Blood-Drenched David Brooks Implies His Hands are Clean

First, go read this piece by David Brooks about how Trumpism is the "governing cancer" of our time.

I'll wait.

It's pretty amazing, at least to me, that Books can write that without naming any names, and let's start with the elephant in the room:

Ronald Reagan.

Reagan did practice politics, in that he would work with those who were in the other party, and he would compromise, but Reagan began the whole "government is the enemy" schtick that the Republicans, up to and including The Donald, have been selling to their base for the last two generations. Succeeding GOPers have eaten that shit up and concentrated it. They began the strategy of shutting down the Federal government in order to get their way on a given issue.

Reagan began the process of "privatizing" much of the military, which is how we got to the point where a company linked to the then-sitting Vice President built showers for soldiers that posed risks of lethal electrocution. Thanks to Reagan, we ended up with arrogant, poorly-trained and poorly-led mercenaries running around under the American flag in war zones.

Evil trolls such as Ted Cruz and Tom Coburn got into the Senate. Coburn, as you may recall, seemed fine with Bush's wars, quailed at the thought of doing anything to help the men and women who came home broken in mind and/or body because of them. The GOP nominated candidates who couldn't master tying their own shoes because they were "anti-government". They elected people who, if they were nutritionists, would have said that the remedy to bad nutrition is starvation. They've elected people to school boards who think that "science" is another word for "satanism".

And they put judges on the Supreme Court who believe that "money talks" is a constitutional principle.

You might look far and wide and I'll bet that you won't find much in Brooks's writings criticizing any of that.[1]

If government were a building, Republicans disconnected the fire alarm, tore out the sprinkler system, knocked down the interior firewalls and soaked the walls and floors with gasoline. All that was done with Brooks nodding his head in approval.

But now Brooks is horrified that there is a man who is about to throw a lit torch into the building.
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[1] Except maybe Sarah Palin. Brooks couldn't stomach her. Not at first. But even when he attempts to criticize a Republican, he later backs down.