the U.S. has to lose at this stage. Especially in the face of continued life expectancy declines in a country that spends the most on healthcare anywhere in the world.
"After 2010, US life expectancy plateaued and in 2014 it began reversing, dropping for three consecutive years -- from 78.9 years in 2014, to 78.6 in 2017. This is despite the US spending the most on health care per capita than any other country in the world."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care
6
Commenters savaging Mr. Books might keep in mind Brooks represents the most moderate voice of Republicans. In other words its people like Brooks or those slightly to his right that are essential for any democratic victory in a general election. Without them Sanders or any Dem. doesn't have a prayer. So progressive folks might stop lashing Brooks and figure out how to get his vote.
6
Quite curious that Mr. Brooks speculates Mr. Sanders would move the country towards authoritarianism while ignoring the fact that Mr. Trump is indeed moving the country towards authoritarianism. Apparently, for Mr. Brooks, fears weigh more than facts.
8
Mr. Brooks, if Sanders could aspire to being a mafia boss autocrat then your extreme fears might be realized. The reality is that congress stands too, and if the senate is not compromised (ahem) we won't have madness pushed down our throats. We need a leader who advocates for what is right for the people and the nation and doesn't faint from the task. If we elect someone like that and let the legislature do its job too we'll be fine.
2
NO, Not Trump again, Not Ever
3
Agree. 1000%.
2
Poor David Brooks. Getting apoplectic over Sanders. Honestly could he be any more predictable? Give us some original analysis, Mr. Brooks. Sadly you’re incapable of that.
3
Give me a break. Brooks isn't concerned about liberalism; he's its enemy.
4
Regardless of his politics or his history, Sanders represents the naive yet stubborn suicide complex that Democrats can't seem to avoid. Meanwhile, back at the Oval, the Trump kakistocracy is drooling with delight over how they're going to finish their fiendish task of slaughtering then dismembering our democracy. What a sham. What a waste. What a catastrophe.
2
Again, out-of-touch, corporate right-wing-media balderdash!!
I've traveled extensively thru China over the past 20-years, seen and admired their accomplishments in many areas including becoming if not the biggest, certainly a very solid second position world economy.
Now does this make me a Communist? NO ... Nor does it make Bernie Sanders, as an espoused 'democratic solialist' one either!!
The more Mr. Brooks opens his slanted point-of-view to scrutiny, the more we see what a hollow, bankrupt fallacy he and his elk represent!!!
3
When the Money gets nervous, Brooks shivers for them.
6
So you can't support a democratic socialist over a Putin loving dictator. That is very sad.
4
This emotional screed is most unbecoming for the paper of record, and rather unhelpful. Nonetheless, it does give us insight into a man who has come to realize he has championed a political economic cult totally and irreversibly on the wrong side of morality.
3
Republicans like Mr. Brooks will be wandering in the desert forever or until a moderate Democrat gets elected and parts the Red Sea of Maga Mad Hatters and lets them pass. I don't remember Mr. Brooks helping moderate Democrats much over the years. Now he wants us to help him. He'd better stock up on water and buy a camel.
3
Republican likes Warren fears Sanders. Shocking.
2
This guy has always been a right-wing propagandist masked as a liberal-conservative sort of centrist! LOL
2
You are a textbook example of what Jean Paul Sartre called “bad faith.” What is the moral case for refusing to make a choice and accept the consequences? There is none. Your article is morally bankrupt.
2
Looks like you got your talking points from the Republican critics of Roosevelt in the 1930s. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2009/sep/22/barack-obama/obama-roosevelt-socialist-communist/
2
Please David--be quiet. You have the ability to do so much damage. I will look back to this should the worst happen. How about a long vacation David??
2
This is hysterical, incoherent, and dissembling. Sanders pointed out, as arch 'liberal' Obama did, that the Cuban revolution delivered real material benefits to Cubans but at the cost of civil liberties. Brooks goes from there to Stalin wiping out 20 million people. He later boldly claims that liberalism hates cruelty! I doubt Brooks would deny that Clinton & Obama qualify as his idea of liberal. Yet both doubled down on absolute cruelty, Clinton intentionally slaughtered countless thousands of Iraqi children in his campaign of sanctions in Iraq while Obama built out an impressive drone terror campaign against some of the most destitute and powerless populations on planet earth. And he flew cover for the torture program, no deep state conspiracy to take down patriots there!
