I've never really liked David Brooks. To me he has always had a smarmy veneer of reasonableness that he uses to paint over the frequent ugliness that is today's GOP. I googled David Brooks is a hack and discovered that I am far from alone in that assessment. Alex Pareene wrote:
The moderate conservative columnist hides appalling opinions behind "reasonable" language
Needless to say, I fully expected him to spread some of that infamous smarmy reasonableness over the top of Romney's 47% BS and pretend that it was not the turd we all knew it to be. But this turd was so much of a turd that even David Brooks called it for what it truly is, penning a piece titled Thurston Howell Romney.
Oh sure, Brooks wrapped his critique in a classic sitcom reference and still managed to sound much like a high society matron clutching her pearls. But his harshest line was, for once, right on the money:
But, as a description of America today, Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.
Brooks also pointed out how much government spending in the form of benefits has grown over time and noted that Romney does not realize who benefits from Government largesse:
The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees.
Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact.
As I was researching for this post, I ran across a very good example of what Brooks was talking about there (
link):
Gordy Peterson, 62, who has used a wheelchair for 30 years since a construction accident, has reluctantly reached a similar conclusion.
“I’m a conservative,” he said by way of introducing himself. He built his own house before his injury and paid for it in cash. He still thinks the government should operate that way. He never intended to depend on federal aid and said he sometimes felt guilty about it.
But for the last three decades, he has received a regular check from the Social Security disability insurance program, and Medicare has helped to pay his medical bills.
“Here I’m getting money, and everybody is struggling,” he said. “Even though it ain’t no cakewalk for me.”
But even when he is not as wrong as usual, there is much to dislike about anything written by David Brooks. As always, there is at least one hagiographic reference to Saint Ronnie, the patron saint of conservatism. This piece was no exception:
The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view — from the Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of makers and takers.
That reference to the Reagan-who-never-was made me laugh out loud. Reagan literally invented the mythical "
welfare queen" as a political speech device. Reaganesque language of common citizenship indeed.
Also true to form, Brooks sees no wrong in "conservatism." So he thinks that Romney is the problem and not the brand he represents:
Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?
Brooks tries to simultaneously blame Romney while painting that smarmy veneer over the odious "culture of dependency" language:
Sure, there are some government programs that cultivate patterns of dependency in some people. I’d put federal disability payments and unemployment insurance in this category.
And in that line we find the classic Brooks maneuver, taking a steaming pile of $hit and wrapping it in a veneer of reasonableness: "Yes, oh my, I am against the out of touch way Mitt Romney used the culture of dependency language, but, oh dear, that language isn't all bad and is indeed a necessary part of the all-important entitlement reform discussion we need to be having."
Exactly how is it that people, like the gentleman mentioned above, who are receiving federal disability payments are supposed to survive without help? And what about all those people who can't find work? Should we really be cutting unemployment insurance and leaving them, and their children, to starve? Brooks uses nicer words than Romney, but the end result stinks just the same.
The problem isn't Mitt Romney. As illustrated with Brooks' own huge fail at defending entitlement reform, it really is the sorry brand Romney represents. Republicans are intentionally blocking everything President Obama does in ways that are historic and measurable. And that is just the start. As Paul Abrams noted Sunday, even before the latest 47% brouhaha, the problem is not Romney but Republican ideas themselves:
But, all that is chicken-feed compared to the bigger problem of selling Republican policies. They sound nice, and get thunderous applause at right-wing gatherings -- free enterprise without regulations, tax cuts (magically) pay for themselves, cut spending, pay off the debt, small government, being strong overseas -- but, when one has to get down to specifics (that Romney has astutely avoided), they just do not work and the sound-bites no longer carry the day
...
When the poor sot [Romney] tried to temper his absurd critique of "Obamacare" by saying he would keep the pre-existing conditions and children on the parents' program, he was back to total nihilism quicker than stink on you-know-what. Not that his "Obamacare-lite" proposals would work anyhow (in true Republican fashion, there is no mechanism to pay for them), but c'mon boys-and-girls on the Right, at least he was trying to sell your claptrap.
And, therein, lay their dilemma. It is not Mitt Romney, flawed as he is.
It is in themselves.
.
Yes Romney sucks. But so do Republican ideas, no matter how reasonable David Brooks would like to make them sound.
More on that 47%
On a slightly tangential note, Republicans need to take a lot more ownership of this 47% issue than they or Brooks seem willing to do. Brooks mentioned that many of the 47 percent who don't pay taxes are Republicans. It is also true that most of them are living in "red" states.
Brooks did not mention many details about how Republicans had contributed to this state of affairs, but Ezra Klein did. Republican tax cuts are a huge part of how we got to this point.
The correlation between states on the dole (that take more government money than they pay in) and political support for Republicans is strong (link):
Support for Republican candidates, who generally promise to cut government spending, has increased since 1980 in states where the federal government spends more than it collects. The greater the dependence, the greater the support for Republican candidates.
Much of that correlation is attributable to exploitation of social issues. As
Paul Krugman noted:
[W]orking-class Americans are induced to vote against their own interests by the G.O.P.’s exploitation of social issues. And it’s true that, for example, Americans who regularly attend church are much more likely to vote Republican, at any given level of income, than those who don’t.
There is a lot more to be said about that 47% than has yet been addressed publicly.