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David Brooks: The Republicans Incompetence

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bozack said:
oh you can be sure the first thing I did was check out that site, consider me unimpressed
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Why were you unimpressed?

, and even less so that one of the involved individuals was a professor of yours...
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I didn't actually think that would make it more impressive, just that it was neat.

Like I said, you're cherry picking
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By using the most widely respected and used measure of congressional ideology over time to show how Republican and Democratic ideology have asymmetrically diverged? How on earth is that cherry picking? It would seem to be the polar opposite of cherry picking.
 
eskimospy said:
Why were you unimpressed?



I didn't actually think that would make it more impressive, just that it was neat.



By using the most widely respected and used measure of congressional ideology over time to show how Republican and Democratic ideology have asymmetrically diverged? How on earth is that cherry picking? It would seem to be the polar opposite of cherry picking.
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Putting aside the fact that their website seems like something authored back in 1995 its focusing explicitly on members of congress and their voting records, not the party as a whole, its ideology, or supporters....

You call it neat, I call it bias

And "most widely respected" to whom...
 
eskimospy said:
Why were you unimpressed?



I didn't actually think that would make it more impressive, just that it was neat.



By using the most widely respected and used measure of congressional ideology over time to show how Republican and Democratic ideology have asymmetrically diverged? How on earth is that cherry picking? It would seem to be the polar opposite of cherry picking.
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It's cherry picking because you failed to provide "balance" by also posting a study from the heritage foundation. Keep in mind that conservatives have been conditioned over many years to reject data that challenges their beliefs. There is no amount of data or consensus that would convince him otherwise, and not surprisingly no data put forth to refute this study, so therefore we fall back on attacking the motives of the author.
 
bozack said:
Putting aside the fact that their website seems like something authored back in 1995...
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They are researchers, not web designers. Look at the quality of their data, not the production values of their website.

its focusing explicitly on members of congress and their voting records, not the party as a whole, its ideology, or supporters....
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Yes, we are talking about the revealed preferences of legislators voting to enact (or not enact) actual policy. While it's not the only measure there is it's the best and most objective one. Considering enacting policy is the primary purpose of the party, doesn't judging its members on what they do in order to enact policy make sense?

You call it neat, I call it bias

And "most widely respected" to whom...
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Most widely respected by people who research congress and congressional ideology. If you do a quick search for DW-NOMINATE you will see it is the most widely cited way to measure ideology changes there is. It's not only won several awards, but has been applied by numerous other people worldwide. That's respect.
 
Did the Dems acting like adults last night really get that far under some people's skin? Details and ideas too specific? Not enough pandering? Awwwwww.

David Brooks nails it with "Politics is the process of making decisions amid diverse opinions. It involves conversation, calm deliberation, self-discipline, the capacity to listen to other points of view and balance valid but competing ideas and interests. But this new Republican faction regards the messy business of politics as soiled and impure. Compromise is corruption. Inconvenient facts are ignored. Countrymen with different views are regarded as aliens. Political identity became a sort of ethnic identity, and any compromise was regarded as a blood betrayal."

Scathing truth FTW! I can't stand far left liberals, but even they aren't as fucked up as this new breed of retarded republican. It's hilarious to submit that any other group has been acting not just the same as the GOP, but actually exceeding that level of dysfunction and partisan obstruction.

Hopefully this stretch of strife will produce republicans who don't check their brains at the door, but I guess that would also depend on republican voters getting their shit together too. Going by the posts I'm seeing on this forum I don't think that will be happening any time soon.

Enjoy the future Dem presidencies and being marginalized chumps. You helped make it happen.
 
kage69 said:
Did the Dems acting like adults last night really get that far under some people's skin? Details and ideas too specific? Not enough pandering? Awwwwww.

David Brooks nails it with "Politics is the process of making decisions amid diverse opinions. It involves conversation, calm deliberation, self-discipline, the capacity to listen to other points of view and balance valid but competing ideas and interests. But this new Republican faction regards the messy business of politics as soiled and impure. Compromise is corruption. Inconvenient facts are ignored. Countrymen with different views are regarded as aliens. Political identity became a sort of ethnic identity, and any compromise was regarded as a blood betrayal."

Scathing truth FTW! I can't stand far left liberals, but even they aren't as fucked up as this new breed of retarded republican. It's hilarious to submit that any other group has been acting not just the same as the GOP, but actually exceeding that level of dysfunction and partisan obstruction.

Hopefully this stretch of strife will produce republicans who don't check their brains at the door, but I guess that would also depend on republican voters getting their shit together too. Going by the posts I'm seeing on this forum I don't think that will be happening any time soon.

