Conservative New York Times Columnist David Brooks Mea Culpa on Donald Trump?
Those who know that Donald Trump is an aberration may enjoy David Brook’s recent column. It is an elitist mea culpa that stinks of anti-democracy. Brook’s column, “No, Not Trump, Not ever” is the perfect read to understand the elitist nature of the mainstream media.
To be clear, I know Donald Trump is wrong for America. Most know that. However, it is a derelict mainstream media that is primarily responsible for Donald Trump. Many blame the Republican establishment for condoning the likes of Trump, birthers, haters, liars, and other hacks in their party. That is only partially correct. The mainstream media gave the deviant behavior of the Republican renegades plausibility for existing.
Now Brooks as a representative of a corrupt media is issuing a mea culpa? He starts with a condescending statement about the average American voter.
In convincing fashion, Republican voters seem to be selecting Donald Trump as their nominee. And in a democracy, victory has legitimacy to it. Voters are rarely wise but are usually sensible. They understand their own problems. And so deference is generally paid to the candidate who wins.
Voters are not unwise. They are low information who make bad decisions because of a derelict mainstream media. Donald Trump can get away with lying because the media has allowed the lies of the plutocracy to become the norm. The norm has failed most Americans. Hell, they voted for trickle down, lax regulations, wars, and much more. What have they received in return? A subpar existence.
Brooks questions whether the voters’ will should be respected.
The question is: Should deference be paid to this victor? Should we bow down to the judgment of these voters?
Only after holding voters in contempt did he provide his and the media’s mea culpa.
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.
Really? Journalists are supposed to be well read in history. They are supposed to be that entity that provides transparency between the government and the people. They are the bridge between the powerful and the less powerful. They should represent the truth. Instead, they have become incompetent by design. The plutocracy wants low information citizen voters. They forgot low information voters are a double edged sword. And voting for a Donald Trump is that bad edge.
David Brooks accurately describes Trump in a manner that should have been done months if not years ago.
He is a childish man running for a job that requires maturity. He is an insecure boasting little boy whose desires were somehow arrested at age 12. He surrounds himself with sycophants. … Donald Trump is an affront to basic standards of honesty, virtue and citizenship. He pollutes the atmosphere in which our children are raised. He has already shredded the unspoken rules of political civility that make conversation possible. In his savage regime, public life is just a dog-eat-dog war of all against all. As the founders would have understood, he is a threat to the long and glorious experiment of American self-government. He is precisely the kind of scapegoating, promise-making, fear-driving and deceiving demagogue they feared.
Brooks answers his undemocratic question he stated at the beginning of his column.
Trump’s supporters deserve respect. They are left out of this economy. But Trump himself? No, not Trump, not ever.
A while back I wrote a piece titled “Chuck Todd Is The Embodiment Of A Delegitimized Traditional Media.”
A few months back Chuck Todd interviewed Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein on media reaction to their book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism” and subsequent Washington Post essay “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem”. One can find a detail post mortem of the entire interview here.
Norm Ornstein castigated the press for a false fairness or false balance. He said specifically, “There are moments where there is a clear case to be made that one side is a perpetrator of something that goes beyond the norms and the other side isn’t. And too often that just hasn’t been expressed.”
Sorry, Mr. Brooks. If most of your voters elect Trump, then it is undemocratic not to have him represent them. It is unlikely that any mea culpa from the mainstream media will be accepted by the masses. They have sowed distrust. Many have been pointing out media failure for decades.
Going forward in the general election the media can attempt to earn the respect of the public by not only reporting accurately on the election but accurately about the policies of the plutocracy that really harms Americans. Do your job. Americans do not want mea culpas.