Thread by @LarryGlickman

It’s amazing how much of David Brooks’ putative defense of moderation is build on the binary, extremist, and sometimes apocalyptic rhetoric of hardcore anti-New Dealism. /1 nytimes.com/2019/07/01/opi…

Fyi, my forthcoming book traces the history and influence of this rhetoric. /2
amazon.com/Free-Enterpris…

How does the provision of public goods, like education, make citizens "dependent"? Why does Brooks frame this as government "control"? /3

"Progressives want to create a government caste that is powerful and a population that is safe but dependent." Why use such inflammatory rhetoric about the kind of robust welfare state enjoyed by many other democracies? How do progressives want to create a government "caste"?/4

Brooks' use of the terms "coddle" and "free stuff" and his suggestion that social provisions "reduce citizens to children on Christmas morning" are all, as I show in my book, straight out of the anti-New Deal playbook. /5

I don't think most Americans value public education less because it is free. My parents certainly appreciated the free education provided by CCNY and Queen College that they otherwise couldn't have afforded. Both they and society benefited from this investment./6

Why not view things like public goods like education as providing opportunities and enabling everyone to achieve their potential--and thus as a key element in freedom--rather than as a tool of "infantilization"? /7

It is hard to be an "audacious pioneer" if you lack health insurance and there is no reason why social provisions necessarily turn us into "passive recipients." /8

"Moderates are always aiming to make responsibility, agency and choice as local as possible." But what do moderates say when Governors, like Nikki Haley of South Carolina, turned down the Medicaid Expansion of the ACA, leaving thousands without health insurance? /9

How does federally-funded day care make people "wards of the system"? Doesn't it open options for many people who want to (or need to) work outside the home? /10

Many of the proposals by Warren and others seem to fit Brooks' "moderate" idea that the state should "give people a secure base, so they can go off and live daring adventures" and to help "mitigate the downsides of change." Why frame them as incipient totalitarianism? 11/