Enjoy the future Dem presidencies and being marginalized chumps. You helped make it happen.
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The challenge is how does the party go about deprogramming their hyper reactionary base of voters that has been cultivated over the years? They have received a steady diet of culture war garbage from within their media bubble for so long that they don't know how to think any other way.
 
bozack said:
oh you can be sure the first thing I did was check out that site, consider me unimpressed, and even less so that one of the involved individuals was a professor of yours...

Like I said, you're cherry picking



Moonie you're a riot, another one who cherry picks data to back up a rather laughable claim and continually attempts to hammer home this point...I should expect then that from here on out you're going to continue to blather on about how you feel conservatives suffer from some type of psychological defect and yet those who are progressive/liberal are immune to having emotions impact their analysis of data...please you're a joke.
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Please note I didn't say that liberals are immune to emotions such as fear. I said that neuroscience has proved beyond any scientific doubt that conservatives do so more than liberals on test after test. Your belief that liberals and conservatives share an equal amount of bias is pure bull shit and it's not me or my ideas that make you a joke but the facts. I'm right and you are wrong and there is nothing in this world that will change that.

You think your stupid little ego is under some sort of attack. Not so from my point of view. I have spent a whole lifetime hundreds of years ahead of almost everybody I met. I'm long past having any need to impress. And yes, you do have a brain defect because you can't ever see that you don't know what you're talking about and will thus appear stupid to normally rational people, even though you aren't actually stupid at all. You are afraid to see your own motivations. You have no personal insight because you are afraid to feel what you really feel. You need to feel correct because you were conditioned to hate yourself if you were wrong. Sad for you really. So don't waste your time trying to insult me. I know all about how you feel. We are all the same. I just know how that is. Nobody today can make either of us suffer like we have made ourselves suffer. You might want to get off that track and evolve a bit. It will make your days better, trust me.
 
Public figures are prisoners of their own prose styles, and Republicans from Newt Gingrich through Ben Carson have become addicted to a crisis mentality. Civilization was always on the brink of collapse. Every setback, like the passage of Obamacare, became the ruination of the republic. Comparisons to Nazi Germany became a staple.
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🙄

Was this guy listening when Scott Walker defeated the recall attempt? "Democracy died tonight!"

Bill Clinton's reaction: "We're finally going to break every union in America. We're going to break every government in America. We're going to stop worrying about the middle class. We don't give a rip whether poor people will get to work their way into it. We've got our way now. We've got it all. Divide and conquer works."

And comparisons to Nazi Germany? Give me a break. That's a staple of politics. David Brooks appears to labor under the assumption that politics is a mature, civil enterprise.

Has this guy ever stopped to wonder why politicians through the skein of history are so frequently equated with liars and criminals?
 
Mxylplyx said:
The challenge is how does the party go about deprogramming their hyper reactionary base of voters that has been cultivated over the years? They have received a steady diet of culture war garbage from within their media bubble for so long that they don't know how to think any other way.
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It's definitely a challenge and I didn't say it would be easy. In fact my money is on them maintaining their disconnect from reality with little regard for what it means for their political future. Given their behavior since, oh say 2000, I'm ok with that. I've long since renounced my affiliation with that party but would welcome a conservative analog as a replacement providing they leave the GOP fail in the toilet where it belongs (anti-science, anti-women, anti-liberty and pro-religious dogma positions).


I hear you on the culture war garbage too, had the...experience of speaking with a pair of Patrick Henry students recently. It was like talking to someone from another continent who shared a common language. The amount of news they were unaware of, the number of political references that made no sense to them, it was amazing in a really sad way. Utter a single word regarding abortion or voting rights and suddenly each of them was a pundit who wasted no time in bringing you up to speed on the latest talk radio talking points. They could repeat everything, but asking them to support their views with a little info resulted in them either being offended or acting persecuted.

Same bullshit, different medium. *sigh* 🙁
 
I have very little in common with David Brooks' opinions, but in my view he is the best political commentator/talking head. I'd love to go to a dinner party with him and Rachel Maddow as guests and just listen.

Oh, and he was spot on in the opinion piece quoted int the original post. I don't worry about the demise of the GOP-I much more worried about our country and the damage these clowns can and will WILLINGLY do it-all in the name of flag waving patriotism.
 
Thump553 said:
I have very little in common with David Brooks' opinions, but in my view he is the best political commentator/talking head. I'd love to go to a dinner party with him and Rachel Maddow as guests and just listen.

Oh, and he was spot on in the opinion piece quoted int the original post. I don't worry about the demise of the GOP-I much more worried about our country and the damage these clowns can and will WILLINGLY do it-all in the name of flag waving patriotism.
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David Brooks is an idiot who is currently unable to spew his BothSidesDoIt™ bullshit because the GOP is rubbing shit in their hair in public. Give him a week and he'll be back to his normal BS.
 
nickqt said:
David Brooks is an idiot who is currently unable to spew his BothSidesDoIt™ bullshit because the GOP is rubbing shit in their hair in public. Give him a week and he'll be back to his normal BS.
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I have to agree, David Brooks is horrible. This is a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day. He's not Thomas Friedman bad, but nobody is Thomas Friedman bad.
 