Pity Sanders doesn't answer critics of his positions with their own positions, Batista or Castro, Mister Brooks? Or how about Samoza and the contras over the Sandinistas (who were freely elected). That's the appropriate choice, not the opportunistic and childishly idiotic idea that the Cuban revolutionaries were choosing between dictatorship and western democracy.
The historical facts are that the USA (and Brooks is on the record countless times backing this up) supports dictatorships who don't provide public heath care but tries to kill those who do. 2 of the 3 top recipients of our aid are Colombia and Egypt, I don't see Brooks ciritcising liberals for supporting those guys!
4
yeah I don't know David he's the only one that really faces the fact that there's this huge disparity of wealth in this country. what possible solution do you all have? and btw he's not a commie...
The . . . regimes had already slaughtered 20 million people through things like mass executions and intentional famines. Those regimes were slave states. They enslaved whole peoples and took away the right to say what they wanted, live where they wanted and harvest the fruits of their labor.
Excuse me, are you talking about the Soviets or the sainted 18th Century Founders of Classical Liberalism and Modern Industrial Sociaty?
1
Well, tell us how you really feel, David. I mean, your editorial board has already endorsed (half-heartedly but still) Warren and Klobuchar. Doesn't that say something? Why don't you get behind one of those two instead of rage against the non-machine, Sanders?
Thanks for this column, David Brooks. Very woke.
Dude, you were reactionary under Bush. The nice manner just cover how small minded you are, under the clock of tolerance for one thing only - the prosperity gospel of 1950s America.
The world has moved on. It did not carry you with it.
David, Sanders builds ON democratic liberalism. He's one that can put some teeth into defending democracy--unlike too many schoolmarm-type pansies (no reference to sexual orientation meant) who haven't had the guts to call out liars and other villains for FAR too long!! How can Bernie be against democracy when everything he promulgates extends democracy (and you MUST know democracy is still a work in progress) futher than it's ever been extended before?
2
You think democratic liberalism is a GOOD thing? You're deluded about what liberalism is as you are about Bernie and what he stands for.
Stop. Just stop David Brooks. You are a conservative republican. In fact, you are a callous conservative republican who once suggested the LGBT community should have just sat on their hands and waited until "society" decided to give them marriage equity. Indeed, you stated that the Supreme Court ruling that finally granted marriage equity was a mistake. We all understand that you have absolutely no concern for the working poor of this country and the fact that income disparity in this country is greater today than it has been since you and I have been alive. Here is the thing David, we don't care what you think. The last thing that anyone wants or needs to hear from a right-wing conservative republican right now is your opinion on who we should vote for in the democratic primary. On top of that is is beyond comical that you have the audacity to actually talk about the "end of liberalism" when every position you hold is conservative in nature and anti-liberal to start with. So please, David Brooks, spare us your inane republican opinions. Despite you not being a supporter of Trump, you most certainly did play a role in unleashing him on this country. Due to this fact your opinions on presidential elections no longer have any relevance.
1
I suppose when you can't argue with policy you have to fall back on pot shots like "Democratic Socialism is USSR era Communism". Which is a literal, blatant lie.
Stop hurting America.
2
“Slave regime”????
Which country has the largest percent of its population locked up — in for-profit prisons — purely for the reason that they are not white???? (Oh and also to profit from their slavery, ahem)
Clean your own house, David, before pointing fingers elsewhere.
The NYT has been mocking China ever since the advent of SARS 2, finding every way possible to blow its bullhorn over the imminent fall of Communism due to its supposedly inept handling of the burgeoning pandemic......
And yet.
Who look like the fools now?????
Where’s the info in the Uas about who’s actively infected?
It doesn’t exist. According to the CDC we have, miracle of miracles, one “community spread” case, identified, coincidentally, in California, right before Super Tuesday.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the sole mission of the CDC under the Trump Administration is voter suppression.
Pot calling kettle black, in every way you can imagine, David!
I look forward to the Sanders Presidency.
2
David where were you when Limbaugh and Ailes held the airwaves unchallenged in their endless defenestration of liberalism.
Sanders is on you and yours.
1
David Brooks is highly opinionated and often wrong. Take this editorial with 2 grains of salt.
1
To use Brooks logic, here is a trip down memory lane. If he was against the socialist Sandinistas then therefore he supported the Contras. Mr.BRooks supported this and continues to cheerlead for this-
https://nyti.ms/29puqKW
Listening to Sanders on Castro reminds me of the line:
And Mussolini got the trains to run on time.
look up 'privilege' in a dictionary and there's a picture of david
1
Bernie is Trump! He divides using fear and lies. He's just selling his cynical, calculated snake oil to a different market.
