Over the years, we’ve written a bit about David Brooks on this blog, originally because he had interesting things to say about a topic I care about (Red State Blue State) and later because people pointed out to me various places where he made errors and then refused to correct them, something that bothered me for its own sake (correctable errors in the paper of record!) and as part of a larger phenomenon which I described as Never back down: The culture of poverty and the culture of journalism. At an intellectual level, I understand why pundits are motivated to not ever admit error, also I can see how they can get into the habit of shunting criticism aside because they get so much of it; still, I get annoyed.
Another question arises, though, which is how is it that Brooks has kept his job for so long? I had a recent discussion with Palko on this point.
The direct answer to why Brooks stays employed is that he’s a good writer, regularly turns in his columns on time, continues to write on relevant topics, and often has interesting ideas. Sure, he makes occasional mistakes, but (a) everyone makes mistakes, and when they appear in a newspaper with a circulation of millions, people will catch these mistakes, and (b) newspapers in general, and the Times in particular, are notorious for only very rarely running corrections, so Brooks making big mistakes and not correcting himself is not any kind of disqualification.
In addition, Palko wrote:
For the target audience [of the Times, Brooks offers] a nearly ideal message. It perfectly balances liberal guilt with a sense of class superiority.
I replied with skepticism of Palko’s argument that Brooks’s continued employment comes from his appeal to liberals.
I suspect that more of it is the opposite, that Brooks is popular among conservatives because he’s a conservative who conservatives think can appeal to liberals.
Kinda like the appeal of Michael Moore to liberals: Moore’s the sort of liberal who liberals think can appeal to conservatives.
I like this particular analogy partly because I imagine that it would piss off both Brooks and Moore (not that either of them will ever see this post).
Palko responded:
But it’s not conservatives who keep hiring him.
Brooks’ breakthrough was in the Atlantic, the primary foundation of his career is his long-time day job is with the NYT, his largest audience probably comes from PBS News Hour.
To which I replied as follows:
First off, I don’t know whether the people who are hiring Brooks are liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between. In any case, if they’re conservative, I’m pretty sure they’re only moderately so: I say this because I don’t think the NYT op-ed page has any columnists who supported the Jan 6 insurrection or who claim that Trump actually won the 2020 election etc.
It’s my impression that one reason Brooks was hired, in addition to his ability to turn in readable columns on time, was (a) he’s had some good ideas that have received a lot of attention (for example, the whole bobo stuff, his red-state, blue-state stuff), and (b) most of their op-ed columnists have been liberal or centrist, and they want some conservatives for balance.
Regarding (a), yes, he’s said a lot of dumb things, but I’d say he still has had some good ideas. He’s kinda like Gladwell in that he speculates with an inappropriate air of authority, but his confidence can sometimes get him to interesting places that a more careful writer might never reach.
Regarding (b), it’s relevant that many conservatives are fans of Brooks (for example here, here, and here). If the NYT is going to hire a conservative writer for balance, they’ll want to hire a conservative writer who conservatives like. Were they to hire a writer who conservatives hate, they wouldn’t be doing a good job of satisfying their goal of balance.
So, whoever is in charge of hiring Brooks and wherever his largest audience is, I think that a key to his continued employment is that he is popular among conservatives because he’s a conservative who conservatives think can appeal to liberals.
Yeah, I know this all sounds like a nutty “it’s wheels within wheels, man” sort of argument, but I’m serious here!
This post is political science
The point of posting this is not to talk more about Brooks—if you’re interested in him, you can read his column every week—but rather to consider some of these indirect relationships here, the idea that a publication with liberal columnists will hire a conservative who is then chosen in large part because conservatives see him as the sort of conservative who will appeal to liberals. I don’t think this happens so much in the opposite direction, because if a publication has lots of conservative columnists, that’s probably because it’s an explicitly conservative publication so they wouldn’t want to employ any liberals at all. There must be some counterexamples to that, though.
And I do think there’s some political science content here, related to this discussion I wrote with Gross and Shalizi, but I’ve struggled with how to address the topic more systematically.
Just a question: why do the political parties not exhibit the same behavior? I don’t see the Democrats as choosing candidates that they think might appeal to Republicans nor do I see Republicans choosing candidates that might appeal to Democrats. These ideas are frequently discussed, but the actual candidates chosen don’t seem to me to illustrate what you are saying about the media. If so, then what is it that is different about the media from politics that accounts for the difference?
