OMG! NYT Commenter Rips The GOP and Their Hero Ronald Reagan Apart In Spectacular Fashion

[kpete]

soxared040713
Crete, IL From Boston, MA 15 hours ago

Mr. Brooks,

I don't know where to begin. It would be impolite for me to tell you that you have lost your mind. Well, I'm willing to be impolite. I sincerely wish that I wasn't limited to 1,500 characters. I've already wasted 227.

Ronald Reagan was evil; he took an axe to the foundation of the American democratic system "government is the problem", a failure, then set about dividing the country by income and race and section. And smirked when while his clueless base looked the other way while his cronies hogged the government trough they so hated. Mr. Brooks, please recall the unforgettable scene in Alien. Donald Trump, today, is the awful, bloody thing that forced itself out of the GOP's breast. It uncoils from the corpse, snarls and snaps at everyone standing around in horror and scuttles off, leaving a clattering, putrid mess behind. The image is violent. After Reagan, H. W., Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, W. and Cheney (and now McConnell, Ryan and the departed Boehner), what on earth did you expect from the wreck?

And how do you get off writing "Trump is loveless. There is no room for reciprocity and love in his worldview." ? No, there isn't nor has there been any in the GOP's since, oh, Richard Nixon (1968).

Mr. Brooks, there will be a post-Trump era because we're still in the Reagan area. The merest child could see through your references to Thomas Kuhn's "model." The GOP's a complete disaster. You were there at its creation and cheered it on. Happy today?

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/25/1506312/-OMG-NYT-Commenter-Rips-The-GOP-and-Their-Hero-Ronald-Reagan-Apart-In-Spectacular-Fashion
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/opinion/the-post-trump-era.html?hpw&rref=opinion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

[malthaussen]

1. They didn't think the chickens would come home to roost so soon...

... reminds me a bit of one of my favorite epitaphs: "I expected this, just not so soon."

If the current model of the psychopathic, libertarian conservative is right, they hoped to die before the check came due and leave the mess in the laps of the rising generation. Now they're bewildered that their 40-year con has suddenly, dramatically, been exposed, and they're scrambling to cover their asses and secure their portfolios. While one may roll his eyes at the affectations of disbelief and dismay coming from the Right, I am equally intolerant of those on the Left who make bank out of pointing their fingers and howling with glee. But at least the latter have the excuse of finally feeling validated.

Neither, however, give much of a damn about the state of the Republic.

-- Mal

[n2doc]

6. Absolutely n/t

[Betty Karlson]

10. I suspect that they never expected them to roost at all:

"Just keep posting foxes to guard the hen-house, and the chickens will never come to roost."

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, one campaign is counting chickens that are yet to hatch.

[malthaussen]

14. Kudos for pushing the metaphor farther.:)

Last edited Sat Mar 26, 2016, 02:24 PM - Edit history (1)

In the final analysis, I don't think it much matters if they thought "never" or "never in my lifetime," they surely had no thought that it would blow up in their faces.

Fortunately for them, Plan B is working fine, and by this time in 2017, all of this will be a bad dream. Unless, of course, those prematurely-counted chickens fail of their promise.

-- Mal

[Betty Karlson]

28. And who says that all that will hatch is a chicken?

Kudis back at you.

[malthaussen]

45. Typos are terrible things... n/t

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. What he said.

[JHB]

3. If you like that, you should look up America's leading professor of Brooksology...

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/

Merely the latest:

David Brooks: The Great Project, Volume II -- The Panglossing

Longtime readers of this blog know of my ridiculously well-documented hypothesis that Mr. David Brooks of the New York Times has never practiced what the kids call "journalism" in any sense of the word, nor does he really write whatchacall "op-ed" columns.

Instead, the New York Times has employed Mr. David Brooks at heavy expense for the sole purpose of spinning comforting and imaginative fairy tales about a wholly imaginary "Republican Party" which exists as a collective hallucination in the minds of Mr. David Brooks, a few hundred other, lesser confidence men who live off of the same grift, a handful of extremely wealthy idiots who desperately want to believe what Mr. Brooks writes, and many thousands of cultural cowards who want to feign political sagacity while hiding out in the safe confines of the seemingly-indestructible Both Siderist bunker which Mr. Brooks has built for them.

