It is no longer any fun to point out that mainstream right-wing pundits like David Brooks are in denial over the state of the GOP primary race. In today’s column, Brooks acknowledges that he is in deep denial over the ascendancy of Trump and Cruz.
I am going to spend every single day between now and then believing that neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz nor Bernie Sanders will be standing on that podium. One of them could win the election, take the oath, give the speech and be riding down Pennsylvania Avenue. I will still refuse to believe it.
Having admitted to the painfully obvious, Brooks moves on to delusion: that there is still an “establishment” candidate who can wrest the GOP nomination from the clutches of the two unelectable demagogues most likely to win it. Yes, David Brooks still dreams of Marco.
Before too long Rubio will realize his first task is to rally the voters who detest or fear those men. That means running as an optimistic American nationalist with specific proposals to reform Washington and lift the working class.
If he can rally mainstream Republicans he’ll be at least tied with Trump and Cruz in the polls.
And here is where Brooks descends into the cluelessness that characterizes so much of his writing. What, you wonder, should Marco do once he manages to tie Trump and Cruz in the polls? Why, he should win voters over with… a series of lectures explaining that everything wrong with America is their fault.
Then he can counter their American decline narrative, with one of his own: This country is failing because it got too narcissistic, became too much like a reality TV show. Americans lost the ability to work constructively to get things done.
Yes, David. By all means. Because Republican primary voters are especially receptive this year to being told by their betters how stupid, selfish and lazy they are. Good plan.