Dale:
The parties do choose candidates with crossover appeal. For example, Joe Biden is a Democrat, part of whose appeal was his ability to work with the other party, and Donald Trump is a Republican, part of whose appeal was his independence from party leadership. Considering earlier elections, Hillary Clinton was a moderate Democrat; as you might recall, after Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008, various Republicans lamented that the Democrats had not chosen the more moderate option of Hillary Clinton. Mitt Romney had demonstrated crossover appeal as governor of Massachusetts. John McCain and Barack Obama were both in their time considered to have the potential to inspire voters of the other party. George W. Bush and Al Gore focused on broad issues, not partisanship. Etc. You’d pretty much have to go back to Reagan in 1980 and Mondale in 1984 to get major-party presidential nominees who purely represented the partisan wings of their parties.
Compared to what? Of course, a presidential candidate has to have some appeal across a spectrum of the population. But Trump seems to be fairly extreme – perhaps not on the classic liberal-conservative spectrum, but in terms of polarization. And Biden, while more moderate than some wings of the democratic party, has been polarizing in his own way. When crossover appeal becomes redefined as “different than what is normal” then I’m not sure it means much anymore. What I don’t see is either party choosing candidates on their ability to appeal to voters from the other party. It seems more like effort spent to market them with cross-appeal in reaction to the fact that they chose candidates that don’t have that. I’d offer as evidence that there are a number of candidates in both parties that truly could have some cross-appeal, but they don’t seem to get any traction.
Clearly neither group, liberal or conservative, particularly likes Brooks’ work but each thinks it will appeal to the other, and that’s how Brooks keeps his job. At some point the two camps will collide in the hallway, each saying, “I thought you liked that guy!” Cue lack track.
It was maybe 10 years ago that I decided never again to read Brooks’ writings.
Raghu:
I disagree with you. I think some conservatives really do like Brooks’s work; look at the links from Tyler Cowen and Jonah Goldberg above.
I wasn’t completely serious, but nonetheless: (i) Tyler Cowen links promiscuously, often to things of low quality, and it’s hard to tell if he actually likes their content or not. He’s often deliberately unclear about this. I think the Marginal Revolution blog is great, and this isn’t a criticism of Cowen at all. (ii) The Goldberg endorsement you link to is from 2003. I read David Brooks then, too!
Raghu:
Did you read the Cowen posts? In one of them he describes a Brooks column as “wise throughout”; in the other he characterizes a Brooks book as “excellent . . . I read it straight through, and I view it as a milestone in David’s career.” So, yeah, I think he’s a fan of Brooks.
Yes, and I remember reading the second one on MR when it was posted and thinking maybe I should revisit Brooks. (Which I didn’t do.) Nonetheless, I’ve been trained by Cowen’s frequent use of the word “Straussian” to always suspect him of some alternative meaning!
Andrew, do you think you might be making a kind of category error here? While Cowen, Goldberg etc. might be prominent examples of “conservative” writers/intellectuals, how much sway do they have over the modern conservative movement as a whole? I don’t mean to be hyperbolic, but if there is an intellectual body behind the current right-wing movement, it consists of people who are trying to make a moral argument for fascism, integralism and revanchism.
As an example of the milder side of this new vanguard, here is a piece repudiating the views of Brooks’ new colleague, David French: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/05/against-david-french-ism
The more extreme side is filled with the likes of Hanania, Rufo, and Bronze Age Pervert.
I think you need to go a step further in your description: Brooks is a conservative who is liked by the kind of conservatives who liberals find respectable.
Roxana:
I’m not saying that Cowan and Goldberg have much sway over the modern conservative movement as a whole; I’m just giving them as examples of conservatives who like Brooks. I guess there are some liberals who like Brooks also. Regarding “respectability,” it’s hard to say, as even the more extreme far-right writers get a fair amount of mainstream exposure.
Roxana –
I agree, as I indicated in a comment below.
I think that Brooks is a conservative who’s popular with liberals who (optimistically) think that conservatives like Brooks are popular with conservatives.
Or something like that.