Or, as one 100% unemployable Liberal degenerate once put it several thousand posts ago:

...it is now painfully clear that Mr. Brooks is engaged in a long-term project to completely rewrite the history of American Conservatism: to flense it of all of the Conservative social, political economic and foreign policy debacles that make Mr. Brooks wince and repackage the whole era as a fairy tale of noble Whigs being led through treacherous hippie country by the humble David Brooks.

much more at the link

[kpete]

4. driftglass

is Bookmarked and read every day by me

thanks JHB
and peace,
kp

[Fast Walker 52]

63. do you listen to his and his wife's podcast "Professional Left" ?

It's become a favorite of mine in the past year.

[mountain grammy]

8. Excellent!

[SusanCalvin]

15. OMG.

Just what I've been thinking, better said.

[malaise]

25. I saved the link

Thanks

[Johonny]

27. +1

[zentrum]

40. Oh Yes! I just posted his link too!

He's peerless about Brooks. Thanks JHB.

http://driftglass.blogspot.com

[closeupready]

47. There we go. Thanks.

[pansypoo53219]

48. brooks was called bo bo(mystic science 3000 monkey man) on rising hegemon.

it fit.

[Overseas]

53. K&R. Bookmarked. So glad to have someone saying so well how I feel about Brooks !

Brooks does so often seem to be promoting fairy tales.

[Punkingal]

5. Wow!

Massive, spot-on take down. I am so happy to see it. The night Reagan got elected was one of the worst nights EVER in my life. I could never understand the media calling him "beloved" and "wildly popular." I couldn't stand him, and the excessive worship of the RW since he left office only made it worse.

[klook]

61. Right there with you.

I knew this country was in serious trouble when this happy warrior of obtuse narcissism was elected.

[rhett o rick]

7. The Ruling Class is taking advantage of the carnage in the GOP. They use Trump as a bludgeon

to coerce us into supporting a very conservative Clinton. They paint her as a progressive. They think with their wealth they can paint anything and fool us. But some perspective, Obama ran as a progressive but not as progressive as Sanders a true Progressive. After being elected, Obama changed into a moderate conservative and is still to the left of Clinton.

[Betty Karlson]

11. I think we all learned a lesson from Obama's presidency.

my painful lesson started on inauguration day. Rick Warren, anyone?

[SusanCalvin]

16. Yep.

And I also remember what happened here.

[pangaia]

19. I will never forget the joy I felt the night Obama won.

And I will never forget the WHAT THE FUCK feeling I had about Rick Warren.

Right then I realized either Obama had not a clue what was about to happen....OR... I had been duped.

[rhett o rick]

22. Exactly. I knew from Rick Warren what the message was. It seemed it was important to strike

at the progressives early and hard. He had to reassure the conservatives that he was one of them and not the campaign Obama.

We have a long hard uphill battle against the Plutocratic Oligarchy that has an iron grip on our democracy. We can't afford the status quo for 4 more years. If we fail in 2016, we need to start working on 2020 immediately.

[Betty Karlson]

29. If we fail in 2016, we need to start think about breaking the mold of the two-party system -

Last edited Sat Mar 26, 2016, 05:01 PM - Edit history (1)

preferably beyond repair.

[rhett o rick]

32. We can't leave the Democratic Party. It's our Party and we need to kick

out the Conservatives. The Party has a history and huge infrastructure that we can't abandon. If we are not capable of kicking out the conservatives, we won't beat them with a new party. We need a viable two party system.

[Califonz]

36. The UK Labour Party

Founded in 1900, it overtook the UK Liberal Party in the 1920s and has been in power off and on ever since.

A new party in the United States can be founded and built, but it may take a generation or two to gain power.

On the other hand, the US Republican Party took only six years from its founding to elect a president in a four-way race in 1860, so the breakup of the GOP due to the Trump circus might be a great opportunity for a truly progressive US national party! Now, what to name it that isn't already taken, hmmmm....

[Doctor_J]

49. And Don siegelman is STILL in prison

I think the president's duplicity has made it easier for me to refuse to vote for Hillary.

