What David Brooks gets wrong about Bernie Sanders

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

The filibuster is the best example. While other Democrats have proposed eliminating it entirely — including Brooks’s supposedly more compromise-minded liberal, Warren — Sanders has suggested he’d prefer keeping it. “I’m not crazy about getting rid of the filibuster,” as he put it in one interview. “Donald Trump supports the ending of the filibuster. So you should be a little bit nervous if Donald Trump supports it,” he said in another. He does have a somewhat dubious plan for getting around the filibuster to pass his signature legislation — but, again, the prospects of him being able to go through with it are vanishingly slim.

I’m not trying to say that Bernie is some kind of squishy moderate. He is an authentic leftist who proposes a radical rethinking of the American economic model. Some of his most radical proposals, like giving workers 20 percent ownership over large corporations, have scarcely been discussed in the 2020 race.

(snip)

“The Sanders campaign is an effort to make real the principles of personal dignity, autonomy, free association, plurality, & self-development that liberalism prizes,” tweeted Columbia law professor Jedediah Britton-Purdy. “To say the opposite sells criminally short both liberalism and Sanders.”

(snip)

Of course, there is such a figure in American politics today: Donald Trump. The idea that Brooks and anyone else who styles themselves a liberal would equate a man who seems to be purging the Justice Department of disloyal figures with Sanders, as Brooks does, is absurd. Their knee-jerk worries about socialism are keeping them from seeing Sanders clearly — a candidate who, if nominated, will be the only option for defending American liberalism against its worst enemy.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/28/21157634/bernie-sanders-2020-david-brooks-liberalism

[NoDakLinda]

1. Re:Brooks and anyone else who styles themselves a liberal.....

Maybe he just wanted to be a liberal. Remember, everyone wanted to be JFK, but nobody wanted to pay the price.

It's that when people can’t discuss the real issues, they make up bogus issues, or start a red-baiting campaign. They are in the campaign doing both. Those interested in stopping Bernie from being elected have powerful backing. During the Democratic debates the word “oligarchy” has been heard once. “We are living in a nation increasingly becoming an oligarchy,” Bernie Sanders said, “where you have a handful of billionaires who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying elections and politicians.”

The Washington Post opined that the platforms of Sanders and Elizabeth Warren “probably would fail at the polls and, if not, would carry extreme risks if they tried to implement them.” While it praised “the relative moderates in the race” Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar they are “offering a more positive future.”Yes, and they are also offering a great future for the owner of the newspaper, Jeff Bezos, who is one of the richest people in the world. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post in 2013. Bezos is an American internet and aerospace entrepreneur, media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, chief executive officer, and president of Amazon.

The crazy rich Americans and huge corporations that own the biggest U.S. media outlets don’t want actual democracy, because “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes” isn’t a democracy.

Bernie Sanders wants to break up the New York banks, he wants to impose a Wall Street transaction tax, he wants to regulate drug prices, he’s for full Medicare for everybody, free choice of doctor and hospital he wants to get rid of these corporate tax havens, he’s pushing for a $15 dollar an hour minimum wage, he wants to stronger labor unions. In other words he is for everything democrats are supposed to be for. We don't need a government that does nothing to take care of sick people, while they have state-of-the-art medical care for themselves, and we sure shouldn't pay for it.

[Codeine]

10. I'm amused that you complain about oligarchy

but you’re literally a Trump voter. Talk about cognitive fucking dissonance.

[Codeine]

15. You're a Trump voter. Justify it however you want,

you voted for Trump because you were butthurt Bernie lost. You and people like you are responsible for putting Trump in power and all the bullshit that has resulted.

You don’t belong here. You should hang your head in shame and slink away.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. When has Brooks been right about ANYTHING?

He is one of the worst hacks in journalism bar none.

[BeckyDem]

4. Jinx! ha ha

I said the same.

[BeckyDem]

3. What did he ever get right? Why is any Democrat listening to him?

Oh yea, some like Bloomberg too. hmmm

[Uncle Joe]

7. Good question BeckyDem.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Good question, because there are an awful lot of DUers in this thread

that are falling for Brook's bullshit: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=595856

[Autumn]

5. This same guy did a number on Bill Clinton. Anything he has to say is IMO bull.

[DanTex]

9. Brooks is a right-winger who has been wrong about pretty much everything.

No idea why his articles are getting posted on a Democratic message board.

[ehrnst]

11. Brooks is far less hate-filled towards the Democratic Party than The Intercept, and Jacobin.

And yet articles from those fringe rags are posted all over DU.

[DanTex]

12. The Intercept and Jacobin are on the left. Brooks is on the right.

I know which side I'm on, when it comes to those.

[ehrnst]

13. The Intercept and Jacobin hate the Democratic Party far more than Brooks.

I'm on the side of the Democratic Party, when it comes comparing sources.

"Far Left" does not = respect or support for the Democratic Party. In fact sometimes the opposite.

Brooks has shown far more intellect, journalistic ethics respect for the Democratic Party and Democrats, and a willingness to change his mind when presented with facts than the Brogressives at Jacobin and the Intercept. Brooks has never displayed an agenda to discredit, smear or otherwise "rebuild the Party from scratch."



You may want to review the name of this board again.