Stigmatizing dissent: David Brooks weighs in (again)

I've talked about this "stigmatizing dissent" theme in several previous posts. Conservative columnist David Brooks has raised the issue again. In his latest entry, he says the "culture war" of the 1980s has evolved into a new cultural war focused on criticizing the President. He cites a few examples that hardly seem able to carry the weight his argument places upon them. Evidently he thinks it was an act of hatred for Molly Ivins' first book on Bush to be titled Shrub.

It's clear Brooks is only worried about Democratic "haters" right now. He says (all emphases are mine) that the "quintessential new [Democratic] warrior ... will believe anything" about President Bush because it "feels so delicious to believe it [and] it's important to believe it because the other side is vicious, so he must be too." He continues:

To the [Democratic] warrior, politics is no longer a clash of value systems, each of which is in some way valid. ... Instead, [to the Democratic "warrior"] it's ... a brutal struggle for office in which each side believes the other is behaving despicably. ... The presidency wars produce mostly terrible [books] because the [Democratic] hatreds have left the animating ideas far behind and now romp about on their own.

The warriors have one other feature: ignorance. They have as much firsthand knowledge of their enemies as members of the K.K.K. had of the N.A.A.C.P. ... The core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it's the [Democratic] haters themselves.

This is just a further elaboration of the idea that criticisms of Bush or his policies are all just based on wild emotion and hate. Hate, hate, hate. It's the kind of thing that will convince those who want to be convinced. But, as a reality check, I'll refer to my account of an appearance by Joe Conason, (here and here) a partisan and persistent journalistic critic of Bush. Readers can judge whether he "will believe anything" about our legitimate President.

Tags: david brooks