[Betty Karlson]

50. more status quo, more status quo - why won't anybody vote to keep things untenable?

thus spake the priviledged, the ruler, and the profiteer.

[pangaia]

17. Electing Bernard Sanders is the only hope we have.

[ChiciB1]

46. Yes It Is... BUT The NOW Democratic Party Hasn't HAD Their A-HA Moment

yet! They think that by giving Hillary the nomination THIS COUNTRY will see any real change! Everything Brooks talked about is so much like what Hillary believes NO MATTER what she's saying now!

So, so many of us here KNOW this to be true. This election SHOULD be the time for REAL CHANGE on BOTH sides of the aisle! RIGHT now, the supposed front runners won't bring any change. On one hand TRUMP signifies some sort of weird, horrible rising of a heaping pile of crap! On the other hand so many of us KNOW Hillary only means more of the same. Maybe she's not as bombastic as Trump, but if this country was truly willing to look at itself clearly the possibility of REAL CHANGE is there.

What isn't clear about her ties to money and THE POWER BROKERS? It baffles me! Those of us who support Bernie DO REALIZE that he CAN'T turn the mess around by himself or even very quickly. We DO understand it! But we also understand that to go on like we are now we risk losing the possibility of electing a person who has presented himself before us to FIGHT for "we the people" and then we must ask... When will this opportunity come along again???

The TWO people with the HIGHEST negatives are what we are looking at to become the POTUS! What does THAT say about this country?? I have yet to figure it out.

But I do KNOW that with such HIGH NEGATIVES it doesn't say we're willing to MOVE FORWARD and GIVE CHANGE a chance!

This Democratic Party may not be seeing it yet as they laugh and point fingers at the other side, but THEY'RE even unwilling to LOOK at what THEY'VE become!

The Democratic is going to see a mass exodus should we get Hillary. I know I'm DONE! Not hollow words from me, just the plain truth. You may not think Bernie is a Democrat, but HE IS what this country needs right now to begin to heal!

We still have time!!!

[mrdmk]

59. Yes, thank-you! Took the words right out of my mouth

Never have it seen so many people jump through themselves branding this women as a progressive. She just does not fit the definition...


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[mountain grammy]

9. K & R

I can say nothing better than soxare040713 said!

[wiggs]

12. GOP will wrap Trump up in a bow, blame him for all the GOP

perceived ills, and kick him to the curb. He will be the scapegoat...the unwilling sacrificial lamb....they will attempt to use him to show how compassionate, intolerant of racism, and modern they are when they reject him as a candidate. They will rebrand as the 'new' GOP. But they'll be the same as ever, of course.

The GOP will try this...may work, may not.

[AxionExcel]

13. Excellent

k and r

[MrScorpio]

18. Love that comment.

Reagan, in the aftermath of Nixon, pretty much planted the Republican Party on the path of becoming the failed institution that it is today, by single-handedly purging the party of both liberals and moderates. Yes, there used to be liberal Republicans. I’m old enough to remember them.

The GOP is now a fully-owned subsidiary of the corporate oligarchy, which is now fully in control of both the economy and the state. Without anyone with any common sense in the Republican Party, no one is left to inform the delusional right wing supply side cult that their fantasies are not only ineffective, but they’re downright destructive.

Frankly, I wish that the GOP would collapse on itself, otherwise they’d have no incentive to reinvent the party, purging itself of it’s fanatical contingent. If one, the GOP is continue to exist as a braindead entity without a living will, kept alive by the support of it’s billionaire oligarchy masters.

[tabasco]

37. Republicans? Failed? They control the House, Senate, most state legislatures, half of the

Supreme Court.

Looks to me like the Democratic party is the failed institution.

[MrScorpio]

38. Sure, they know how to steal elections...

But when they try to govern, they're proven incompetent at that task. They're victims of their own success at conning the white working class and the oligarchs into falling for their bullshit. Their failure is manifested in the fact that no one really trusts them at doing their job. An approval rating for Congress just above 14 percent is not really a sign of success.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html

[Boomerproud]

58. Why are they still in power then?

The failure is with the American electorate. WE ARE the victims of their success. Love the OP though. Brilliant.

[MrScorpio]

60. Excellent point. nt

[ananda]

20. This is great!

I especially liked the leadup to
Drumpf in a Nazi uniform!

