Which Team is David Brooks Really On?

Baseball as metaphor. This boy is crying out.

So, in the spirit of outward reflection, below is a revised column by David Brooks that appeared in Tuesday's New York Times.

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If you chanced upon the front door of Grace Church School on lower Broadway on a sunny morning in the early winter of 1968, you might have come upon a radiant boy clutching a brown paper bag that contained the newly devised and very successful talking points of the “Southern Strategy.” An especially ingenious document that helped Richard Nixon win the World Series of American elections.

That boy grew up, slightly, and in the early spring of 1986, he vowed that he would ask his girlfriend to marry him the day Congress obtained a Republican majority. Something that hadn’t happened in 40 years. Luckily for him, it didn’t happen for another eight years. But, he followed through with it, and the marriage has even endured what his wife sometimes calls his Extremistsomnia. And other times calls his Hyprocrisomnia -- his tendency to toss and turn sleeplessly after his favorite party has been exposed, yet again, for what they truly are.

And yet we are the playthings of fate and lead lives filled with strange twists, and I (for it is time to throw off the artfully constructed mask) now find myself contemplating the uncontemplatable: that I will switch my allegiance from my beloved GOP to the more meaningful, if somewhat lost, party of my adopted town. I am increasingly becoming a fan of the Democratic party. But, alas, they just can’t seem to get their shit together.

Already I feel the tug, the love that dare not speak its name. After all, look who employs me. And secretly, some friends and I went to see Fahrenheit 911. Twice.

In the midst of this spiritual crisis I have begun to ask the fundamental question. What is the nature of the loyalty that binds us to our parties? Can a party be tossed aside even though it has given you (especially during the 1970’s) some of the worst years of your life?

Certainly our loyalty to a party has everything to do with the players who happen to be on it at any given moment. Look at Ronald Reagan! He convinced even me that ketchup was a vegetable.

No, the love of a party comes in three flavors. For some people, the love of a party is like the love of one’s nation. The party is the embodiment of the place we are from, our community and volk.

If my love for the GOP is of this sort, then it is not proper that I transfer my affection to the Democrats. After all, the Democrats now control squat. Republicans run the place, so as an immigrant I am obliged to indulge myself in nostalgia, as most Republicans do.

But I am extremely concerned by something Marshall Wittman wrote on his Bull Moose blog:

“It is evident that Republican rule is not about principle, but rather raw power. With the probable collapse of social security privatization, W. will likely leave office in '09 having failed to accomplish any significant domestic reform and greatly expanding the scope of federal power along with a huge government debt. Contrast that record to Clinton who left office with balanced budgets and welfare reform.”

Egads!

For other people, the love of a party is primarily a psychopathic connection. It is a bond forged during a lifelong string of shared emotions -- the way I felt when Ronald Reagan cried, “Tear Down That Wall!” The way I suffered through the many disappointments and government shutdowns of Newt Gingrich.

If my love of the GOP is of this sort, then it would be wrong to abandon the party, for to abandon the GOP would be to abandon myself. It would be to abandon a string of formative experiences, a core of my identity. It would send me off on a life of phoniness and self-alienation.

Finally, a love for a party can be a philosophical love, a love for the Platonic ideal the party embodies. For parties not only lie, cheat and steal; they come to represent creeds, a way of living in the world. The GOP ideal is: Talk out of both sides of your mouth. Say you believe in principles. States rights, smaller government, balanced budgets. The sanctimony of marriage. But only when it gets you votes.

The Democrats ideal is: God smiles upon his bleeding hearts. The history of the Democratic party teaches that miracles happen. You can work hard and earn a living wage. You can have health insurance. Older people can depend on social security. All it takes is true leadership and keeping our priorities straight!

My own love is mostly of this third type, and I have endured this spiritual crisis because the GOP, with all their big-money donors, have come to seem less like darlings. Perhaps the young Representatives, Johnny Isakson of Georgia and John Thume of South Dakota, will rekindle the flame, but I go into each day adrift and uncertain, with an open, and sometimes bleeding heart, worried about something I once heard Woody Allen say: “Do I want to belong to any club who would have me as a member?”

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Comments

[redguyinabluecity]

If all "W" is remembered for is liberating 40 million people from tyrany that will be enough for a lasting legacy.
I seem to remember that the major portion of the Republican's money came from donations of $1000. or less and it was the Democrats that carry the larger list of big cash doners.

[Roberta]

Excellent job! You missed on one paragraph -- the SUVs and Fox News would be evidence of his old allegiance, not his putative new one -- but your capture of the style and sense of his column is otherwise right on!

I can't remember who pointed me to your site, but it's going to become a regular read. Brava!

[Lori]

Hey Roberta -- thanks for picking up on that mistake. All fixed now!

Thanks for reading.