I'm not sure I agree with Brooks here. By ignoring his idiotic tweets, we normalize them (oh, that's just Trump being Trump) and I think that's something we should never do.

But reporting on them as if they were policy and not propaganda is also problematic. I have this sense of progressives being led around by the nose with them.

I should start with the confession that I have so typically disliked David Brooks that when i read one of his columns I am expecting to be filled with loathing.

Here he is aligning dancing King David with class-overturning Saturnalia with-- Donald Trump tweeting toxins and his class-constricted public going YEAH!

I don't see Trump as a King David, and Clinton voters as Michals. I don't see Trump as legitimately connected with the dissolution of current economic inequality. I suppose Trump-fanciers may think that in hoisting Trump on their shoulders they gave the finger to Rich Liberals, but if they think he's going to do ore than destroy the social supports we all rest on, they're going to be disappointed quite quickly.

And so, as usual, I don't care for Brooks' column.

Well said.

It's not that i care for the column, but there's something in this desire to hoist on the shoulders and give the finger to. It may just be me, struggling to comprehend that form of reaction.

I understand the creative power of destruction as fundamental to the natural world. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, and death create abundance and diversity. But that's all outside of human relationship. I'm reaching for some pattern that i can understand and the Loki - trickster - fool pattern is the one that seems to match -- and it is one of the most foreign concepts to me. I don't come from a culture that has carnival or trickster stories. And i don't think Trump voters do, either. My sense is of some latent subconscious understanding and motivation on which rides some rationalization like "he cares about getting jobs for someone like me" and "he's throwing the crooks out" -- which are not connected to any reality.

As a side comment, it occurs to me how easily Trump could be lampooned as the Devil. That's not a frame i carry around, but it is a frame that some subset of Trump voters might have responded to. Devils and tricksters aren't the same....

I am so sorry if I seemed to be aligning you with David Brooks, who seems much caught up in thinking about how Moderate and Reasonable He Is-- I don't. At all. I was trying to establish that I don't think I can read anything he writes with a friendly eye, before I called out what I thought was contextual flim-flam.

Like you, I have no direct cultural associations with carnival. But boy, do I have a lot of direct experience with "HAHAHA I'M A NAUGHTY BOY I GET TO SCREW WITH YOU!" Which is far from order-overturning, and I thin has a lot to do with Trump.