2
You are totally incorrect on your simplistic analysis of Nicaragua. Somoza was already killing his own people and annihilating civil liberties. The Contras were a very bad thing.
You lost me at "... vote for Trump"
1
Anyone over Trump - always.
1
I want David Brooks for president!
Lol - oh my god, no! He replaces liberal Democrats? The horror! Liberal Democrats have sold us all out to their corporate donors. Good riddance.
You know what, David? Just stop talking about Democratic politics. No one cares about your opinions on that topic. You are a Republican. Regardless of how much you profess to dislike Trump, you've been part of the movement that led to his presidency. As such, you have forfeited the right to toss out advice to Democrats. You, sir, are part of the problem. You don't get a say in the solution.
If you want to enter the conversation again, your readers deserve a full, detailed mea culpa. Take responsibility. Admit you helped lead the way to Trump's overthrow of the Republicans. Man up, David. Then maybe we'll listen again.
2
Bottom line: I just don't believe you when you cite liberalism as the reason you cannot vote for Bernie.
Bernie has said he will do what he can as President to put forward Palestinian rights, including stopping Israeli aid if necessary to get it to stop being an apartheid nation.
Hugh
Fake almost-left/center David Brooks who has been bashing Trump for 3 years plus has apparently been stashed away and Conservative apologist OG David Brooks reappears. Your silly MAGA-worthy portrait of Bernie is laughable (and nope, I am not a Bernie Bro) , and your moral equivalence between Donald Trump, who never met a truth he could tolerate or a lie he didn't embrace, and Bernie Sanders, who has devoted his adult life to trying to better the human condition (regardless of whether one agrees or not with his specific bromides), is shameful.
Go ahead David. Pull your voting lever for some libertarian third party. President Goodbrain will thank you for it.
3
It's great to see that every time the NYT runs yet another Bernie hit piece, the reader pick comments are overwhelmingly clear-minded and rational in pointing out these bunkum arguments. This particular sample from Mr. Brooks is an egregiously bad take, the worst kind of the hot-take clickbait I've come to expect from this paper's opinion section. A friendly wave to all of you fellow humans out there who are unswayed by neoliberal polemics and confident that our govt. can and should serve its people better and improve living standards for all.
3
What do you care you, you are a Republican who loves only establishment Democrats who serve lobbyists
1
Wow the commenters are really socking it to David Brooks. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.
I assume Mr. Brooks is catering to his own class.
1
Every time I read Brooks it reinforces the idea that he’s a privileged neocon shmoe. This column is a classic example.
1
Is this what "trolling" is? Or what is the current terminology for making things up, drawing random conclusions and pandering to a demographic that doesn't exist? Does the Times have a preferences pane from which i can opt out of even seeing this turtlish looking fellow and be spared exposure to his nonsensical gyrations?
1
So, David Brooks, go waste your vote on Jill Stein, if you are so fearful of populism of the left. And incidentally, you are dead wrong about Sanders.
Imagine it's 2020 and you still look to David Brooks for guidance.
1
Are you serious Mr. Brooks? You live a life of privilege. And you are a Republican. Enough said.
3
The future is now, old man.
The Scandinavian countries were able to create their welfare states in part because their security was outsourced to the United States. The US does not have that advantage.
As to Sanders himself, I find it very troubling that he continues using his Jewish heritage to inoculate himself from criticism. The truth is, even if it seems harsh to say, Sanders is a Jew by accident of birth. He seems either ignorant or tone deaf to the history of the Jewish people and appears to have little understanding of Judaism.
What he is by conviction is something between a Communist and Socialist - in the manner Brookes’ sets out. The Israeli kibbutz he enjoys telling people that he worked at one summer was not a typical one. It was a rare Communist kibbutz whose hope and goal was to turn Israel into a satellite of the Soviet Union. It’s not a kibbutz you join accidentally if you wanted to be part of Israel’s great socialist experiment. It’s similar to Brookes’ description of Sanders wanting to undermine and replace the US economic system.
Sanders knee-jerk acceptance of anti-Israel propaganda makes sense since most if it originated in the Soviet Union of the 60s that he admires so much. And, of course, If Netanyahu is a “reactionary racist”, how would Sanders describe Abbas or the leaders of Hamas? That would be telling of his true feelings about Third World corrupt, undemocratic strongmen.
