David Brooks: The Rob Zombie of Politics
Mar. 2nd, 2019 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsIn a widely-reported event a while ago, Rob Zombie defended J-Metal supergroup Babymetal from a horde of haters. He took a photo of himself on some monsters-of-rock tour with the three lead vocalists, and the haters descend, shouting that Babymetal wasn't "real metal" and a "shameful embarrassment." Zombie shot back "They're nice kids on the road touring, what are you doing besides being a grumpy old fuck?" and "They roll harder than you."
Zombie knows that grown-ups can handle the abuse, but Babymetal's vocalists are just kids, teenagers, and touring is flippin' hard work, and nobody messes with the kids. So when he praised Babymetal for their efforts and revealed something about the industry: We are all entertainers here. They're reaching audiences who don't deserve any more than what the entertainers give them.
I sometimes wonder if David Brooks views himself as the Rob Zombie of politics. He knows they're all here for the same thing: to keep the wheels on the bus, even if the bus is driven by oligarchs and occasionally runs people over. That doesn't matter. What matters is that the bus keeps running. The tour keeps going. So Brooks' defensiveness at the Niskansen Center this week is part and parcel of that. So when David Brooks goes off, he accuses the Twitterati of being "grumpy old fucks," he just does it in more genteel language.
Zombie knows that grown-ups can handle the abuse, but Babymetal's vocalists are just kids, teenagers, and touring is flippin' hard work, and nobody messes with the kids. So when he praised Babymetal for their efforts and revealed something about the industry: We are all entertainers here. They're reaching audiences who don't deserve any more than what the entertainers give them.
I sometimes wonder if David Brooks views himself as the Rob Zombie of politics. He knows they're all here for the same thing: to keep the wheels on the bus, even if the bus is driven by oligarchs and occasionally runs people over. That doesn't matter. What matters is that the bus keeps running. The tour keeps going. So Brooks' defensiveness at the Niskansen Center this week is part and parcel of that. So when David Brooks goes off, he accuses the Twitterati of being "grumpy old fucks," he just does it in more genteel language.
