You knew that at one point David Brooks would suffer enough cognitive dissonance to lead him to make a permanent break with the Republican Party. That day has not yet come. Instead, because his paycheck depends on his willingness to ignore all cognitive dissonance, Brooks has today decided to advocate the creation of a second Republican Party. This party won’t be based in the South or the Mormon Mountain West. It won’t be completely paranoid about the ever-growing encroachment of the Nanny State. Possibly, it won’t be bug-eyed nuts about Sharia Law and Latinos who behead white people in the Arizona desert.
It’s probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It’s smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It’s smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton.
The second G.O.P. wouldn’t be based on the Encroachment Story. It would be based on the idea that America is being hit simultaneously by two crises, which you might call the Mancur Olson crisis and the Charles Murray crisis.
Olson argued that nations decline because their aging institutions get bloated and sclerotic and retard national dynamism. Murray argues that America is coming apart, dividing into two nations — one with high education levels, stable families and good opportunities and the other with low education levels, unstable families and bad opportunities.
The second G.O.P. would tackle both problems at once. It would be filled with people who recoiled at President Obama’s second Inaugural Address because of its excessive faith in centralized power, but who don’t share the absolute antigovernment story of the current G.O.P.
Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who’s going to build a second G.O.P.?
Yes, that is Charles Murray of The Bell Curve‘s Black People Are Stupid fame. He will form the basis of the new, second Republican Party that is appealing to undecided voters in “the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast.” They can get started by not voting against disaster relief for Blue States.
I would like to cash David Brooks’ paycheck. But I am not stupid enough to earn it.
Now, now: let’s be far to Chuckles Murray. He ALSO thinks poor white people are stupid too.
Okay, in Fishtown. But is it really fair to generalize?
Well, he uses Fishtown to extrapolate to the greater population. He’d say the same thing about New Bedford, Newark, and anywhere else you have large populations for poor white people.
Booman’s with you, brendan. Sarcasm, y’know.
Brooks using Murray’s “studies” as a major tentpole for his argument makes his entire column beneath contempt. Which is what makes it great that you shared this video. To hear a man with a smooth, stentorian voice calmly explain that “Murray shat out a book called The Bell Curve” is muy awesome.
Steve M. is less dismissive and more expansive.
It’s smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast.
Yeah, it’s already called the Democratic party.
See, this is why we come here, you read the stupid and we get Cliffs Notes.
Stupid as a Boiled Ham. <snort>
Yeah, if the Democratic Party would just rename themselves the Conservative Party, maybe they could capture the votes of the somewhat-less-irrational subset of the Republican Party. Then, perhaps, an actual Liberal/Progressive Party could be formed without masses of people running around gasping, “but we have to be realistic blah blah Nader blah scary” until they hyperventilate and pass out.
Also, pony.
BobX…I am fairly sure that you did not mean this statement the way I read it. But you are right on the money anyway.
Y’see…that is exactly what Obama has done.
He has built “a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast.”
He has trashed the racial, fundamentalist, cultural and sexual aspects of the Ratpub party while keeping almost totally intact its foreign policy (militarily-enforced economic imperialism, although streamlined and thus even more murderously efficient) and its alliance with the corporate powers-that-be, powers that really have the last say on who wins and who loses here politically due to their control of the media. In so doing, he has created a new coalition. A winning coalition.
A kinder, gentler, younger and more inclusive Republican Party.
Smarter, too. By a long shot.
There it is.
Out of the mouths of babes.
Thanks…
AG
What is it that Pretty Boy Floyd said? “That’s where the voters are.”
Actually…it was Willie Sutton. Or so they say.
A lifelong DemocRatublican, I am assuming.
AG
You knew that as one point David Brooks would suffer enough cognitive dissonance to lead him to make a permanent break with the Republican Party.
Nahhh. He’s going to keep digging through the GOP horseshit-pile, certain he’ll find a pony somewhere. If not, he’ll make one up (that’s what he did today).
A pony?
More like a bad horse.
Brooks is right. It’s futile to try to change current Republicans.
How many people does he think this is? People who hold as a genuine political principle that “centralized power” needs to be pushed back–rather than a high-toned justification for how black people unfairly get free stuff? Because I doubt that, nationwide, it’s even very far into four digits.
I’m willing to bet more liberals and Democrats read Brooks than Republicans and conservatives. Just as I imagine more R’s and C’s read Krugman than Dems and L’s.
There is enough truth in that. The problem is that Brooks is focusing on the wrong aging and bloated institutions.
The bloat is in the limited liability trans-national corporations. And the Republican Party and its concomitant propaganda industry. And the national security institutions. And the “intelligence” community. And major universities. And large health care systems of tens of thousands of employees.
But then, one man’s bloat is another man’s entrepreneurial opportunity.
You know what leaped out to me? This:
I’m admittedly underpaid for my level of education blah blah. But I am 53 and I have never in my life stayed in either a Sheraton or a Westin. I’ve been to conventions in both, though, and honestly, the only thing that I could tell you distinguishes them is the spelling. They’re both wildly overpriced hotel chains that cater to people who want to spend a lot of money (often someone else’s) on image and cheap, unnecessary accessories to tell themselves they’re special. Each has its marketing niche, I’m sure, but I couldn’t begin to tell you what because they market to people who have a lot more money and a lot less concern about spending it than I do. I imagine a fairly large number of ordinary Americans are in a similar boat.
That Brooks would use this as his metaphor for things-that-are-of-the-same-category-but-quite-different says volumes about the world he lives in, and who he thinks Americans are. He’s not writing, remember, just to would-be coastal sort-of-Republicans and their would-be organizers and benefactors; he’s writing in a general audience newspaper to influence broad public opinion. And this is who he thinks the public is: people who intuitively know the difference between $300-and-up a night hotel rooms.
Talk about disconnected from reality…
I wonder if that makes us Motel 6?
Tent in the state park.
“Who’s going to build a second G.O.P.?”
HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!
Obama beat them to it.
HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!
You guys slay me!!!
AG
Make it a broiled chicken. Ham isn’t kosher.
Is stupid as a boiled ham even lower on the scale than dumber than a box of rocks?
I’m guessing the answer is yes.
why would you boil a perfectly good ham when you could smoke it.
the title of this post alone rates a reply.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA
thanks, BooMan
This is great. Wonder why people read this blog?
“I would like to cash _____’s paycheck. But I am not stupid enough to earn it.”
The story of SO many lives.