David Brooks: People Disagree With Me Because They're Jealous of How Awesome I Am

Did he say that? Almost. Let us simply accept as a predicate that David Brooks quite definitely considers himself among the educated elite.

And here's what he has to say about the public's response to the educated elite.

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

Did you catch that? The public doesn't like the educated class, so -- because of that -- they childishly, petulantly take the position opposite that class.

Rather than: The majority of the public disagrees with this self-declared technocratic soft-socialistic urban would-be elite on most issues, so -- because of that -- their estimation of this small but extraordinarily noisy cohort necessarily diminishes.

Notice how Brooks inserts himself in a central position at every turn in the American political drama. He is the dominant actor; he causes all action. By simply taking a position, he causes people to recoil against it.

It's not that people have always been against that position. No, it's because he is such a crucial and unavoidable force in America that he also causes opinion to shift negatively, away from him, by simply act of choosing a position.

We disagree with Brooks because we disagree with Brooks. Not because we're reacting emotionally.

However, I will cop to reacting emotionally to this rather hysterical assertion by Brooks that he is the Irresistible Force in my own intellectual laboratory.

We disagree with you because we disagree with you; and we think you are arrogant, effete, entitled douchemongers because you are arrogant, effete, entitled douchemongers.

He then goes on to explain, as if we had any doubt, that he's "not a fan" of the tea party movement.

You know who sparked the tea party movement?

David Brooks. Just by being so awesomely influential and scary-smart, he provoked a reaction against himself.

He's kind of like Jerry Rice in his prime. You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him.

posted by Ace at 01:09 PM

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