To the Editor:
Re “Hey, Lefties! Trump Has Stolen Your Game,” by David Brooks (column, Nov. 2):
As a 73-year-old liberal who dipped his toe into radical politics only when it came to Vietnam and President Trump, I appreciate Mr. Brooks’s pleas for moderation and his rejection of MAGA. Though my views are to his left, my country is precious to me, just as it is to Mr. Brooks. Bravo to conservatives who have resisted partisanship in favor of common sense, principle and comity.
Mr. Brooks softly derided both “cancel culture” and “snowflakes.” I maintain that “snowflakes” are part of the “woke” crowd that has been responsible for much of the civility that, as Mr. Brooks knows, represents the very best of America.
In my youth, I never shied from objecting to misogynistic or racist language. Changes in abrasive culture don’t happen unless sensitive souls speak out for others when they hear hateful language, though I concede that “woke” people sometimes take it too far.
I recall an old slur against liberals — virtuecrats, implying that virtue signaling was the same as oversensitive or showy concern. That nonsense term never offended me.
John Adkisson
Sacramento
To the Editor:
Again, a column from David Brooks that argues “me-too-ism” by left and right. Progressives have not — except maybe during the Vietnam War horror show — sought to burn it all down. But that’s exactly what Steve Bannon and the MAGA right want to do now.
Promoting a progressive agenda by lawful, legislative means that broadens the social safety net, increase individual liberties and protect the environment is very different from repeatedly disregarding the Constitution and generations of rule-of-law norms at the whims of a billionaire president and his well-heeled backers.
It’s time to do more than make fun of lefties for losing the battle for public opinion. There is no “both sides are equally wrong” here, at least not since Jan. 6. Conservative Republicans need to stand up to this bully for the good of the country.
Jim Curtin
Chevy Chase, Md.
To the Editor:
David Brooks argues that the MAGA right has co-opted left-wing ideas to subvert the liberal establishment. In particular, he identifies postmodernism and critical theory as ideas MAGA has embraced without “knowing, in most cases, where these ideas came from.”
The “alternative facts” and “truth is whatever I say it is” approach of propaganda and misinformation is the standard totalitarian playbook critiqued by George Orwell’s “Nineteen-Eighty-Four,” published in 1949, and Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” in 1951. Mr. Brooks’s conception of critical theory, in contrast, is out of date. For roughly 60 years, the major influence on critical theory has been the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’s work on discourse ethics and deliberative democracy.
Each May, a group of critical theorists meets at the Conference on Philosophy and the Social Sciences to discuss a range of issues, from populism to A.I., and explore their implications for democracy and human flourishing. Discussions of Habermas and other more contemporary political philosophers like John Rawls and Charles Taylor outnumber mentions of Marx by 100 to 1. What unites our group is a commitment to use the tools of philosophy and the empirical social sciences to further human emancipation. Mr. Brooks should come. He would learn some things.
Steven L. Winter
Detroit
The writer is a professor of constitutional law at Wayne State University.
To the Editor:
In his litany of the ways Donald Trump has stolen the left’s game, David Brooks neglects to mention the part of that game — its main part — that the president abhors rather than covets: the democratic left’s ambition to curb corporate capitalism’s exploitation of workers, consumers and the environment through government regulation, and to promote social welfare and equality through redistribution and public provision.
That is the heart of the democratic left’s game and has been for some time. Were it only true that President Trump had stolen it. Instead, he works to eviscerate it by deregulating, privatizing, slashing health, education and social services, and rolling back taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
The real story is not President Trump’s apparent appropriation of leftist tactics. It is his gutting of the democratic left’s program, along with that of the democratic right that Mr. Brooks so ardently champions.
Joel Bakan
Vancouver, British Columbia
The writer is a law professor at the University of British Columbia and the author of “The New Corporation.”
To the Editor:
Back in 1988, two bona fide leftists — Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky — published “Manufacturing Consent,” a vigorous critique of the American press and the media, including The New York Times. They did not use catchphrases like “fake news,” and their book was read by a relatively small number of like-minded people.
Years later, Donald Trump formally entered politics and eventually succeeded where Dr. Herman and Dr. Chomsky failed: He is now president, and tens of millions of Americans no longer trust the media. Is this a failure of the left? Would we have fared better if we had used more buzzwords and less theory? Perhaps. But our mission is not to pull the wool over people’s eyes; it is to build a better world.
David Brooks is right in saying that the far right has managed to tear down the American establishment in a way that the left never could. This is nothing new, nor is it unique to the U.S. A century ago, fascism destroyed European liberal democracies in ways that the Bolsheviks and their allies never could. Whether in Mr. Trump’s America, Nigel Farage’s U.K., Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, Giorgia Meloni’s Italy or Marine Le Pen’s France, the far right is no friend of democracy.
The paradox is that MAGA members think of themselves as conservatives, but in fact they are radicals. They destroy first, and think about rebuilding later. Time will tell whether they will achieve anything worthwhile. If the left has so far been unsuccessful, at least it has been honorable.
E. Ahmet Tonak
Irvin Cemil Schick
The writers are, respectively, a retired economist and a retired historian.
To the Editor:
David Brooks continues to misread the electorate. He confuses academic movements with political reality. Most people have no idea of postmodernism or critical theory. This is not what guides their voting decisions. The cost of groceries, gas, energy and health care does.
Liberalism addresses these concerns. The reason many have rejected it is that the MAGA crowd has successfully appealed to the prejudices and resentments of some voters. Mr. Brooks needs to spend more time examining the views of the electorate and less on the philosophical developments of academia.
Joseph Gusmano
Flemington, N.J.
The writer is a retired professor of philosophy.
The post Did the Right Find Success With an Old Playbook? appeared first on New York Times.
