The two pompous pundits have become one.
It’s obvious.
Brooks, yesterday:
Donald Trump is egregious, but at least he’s living in the 21st century, as was Bernie Sanders. Clintonworld operates according to its own time-space continuum that is slightly akilter from our own.
In the 21st century, politics operates around a different axis. It’s not left/right,* big government/small government. It’s openness and dynamism versus closedness and security. It’s between those who see opportunity and excitement in the emerging globalized, multiethnic meritocracy against those who see their lives and communities threatened by it.
Freidman, 2005
“ ‘Friedman,’ I said to myself, looking at this scene, ‘you are so twentieth-century . . . You are so Globalization 2.0.’ In Globalization 1.0 there was a ticket agent. In Globalization 2.0 the e-ticket machine replaced the ticket agent. In Globalization 3.0 you are your own ticket agent.”
Like two characters in search of endless “new paradigms,” they have spent their lives elevating freshman dorm room nonsense to the Times op-ed page.
Brooks: “Like man, it’s like a dichotomy, man.”
Friedman: “Oh, wow. You’re blowing my mind, Dave.”
Now they have now merged and it’s not pretty.
Friedman has famously wandered the world, meeting and quoting wise Indonesian cabdrivers. Brooks lately has wandered through Kentucky, to the real (white) America, writing elegies for those “left radiating the residual sadness of the lonely heart.”
I’m sure Friedman now frequents the Young Fogies Club, where Moral Hazard, the Irish setter owned by Brooks for photo-op purposes reports periodically to Charlie Pierce. No doubt he noted to Charlie this amazing sentence from his master: “I just hope [Clinton’s]administration is less fogyish than her campaign.”
Pre-eminent Brooksologist Driftglass appreciates and notes the historic import of this occasion:
Yes citizens, this was the day when Mr. David Brooks -- America's Most Respected Concatenation of Ear Wax, Cobwebs and Moldering Clippings of David Broder Columns from the Bloomington, Illinois Pantagraph -- called someone else "fogyish". Mark this day down; you'll want to tell your grand-kids where you were when it happened.
Be afraid.
* Of course it’s left-right, idiot.