1
I normally hang on your every word David, I d so much enjoy your column, today is not one of those days. Your column is so full of inaccuracies and mischaracterizations as to be unreadable tripe, unfortunately 1500 characters does not allow me to refute your inane claims one by one, I would almost think you we told be your editor to write this it is so off base for you. Suffice it to say the true liberalism died in the seventies about the time Milton Friedman was introducing his new brand of winner take all economics through financial engineering and the dismantling of labor, accompanied by the dissolution of Smoot Hawley allowing the unabated printing of money therefore the ability to realize Friedmans agenda, takeover of the Middle Class using other people’s money. It has been a slog but what was cloaked in new Financial dogma has achieved that goal cheap money and financial engineering accompanied by deregulation by Bill Clinton has allowed the one percent to rake over America, what your version of liberalism does is nothing more than pretending to be so concerned over comparatively fringe issues whether gay rights, transgender bathrooms or immigration issues, although very important compared to robbing the middle class blind with the right hand while everyone is watching the left hand is hardly new, but never the less what both parties have done for fifty years. Bernie is an old fashioned Democrat not another poseur like we’ve these past decades, he’s the real deal.
5
No, Not Brooks, Not Ever.
Why is it so hard for Conservatives to employ analytical thought? Nuance? Why is it so hard to acknowledge that dictators sometimes do good things even if their overall regime is awful? The opposite is clearly true. The so-called "Good Guys" sometimes do awful things: Slavery, Tuskegee Syphilis, Vietnam, McCarthy, Crusades & child rape, Did I mention Slavery? Why is it so bad to say that Castro had a good education policy or that the USSR did good things for women in science? Why can't we learn about good things even if they were embedded in a bad government?
Mr. Brooks stated, "There is a specter haunting the world — corrosive populisms of right and left." (I'm mostly seeing corrosive right-wingers.) But even Erdogan isn't all bad. Even the ayatollahs have their good sides, especially when compared to the government they overthrew.
If Sanders were truly a communist, would he have been an active and elected representative for these past few decades? Working within the democratic system? His economic theory may bend socialist, but his political theory is solidly democratic.
Not to mention that we, the USofA, are full of socialist programs: firefighters, the military, the police... the bastions of conservatism are socialist programs! The problem is that America's true socialists, in the negative sense, are Conservatives. Corporate welfare? We subsidize private companies to suck carbon from public lands and sell it back to us for profit! The farm bill!
3
Sanders really is an idiot. Public sectors of mixed economies affordably tax everyone to fund projects and services to benefit all of the public. That is "socialism".
Oh, the irony…
"For a populist reality is white or black, friend or enemy. Facts that don’t fit the dogma are ignored."
That, plus a heavy dose of disingenuousness (along with a few outright factual errors), and you've got yourself a David Brooks op-ed.
3
Who are the leftist populists?
David Brooks, I’ve respected you for years and watch you every Friday on PBS...even though we don’t share views in many cases. But, you are so wrong in the premises in this op ed. I actually feel you/the NYT were irresponsible to publish it, particularly now. I don’t know if you create your own headlines..or if it’s a headline editor...but these words in particular were irresponsible.
3
No, Not Brooks, Not Ever.
1
Red Scare = David Brooks.
1
David Brooks is a clueless as Republicans if Bernie's spot on remarks regarding literacy, whether from Cuba, Nicaragua, or anywhere else as well as positions that counter the apartheid style that Israel has adopted against Palestine, and continuing to illegally occupy the Gaza Strip amount to anti-liberalism, much less democratic principles. He is conflating what he said, and Bernie is by no means an apologist for these govenments.
Pundits like David Brooks helped elect Donald Trump. Brooks is at it again.
1
So Brooks wants one to preach John Stuart Mill, John Locke to convert the followers of a real estate conman, serial liar ?!
- you know, I think Trump and his ilk are right - the 'elites' like Brooks really are out of touch.
I dont care if Bernie is Trotsky himself, I will vote for anyone, anything that can defeat this anti Christ in the White House.
2
Brooks calls himself a liberal?
When did he ever show even the slightest sign of liberalism in any of his columns?
The last three years he has pretended to distance himself from the now defunct Republican party, but in each new article this hypocritical side can be detected easily in all his fake liberal opinions.
Self criticism, is an unknown entity in his ever deflating universe.
