David B. Brooks (pictured) writes opinion columns for The New York Times. My headline, today, is a direct quote from a Brooks' column published by The Times on Friday, June 6, 2025. That column was titled as follows: "The Democrats' Problems Are Bigger Than You Think." Here are the first, and then the last three, paragraphs of Brooks' June 6th column (emphasis added):
I have a lot of Democratic friends who are extremely disappointed with their party leaders. They tell me that the Democratic Party is currently rudderless, weak, passive, lacking a compelling message. I try to be polite, but I want to tell them: “The problem is not the party leaders. The problem is you. You don’t understand how big a shift we’re in the middle of. You think the Democrats can solve their problems with a new message and a new leader. But the Democrats’ challenge is that they have to adapt to a new historical era. That’s not something done by working politicians who are focused on fund-raising and the next election. That’s only accomplished by visionaries and people willing to shift their entire worldview. That’s up to you, my friends, not Chuck Schumer.” ...
For today’s Democrats that means this: If people rightly distrust establishment institutions and you are the party of the establishment institutions, then you have to be the party of thoroughgoing reform. You have to say that Trump is taking a blowtorch to institutions, and we are for effectively changing institutions.
To show that, you have to be willing to take on your activist groups: We’re going to reform schools in ways the unions don’t like. We’re going to reform zoning in a way the NIMBY brigades don’t like. We’re going to reform Congress in ways the incumbents don’t like. We’re going to talk about patriotism and immigration in ways the groups don’t like. We’re going to fix how blue cities are governed in a way the groups don’t like.
Do you really think professional politicians are going to lead the tectonic shifts that are required? That takes intellectuals, organizers, a new generation, all of us. It’s the work of decades, not election cycles. Clear your mind. Think anew.
I have to say that I agree with Brooks. And.... it seems to me, based on this recent column, that Brooks might also agree with me. I am thinking that Brooks could get behind my oft-repeated message: If you want to have "self-government" (so often called "democracy"), you are going to have to get involved in government yourself.
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