This will be the first in a series of critiques of Op-Ed's by myself and the Nag. Look, it's great that you get these ideas out there, but your manufactured populism is just so...boring and makes us want to reverse the course of digestion through our bodies (and not like this). So now, we check which PoliSci cult David Brooks has decided to join.
I wonder if sometime around 50 years ago a great mental tide began to sweep across the world.
I asked my dad, who was 14 at the time, if he remembers this tide. And he does not recall any sort of tsunami hitting his brain that year. JFK?
Before the tide, people saw themselves in certain fixed places in the social order. They accepted opinions from trusted authorities.
Oh, so this is when the machines took over and the whole origin story of The Matrix begins. I get it now.
Or do I?
As the tide swept through, they began to see themselves differently. They felt they should express their own views, and these views deserved respect. They mentally bumped themselves up to first class and had a different set of expectations of how they should be treated. Treatment that had once seemed normal now felt like an insult. They began to march for responsive government and democracy.
Like how the CIA killed the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba that year? Or that military coup in South Korea? No, it's the opening of the first Six Flags in the country, right? Or was it Adnan Menderes, the man who tried to lighten restrictions on religious practices in Turkey when he was president, being hanged by a military coup?
It was, however, the year of the Freedom Riders, which was a big deal in the US Civil Rights Movement. And JFK cam to office and inspired Bono to be the douchiest philanthropist possible. But you know David Brooks, specifics are nothing when you can take a terrible Political Science theory that has been proven wrong to be your own. But that will be in a little bit.
I’ve covered some of these marches over the years in places like Russia, Ukraine and South Africa. While there are vast differences between nations, the marchers tend to echo certain themes — themes we are hearing once again in the interviews that reporters are doing in Cairo.
I've traveled a lot, and generally, people don't like be marched all over. They like to do the marching themselves. But usually they can't find bodies to march on, in which case they're prone to light things on fire.
Protesters invariably say that their government has insulted their dignity by ignoring their views.
It's more insulting that it takes you this long to start marching. But people will never do anything unless they know someone else wants to as well. (Collective Action Problem Ownage)
They have a certain template of what a “normal” country looks like — with democracy and openness — and they feel humiliated that their nation doesn’t measure up.
Mean Gene Okerlund: Is...is that...is that Francis Fukuyama's music I hear?
(Explanation: Francis Fukuyama is an American academic who came up with a theory following the fall of the Soviet Union and the democratization wave that swept many of the newly independent countries left in its wake. To him, democracy was the end point of history, and once all nations saw the light and achieved it, there would be no more war and the Earth would be a utopia. Fukuyama may be right, but it's not going to be for a damn long time till anyone knows.)
(Second explanation: Mean Gene Okerlund was the straight-man announcer to many crazy wrestlers back in the late 1980's and into the 1990's. His interviews involved him being freaked out by the likes of "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan.)
So, yes, David Brooks just finished his first glass of kool aid at this sweet rager at Fukuyama's pad in Baltimore. I hear Jimmy McNulty will be bringing Jameson, not any Protestant whiskey. God, I love The Wire. Mostly because it makes way more sense than any damn David Brooks column. Anyways, back to the breakdown.
Moreover, the protesters tend to feel enormous pride that they are finally speaking up, even in the face of danger. They feel a surge of patriotism as the people of their country make themselves heard.
/Fukuyama runs out to the ring, sliding in under the bottom rope and grabs the microphone from Okerlund.
Fukuyama: You people KNOW what I was talking about in 1992, right?
/Crickets chirp as Egyptians look at each other
Random Egyptian: Who's the Asian guy?
This quest for dignity has produced a remarkable democratic wave. More than 100 nations have seen democratic uprisings over the past few decades. More than 85 authoritarian governments have fallen. Somewhere around 62 countries have become democracies, loosely defined.
So of the 85 authoritarian governments that have fallen, 23 have definitely just gone back to authoritarian governments. And who knows how democratic the other 62 really are, since they are being "loosely defined" as democracies. Is that progress?
Fukuyama still stands by his theory, and he has to, otherwise he loses his legitimacy as an academic. And that doesn't help you get that tenure at Johns Hopkins, and probably gets it revoked if you do have it. Russia is probably one of the countries that Brooks has in his mysterious data, and is probably among the 62. All they do is ban opposition parties and poison with radioactive substances and execute critical journalists. All in a day's work to keep democracy going.
And how funny would it be if Egypt was one of those 62 "loosely defined" democracies? If we stretched the data back to 1951, you'd see that, yes, Egypt held its first presidential election following the Young Officers' coup in 1957. Wow, they're "loosely" a democracy!
And where are your statistics coming from? I love when people pull stuff out of their asses and just assume that you'll believe them. This is exactly what that idiot Greg(g) Easterbrook does on ESPN every week, and he gets a free Super Bowl ticket. The world is just messed up.
The experiences of these years teach us a few lessons. First, the foreign policy realists who say they tolerate authoritarian government for the sake of stability are ill informed. Autocracies are more fragile than any other form of government, by far.
Really? Democracies still get victimized. The reason 9/11 happened is that we lived inside this bubble where we didn't care about how the outside world would affect domestic security. Then a bunch of dudes from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, fed up with our military and corporate presence in their country, walk onto a plane and turn it into a missile. Did anyone check their bag for those box cutters? No, because people are free to walk around the do what they want. The same can be said for Mexico, a democracy where drug dealers are currently running around kidnapping people and killing mayors like they own the place.
My favorite example of this incorrect observation? Iraq. Under Saddam, no one heard a peep from a terrorist or a protest. Then, the US invades, takes him out of power, and a CIVIL WAR BREAKS OUT. This is the same line of reasoning behind what happened in Yugoslavia following the breakup of Tito's amalgam of ethnicities.
