Political Observer comments/reports on Brook’s propaganda essentials.

Mr Brooks cultivates the political fiction that he is a ‘Centrist’ in a Political World populated by the dread Populists, in sum Trump! The last paragraphs of his presented political rationalism, is provided by the Hoover Institution scholar Larry Diamond. The ‘as if’ here is that The Hoover Institution and Mr. Diamond exemplify that rationalism. The Brooks strategy never grows old, in his own mind, yet is bleakly realized in these paragraphs. I have selected for The Reader what I thing is revelatory, perhaps that reader may think me a disingenuous critic? If so, please comment in the space below!

What Reader can forget this Brooks Political Intervention of April 28, 2003?

The Collapse of the Dream Palaces

The Collapse of the Dream Palaces

This pretentious dull-witted dreck won him a job at The York Times!

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Of course, the main difference between those years and 2024 is that during those earlier pivotal moments the world experienced an expansion of freedom, the spread of democracy, the advance of liberal values. This year we’re likely to see all those widely in retreat

Is there a way to fight back against the populist tide? Of course there is, but it begins with the humble recognition that the attitudes that undergird populism emerged over decades and now span the globe. If social trust is to be rebuilt, it probably has to be rebuilt on the ground, from the bottom up. As for what mainstream candidates should do this election year, I can’t improve on the advice offered by the Hoover Institution scholar Larry Diamond in The American Interest magazine in 2020:

• Don’t try to out-polarize the polarizer. If you stridently denounce the populist, you only mobilize his base and make yourself look like part of the hated establishment.
• Reach out to the doubting elements of his supporters. Don’t question the character of his backers or condescend; appeal to their interests and positive dreams.
• Avoid tit-for-tat name calling. You’ll be playing his game, and you’ll look smaller.
• Craft an issue-packed campaign. The Ipsos survey shows that even people who hate the system are eager for programs that create jobs, improve education, health care and public safety. As Diamond puts it, “Offer substantive, practical, nonideological policy proposals.”
• Don’t let the populists own patriotism. Offer a liberal version of national pride that gives people a sense of belonging across difference.
• Don’t be boring. The battle for attention is remorseless. Don’t let advisers make their candidates predictable, hidden and safe.

It’s looking like this year’s elections will be won by whichever side stands for change. Populists promise to tear down systems. Liberals need to make the case for changing them in a comprehensive and constructive way

Note the framing of the last two sentences: ‘Populists promise to tear down systems” ‘Liberals need to make the case for changing them in a comprehensive and constructive way’

Voters, as of this moment, face a contest between the corrupt Senile Old Joe, a Netanyahu lackey, and Donald Trump another Zionist lackey, whose indictments and trials have become the mainstay of Network News channels, as their audiences evaporate like smoke!

Political Observer