What do Liberal Bloggers really think of David Brooks ?

I do not think that David Brooks is dismissed as uninteresting, unintelligent and insincere by many liberal bloggers just because of partisanship. Given that impression (unsupported by links) I am surprised by two things. First that Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum repeatedly comment on Brooks' articles and second that I find their posts very interesting. Actually interesting enough that I intend to read his latest "A House Divided."
OK that's over.
I note with relief that some of the 700 words were devoted to a correction.

I think the explanation is simple. In essays, it is often convenient to set up a straw man. It is even more convenient to debate a real man with straw man quality arguments.

Brooks argues that conservativism is thriving because conservatives debate with each other and especially because they debate fundamental matters

Conservatives fell into the habit of being acutely conscious of their intellectual forebears and had big debates about public philosophy. That turned out to be important: nobody joins a movement because of admiration for its entitlement reform plan. People join up because they think that movement's views about human nature and society are true.

Liberals have not had a comparable public philosophy debate.

In short conservatives are philosophers and liberals are technocrats and that is why conservativism is flourishing. This forms an amusing contrast with the Krugman column in the same issue. They are litereally but not figuratively on the same page.

I think I will get back to Brooks because I find Drum's critique more interesting than the original column

any essay about the triumph of conservatism is bankrupt unless it takes into account the two charts above. What they show is simple:

Conservatives have outnumbered liberals for a long time, and that hasn't changed much in the past three decades. In 1976, they were ahead 31% to 18%. Today they're ahead 33% to 18%.

At the same time, Southern conservatives have left the Democratic party in droves. In 1976 Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 23 points. Today they lead by only 5 points.

Drum's point is that Brooks is explaining a shift which has not occured. One might argue that polls are crude indicators and especially that the number of people who identify themselves as conservative does not correctly measure the intellectual vibrancy of conservativism. For example, I might argue that, since I think that, at the moment, conservative thought is sterile, while many Americans call themselves conservatives. Nonetheless, I find Drum's analysis convincing. Brooks was talking about people joining a movement and not about the quality of the intellectual product of that movement. I agree with Drum that Brooks is explaining a trend which does not exist.

I also think the simple graphs Drum posts explain why liberals do not debate public philosophy in public. There is little to be gained politically by arguing that one's beliefs are true liberalism, since the public doesn't like the word. I could honestly argue that I am a genuine atheist theologian and the first true Manichean. Even I won't bother (although I am getting tempted). The prize isn't worth the pixels.

In fact, if you put Brooks and Drum together, you explain a lot. Many Americans consider themselves conservatives. No one can explain what that means, that is, no one can find a common thread in the many meanings of the word. People are desperate to find out what conservativism is and are willing to give great prominence to people who are willing to try to explain, even if they are ... well you know who I am talking about. In particular, politicians pay attention to people who claim to know what conservatives think, because there are a lot of conservative votes.

This also leads right to Matthew Yglesias' post which concludes and then reconcludes

But Brooks is probably right to say that this sort of disinclination to discuss the big, airy philosophical questions is a problem for liberals at the polls. It goes to "the vision thing" or, rather, the perception that liberals don't have one.

UPDATE: Mark Schmitt has a different take. It also occurs to me to point out that there's a difference between partisan success and ideological success. I also think there are structural assymetries in American politics that make it unwise for liberals to try and mimmick conservatives in a knee-jerk kind of way. What works for one side may not work for the other.

I think that it is clear (and has been pointed out by many people) that the reason that Democrats don't display vision is that they are terrified of convincing people that they have the liberal egalitarian vision, which, they believe, is unpopular. That is the point about strategy is that Democrats have convinced voters that they are soul less, insincere and motivated only by the desire to win by carefully hiding any vision they might have. In the analysis of the last election, this is described as "Bush won the center by running on the right." Notice, in particular that the Republicans were not laughed down when they argued both that Kerry is a flip flopper and that he is the most liberal senator. The line was clear. He is lying in order to hide his true ideaology which is way to the left of his stated positions. Hell they convinced me, that was why I was delighted to vote for Kerry.

I agree with Yglesias that Democrats are hurt by their efforts to hide their ideology , vision, and views in public philosophy. Even if these are less popular than the Democrats detailed policy proposals, it has to be better to explain your vision than to leave the explaining to your opponent. I further think that the winning left of center ideology is soak the rich, class war populism. I also think that this would be excellent policy.

Also the kid is smart. The second sentence in the update is Drum's point made concise (my post is Drum's point made into a manifold). The kid is also very young. He wasn't around back liberals had vision not to mention when they had violent quarrels with leftists and progressives and etc etc (OK not all that young I can barely remember).

OK now to Brooks himself. He is partisan in a very unconvincing way.

When modern conservatism became aware of itself, conservatives were so far out of power it wasn't even worth thinking about policy prescriptions. They argued about the order of the universe, and how the social order should reflect the moral order. Different factions looked back to different philosophers - Burke, Aquinas, Hayek, Hamilton, Jefferson - to define what a just society should look like.

and

If I were a liberal, which I used to be, I wouldn't want message discipline. I'd take this opportunity to have a big debate about the things Thomas Paine, Herbert Croly, Isaiah Berlin, R. H. Tawney and John Dewey were writing about.

The thing that seemed outrageously blatant in the quotes above is that Brooks lists Jefferson as an inspiration to conservatives and not to liberals. This is either crazy or dishonest (my bet dishonest). Now Jefferson was, of course, in key ways far to the right of contemporary conservatives. However, his intellectual legacy is of no use to contemporary conservatives and is central to the ideology of many liberals.
For example, he cut the defence budget by two thirds and ordered the US nave to stay in port. He opposed industrialisation and considered the wage system inconsistent with Democracy. He refused to identify himself as a Christian because of his belief in the separation of church and state (and also quite likely because his religeous beliefs did not amount to Christianity). He proposed (in private to Madison) that all debts should be cancelled every 20 years. By the way, he did not say "the government that governs least is the government that governs best". Brooks may be right that contemporary conservatives are diverse, but I think it is obvious that Jefferson could not be one of them. The idea is laughable. The idea that liberals do not look to Jefferson is frankly dishonest.

Another irritating conservative affectation is the claim that conservatives were far from power when the movement became self aware. Conservatives love to praise their courage as a lonely minority, but Eisenhower was no lefty. I don't know how they manage to convince themselves of such nonsense. If anyone reads this far (unlikely) and can help me, please explain.

The strangest thing is that Brooks suggests that there is more interesting non-technical thought on the right than on the left and yet, as is so common with conservatives, he is commenting on the debate among liberals. I suppose I am probably missing conservative thought because I don't bother to look for it, but I really haven't noticed any original "public philosophy" or any coherent thoughts on "the order of the universe, and how the social order should reflect the moral order."


[dangling paragraph which I deleted for space and stuck here at the end but at least I'm honest about it]
In further praise of Drum's claim I note that in other posts Drum has commented on trends in public opinion on issues not labels. I personally have not noticed any clear trends other than decreased homophobia. Choices favored by the majority of poll respondents are currently generally to the left of those made by current policy makers. The opposite was true in the 60s and 70s. The choices favored by the majority of poll respondents have changed little and, of course, the policy makers are different.