David Brooks' inside-out world: the Biden-Ryan inversion

Joe Biden was the passionate, compassionate conservative on stage last night. Like a grizzly with a conscience he defended America's traditions of caring communitarianism against the extremist torments of a wrenching atomism; it was Biden, not the Republican Ryan, who was all about preserving the American, Judeo-Christian value of keeping our brothers and sisters from the pseudoconservative radicalism of profit-mongering indifference.

That much had to be clear to the self-professed Burkean David Brooks. Biden stood for community and tradition and the conservation of both; Ryan stood for the ultimate dismantling of American society as built over a century's span--a society to be replaced, at the insistence of ideological whimsy, by Randian scrambling. Biden the Burkean: preserve, protect and defend what lifted America from a first-rate industrial power to a first-rate civilization.

Again, Brooks has to know this, he has to see it and recognize it. But of course he doesn't have to honestly acknowledge it. And he doesn't. He simply dismisses what's become the unmistakable core of Joe Biden's modern liberalism--the conservative, Burkean defense of societal traditionalism--and launches instead into this hallucination:

A lot of people will look at Biden’s performance and see a style of politics that makes complex trade-offs impossible.

That must be the single most mind-blowing sentence ever conceived in the desperately blown mind of David Brooks. It's the Bidens of our contemporary politics who have fueled polarization and produced gridlock, says Brooks. All those Senate thugs and House hooligans who pledged on January 20, 2009, to devote every working moment to fueling polarization and producing gridlock? A mere trifle. For, you see, Biden's display of passion last night demonstrated that "emotionalism" rules Obamian liberalism. And how can one negotiate with that?

And, naturally, also from Brooks and the right's collective mind comes this anticipated droplet of sadism:

What do independents want most? They want people who will practice a more respectful brand of politics, who will behave the way most Americans try to behave in their dealings: respectfully, maybe even pausing to listen for a second.

That leaves me speechless, not only because Obama got himself crucified by the commentariat last week for doing just that, but more so because sometimes there sits across the table a vulgar ideology so vastly contemptible and so disturbingly malicious that the best one can do is reach over that table and just righteously throttle the bejesus out of it. Which is what Biden, last night, quite properly did.

Comments

[Bruce]

I saw that last night and heartily guffawed. The notion that David Brooks knows what "independents" want is comical. A guy who, to my knowledge, has never so much as run for dogcatcher and who spends his days in the East Coast Metroplex all of a sudden can tell me what the rare breed of independent in Nevada or Iowa or North Carolina wants from politics? I don't have Brooks' level of self-assurance. But I am goddamn certain that nobody ever got elected to office in the United States of America on a platform dedicated to making "complex trade-offs."

[Robert Lipscomb]

Reading reviews of debates is like reading movie reviews that assert that a movie is bad even though it is really, really popular with millions of people around the world and even though is made over a billion dollars at the box office.

Ahem ... that IS the definition of "good'. I say that as a cineophile who is addicted to independent movies that no one watches.

My point is that the purpose of debates is no longer to solely win an argument and thereby win an election. Debates are but one part a sophisticated system for getting a majority of electoral votes based on micro-targeting and micro-"messaging' (I hate that very useful word).

For instance, the Obama campaign has leaked (meaning they assume their opponents already know this) that one of the biggest shifts last week was with young, white, non-rich women - especially in swing states. Polling further revealed the reason for this was that they were afraid the president wouldn't really fight for them on safety net and other issues. Now, go look at Biden's "messaging" during the debate.

This is but one demographic of presumably several and one motivators for one of several demographic. I'm betting all of these were synthesized into a larger frame. I noticed that the pre-debate "dishonest" charge against the GOP was converted into a "who do you trust?" positive for Democrats.

The debate was a message, but also a field test. In engineering, we refer to 'ground truthing" od aerial mapping of contours, where you test your statistical data against on-the-ground field surveys. The same has been happening through the US and especially in the swing states since the end of last night's debate.

All of this get fed into the feedback loop of more testing and more "messaging".

So, who care whether a majority of undecided voters thinks Biden or Ryan "won the debate"? (Frankly, I'm with "Don't Know" on this one.) That is simply not the way to assess the debate.

The polling question will be, "Who do you trust?"

So will the "messaging".

[caribbeanobserver]

David Brooks,huh? These fallen so-called accepted icons of past, (when the public was in a haze from not much questioning), have quickly exposed themselves to be the predictable propaganda beltway hacks that they always were. There is no more pulling the wool over educated people's eyes,screwing over the public with bullying words, lame excuses,accusations and overreaching,even though they may try. The arch of distortions has lost its sting, as the internet and social media has provided a way to a challenging truth telling that is way way more effective and efficient.

[priscianus jr]

I totally agree with your interpretation of Burke and what it means to want to conserve the American way of life. The "conservatism" of mega-capitalists is always schizophrenic, they conserve their own privileges, turn everyone else's way of life upside down as it suits them, and blame everyone but themselves for the changes.

[Turgidson]

PM, it's admirable how much benefit of the doubt you give to Bobo. But he. doesn't. deserve. it. He's every bit the hack that a partisan clown like Kristol is. He just brands himself differently.

Brooks adheres to the GOP, not any coherent conservative value system. He is educated enough to quote Burke and Oakeshott when it suits him, he's self-aware enough to call Sarah Palin an idiot, and he'll very occasionally point out that the GOP is making a mess of things, but make no mistake - his whole reason for being is to promote the GOP. He's a miserable hack - he just don't drool all over himself like most other GOP cheerleaders.

[Peter G]

Maybe it is the engineer in me but an analysis of Brooks' functionality within his ideological sphere has nothing whatsoever to do with delivering rational commentary or essays on events viewed through the conservative window. His function is to rationalize reality and make it fit ideology. He is quite good at it. He has all the jargon and all the suitably altered history at his fingertips and so, is well equipped to provide a pseudo-intellectual comfort to what passes on the right for intellectuals. So, the other day when I compared him to the
somelier at the establishment conservative's dinner with the devilish tea party no nothings I should have used stronger language. David Brooks is a first class cork sniffer. Or something like that.