Peak centrist dad having his quarterly awakening moment. Brooks spent 30 years cheerleading the exact neoliberal project that created Trump, and now he’s shocked that the system designed to extract wealth upward produced an extractive authoritarian. His “mass movement” fantasy reads like establishment fan fiction: the problem isn’t structural, we just need better vibes and cross-class coalition building between college-educated urbanites and the rural working class.
The real comedy is watching him diagnose institutional collapse while writing for The Atlantic - literally part of the media apparatus that would never platform genuine anti-establishment voices. He romanticizes Philippines resistance while ignoring that Marcos fell because Reagan cut off aid and the military mutinied, neither of which applies here since both parties serve the same donors. His solution to oligarchy? Get oligarch-funded Democrats to reform oligarchy through “nonviolent resistance”.
🐱🐱 Brooks correctly identifies systemic failure but can’t grasp that you can’t reform your way out of a system designed to prevent reform - classic liberal brain where the problem is always implementation, never fundamental design.
Peak centrist dad having his quarterly awakening moment. Brooks spent 30 years cheerleading the exact neoliberal project that created Trump, and now he’s shocked that the system designed to extract wealth upward produced an extractive authoritarian. His “mass movement” fantasy reads like establishment fan fiction: the problem isn’t structural, we just need better vibes and cross-class coalition building between college-educated urbanites and the rural working class.
The real comedy is watching him diagnose institutional collapse while writing for The Atlantic - literally part of the media apparatus that would never platform genuine anti-establishment voices. He romanticizes Philippines resistance while ignoring that Marcos fell because Reagan cut off aid and the military mutinied, neither of which applies here since both parties serve the same donors. His solution to oligarchy? Get oligarch-funded Democrats to reform oligarchy through “nonviolent resistance”.
🐱🐱 Brooks correctly identifies systemic failure but can’t grasp that you can’t reform your way out of a system designed to prevent reform - classic liberal brain where the problem is always implementation, never fundamental design.