"...What is happening now is not normal politics...."

[babylonsister]

Like him or not, I think Brooks is right.

Found on FB~
Yesterday, the neoconservative David Brooks wrote this in an OpEd in the NY Times,

"Trumpism… is primarily about the acquisition of power — power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men, so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed. Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice. …

What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican.

It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power. …

I’m really not a movement guy. I don’t naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I’m not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now."

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

1. expert on intl relations said that its difficult to know if trumps policies are for USA or his wealth acquisitions

[RockCreek]

3. not difficult at all. It's about Trump and acquisitions for Trump.

Some of these are for his ego, etc.
This isn't new.

[GiqueCee]

11. Absolutely...

... and anyone who's "not sure" just isn't paying attention.

"POWER" is just shorthand for TOTAL DOMINION OVER THE LIVES OF OTHERS. Trump has demonstrated that a thousand times, the most glaring examples being the periodic assembly of cabinet members and/or broligarchs lavishing saccharine praise on the South End of a Northbound Yak on camera so the world can see, not that they really admire him, but that he can make them vomit up their self-respect whenever he feels like it.

[slightlv]

16. trump takes hitler's ideas, and jacks them with steroids.

Hitler wanted world domination; trump is emphatic he already has it, and daily abuses his power to tell other sovereign nations how to run their countries... or else. Exactly what hitler would have wanted, had he succeeded in his quest.

[GiqueCee]

17. That tracks. (nt)

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

19. I phrased it wrong. Intl expert knows trump is a mixing USA policies with desire his family to personally benefit.

I phrased it wrong. Intl expert knows trump is a mixing USA policies with desire his family to personally benefit. The expert had written articles trying to sound the alarm on Trump.

He said something more like "it's difficult to examine Anerica's current foreign policies because he can no longer tell which policies are driven by actual consideration of America versus Trump's desire for his family to benefit"

Yes, he was assuming that there were a few policy wonks in the white house developing policies with the goal of strengthening the USA and its relationships with other counties

[FalloutShelter]

5. Hint...

IT’S A HEIST.

[Bluetus]

14. This is why we are where we are.

It is NOT difficult to see the difference, and this guy knows that. Enough of this bith-siderism. There are not two sides to Trump.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

18. I phrased it wrong. Intl expert knows trump is a mixing USA policies with personally benefiting

I phrased it wrong. Intl expert knows trump is a mixing USA policies with desire his family to personally benefit. The expert had written articles trying to sound the alarm on Trump.

He said something more like "it's difficult to examine Anerica's current foreign policies because he can no longer tell which policies are driven by actual consideration of America versus Trump's desire for his family to benefit"

Yes, he was assuming that there were a few policy wonks in the white house developing policies with the goal of strengthening the USA and its relationships with other counties

[Bluetus]

23. You are giving Trump way too much credit.

EVERYTHING he does is a transaction for his own personal (financial or political) benefit.

It doesn't take any special expertise to see this. Trump isn't trying to hide any of his schemes.

I challenge anybody to identify a single significant policy move Trump has made in the past 11 months that was NOT highly motivated by Trump's PERSONAL gain, financial or political.

In other words, please name one significant action that clearly benefits average working Americans more than it benefits Trump or his inside gang. Anybody? I don't think there is one.

We must stop giving Trump the benefit of any doubt. The starting point for any analysis should be, "Why is Trump doing this? How is he hoping to benefit personally?"

[marble falls]

2. Understatement of the year.

[Bluetus]

15. Understatement by the media is how we got here.

[BComplex]

21. No shit! 45 years of republican media ownership has done this.

I get my news from YouTube these days. No more republican media.

[Bluetus]

22. We have to be vigilant about the accuracy of "news" from new media

But frankly, the legacy media is just as bad in its own way. The corporate media may be more factual, on average, but they will always present the corporate story line most prominently.

