This David Brooks editorial in the New York Times is getting some play because it is rather shocking that:
1) a DC beltway conservative admitted that he was wrong about something,
2) admitted that he sucks at his job, and
3) allowed that “accuracy” was a thing that ought to be pursued by journalists.
In his own words:
Trump voters are a coalition of the dispossessed. They have suffered lost jobs, lost wages, lost dreams. The American system is not working for them, so naturally they are looking for something else.
Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.
He expected Trump to fizzle because he was “not socially intermingled with his supporters.” And there you have it. The conservative DC dis-reality bubble has popped, for Brooks anyway. Trump supporters don’t go to the Georgetown cocktail parties that Brooks goes to, so in his mind, they didn’t really exist.
Does Brooksy’s epiphany mean that there will be a cascading acknowledgment among DC beltway types that their worldview is a little screwed by their pool of social interminglers? Does this mean that the press is going to head out in search of this crazy new thing…accuracy? I tend to doubt it.
Bill Kristol is still being paid good money to appear on TV and support the establishment’s dis-reality perspective. Most recently, Bill Kristol has turned from Rubio as messiah and has taken to peddling the fantasy that potential independent bid by “real” conservatives could stop Trump. Kristol is holding tight to the cocktail party orthodoxy that Trump isn’t real, and that his supporters are a mirage. Kristol chalks Trump’s primary wins up to “lucky” timing.
So, who does Kristol think would peel off from Trump to vote for a third party conservative? He doesn’t say, but he doesn’t get paid to get stuck in the weeds of reality. Rather, he keeps getting on MSNBC by claiming that an election by a third party conservative “would be tough to win, but not impossible.”
Which is what someone might say just before they say, “…another gin and tonic, please.”
