David Brooks: 'Trump-Bashing Has Become Educated-Class Meth'

August 8th, 2017 2:56 PM

It appears that the mind of David Brooks has been infected with the image of Donald Trump and he needs to take extreme measures to quit thinking about him. Perhaps Brooks could hang a pair of Barack Obama's pants in front of him and stare at its perfect crease for hours on end to take his mind off the Trump demon that has infected him. Yes, David Brooks in his August 8 column described his main problem in life as Getting Trump Out of My Brain:

For the past two years Trump has taken up an amazing amount of my brain space. My brain has apparently decided that it’s not interested in devoting more neurons to that guy. There’s nothing more to be learned about Trump’s mixture of ignorance, insecurity and narcissism. Every second spent on his bluster is more degrading than informative.

Now a lot of people are clearly still addicted to Trump. My Twitter feed is all him. Some people treat the Trump White House as the “Breaking Bad” serial drama they’ve been binge watching for six months. For some of us, Trump-bashing has become educated-class meth. We derive endless satisfaction from feeling morally superior to him — and as Leon Wieseltier put it, affirmation is the new sex.

A surprising bit of honesty from Brooks in the latter paragraph. Yes, those living in the liberal bubble are addicted to Trump bashing. And that addiction is as stupid as meth.

He added: 

It’s clear that Trump is not just a parenthesis. After he leaves things will not just snap back to “normal.” Instead, he represents the farcical culmination of a lot of dying old orders — demographic, political, even moral — and what comes after will be a reaction against rather than a continuing from.

...

Over the last several decades mainline Protestantism has withered. The country became more diverse. The WASPs lost their perch atop society. The mainline denominations lost their vitality.

For a time, we lived off the moral capital of the past. But the election of Trump shows just how desiccated the mainline code has become. A nation guided by that ethic would not have elected a guy who is a daily affront to it, a guy who nakedly loves money, who boasts, who objectifies women, who is incapable of hypocrisy because he acknowledges no standard of propriety other than that which he feels like doing at any given moment.

Gee! Almost as gauche as a wealthy endlessly sermonizing columnist with a yuuuuuge chip on his shoulder publishing a wedding registry list chock full of such classy items as a Vitamix Professional Series Heritage 750 Blender and a OXO Good Grips Oven Mitt With Magnet.

If Trump falls in disgrace or defeat, and people’s partisan pride is no longer at stake, I hope that even his supporters will have enough moral memory to acknowledge that character really does matter. A guy can promise change, but if he is dishonest, disloyal and selfish, the change he delivers is not going to be effective or good.

And if Trump succeeds will David Brooks have enough moral memory to acknowledge how foolish his self-righteous column sermonettes were?

One way or another I’m gonna wash that man right outta what’s left of my hair.

Exit question: If Trump is reelected, will Brooks collapse into a fetal position sucking his thumb hopelessly as what's left of his hair turns orange?