Second, those who say that speeches by outsiders have no influence on places like Egypt have it backward. The climate of opinion is the very basis of the revolt.
Of course, due to my self-righteous nature, I'll never tell you who made the speeches. I'm just going to assume you believe it. This article makes my senior thesis look publishable in a leather-bound book that will be put in a bookcase that smells of rich mahogany.
Third, for all the pessimism and nervousness that accompanies change, most countries that have experienced uprisings end up better off. We can all think of exceptions, like Iran, but we should greet these events with eagerness and hope.
Hoping that the worst possible result doesn't come up? Look, it's someone else's country, let them run it however they want to. Is the Egyptian military up to invade Israel? Well, maybe this new leader wants to find out. Not our business. Just being a realist, bruh.
Fourth, while the public hunger for dignity is unabated, the road from authoritarianism to democracy is rocky and perilous. Over the past few years, the world has experienced a “freedom recession” with more governments retreating from democracy than advancing toward it. For outside powers, the real work comes after the revolution — in helping democrats build governments that work.
Sounds like your data from before, wherever it came from, has some serious issues.
And how about nation building? Nation building doesn't work too well with the aid of outside powers. Look at this guy trying to run Hamid Karzai out of office while Obama is trying to work with him. In Iraq, first we destroyed a nation, and now we're working on putting together puzzle pieces that don't fit. Plus, who knows what Sadr is planning to do following the withdrawal?
The other thing we’ve learned is that the United States usually gets everything wrong. There have been dozens of democratic uprisings over the years, but the government always reacts like it’s the first one. There seem to be no protocols for these situations, no preset questions to be asked.
The United States has strategic allies. Yes, we love democracy, but we also love having peace of mind on the home front through having necessary resources readily available. Plus, you never want to piss off someone who could be very important to you in the future. We're lucky Cuba has nothing to offer us, except for cheap sugar cane that could wean us off the disgusting and possibly dangerous corn syrup that pollutes so many of our manufactured our food, great cigars, and a possibly awesome and cheap place to vacation.
Policy makers always underestimate the power of the bottom-up quest for dignity, so they are slow to understand what is happening. Last week, for example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the Egyptian regime was stable, just as it was falling apart.
Well, they usually are meeting with the heads of state, who aren't exactly at the bottom and heading up. And Clinton said that on the first day of protests. Did someone else say something sooner? Was it Miss Cleo? DID SHE READ IT IN THE CARDS?
Then their instinct is to comfort the fellow members of the club of those in power. The Obama administration was very solicitous of President Hosni Mubarak during the first days of the protests and of other dictators who fear their regime may be next.
That's how you preserve stability. The people in power stay in power. Again, Brooks is basing this off the first day of protests and the Obama administration's initial reaction. Look, he has been in power for 30 years, I would say it's pretty wise to discuss returning stability with Mubarak over someone else.
Then, desperately recalibrating in an effort to keep up with events, they inevitably make a series of subtle distinctions no one else heeds. The Obama administration ended up absurdly calling on Mubarak to initiate a reform agenda. Surely there’s not a single person in the government who thinks he is actually capable of doing this. Meanwhile, the marchers heard this fudge as Obama supporting Mubarak and were outraged.
Brooks has a point here. Operation Egyptian Freedom needs to start today! Ready the warships! We're invading. Pull out of Iraq early! Get out of Afghanistan! We're taking this country by force and installing a...government that doesn't actually rule its own country. It'll be just like Iraq and Afghanistan, but with more repressed and pissed off Muslims who hate us! And did the marchers really care what Obama was saying? Again, their own country.
The Obama administration’s reaction was tardy, but no worse than, say, the first Bush administration’s reaction to the uprisings in the Baltics and Ukraine. The point is, there’s no need to be continually wrong-footed. If you start with a healthy respect for the quest for dignity, if you see autocracies as fragile and democratic revolts as opportunities, then you’ll find it much easier to anticipate events.
Look, we have these relationships with countries already. We depend on Russia to cooperate with us on aspects of trade and the biggest issue of them all, getting rid of all this nuclear weapons, of which we will never rid ourselves completely. Why not just isolate them and turn them against us? Keeping the world stable. If it were President Brooks, we'd be in a humanitarian nuclear wasteland right now.
The Working Group on Egypt, co-led by Michele Dunne and Robert Kagan, has outperformed the U.S. government by miles. For months, they’ve been warning of Mubarak’s fragility. As the protests started, they issued a smart and concrete set of policy recommendations.
Started? By the date on that link, I'd say they started four days after the protests did. And it's been eight days? David Brooks, show me your time machine or stop writing columns every week. Take your pick.
Over the past decades, there has been a tide in the affairs of men and women. People in many places have risked their lives for recognition and respect. Governments may lag, and complications will arise, but still they will march. And, in the long run, we should be glad they do.
Yes, I also hope free will continues and that people make their voices heard. But maybe you shouldn't make statistical evidence such a huge part of your argument. It really kills the mood when it doesn't work.
And I'm sorry we don't communicate via thoughts so our government wouldn't be so laggy. I bet the most turned on David Brooks got was the sex scene in Demolition Man (warning: sort of NSFW)
DAMNIT STALLONE, WHY DID YOU BREAK CONTACT?! YOU WERE ABOUT TO GET YOUR MIND-PENIS BLOWN!
Also, does anyone else realize that Mr. Brooks' concluding statement builds nothing from his introduction? Sure, both use the word tide, but each one essentially boils down to saying "there is a tide, it's been around for a while."
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