” In any case, if they’re conservative, I’m pretty sure they’re only moderately so: I say this because I don’t think the NYT op-ed page has any columnists who supported the Jan 6 insurrection or who claim that Trump actually won the 2020 election etc.”
This is now the test for a conservative? I think this puts us in a very dangerous area. And, the only “liberal” voice I see at the times is Krugman and he is hardly even Robert Reich or Bernie Sanders.
Yep. In the interest of “balance” the NYT keeps hiring ever more right wing columnists. I suppose Brooks is “center right” in that he’s not far/alt right, but that’s a pretty low bar.
my theory: the people who hire brooks are trying to maximize revenue of the nyt, and they continue to hire brooks because he is popular. they do not intrinsically care about brooks’ ideological slant, if he appeals to conservatives-who-liberals-like or vice-versa, or how frequently makes errors that go uncorrected. brooks is broadly popular among liberals, centrists, and moderate conservatives. he also has an audience of “hate readers” on the left who ridicule him but nonetheless drive traffic to his columns.
Good theory.
Sam:
I think that your answer, “the people who hire brooks are trying to maximize revenue of the nyt, and they continue to hire brooks because he is popular,” is similar to mine: “The direct answer to why Brooks stays employed is that he’s a good writer, regularly turns in his columns on time, continues to write on relevant topics, and often has interesting ideas.”
I don’t know how popular Brooks is, but to the extent that he is popular, that would be explained by “good writer, . . . continues to write on relevant topics, and often has interesting ideas.” Based on what I’ve heard about journalism, I expect that “regularly turns in his columns on time” counts for something too!
> I suspect that more of it is the opposite, that Brooks is popular among conservatives because he’s a conservative who conservatives think can appeal to liberals.
Hmmm. Not sure how this can be measured, but I don’t think that Brooks is very popular among conservatives. Of course, then we have to ask how “conservatives” is defined. But most conservatives I see routinely exclude anyone remotely associated with the NYT from the “popular” category.
Agree, I believe that the bulk of the modern “conservative” movement are largely contemptuous of Brooks and similar writers.
Maybe a pertinent question is if this is mirrored in the political left — i.e. are the more liberal Times’ columnists speaking to a meaningful constituency in US politics. I think the answer is yes, at least in that I think the writing of Bouie, Goldberg, Klein has some relevance to the view of the current Democratic coalition — but it’s certainly true that the harder left, who have become more prominent in recent years, are equally as dismissive of anything in the Times as those on the right.
Fundamentally though I think the nomination and election of Trump in 2016 basically gave permission for a lot of right-wing commentators to drop any sense of moderation or obligation to appeal to the other side. Yes, a lot of this had been building for two or three decades (especially with the advent of Fox), but once Trump became successful, it appeared as though there was a constituency for a more naked embrace of power, and a willingness to throw out all norms to achieve political goals. And someone who is as milquetoast as Brooks does not fit in with that crowd.
Re: your reply to me
> I think that Brooks is a conservative who’s popular with liberals who (optimistically) think that conservatives like Brooks are popular with conservatives.
I was going to try to say something like this, but feared it would end up sounding like link this.
I thought the Russian doll aspect was kind of funny.
It occurred to me that if we look at Brooks’ ease with criticizing Trump we’d see a clear signal that rather that being popular among conservatives, he’s actually a pretty much an outlier. Although surely he’s popular among some conservatives.
To borrow from Andrew, labels are hard.
> the Jan 6 insurrection
> insurrection
Parrot a lie enough times and it becomes a truth.
..and/or it shows a different truth for those who can see clearly.
Hey, take it to twitter or 4chan, guys. I recognize that 30% of Americans believe the election lie etc.; this is just not the place to discuss it, just as this is not the place to discuss purported evidence for ghosts etc. I’m interested in the meta-topic of how people hold such beliefs, not so much in the nuts and bolts of purported evidence. For that I can point you here, for example.
Quote from above: “I’m interested in the meta-topic of how people hold such beliefs, not so much in the nuts and bolts of purported evidence.”
Well, I am providing a hypothesis for that.
Perhaps there is such a thing as overplaying your cards.
Perhaps if you state things that are ever more detached from reality, or strange, or weird, folks start to notice.
Perhaps that might shine a light on certain things.
Perhaps that migh lead to people thinking about things in a certain way.