[Uncle Joe]

21. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[kpete]

23. Uncle Joe

Good Morning to you
We are up with the family in the mountains
-----still a little snow on the ground.
Going to fill our painted eggs with bird seed and crack them on each others heads tomorrow morning.

Peace to us all,
kp

[Uncle Joe]

26. Good morning to you, kpete.

That sounds like fun, Happy Easter.

UJ

[malaise]

24. Beautiful

Hug that up ReTHUGs and you are thugs in suits.

[jwirr]

30. Wow. Happy today? That is the question we need to ask

every right leaning organization (media) and politician. Enough is enough.

[HenryWallace]

31. Occupy the Party?

The fiscal Conservatives are on the move!

Michael Gerson basically endorses Hillary :

http://qctimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/guest/gerson-the-empty-promises-of-trump-and-sanders/article_c7a3fe14-38b3-50be-a4fa-a4a20b847002.html

Now Brook's disavows Trickle-down (for the time being)........

The battle lines are being drawn and it is for the Heart & Soul of the only remaining viable party!

[FighttheFuture]

43. I can see the Democrats splintering in the near future into the New Republicans and

the Social Democrats!! Can't come soon enough!

[SHRED]

33. The problem is...

...The corporatists that are freaked by what's happening in the GOP are infiltrating our party now.

[liberalfromaustin21]

34. Reagan was a fraud and a liar

His policies screwed over countless Americans during his tenure. He's easily one of our worst presidents.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

35. This was the inevitable result of one political party becoming the home of the worst of humanity.

[zentrum]

39. Well done! And...

Actually Repub heartlessness goes back to McCarthy and the witch hunts on American artists, actors, and directors.

Do you know about Driftglass? He's posts brilliantly about the Brooks disaster. Highly recommended. Great graphics too.

http://driftglass.blogspot.com

[AlbertCat]

41. Reagan disease....

Sanders is the 1st politician since 1980 from any party to run for president that doesn't sound like he is in some stage of "reagan disease".

[FighttheFuture]

42. Love the Alien chestburster analogy. So spot on in describing Reagan and his various spawn.

[LiberalLovinLug]

44. Another comment from the story:

Neutral Observer NYC 1 day ago

I'm sorry Mr. Brooks, but you don't get to travel, in the space of 5 or 6 columns, from hair-on-fire warnings as to how the Republican Party simply must stop Trump, to gushing about what a wonderful and exciting time it is to be a Republican as a result of the fact that, er, Trump is taking a jackhammer to your party. (Or maybe this column is just one long, winking joke and I'm simply too dumb to get it.) I want to read the column where you debunk the notion that the GOP is a helpless victim of the catastrophe it's bringing upon itself and maybe the nation, and clearly explain that Republicans visited this disaster upon themselves through their cynical, deceitful, slick and centrally-planned, decades-long strategy of directly appealing to the basest instincts in our national character in order to round up enough votes to place their retrograde policies at the center of the country's agenda. You could start with an honest acknowledgment of your own efforts in this regard. Denial is not a river in Egypt.



I wish the NYT had the guts to hire someone, like your OP example, not afraid to call out the Republican establishment's shameful facilitation of the barbarians from the bottom of their barrel rise to the top.

[japple]

51. Yowza!!!! Thanks for sharing this. Bookmarking

for future enjoyment.

[Overseas]

52. K&R. Wonderful!

[libodem]

54. That was a thing of beauty

[felix_numinous]

55. A main symptom of this social disease

is not recognizing blowback or taking responsibility for well, anything. The piles of shit these people leave in their wake is stinking up the planet now. It's time to clean house.

[SylviaD]

56. In some ways the Republican power brokers' horror at the rise of Trump is satisfying...

...they created the monster, but it ran out of control. Now they scramble to put it back in the cage. Too late!

[pbmus]

57. Ronnies last 2 years of his presidency

he was showing signs of Alzheimer's disease

[pampango]

62. "There is no room for reciprocity and love in his worldview." A lot of truth in one short sentence.

'Reciprocity' both from one American to another in our country and from one country to another in our world. "Love?" No. Power and money matter much more in the Trump worldview.