David Brooks is a conservative Republican-- but not a Trump-Republican. He's more a Bush/Clinton/Biden Republican. He's all for the old-fashioned anti-family Austerity and elitism they all love so much-- without the messy proto-fascist populism and overt lying. In his column Friday, he laid out the "five gigantic changes happening in America right now" and described them as "reflecting a huge crisis and hitting all at once, creat[ing] a moral, spiritual and emotional disaster. Ready?
• The first is that we are losing the fight against Covid-19. Our behavior doesn’t have anything to do with the reality around us. We just got tired so we’re giving up.• Second, all Americans, but especially white Americans, are undergoing a rapid education on the burdens African-Americans carry every day. This education is continuing, but already public opinion is shifting with astonishing speed.• Third, we’re in the middle of a political realignment. The American public is vehemently rejecting Donald Trump’s Republican Party. The most telling sign is that the party has even given up on itself, a personality cult whose cult leader is over.• Fourth, a quasi-religion is seeking control of America’s cultural institutions. The acolytes of this quasi-religion, Social Justice, hew to a simplifying ideology: History is essentially a power struggle between groups, some of which are oppressors and others of which are oppressed. Viewpoints are not explorations of truth; they are weapons that dominant groups use to maintain their place in the power structure. Words can thus be a form of violence that has to be regulated.• Fifth, we could be on the verge of a prolonged economic depression. State and household budgets are in meltdown, some businesses are failing and many others are on the brink, the continuing health emergency will mean economic activity cannot fully resume.
Since Biden doesn't have a real platform-- nor even a reason for running other than because he's always wanted to be president-- he could run on Brooks' moaning and groaning.Brooks wrote that "Americans look around the world and see that other nations are beating Covid-19 and we are failing... America doesn’t seem very exceptional." Doesn't he read Krugman? Krugman explained why we're losing the fight against COVID-19: Trump and his enablers, who couldn't even take the most basic precautions-- like admitting there was a problem and, then, requiring the use of face masks, the way normal countries did. "In times like this," wrote Brooks, "you’ve got to have a theory of change. The loudest theory of change is coming from the Social Justice movement." Sounds good to me... just not to Brooks and his class. That's where his warning about a "moral, spiritual and emotional disaster" comes in.And sure enough: "I know a lot of people aren’t excited about him, but I thank God that Joe Biden is going to be nominated by the Democratic Party. He came to public life when it wasn’t about performing your zeal, it was about crafting coalitions and legislating. He exudes a spirit that is about empathy and friendship not animosity and canceling. The pragmatic spirit of the New Deal is a more apt guide for the years ahead than the spirit of critical theory symbology."