Reason Magazine's Jesse Walker writes
Jesse Walker | November 12, 2010
Few things are as pathetic as a New York Times columnist calling for a mass movement built around his pet slogans.
He's talking about David Brooks's latest appeal to "National Greatness", of which Matt Welch Twitters that "David Brooks calls for new National Greatness movement. Because the 1997 version worked out so well for everybody?"
Here's what you need to know about "National Greatness"—most Americans think America is pretty great already, without imaginary mass movements led by David Brooks egging on John McCain to do something really stupid to prove it.
Also, I happen to know how David Brooks feels about real mass movements:
Sam Francis wrote in Chronicles in the year 2000:
“…beefy, 300-pound guys with tattoos up their arms and sleeveless T-shirts. He draws the guys with shaggy biker beards, and the Teamsters who park their rigs in the lot and get hoarse chanting, ‘Go, Pat, go!’ It may be hard to classify exactly which political category these people belong to, but they are certainly not Republicans.” [Buchanan Feeds Class War in the Information Age, October 31, 1999]
Actually, it's not so hard to classify which political category such people belong to. They're called 'Democrats,' and the contempt for them that our Mr. Brooks exudes helps explain why they never show up in the crowds around other Republican candidates. [Revolt of the 300-Pound Beefy Guys]
Now that there's a Tea Party, demonstrating actually National actual Greatness, Brooks doesn't like them either.
