A Show of Decency
David Brooks recently gave a speech, hailed as “brilliant” by normie liberal friends of mine on a niche audio forum. As with Liz Cheney and the Republicans of “The Bulwark”, what primarily drives the appeal seems to be a shared hatred of Trump and the man allegedly pulling his string all the way from Russia. All else is forgiven or set aside as we indulge in shared values of normalcy and decency.
Over the past year and a half, I’ve watched Brooks regularly provide cover and rationalization for the Israeli slaughter and destruction in Gaza in his weekly PBS Newshour Friday sessions with counterpart Jonathan Capehart. Viewers new to the show would be puzzled as to why I’ve labelled Capehart as antagonist, but that is the long-standing premise of the Friday opinion segment, going back decades, at one point featuring David Gergen and Mark Shields.
In the old days, there would be the occasional agreement, but one now wonders why people are necessary. United in belief in the importance of a strong veneer of political decency, all else can be glossed over, set aside for future working out of details once sensible adults are back in power at some distant date in the future.
While in first phase of anti-Trump mode, Brooks who a notorious opinion piece for the New York Times arguing how universal health care (M4A) wasn’t a viable goal in the USA.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/opinion/medicare-for-all.html
I don’t believe his position has changed since then and one would think liberal sparring partner Capehart would be all over it, if not simply for entertainment value of actual exchange of blows.
Meanwhile, over on Twitter, I’ve been observing a couple of people I follow express enormous joy at a string of celebrities who’ve converted to Christianity. The fact the none of them have given up their old worldly ways in any fundamental sense doesn’t appear to matter. I only recently found out that David Brooks converted to Christianity shortly before his political reformation. I wonder if the religious act was equally insincere.