[harumph]

4. F'kin "water is wet" Brooks.

As a columnist he carried water for years for the Republican party which was the nascent Trump party. We could all see something like this
emerging. We pointed out their talk was just empty rhetoric meant to pull in the rubes. Brooks would opine on the 'salt of the earth' Americans
who were disdained by NE elites. They were the heart of America - don't ya see? Brooks talks out of his ass. He, like his cocktail party colleagues, will have a soft landing regardless of what happens to our country.

[3825-87867]

7. Salt of the earth...

that's what's left after the urine evaporates!

[Irish_Dem]

8. He is only screaming because he must have lost power and money now.

Before he didn’t care if everyone else got screwed.

[displacedvermoter]

12. Thank you!!!

Brooks is a weasel of David Broder and Tim Russert proportions. Weak beer each week on PBS and in the Times telling us what was important to the folks he met at an airport VIP lounge while travelling to some speaking engagement.

[Grins]

33. He covered for Republicans going back 45 years

He looked the other way with Harry Dent, Lee Atwater, Roger Stone. Covered for and never criticized Reagan. Same with Bush II and Karl Rove. He couldn’t wait for Bush’s grand war against people who never did anything to us, called those of us against that war liberal appeasers, or worse - traitors - just like the rest of the Reich-wing media. He, like Krauthammer, believed all the lies and propaganda coming out of the WH pushing for a war against Iraq, and gave it cover until even - William Freaking Buckley - said, “We fucked up. We lost.” And then it was “How did America fail…?”

Driftglass calls him the Pope of the High and Holy Church of “Both Sides Do It!!” And for that, too - fuck him.

[jfz9580m]

34. Just post election

He had one of his signature insufferable pieces. I didn’t read it and didn’t need to. What little I saw was enough to grasp that it was a plaint of phony “populism” about a working class chastisement of the “elites” ie just the Dems. Because a rich mobster or reality show star is a man of the people.

Brooks has been selling the fraudulent takes on populism forever. Joel Achenbach (that’s his name! A thread about Ivory billed woodpeckers last week reminded me of an earlier era net squabble about a joke he made) who used to write for WaPo, Joe Bageant, Andy Nikiforuk of The Tyee are more like the real thing.

[harumph]

40. Once we remove the misdirective gee-gaws and rhetorical bullshit from whatever Brooks says,

his obvious gripe is that Trump is showing his autocratic tendencies for all to see, and that's bad form. Because you know, a decent republican plan to relegate a majority of the population to a hopeless impoverished existence in an autocratic state depends on fooling enough people - and MUST BE DONE WITH DECORUM else the proles start to catch on to the game and get ideas. Trump's sin then is his OVERT theft and farcical malignancy that contrasts with say, a George W type of character, who had just enough sense for a dry drunk to combine his public theft with a kind of insufferable naivete such that self serving rationales and plausible fictions could be peddled by the mainstream media. Sadly for Brooks, there's no hope of polishing this turd. Trump is boldly showing the world what the Republican party has always been and will always be; a theft machine run by some of the worst human beings on the planet.

[jfz9580m]

41. That's better than anything Brooks ever wrote

Trump's sin then is his OVERT theft and farcical malignancy that contrasts with say, a George W type of character, who had just enough sense for a dry drunk to combine his public theft with a kind of insufferable naivete such that self serving rationales and plausible fictions could be peddled by the mainstream media. Sadly for Brooks, there's no hope of polishing this turd.

Here’s to you Harumph..

[Scruffy1]

6. Should have been a court jester.

It's always been about power, dumbass.

[TBF]

9. When Trump is gone they will all be doing this -

"It was all Trump, it wasn't the republican party at all - save us".


They realize he is taking it all down with him and they are scared they are going to be at best irrelevant (or at worst in jail) when this is all over.

[Martin68]

10. Brooks is a fake intellectual who has always defended the Republican Party no matter how bad their policies for the

average American. the faux outrage is too little too late for me to ever take him seriously. A "civic uprising?" What took him so long to realize that Trumpism, and the GOP Congress that supports him, "...is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men?"

[MadameButterfly]

25. Very late. Does he not understand what we've been trying to do?

Reminiscent of Trump (but to a much lesser degree), he realizes something we've all known for a long time and posts it as wisdom.

