[lbo-talk] David Brooks, so worried

[Doug Henwood]

Man, it's really interesting how disillusioned conservative  
intellectuals are. Back when I was one, we didn't really have anyone  
in public life to popularize our agenda - we all felt very lonely and  
defeated. We all took that quote from Whittaker Chambers to heart: "It  
is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of Western civilization. It  
is already a wreck from within." Reagan changed that - though I'd left  
the fold, the fold felt very happy to have a real movement  
conservative - who was not an intellectual, but who, as Brooks points  
out, was someone who took right-wing ideas seriously - on his way to  
the White House. The high-domes of the right were happy to play the  
populist game as long as there was still some ideological fervor in  
the mix. Now, though, Palin looks like the reductio ad absurdam of  
that populism, and the ideological fervor is gone. Of course they  
can't admit that they've had their way with the world and the world is  
much the worse for it. But what an impressive disillusionment.

Doug