Excerpt
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to analyze the week's news, including hate and tragedy in New Zealand, President Trump’s aggressive and “reckless” rhetoric and the latest updates from the field of 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And with that, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
We're going to get to politic in just a moment.
But, David, I want to start with this terrible massacre at two mosques in New Zealand. We just talked to our guests it.
What does it say about — I was going to say about where we are in terms of tone. What does it say about us as a human race right now?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, we're seeing a culture cry in pain and rage and alienation, a culture that's divided, that is isolated, where people are lonely, committing suicide at high rates.
And one of the things some lonely people with existential angst do is, they turn into fanatics. And that's been the case all through history. And we're just at a moment of just cultural pain. And you get these horrific outbreaks.
Some of it is gentle, relatively gentle, screaming at each about politics. Some of it is really bad, the suicide and the murder rate, the opioid rate. And some of it is horrific, which is these mass shootings that we see across Western society.
And it's just the definition of our cultural moment. And the thing that Kathleen Belew said, I think, is worth repeating, that it's a movement.
Judy Woodruff: Right.
David Brooks: And it used to be a movement or even a terror army was a group of people who had some internal structure and internal structure and institutions.
But now they're radically decentralized webs organized by the Internet. And so, just because they have never met anybody — each other doesn't mean they're all part of one thing. And they are part of one series of fanatical ideas.
And what's interesting is how they wink and nod to each other through their statements in their Internet or through their statements in their manifestos. And so they're quoting — this guy was quoting somebody — the guy in the Pittsburgh synagogue. And that's just a scary form of movement.
Judy Woodruff: For them, it's all of a piece, Mark, even though they don't have a leader.
As David said, Kathleen Belew was saying a moment ago, this is — they're all about eliminating everybody who isn't white.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Yes. No, I agree, and I was struck by Kathleen Belew's remark that it's a white power movement and a social groundswell.
And I can't help but think that the amplification and strengthening of this institution or this movement has occurred through the Internet. The idea that if somebody held those beliefs in the past, there was almost a sense of isolation, because they were so widely unacceptable to most people.
But now you get ratification, you get validation, because you can talk to people, whether it's somebody who is going after Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston or the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh or in New Zealand yesterday going after Muslims at prayer.
And it truly is — it's worldwide in its movement. And it's obviously not based on anything other than that sense of anger, resentment, alienation, and hostility.
David Brooks: It should be pointed out the tendency to go after houses of worship is not an accident.
Mark Shields: No.
David Brooks: It is a form of anti-religion. It's faith or a movement of hatred.
And this has not been the first time in history that we have had this, and so you get these war — moral wars. Somebody pointed out that, when the printing press was first created, people thought it would herald in an age of peace, because we could all talk to each other through the written word. And we got hundreds of years of religious war.
And so open communication can have these horrifically negative effects. And Ryan O'Lieber (ph) said back in the '50s that existential anxiety, if you don't know what your moral purpose is, you turn into a fanatic, because this sort of white or black or any kind of racial power movement gives you a very clean moral logic. You know what your purpose is in the universe. And you have a clear enemy you can go kill who are inhuman.
And so it cures all your existential anxiety, because suddenly everything is literally black and white.
Judy Woodruff: But you don't really right now, Mark, have an effort to condemn it, to say this is wrong.
I mean, it's on the margins.
Mark Shields: No, we all know it's wrong. I mean, it is.
I mean, but how do you confront something that is almost subterranean? I mean, it's not something that we run into, most of us, in our carpool or daily.
There was just one moment yesterday on Capitol Hill, when the most powerful Democrat in the country quoted the most popular Republican President of the last century.
And I would just like to read it. And it just said, thanks to the — quoting this President: "Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, always leading the world to the next frontier. If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world will soon be lost" — Ronald Reagan's last speech to the American people.
(CROSSTALK)
Judy Woodruff: Nancy Pelosi.
Mark Shields: And it was quoted by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, at the luncheon for the Irish Prime Minister yesterday, Donald Trump sitting there as she said this.
But, I mean, wow. I mean, it's just one of those moments you say, we are not who we were.
David Brooks: Yes.
And it's an assertion that what joins us across race is more important than what divides us.
Mark Shields: Yes, exactly.
Judy Woodruff: Well, we're talking about — you made the segue to President Trump.
And I was going to ask this in the context, David, of the 12 Republicans yesterday in the Senate who went against the President on his emergency declaration on the border.
But what has come up in the last day or so is a comment the President made in an interview with Breitbart News, the right-wing Web site. And he said — and he was condemning Democrats and saying they were the left. He said it's tough.
But he went on to say: "I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, support of the Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people. But they don't play it tough, until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."
I'm contrasting that with what President Reagan said.
David Brooks: Yes, again, he left out the Brownshirts. It is classic authoritarianism. It's almost Mussolini-like.
I happen to think it's compensation. As a friend told me, a friend of Donald Trump's told me that he's terribly afraid of confrontation in person. He will do it over the Internet, but he won't do it in person. And so he needs to project toughness.
And he admires toughness in the Saudis and Putin, in the North Koreans. And that's his highest virtue, but it's something of a blustery front, which is typical of bullies.
Mark Shields: Reckless beyond belief. I just — I can't believe it. Words matter, especially the words of a President.
And he's not talking to Breitbart or any particular group. Whenever the President speaks, he's speaking to all of us and for all of us. And this was criminally reckless. It was almost sanctioning, if not condoning, any act of violence by one of his supporters, armed supporters, against a political critic, a political opponent, saying, I understand it.
I contrast — I just contrast it with the words of a Reagan or a Kennedy or any other President.
No comments:
Post a Comment