But he gets credit, because he's a Republican and maybe he'll be listened to by people who won't listen to s Democrat. So we have to be grateful, just not impressed.

[Mblaze]

13. The reason that Trump is popular among you Republicans

Last edited Tue Dec 16, 2025, 01:13 PM - Edit history (1)

Is that he's the only one who has been able to destroy the government that you Republicans have wanted to destroy since Ronald Reagan. The fact that he is taking individual freedom away and overriding State's Rights is a "political bottom line" that you are willing to sacrifice to the destruction.

[patphil]

20. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Jesus spoke of that in the bible, and Abraham Lincoln invoked that phrase in a speech against slavery.
We are a divided house now, and the situation must be resolved soon or we could collapse as a nation.
We no longer have civil discourse between the left and the right. People like Trump and his ilk have fanned the flames of fear, hatred, and intolerance, resulting in escalations of violent rhetoric and actions.
There are those on the left who have also done this, although to a much lesser degree.

This is the greatest challenge our nation has faced since the civil war. The "no kings" demonstrations are a good start, and a reaction to the "crazy" that we're seeing as part of the Trump administration is building. The next 11 months will show which way things will go.
Will sane, responsible people stand up and reign in the "crazy"? I certainly hope so.

[Joinfortmill]

24. Coming from Brooks, I'd say, yup, we're in deep shit, people.

[regnaD kciN]

26. Took you long enough to notice, Davy...

I’m just waiting to see how he’ll eventually blame it on “both sides.”

[canetoad]

27. I agree with the aquisition of power statement

Because power paves the way to untold wealth and inequality. Can't decide if the wealth is the primary goal or power for power itself.

[maspaha]

28. David Brooks facilitated MAGAts...

…he can STFU

[rickford66]

32. So did the majority of Republicans and Conservatives.

They celebrated cheating Gore out of the Presidency, crippling the Vietnam peace talks, back channel deal about the Iran hostages, etc.etc. Now they are surprised Trump rose out of the ashes. It was only a matter of time before someone would.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

29. This really nails it...

"It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men"

[BlueTsunami2018]

30. Until we address the capitalism problem, none of this goes away.

The old monopoly comparison still holds. Capitalism is the root of every single problem this country and the world faces. It’s why we can’t have anything good, it’s why we have so-called “winners and losers”, it’s why there will always be people in poverty, homeless, undereducated and jobless.

Capitalism is the problem. Until we figure this out, this shit only gets worse and never ends.

[harumph]

43. Unregulated capitalism is like starting a campfire - throwing gasoline on it and walking away.

I'm more of an employee ownership kind of guy or something like the EOT concept in the UK. I hold that certain utilities (electrical grid, water, oil and gas) should be government operated and supply chains for those sectors if not government owned - firmly controlled. Capitalism (if regulated in the public's interest) also has a significant place in a functional economy. All this is much easier to theorize than to put into practice. No way this will be politically doable in the US short of an absolute disaster (either natural or artificial catastrophe). Firstly, money must be unlinked to political campaigns. Bribery and other kinds of money corruption (e.g., under the table deals) must be harshly punished. Markets/trading must be regulated robustly to conform to actual rules and not merely suggestions. I won't see it in my lifetime.

[Trueblue Texan]

31. Doesn't it just drive your f*cking CRAZY...

...that these so called political scholars/experts are JUST NOW GETTING THIS? I've seen this disaster coming for at least 2 decades!

I was at a political event tonight talking with other Dems and I said that I think Joe Biden went into his term as an "innocent." The eyes rolled. I said there are too many others in the Democratic establishment that are still too innocent and lack the understanding that what has been going on for the last 10+ years has NOTHING to do with politics as usual. There is NO desire in the Republican Party to work for policies that benefit the people. ALL the focus has been and is on the consolidation of power and MANY Dems, including Biden, did not/have not awakened to this fact. (Biden finally awakened toward the end of his term--not exactly "Sleepy Joe&quot And David Brooks? What took him so f*ing long? He's steeped in politics. Why couldn't he see this LOOOONG ago?