Mxylplyx said:
The challenge is how does the party go about deprogramming their hyper reactionary base of voters that has been cultivated over the years?
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The party as long since lost any ability to manage the message. There is an entire industry around delivering "information" to GOP voters that wants no part of the actual party itself.
 
Thump553 said:
I have very little in common with David Brooks' opinions, but in my view he is the best political commentator/talking head. I'd love to go to a dinner party with him and Rachel Maddow as guests and just listen.

Oh, and he was spot on in the opinion piece quoted int the original post. I don't worry about the demise of the GOP-I much more worried about our country and the damage these clowns can and will WILLINGLY do it-all in the name of flag waving patriotism.
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Interesting way you put that and I agree.. would be a good setting to discuss viewpoints without the "fuck you libtards" appetizer, course and dessert, would actually be more intellectual that I'd consider that a enjoyable night out.

I also worry that the House will be reduced to 70% power of a coalition and 30% who just want to obstruct, not unlike the parliaments of other countries.
 
Moonbeam said:
The whole point of modern conservatism is not to feel shame in a world that rapidly outgrowing their backward and ignorant world view. Those who can't successfully submit to the deep conditioning required to avoid those feelings of shame turn against their conservative leanings and proclaim a pox on everybody's house. This way they don't feel any shame because they tell themselves they are superior to everybody else. It keeps them from knowing they have been fools all along. They do this because they have no real faith that life is actually good and that good people want good government for everyone and because of that internal striving for goodness actually have a sense of what it is.
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Conservatives outnumber liberals 2:1. Better luck next time.
 
Indus said:
Interesting way you put that and I agree.. would be a good setting to discuss viewpoints without the "fuck you libtards" appetizer, course and dessert, would actually be more intellectual that I'd consider that a enjoyable night out.

I also worry that the House will be reduced to 70% power of a coalition and 30% who just want to obstruct, not unlike the parliaments of other countries.
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The Freedom caucus is only ~9% of the HOR & ~16% of Repubs yet they've leveraged themselves into holding the majority party, their own party, hostage to a radical agenda. If you read the articles I linked earlier & understand the nature of Teahadi districts you'll realize their numbers likely won't be able to increase a lot. The demographics aren't that common.

If Repubs are to be judged incompetent it can be for that alone, for letting it happen.
 
Moonbeam said:
Please note I didn't say that liberals are immune to emotions such as fear. I said that neuroscience has proved beyond any scientific doubt that conservatives do so more than liberals on test after test. Your belief that liberals and conservatives share an equal amount of bias is pure bull shit and it's not me or my ideas that make you a joke but the facts. I'm right and you are wrong and there is nothing in this world that will change that.

You think your stupid little ego is under some sort of attack. Not so from my point of view. I have spent a whole lifetime hundreds of years ahead of almost everybody I met. I'm long past having any need to impress. And yes, you do have a brain defect because you can't ever see that you don't know what you're talking about and will thus appear stupid to normally rational people, even though you aren't actually stupid at all. You are afraid to see your own motivations. You have no personal insight because you are afraid to feel what you really feel. You need to feel correct because you were conditioned to hate yourself if you were wrong. Sad for you really. So don't waste your time trying to insult me. I know all about how you feel. We are all the same. I just know how that is. Nobody today can make either of us suffer like we have made ourselves suffer. You might want to get off that track and evolve a bit. It will make your days better, trust me.
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did I get under your skin a bit there moonie, I'd think yes given your reply....just like eskimo you select a few studies that support your position and run with it, everyone else in your eyes that says something counter to that is "stupid, misinformed, not logical" etc...

Speaking of evolving I'd suggest much the same to you, but I'm not expecting much
 
bozack said:
better question is does anyone care who wrote the article....

both parties are highly polarized at this point, so to suggest one is any worse than the other is pretty laughable.
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Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner with the inevitable false equivalency. Just watching one of the Democratic debates clearly highlights what Brooks is talking about.

Anyhow, this is why I pray for Trump to win the Repub. Primary. Can you imagine how much of a clusterfuck the Republican party would be in?
 
bozack said:
did I get under your skin a bit there moonie, I'd think yes given your reply....just like eskimo you select a few studies that support your position and run with it, everyone else in your eyes that says something counter to that is "stupid, misinformed, not logical" etc...

Speaking of evolving I'd suggest much the same to you, but I'm not expecting much
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If you think we are cherry picking then by all means provide other rigorous empirical studies that say polarization has been relatively symmetric.

What you've done up until now is just say 'nuh-uh!'. Considering you're dismissing credible, empirical research based on nothing I have to ask why you're doing that. It seems irrational to me and based on what you want to be true as opposed to what is true.
 
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