2
He made one idiotic comment about Cuba and everyone freaks out. I think you may be overreacting. Sanders will have to deal with Congress no matter what he runs on, and at least we’d have a president who even acknowledges that there is a Congress.
...said the Republican.
David Brooks the Neo-Con again shows his true colors. The vast majority of atrocities including genocide in Guatemala and El Salvador were committed by rightwing fascists supported by the US and Israel and people like Elliot Abrams whom Mr. Brooks is friendly with. When will David Brooks account for this shameful association?
So Mr. Brooks, if the choice is between a flawed Bernie Sanders and a racist, misogynist, ignorant, venal, corrupt huckster Donald Trump- who will you choose? People turned against Hilary Clinton because she wasn't perfect.
I can't think of a better endorsement for Senator Sanders than the concern-troll flailings of Brooks here.
1
So ... assume Trump starts with the same base of 63 million votes, and Sanders starts with Clinton's 66 million ... Here's how Sanders uniquely affects the electorate
a) Sanders alone can capture the Green vote that went to Jill Stein ... Assume one million of the 1.4 million votes that went Green will go to Sanders in 2020, which puts Sanders over the top in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
b) Sanders has shown surprising appeal to Hispanic voters ... If he can match Obama's total of 71%, that will be an increase of 5% over Clinton in 2016 ... Hispanics constituted 11% of the electorate ... If they constitute the same 11% in 2020, Sanders could net another 700,000 votes, which could be determinative in flipping Arizona, Florida and possibly even Texas
c) And then the wild-card ... Sanders alone is the one Democrat who might have some degree of cross-over appeal to rank-and-file Trump voters ... Capturing even one percent of those voters would net Sanders 600,000 votes and result in a 1.2 million vote swing ... potentially determinative in Iowa, North Carolina, Florida again and the Maine CD that went for Trump ... Even if one percent of Clinton voters stay home (it's hard to imagine much, if any, Clinton-Trump cross-over), it's still a 600,000 vote net gain
So, in the final tally, Sanders brings in more than 68 million votes keeps Trump to 62 million & carries Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, the Maine CD and maybe Iowa, Arizona & North Carolina ... Go Bernie !
With the emergence of Sanders as the front-runner I notice almost nothing but negative coverage and opinion from the NYT. Combined with the recurrence of open plotting by the Democratic party establishment against him it looks like 2016 all over again. That’s what gave us our current president — handing the nomination to Hillary who now has the audacity to denigrate Sanders after she received the benefit of him being shafted by the party apparatchiks. If Sanders goes to the convention with a reasonable lead in delegates and is denied the nomination we’ll get another boring cookie-cutter candidate feeding from the same corporate trough with the result being four more years of President Trump.
3
Older white rich people have incredible, blinding privilege. It's so severe that they'd rather vote for Trump (for a second term, when everything is on the table, and nothing is hidden!) than vote for FDR's platform. Talk about selfish and narrow-minded, living in an elite bubble!
1
Oh please. Warren tried taking Sanders' positions on her own, but twist them into something the establishment could live with, and when that proved utterly unintelligible, she and her campaign slandered him. But you can vote for her, but not him?? I'm glad that this nonsensical view of so many "establishment" columnists is at least finally out in the open
1
Thank you Mr. Brooks.
I decided this week that I will not vote “ anyone but trump “ if the nominee is Sanders. My integrity and conscience won’t allow it, for all the reasons you mentioned. I’ll be sitting this one out if it’s Trump v Sanders., and I’ve voted in every election for the past 40 years.
1
i wish i could say i was remotely surprised.
“Liberalism is horrified by cruelty.” Exactly right. Bernie is horrified that in a country so rich we have denied healthcare as a basic human right to every citizen. This is cruelty, do you not get that, David Brooks?
Liberalism can see shades of grey. Exactly right. Bernie can see that even while condemning authoritarianism we can acknowledge some good things that happened like literacy and healthcare. Can you see shades of grey, David Brooks?
2
Look, Sanders had a HEART ATTACK, folks. He is NOT ELECTABLE by that fact alone. We can bicker on and on about issues, but THEY DO NOT MATTER.
Suppose someone told a homeless person that they would feed, clothe and shelter him and provide for his medical care. There would be no charge. However, that person would need to become a slave to his benefactor. Undoubtedly many people would accept the offer. Those are the same type of people who support Bernie Sanders. You may feel that health care (or housing or food) is a right. But nothing comes for free. If you want to surrender your liberty and your individual sovereignty, then Bernie is your guy.