And, believe me: I don’t like politics, or discussing any of it. It was just a more general remark.
But if you want to leave out politics and focus on social science (I sometimes wonder whether that’s still possible, which is possibly why I largely also don’t like being involved in social science anymore), I think the same mechanism can be at play in social science stuff.
If you only read certain things in social science publications, which in turn gets repeated in lectures and told to impressionable students, and in turn gets repeated on TV by scientists, and in turn gets mentioned in books, some people can start to believe almost anything regardless of whether there is any truth in it. For some folks perhaps, the words by Kahneman are relevant: “You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true.”
Anon:
I think politics are both interesting and important; that’s why I work in the political science department! And I think there’s an important role in politics for scholars who get into the weeds and fight political lies and misinformation, as in the link in my previous comment. It’s just not something I feel like doing just now. I agree with your general point that when false things are repeated on TV, people often believe them, as with all those election-denial claims. People believe all sorts of ridiculous things, not just in politics. For example, ghosts! Or the “lucky golf ball” research that was promoted by the Association for Psychological Science.
Ah yes, characterizing the beliefs of your opponents as “belief in ghosts”.
Very intellectually honest of you, Andrew. You are truly a paragon of rationality and impartiality.
Steinberg:
I have no “opponents” here; we’re just having a discussion. Regarding the particulars, 30% of Americans believe in ghosts, so I’m not sure what your problem is here.
In any case, I don’t claim to be a “paragon of rationality and impartiality,” so, given that your last sentence is sarcastic, I think we’re in agreement on that one.
Numerous pipe bombs were placed at the capitol
If you were internet savvy enough, protesters were stating their intention to kill Mike Pence to overturn the election on thedonald.win shortly before the protests
The crowd started chanting “hang Mike Pence” and erected a gallows
The crowd then rushed at the building with all the politicians in it
Is there a fact here you’d like to dispute or additional context that makes this seem less like an attempted insurrection?
What I don’t understand is what constitutes an “attemted insurrection”? Like a lot of things, I reason it depends on definitions and it seems that “insurrection” can mean several things. “Open revolt against government” or something like that seems a definition.
If I stand on the street on front of the White House and shout that I think the then sitting president sucks, is bad for the country, and should resign is that a case of “open revolt against government” or something like that?
And if someone stands next to me and shouts some stuff, am I shouting it as well and agreeing with that one person? Or am I part of a group with that person because that person is also in front of the White House at the same time I am there? Could you just go and stand next to protesters and shout stuff so you can then view all the people there in a certain way or even call them something?
And, if you were internet savvy enough, what information could you find concerning the amount of undercover agents that were present at the capitol that may or may not be an “attempted insurrection”? And could you find information, if you were internet savvy enough, about how people got in the capitol?
But what I most want to understand is what could the people have done once they entered the capitol. Well, according to some videos I saw, they did enter and sort of walked around. But how could they “overturn” or “stop” a government or election result? I never understood this. Like, they would just be sitting in the capitol, getting hungry after a day or so.
Anon:
You can speculate all you want regarding undercover agents, etc. In the meantime, yeah, these people trying to stop Congress from certifying the election results, following the encouragement of political leaders; that was the point. The fact that you can search on the internet and find conspiracy theories, that doesn’t mean anything. Again, this is not the place for such speculation; there’s plenty of room on twitter and 4chan for that.
Quote from above: “In the meantime, yeah, these people trying to stop Congress from certifying the election results, following the encouragement of political leaders; that was the point.”
But I want to understand how they could have done that. I am serious, I don’t understand how they could have even done that if they wanted to.
Like is it like the fairytale Cinderella where she changes again at 12 o’clock? Is there a specific time frame for the election reults to have to be certified? And if so, isn’t that a bit weird, and stupid especially when you let people stand in front of the Capitol? I truly don’t understand, but I am not from the USA and I don’t follow politics very well. Again, I dislike it a lot.
You do exactly what they said what they were going to do, which is kill all the politicians who weren’t sympathetic to their cause. Was it ever realistically going to happen? Not in my opinion, but that was the stated intention of many people in the crowd, and again, bombs had been placed so some willingness to kill was clearly there.
Anon:
Yes, Congress really did have a scheduled vote to certify the election. All of this really happened. There was no fairytale Cinderella. Many political leaders were denying the election outcome.
