Someone get help, David Brooks has been mugged by reality!
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.
The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.
…
If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.
And they will be right.
Even a blind squirrel can find a nut, sometimes. Where has Brooks been all this time? Well, it’s better late than never. All kidding aside, it looks like an important turning point in the media narrative. Brooks is basically making the kinder, gentler “economic sabotage” argument. It’s been frustrating watching the radicalization of the Republican party and the very serious media pretend it doesn’t exist, and Brooks has been a Republican party cheerleader and enabler. I’ll let Driftglass express my frustration – this is not a new thing, it’s simply the culmination of years of Republican doctrine:
The question remains, where were you, Mr. Brooks, when Reagan was instructing them that the government is always wrong, always evil? Where were you when the leaders of your Movement were teaching them that everyone not in the Movement was a Commie? That compromise was treason?
“The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities.”
Yes, but where were you, Mr. Brooks, when the yahoo, bigot, militia-nuts and Fundy votes were being aggressively courted by your Party? When Young Republican gatherings became occasions for the endless burning of East Coast elites in verbal effigy? When anyone in the press not mindlessly spewing paranoid wingnut bile was denounced by your Party and Movement leaders as part of the Liberal Media Conspiracy?
Brooks needs to be careful. He’s starting to sound like one of those hippies, like Paul Krugman. In case you were wondering, the Republicans are already pooh-poohing Brooks’s concern. Republican hero Paul Ryan basically told Brooks to drop on his pointy head:
RYAN: What happens if you do what he’s saying, is then you can’t lower tax rates. So it does affect marginal tax rates. In order to lower marginal tax rates, you have to take away those loopholes so you can lower those tax rates. If you want to do what we call being revenue neutral … If you take a deal like that, you’re necessarily requiring tax rates to be higher for everybody. You need lower tax rates by going after tax loopholes. If you take away the tax loopholes without lowering tax rates, then you deny Congress the ability to lower everybody’s tax rates and you keep people’s tax rates high.
Tax cuts >>>> deficit reduction. If you have trouble figuring out Republicans, remember this equation.