I watch Brooks & Shields religiously each week on the News Hour, and respect David’s views, even though I’m more aligned politically with Shields. But you lost my respect today by advocating sitting out a Presidential election. Let me get this straight: If Sanders is the nominee against Trump, “you won’t pull the lever for either.” Shame on you, David Brooks, for advocating sitting out an election, when day after day, Trump continues to erode the very fabric of our democracy. Makes me wish we had compulsory voting, like in Australia, with financial penalties for sitting out an election.
2
Thanks, David Brooks, for one of the most helpful opinion pieces that the Bernie Sanders campaign could ever want. Your negative view provides an invaluable contrary indicator of how people should vote. For many of us, the basic principle is this: Whatever David Brooks thinks, think the opposite. He is not on our side.
Thanks again.
2
In the original Hebrew from which it is derived chutzpah means "insolence", "cheeky" or "audacity".
From a guy who helped pave the way for Trump, this commentary is chutzpah to the nth degree.
6
"He believes in revolutionary mass mobilization and, once an election has been won, rule by majoritarian domination." "...majoritarian domination." ??? Wow. What is the definition of "majoritarian domination," and where has it either been practiced, or in-practice, around the world? Or are we substituting "majoritarian domination" for 'populism' here? Read Dean Baker's article Mr. Brooks. You'll see the U.S. economy is to grow, conservatively, by 280 trillion dollars over the next decade. Some context please for Bernie's M4A proposal, please. No doubt Bernie would do well to guarantee M4A health-care implementation jobs (and healthcare benefits, of course) to those 1.9 million people who are currently working in the private, healthcare insurance industry now...need to work that one out. Yet it's all going towards a global welfare-state David; pick your horseman of the apocalypse, ride, rinse, and repeat with your 1% in denial as to the hidden externalities of the capitalist experiment. In the race for what's left, sharing is the best resource we have left. 'Domination by the majority' indeed. How revolutionary is that?
Kudos to Mr. Brooks for the pundit-engendered epiphany that's opened my eyes to liberalism's true meaning.
Reflecting on our Republic's origins, I now understand how that true liberalism gained "...power the traditional way: building coalitions, working within the constitutional system and crafting the sort of compromises you need in a complex pluralistic society," to engender the 3/5 Fifths Compromise, the Electoral College and other sterling exemplars of liberal government.
Thanks to Mr. Brooks, like Saul on the road to Tarsus I now see the light!
1
This writer got intimidated by a radical thought somewhere along the line, then made this unalterable decision to regard Bernie Sanders as 'bad', as in bad for America.
Freedom is created and made real by the freedom of thought, first and last. The executive branch has been taken by an autocrat. Now we have the open minded approach being expressed in the voice of Bernie Sanders offering us a chance to unite on a platform of new ideas—being torn down by this pundit because, why, a new approach is too radical for him? I don't know what Mr. Brooks is trying to make happen, but he gets in the way of getting the tyrant out by talking about Bernie as a "Not Ever". This is not the way to fight against the polarity created by Trumpism.
Now the pendelum swings from the radical right towards the left.
Get out of the way, Mr. David Brooks.
Open your mind.
Radical thought is about to save democracy.
Unite the Democratic Party. We have the numbers. We have more people. We will win.
6
"And yet every day we find more old quotes from Sanders apologizing for this sort of slave regime, whether in the Soviet Union, Cuba or Nicaragua."
Have you ever even met a mother raising children alone in the United States, working an awful night shift at a diner, and she still can't afford to take her kids to a doctor when they get sick?
Have you ever met a mother raising children alone in Cuba for whom that problem has never, ever existed?
I guess it depends on what your definition of "slave regime" is, Mr Brooks.
You and your ilk have had your time, and your say. Go Bernie.
2
And you obviously have never been to rural Cuba, and seen the misery of their people. Don’t be a sophist when making the comparison, but rather examine impacts on the general population
I agree with Mr. Brooks. Gandhi said a good means was a good end. By my lights, Trump and Sanders bank on the same means of polarization and unreasonableness, and for them, compromise is sinful. So, we will not get a good means, and most likely, not a good end. But in the final analysis, the US is not the kingdom I belong to. God's kingdom--his activity and lovely way of doing things--is ultimately not in trouble, but slowly unfolding in love and for love. Here, I am channeling Dallas Willard, Richard Rohr, NT Wright, and Mr. Brooks' Second Mountain.
