David Brooks: I don't understand the new GOP

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

This is the point which to me is most depressing about discourse in this country. I'm fine with our politicians and pundits having sharply opinionated and argumentative opinions. But just when exactly did we go off the cliff by attacking, mocking, and slandering scholarship? When did attacking the credentials and scholarship of economists who study and support Keynesian policies, or evolutionary biologists who research our origins, or climate scientists who study the disturbing trends of manmade climate change become acceptable? There's a growing tendency by people in responsible positions in government and the media who ought to know better than to use the vituperation they do. Peer reviewed academic scholarship is the hallmark distinguishing characteristic of our society that has accelerated the quality of our lives, our medicine, or engineered marvels, our modern economy. Those who disdain scholarship and intellectualism frankly remind me of just so many Brown Shirts gleefully tossing books onto the bonfire. They share the same intolerance for ideas and truth, and are blinded by ideology.

Its probably the first step towards a new idiocracy. I for one welcome gatorade in my water fountain.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

David Brooks doesn't understand. And what?