How Do I Love Me, Let Me Count the Ways

David Brooks’ latest op-ed piece is another mish-mash consisting of a few undeniable facts covered in self-serving class-warfare sauce. I think this is the point where he really goes wrong: “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 [emphasis mine].” This is by way of a preamble to his description of the Tea Party movement, which he characterizes as “a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against.” Oh, and just to keep the record straight, Brooks is “not a fan of this movement” – which will come as a surprise to precisely no one, since Brooks is always careful to wipe his shoes before entering that shrine to liberal prejudices, the New York Times.

The “educated class”, of course, would include all those bright-eyed socialist technocrats who think that a little less demos in democracy is just what the doctor ordered. David Brooks naturally includes himself in this class, though he is occasionally skeptical about liberal means, and even ends; it’s a sort of “my class, right or wrong” attitude that the high-school dropouts - who, in Brooks’ imagination, constitute the main body of Tea Party protesters - wouldn’t understand.

Probably because their political world is made up exclusively of negatives, and mere nay-saying requires little in the way of complex thinking – or so Brooks would have us believe. But this is a fallacious argument: every negative has its obverse positive. People who are against Obama Care are in favor of the health care coverage they have and they know government interference will change it in ways that will be detrimental to themselves and to society. People who are against gun control are in favor of the Second Amendment. “They [the Tea Party proponents] believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation.” Sounds to me kind of like they’re in favor of limited government, personal freedom, individual responsibility, and genuinely representative government – the sort of things that were enshrined in our constitution by, if I’m not mistaken, a group of men who were members of the educated class of their time.

Brooks is a talented writer, but a very limited thinker, whose class prejudices have led him to adopt the safe but ultimately unproductive role of courtier to the liberal oligarchy. Good thing for him us Cro-Magnon teabaggers don’t know what “oligarchy” means; otherwise we might whoop up on him with our primitive, hand-lettered signs.