1
The lesson of 20th Century political history is this: When given a choice between a populist fascist and anyone else, choose anyone else. If Brooks would not vote for Sanders over Trump then he is dead to humane society.
2
Brooks likes Trump better than Bernie, anyone wonder why? I don't.
1
Republicans are in no place to lecture Democrats on presidential nominees. They failed that test miserably, abandoning the "values" they sanctimoniously shouted for decades and now only servile minions.
3
Another a Republican trying to hijack the a Democrat’s pick for POTUS. David, you weren’t so effective in preserving the so called values and policies of your centrist brethren, I hardly think you are the go to guy for advice on our candidates. Your lack of relevance to your own party is the problem, Bernie has nothing to do with it.
3
Ever wonder what the lovechild of extreme privilege and a lack of empathy looks like? It's a person who signals that he'd support someone who puts other human beings in cages, encourages & emboldens white supremacists while constantly attacking & scapegoating the most vulnerable, perpetuates climate denial and opens up public lands to exploitation by big oil, keeps company with slithery characters such as Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, personifies corruption, etc. vs. a person who believes that healthcare and education are human rights.
34
Thank you, David Brooks, for reminding me why I will be voting for Sanders.
I will be voting in memory of Sam Wolfenstein, a witty, compassionate man and a brilliant mathematician who was fired from Yale as a "Communist" and ended up teaching high-school Math in Paris.
I will be voting in memory of Al Ottenheimer, actor, director and the founder of the world-renowned Seattle Repertory Theater, who was jailed as a "Communist" and ended up playing bit parts in New York.
I will be voting win memory of all the victims of your vicious, cowardly attacks, Mr. Brooks, past and present. So, I suspect, will many others.
62
@WOID Yes but if Bernie is not the candidate, will you (and other Bernie supporters) stay home? or will you vote against Trump?
There’s a reason there are “Bros” for Bernie but not other Dem candidates. Every totalitarian regime and strongman has a youth brigade that start out like this.
Brooks is right. What irony that a Jewish person might just become world’s most powerful strongman.
5
I have the solution everyone: The perfect balance, right in the middle : Vote for Michael Bloomberg come primary day, and like all of us here in NY, we promise, you will not regret it! Bloomberg was an amazing Mayor and will make a great President.
16
@Anthony L. This comment was paid for by Michael Bloomberg.
4
Don't worry Mr. Brooks. Trump will exploit the Corona virus to his authoritarian ends, postponing the election indefinitely as they'll say it's too dangerous to have people congregating in polling places. Same goes for protests — can't have 'em, sorry.
It's the crisis every dictator in waiting dreams of. On the other hand, if Bernie were president, we might have a health care system that could handle this, under the direction of actual doctors and scientists instead of big pharma lobbyists.
12
@gwr I voted for Hillary Obama Kerry Gore Clinton. I’m voting Trump this year. Why? Many positive reasons: Lowest African-American unemployment; lowest female unemployment; open dialogue with North Korea; moved American Embassy to Jerusalem; and many other reasons. But I’ve come to realize almost all Democrats will make any negative doomsday prediction about how Trump handles every crises. They expect the worst of Trump, and he keeps delivering the best. For instance, in your comment you predict Trump will postpone or cancel the coming election because of Coronavirus. You’re hoping for it, by the tone of your comment. You seem to feel that saying “you’re right” is more important than saving lives or having the election. In reality, the election will happen in November, and Trump will not do anything to stop it.
Yeh David! I'm one of the few here who's in agreement with you, though I wouldn't frame the argument in quite the same way. We'll have to wait for the results of Super Tuesday voting to determine how the larger democratic electorate feels about the Sanders "revolution". My biggest fear is that the farther to the left the democrats go, or more accurately, the farther left they are perceived to go, the stronger will be the right-wing backlash. The far right is very much alive and kicking, and they don't mind fighting dirty. Will the democrats have the ability to abandon their morally high principles and descend to the streets to take on the opposition at their own game?
6
Mr. Brooks, I have great respect for your observational and analytical prowess. But...
Imagine this real headline from Business Insider regarding the Trump administration happening under a Sanders administration:
"The Trump administration barred a top US disease expert from speaking freely to the public after he warned the coronavirus might be impossible to contain."
