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sorta The Alienated Mind boldened part us quote:As Robert W. Merry put it recently in The American Conservative, “When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation’s elites, it’s a strong signal that the elites are the problem.” quote:Worse, alienation breeds a distrust that corrodes any collective effort. To be “woke” in the alienated culture is to embrace the most cynical interpretation of every situation, to assume bad intent in every actor, to imagine the conspiratorial malevolence of your foes. New Forum Title: CSPAM: a hysterical public conversation Also if you hurt yourself laughing at Brooks using woke, welcome to the club quote:We need people who have been educated to actually know something about public policy problems. We need people who have had gradual, upward careers in government and understand the craft of wielding power. We need people who know how to live up to certain standards of integrity and public service. Note: "Certain standards of integrity". Not "integrity", which would be unambiguous, "certain standards of integrity", which implies...? Loyalty to class above all? quote:Over the longer term, it will be necessary to fight alienation with participation, to reform and devolve the welfare state so that recipients are not treated like passive wards of the state, but take an active role in their own self-government. Make your own joke people quote:It’ll be necessary to revive a living elite patriotism. That means conducting oneself in office as if nation is more important than party; not using executive orders, filibusters and the nuclear option to grab what you can while you happen to be in the majority. It means setting up weekly encounters to help you respect and understand the fellow Americans who reside across the social chasms. Note that 'patriotism' used to mean the good of the country over oneself; the "elite" qualification means - we need more noblesse oblige among the financiers and idle rich? It most certainly does not mean that; that would be interference with capitalism. I think Brooks is calling for a fig leaf of compassion while loving over the untermenchen quote:Finally, it’ll be necessary to fight alienation with moral realism, with a mature mind-set that says that, yes, people are always flawed, the country always faces problems, but that is no reason for lazy cynicism or self-righteous despair. If you start with an awareness of human foibles, then you can proceed with what Levin calls pessimistic hopefulness — grateful for the institutions our ancestors left us, and filled with cheerful confidence that they can be reformed to solve present needs. can't even parse this - don't rock the boat you motherless fucks? quote:Impeached or not, it’s hard to see how Trump recovers as an effective governing force. Now is the moment for a new establishment to organize, to address the spirit of alienation that gave rise to Trump, but which transcends him. Better to address the causes rather than the spirit - it sounds like Brooks thinks some re-branding is needed to make people happy with the poo poo sandwich
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May 23, 2017 15:47
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Brooks thinks the oligarchs should just be slightly more benevolent instead of being guillotined, so clearly he's much more out of touch than the aliens he's making fun of
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May 23, 2017 16:01
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Brooks says "we" so much I wonder if the "s" is a plural.
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May 23, 2017 19:32
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Doc Hawkins posted:Brooks says "we" so much I wonder if the "s" is a plural. lol good point It's interesting to try to parse that 'we' in of itself. That he's way beyond "let them eat cake" levels of disconnect, I imagine he's speaking for the elite superfucks he hangs out with, and the various sorts of imbeciles who try to live in the fever swamp of the "center"
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May 23, 2017 19:46
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How do you start out with "something is wrong if Trump is acceptable compared to current leadership" and then pivot right away into the dumb proles are gently caress ups we need to tweak the old so it doesn't piss them off I kind of sympathize with not wanting to accept that you're a stupid rear end in a top hat and you're wrong and there's no rebranding that's going to work. Hell YouTube idiots make money just by insisting nothing needs to change and women/blacks have enough. Expanded to include all poor and all this dumb ink spilled is the same thing. Though usually they have the slight bit of sense to say oh we just need another tune up instead of insisting the car isn't on fire at all.
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May 23, 2017 20:45
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He lacks the introspection to realize his conservatism is purely self-serving, and the intelligence to confabulate interesting rationalizations for it, but has the education and class indoctrination needed make his total vacuity sound cultured to his target audience. ...The youtube griper comparison is really apt, good job.
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May 23, 2017 22:08
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Brooks is smart enough to sound smart, but not knowledgeable enough in politics to recognize the shortcomings of his own proposals, so he basically ends up spouting the 'common sense' of 'do things better and not worse' solution, in slightly more words. Simply advocating for not-dumb-and-better-and-cooler leadership is a non-answer. The question is what forces have brought US democracy to the point it is, and those forces extend beyond a simplistic set of character failings, which can be remedied by moralizing in a high-culture news rag like the nyt. If anything, Trump is a continuation of policies the GOP has advocated for decades, which it has sold it's base for decades. Nothing that Trump has done or promised to do, is something that people in the GOP haven't been wanting to do for a while. Trump is a creation of the GOP elite, and his existence is a condemnation of the exact bullshit he's pushing here.
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May 24, 2017 00:05
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rudatron posted:If anything, Trump is a continuation of policies the GOP has advocated for decades, which it has sold it's base for decades. Nothing that Trump has done or promised to do, is something that people in the GOP haven't been wanting to do for a while. Trump is a creation of the GOP elite, and his existence is a condemnation of the exact bullshit he's pushing here. Yes but it is so uncouth
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May 24, 2017 00:18
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