The gloves MUST come off if we are to save Democracy! We MUST wake up! We MUST tell our candidates we expect them to WAKE THE F*CK UP and to campaign like they see the light, like they are fully awake to the political reality Americans face!!

The candidates that spoke at our event tonight have definitely awakened. Nothing like this fiasco of government corruption has ever been seen before, both at the federal and state (Texas) level. Our Democratic candidates in Texas see it. If other candidates cannot see it yet, they will NEVER see it (MAGA)

I am so tired of screaming this message. Will they PLEASE wake up! Please scream with me this election season, DUers!

[jfz9580m]

35. Agree

I have noticed for more like 15 years that it is extra crazy lately. It’s Accelerationism. That’s gotta be a large part of the source of our troubles. Acceleration with capitalism (and human overpopulation-more meat for the grinder) being the overarching parts of the framework (as a poster mentioned upthread) that just cannot be questioned. It’s totally disproportionate. The world these guys build needs an animal behaviorist not any kind of sociologist/psychologist etc. I am not surprised that IBM which has the Ocean Big 5 score I hate, helped the nazis at every stage. Clunky and mechanical or creepy and esoteric thinking only..lol..

The amount of stuff the private sector gets away with and how it’s depleting and destroying the public sector..shocking. I have thought that some kind of tissue with cancer is a better metaphor or analogy than the shit these guys like.

Accelerationism is very confusing. As I have been wearily navigating an online and possibly and more shockingly offline landscape that (even bots and AI crawlers aside) is filled with unfamiliar types of humans like influencers, political plants and tiresome cottage industries of self or other commodification, I have been flummoxed trying to work out what exactly I am when not a (mediocre and failed) publicly funded scientist in a narrow and dull and non-lurid area of hard science. And then it hit me - anonymous, grassroots activist. That sounds palatable. I don’t mind occasional captchas if I can stay anon. That fits with both my ex mil’s personality and my mom’s-grassroots catlady types. Not the kind of identity or existential crisis I ever expected.

But you can’t have the symbol or surface handle of a scientist without the substance which is where I am. And so the world these guys build and its attacks on attention. Not good. It’s lousy for any realistic notion of productivity or health that’s not training of these creeps’ creepy LLMs or frauds. Any AI or science I could accept as citizen science or good science would be nothing like the stuff MIT, Stanford, Google etc with their stunted worldviews shill.

Anyway..I gotta go work.

[lonely bird]

36. It IS normal politics...

Lasswell said, iirc, politics is who gets, what, where, when and how. This politics is the “why”.

It is a slow moving coup.

[babylonsister]

44. Seems they're imploding.

Per several talking heads I've listened to, one of their many problems is they're moving too fast and messing up by the numbers. Chris Hayes and guests, I'm pretty sure, addressed this. Now we're watching it!

[JT45242]

37. Party over country has been the Republican way since America first Nazi collaborators

I like the idea...but they want power for rich white men at the expense of all others.

They have spent decades using propaganda machines first on radio, then Fox News , then social media to indoctrinate millions of poor people to put party over country because they can make someone else suffer more.

[OldBaldy1701E]

38. "I'm really not a movement guy."

I don’t naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I’m not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now."

And, there is the problem. There are not enough people here in the US who understand that this mindset is going to get us killed/destroyed. And, as usual, he is willing to say what is needed, but that he is not willing to do it.

Don't worry, Mr. Brooks. You won't have much of a choice if you don't get off of your ass now.

You won't have any, to be honest.

[Paladin]

39. David Brooks, late as usual.

Fuck him, and the rest of the trump-enabling swine at the NYT opinion dungeon.

[jfz9580m]

42. 👆👍

The NYT is unprofessional as the distant future will unambiguously rule. They are too puffed up in their own importance to see it. A very bad way of seeing reality and ones own role in it.

Forces us rabble to do more than our share of rabble rousing with what tools and resources we have left.