Disordered In Spirit
David Brooks is right: everything is broken. But Buttigieg is pointing out what to do.
A disordered existence is a confused and miserable existence. If a society falls into general disorder, many of its members will cease to exist at all. And if the members of a society are disordered in spirit, the outward order of the commonwealth cannot endure.
| Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order
In How Democrats Can Be Relevant Again, David Brooks argues that the decay of 'social order' (a la Russell Kirk) has led to the collapse of small government conservatism, since it's pointless to push for decreasing government when government action is clearly needed.
He's making the case for brokenism:
Today, most people think America is broken. According to recent surveys, public trust in institutions is near its historical low. According to a recent Ipsos survey, about two-thirds of Americans agree with the statement “Society is broken.”
As David Frum pointed out recently in The Atlantic, between 1983 and 2007, the share of Americans who were satisfied with “the way things are going in the U.S.” hit peaks of about 70 percent and was often above 50 percent. From 2007 to 2022, the number of Americans who were satisfied with the way things were going was frequently down to about 25 percent.
He cites Russell Kirk, who sounds like Lao Tzu, in the quote at the top.
Brooks takes on the tones of a Taoist sage, himself:
When the social order is healthy, nobody notices; when it is in rubble, it’s all anybody can think about. Once the social order was shredded, small-government conservatism made no sense. If your society is in tatters, why would you want a small government doing nothing? If you think society is in moral and civic chaos, why would you think this or that tax cut or this or that government program is going to make a difference?
He takes Jon Alsop's 'misarchist' — 'a leader who is hostile to government and the people who run it but is willing to use state power to enforce order and traditional morals' — and runs with it, branding Trump as a misarchist 'extraordinaire'. But isn't that just an aspect of fascism? I'll have to read Alsop's piece to see if this term clarifies or blurs the point Brooks is making.
He buried the lede for the piece:
The central argument of the 21st century is no longer over the size of government. The central argument of this century is over who can best strengthen the social order. In this contest, the Republicans have their champions, and the Democrats aren’t even on the field.
Following on:
How does the party of the managerial elite adapt to a populist age?
There is something here, although I would restate:
How does the party of the institutional left and the voters it best represents -- the left elite -- come to terms with an electorate that believes everything is broken, including conventional political parties, like the current Democratic institutional left and the former traditional conservative right.
Although he is right about the many groups that defected from on-left democratic principles, especially working-class folks, like Latinos, Blacks, and Asians, and he does address the fact that Trump's populism is failing to deliver. But the answer for Dems is not to don Trump's multicolored robe. It's getting back to basics, starting with accepting everything -- including the Democratic Party -- is broken.
He might have been better off citing Pete Buittigieg, who said this week,
You've got an administration that is burning down so many of the most important institutions that we have in this country, which is wrong, It is also wrong to imagine that we should have just kept everything going along the way it was.
He said the Dems have been 'too attached to a status quo that has been failing us for a long time'.
The key for Dems is to accept the off-left vision, starting with accepting what nearly all Americans know: that today's world is broken, all of it, and so was Biden and Obama's. Then preach cost-of-living fixes (universal childcare, universal healthcare, more housing, more jobs, higher pay).
Fix this broken country, Democrats.