Bernie tells the truth about facts, even if your opinions about what those facts mean differ from his. Trump uses the power of the presidency to lie. Trump in office is a national emergency. Trump's re-election is quite possibly the end of free and fair elections in America. A Sanders administration would work to expand to agency of Americans to vote, and I believe legislation and policies to insulate our elections from foreign interference would be put in place if Sanders were elected..
Pull the lever for whoever runs against him in 2024. I'm a Democrat, and can see myself doing the same if the 2024 nominee is John Kasich, or Evan McMullin, or Mitt Romney. Trump is different, and dangerous. If it's Sanders who wins the democratic nomination, voting for him is the only moral choice available to us.
1
Hold your nose, David, and vote for the democratic candidate. If not, continue to moan about Trump for four more years. You choose.
1
Mr. Brooks,
You were never a liberal and please do not try to pretend you decided to become one.
As a matter of fact your criticism of Sanders is based on hollow ground so much that it makes you sound as if you have an axe to grind.
5
I find it endlessly amusing, in a black humor sort of way, that David Brooks always describes his Republican Party when attacking the Left. “Rage, bitter and relentless polarization, a demand for ideological purity among your friends and incessant hatred for your supposed foes”? That has been the modus operandi of the Republican Party for nearly a century. Substitutions for just a single word in some of David’s attacks on Bernie and you have, again, the Republican Party which is all in on rule by minoritarian domination and full,of populists like (fill in the name of virtually any Republican politician) who speak as if the whole system is irredeemably corrupt. And you can’t beat Republicans for running up massive debt through fiscal irresponsibility.
I don’t want to see Sanders elected because he is too old, too unqualified, and otherwise too much like Trump, but attacking him for being too much like Republicans shows just how utterly clueless and mindlessly partisan Brooks is.
2
Mr. Brooks, I feel the same way you do...no President could be worse than Trump....none....and yet I feel complete despair imagining a Sanders in the office....there is no right direction to turn to here...
897
@Southern Hope
Remember David was a Never Trumper. And he was wrong. He is wrong agin. He is not comparing apples and apples
Sanders is a compassionate, principled man who is consistent and truthful, period. He stands for leveling the playing field..
Now if David could explain what Conservatives stand for in equal language that would be very interesting.
For instance Health care; quality education; Tax Reform, no more Welfare for the Wealthy and Corporations that results in 0 taxes that they pay, the bulk of Subsidies set aside for farmers basically going to Industrial Farming Companies, tariffs that are going to make the cost of living for ordinary folk rise greatly.
What have the Conservatives ever done for all of the Citizens in the US? Right now they are proposing to gut Social Security. Does that make sense? CHIP? Gut all of our Institutions. You know like our State Dept, HHS, DOj. You get the drift.
David needs to get out of his bubble.
235
@Southern Hope But the economy as a whole is doing so great under Trump. Is there some other force at work here?
10
@Jean "Sanders is a compassionate, principled man who is consistent and truthful, period. He stands for leveling the playing field.."
This sounds like a version of the same argument that people make for voting for Trump. Just sayin'.
43
Anyone who thinks Sanders represents the radical left, doesn’t know what radical leftism is.
Sanders isn’t even a real Socialist. There are about three people in America who know what Socialism is.
He only seems left because of how far to the right the center has moved
In America. Clinton and Obama were what moderate Republicans used to be.
You can talk all you want about what he said twenty years ago. No one cares about that. What we care about — what young people care about — are the policies he’s advocating — something you clearly don’t want to talk about.
4672
@Koala
Thanks for your comment. I am just Senator Sanders' age (78) and have been waiting for just such a candidate my entire adult life. I worked hard as a single parent in the non-profit world...for 37 plus years. Lucky for me, I always had some form of health coverage and was able to keep a roof over our heads.
Senator Sanders has been a consistent voice for the good - for the things that our country needs - for decades now.
I can't wait to vote for him, have been working for him, and donate little amounts whenever I have them.
Mr. Brooks and I must inhabit different planets.
517
Agreed. If the debate were over his policies, then Democrats would be forced to admit that they no longer believe in the core ideas most voters think separates Democrats from Republicans.
186
@Koala I do care about what he said 20 years ago because he hasn't given us any reason to believe his view have changed. And if Sanders is not a socialist, then what is he?
144
Oh please. And anyway, Mr. Brooks, you would choose the so-called end of liberalism to the end of separation of powers? That seems an intellectually bankrupt position.
Can't wait! Your generation's "liberalism" has driven the vast majority of this country into the ground. We look forward to returning the favor.
1