Also, enough on this thread. This is like trying to prove that ghosts don’t exist. If you want to believe in debunked conspiracy theories, or half-believe (“if you were internet savvy enough, what information could you find concerning the amount of undercover agents that were present at the capitol,” etc.), you can do that on your own time, not here. I would similarly not want to have discussions about hypothetical undercover agents in the laboratory of Brian Wansink or whatever.
Wow, remind me to never stand in a crowd with other people where some of them can shout stuff that apparently can cause some people to assume that the other people in the crowd have certain intentions that they might not even remotely have.
I don’t like crowds anyway, but still…Damn.
But I think things are a bit clearer for me now. I guess it’s a matter of perspective, and what you view as “insurrection” and how you view the things that some people shouted, and what intentions you think the people have who were there had.
Quote from above: “Yes, Congress really did have a scheduled vote to certify the election.”
(…) Also, enough on this thread.”
You can’t stay “stop” on this discussion and state something additional before that in my view. So, I am going to say one more thing about this. The fact that congress have scheduled a vote to certify the election is not a very clear answer to my question, and my Cinderella comparison.
The question I still have is whether the election certification could have been prevented by people entering the Capitol, or whether the politicians could have then just rescheduled and voted to certify next Tuesday when everyone would have lost interest potentially…
Yes, if you’re standing in a crowd and people start shouting “kill those guys”, then everyone charges at those guys, and you move with the crowd towards those guys, onlookers are going to assume you want to kill those guys, even if you personally never wanted to kill those guys. You might think that’s wrong of the onlookers, but that would be a stupid belief on your part.
Anonymous (and I wish people would identify themselves, as there are a number calling themselves by that name and I’d like to be able to distinguish the voices):
Your question is pretty ridiculous. Could the mob have stopped the certification vote? Of course they could – at least temporarily. Would they have eventually been successful? I have no idea, but probably not, and I think that is completely irrelevant. Could Hamas have destroyed Israel? Probably not, but also irrelevant. The mob was attempting to prevent the vote – if they could delay it, then who knows what would happen? Their intention was clearly to disrupt it. I’m not sure what definition of insurrection you would use, but it fits any sense of the word I know of. I don’t think you evaluate an insurrection by whether or not it would succeed – any more than you measure intent to kill someone by whether or not they are likely to succeed.
Look at the videos. Yes, some people were just milling around, taking photos, and might have left when they got hungry. Others were much more actively engaged with trying to disrupt the proceedings (which they did, at least for a while). The legal cases have focused on individual actions – not everybody has been charged or prosecuted. So, I don’t really understand what you are asking about.
Reposting in the correct location:
Anonymous –
You say:
> What I don’t understand is what constitutes an “attemted insurrection”? Like a lot of things, I reason it depends on definitions and it seems that “insurrection” can mean several things.
Yes. Different people can choose different meanings and in this context that the meaning people choose will likely be mediated by their ideological orientation.
That said, you said you want to know what constitutes an insurrection and the CO lower court gave their definition when they ruled on the Trump case. See blow. Ultimately here, that’s what matters, not whether you and I or anyone else agree on a definition:
Anonymous –
You say:
> What I don’t understand is what constitutes an “attemted insurrection”? Like a lot of things, I reason it depends on definitions and it seems that “insurrection” can mean several things.
Yes. Different people can choose different meanings and in this context that the meaning people choose will likely be mediated by their ideological orientation.
That said, you said you want to know what constitutes an insurrection and the CO lower court gave their definition when they ruled on the Trump case. Ultimately here, that’s what matters, not whether you and I agree on a definition:
“The question I still have is whether the election certification could have been prevented by people entering the Capitol, or whether the politicians could have then just rescheduled”
Not guilty on the grounds of ineffectiveness is probably not a legal defense. Also, if you watch the documentary, there was a strong feeling among several of the Representatives that they needed to complete the certification as soon as possible (forgoing the possibility of being transported out of town for safety) before Trump declared martial law and took complete control of the government.
The other problem there is that “by people who entering the Capital” is too divorced from context to be of much use. The people entering the Capital were connected to a months-long effort at over-turning the election results and preventing an exchange of power they weren’t in agreement with.