At Dkos, DemFromCT highlights the latest David Brooks inanity (which is just the sort of drivel that Obama loves to scarf up, and why not?--since Brooksies' column is headlined,"Obama's Very Good Week"):
Over the past week we've seen the big differences between cluster liberals and network liberals. Cluster liberals (like cluster conservatives) view politics as a battle between implacable opponents. As a result, they believe victory is achieved through maximum unity. Psychologically, they tend to value loyalty and solidarity. They tend to angle toward situations in which philosophical lines are clearly drawn and partisan might can be bluntly applied.
Network liberals share the same goals and emerge from the same movement. But they tend to believe - the nation being as diverse as it is and the Constitution saying what it does - that politics is a complex jockeying of ideas and interests. They believe progress is achieved by leaders savvy enough to build coalitions.
Psychologically, network liberals are comfortable with weak ties; they are comfortable building relationships with people they disagree with.
This contrast is not between lefties and moderates. It's a contrast between different theories of how politics is done.
Now, you may ask, WTF is a "networked liberal" a "cluster liberal" and all that jazz? And the answer is simple: it's drivel, just pure drivel. A "network liberal" is just another way to say "unprincipled corporate dealmaker selling out the Democratic base" while pretending not to mean "unprincipled corporate dealmaker selling out the Democratic base". "Cluster liberal" means DFH. He tries to make it sounds much more elevated, but in his braindead Democrats eat arugula/Republicans eat lettuce kind of way:
Over the past week we've seen the big differences between cluster liberals and network liberals. Cluster liberals (like cluster conservatives) view politics as a battle between implacable opponents. As a result, they believe victory is achieved through maximum unity. Psychologically, they tend to value loyalty and solidarity. They tend to angle toward situations in which philosophical lines are clearly drawn and partisan might can be bluntly applied.
Network liberals share the same goals and emerge from the same movement. But they tend to believe - the nation being as diverse as it is and the Constitution saying what it does - that politics is a complex jockeying of ideas and interests. They believe progress is achieved by leaders savvy enough to build coalitions.
Psychologically, network liberals are comfortable with weak ties; they are comfortable building relationships with people they disagree with.
[Update: Oops!] Oaktown Girl is right! Reading Brooksie turned my brain to mush so fast I didn't realize I'd pasted the wrong clip there. It was a clip with ellipses, I remember that much. But the longer I looked at the original the more confused I became (the famed "Brooksie effect") while at the same time the more different things wrong I saw that I wanted to comment on (the "Brooksie counter-effect"). So, in the end, all I can say is "Opps!" again.
Notice what's totally absent from this opium dream: any foundation whatsoever in reality. No mention whatsoever that conservatives all believe in the cluster approach, that that sort of tribalism is, indeed, quite close to the heart of the very definition of conservatism, whilst the exact opposite is true of liberals, whose creed is that of ever-expanding inclusion.
The term "cluster liberal" is but the latest in an endless stream of locutions devised to attack liberals on any occasion when they get riled up enough to show signs of political cohesion that might actually result in them winning some sort of political victory commensurate with the overwhelming popularity and commonsense viability of their ideas.
In contrast, a "cluster conservative" believes in cutting taxes to zero so that the government revenues go to infinity and killing every Moslem or Arab in retaliation for 9/11--and every American who doesn't agree with them (not necessarily in that order). Hence the revised name, "clusterfuck conservative."
And, of course, "network conservatives" ala Brooksie, are folks who lie about what clusterfuck conservatives are up to. (Kill the gays? Who said "Kill the gays?") But they also lie about everyone and everything else as well. Such as: - "Network liberals share the same goals and emerge from the same movement [as cluster liberals]" In the sense that the Heritage Foundation's RomneyCare is the same as Medicare for all, or arresting Julian Assange is the same as arresting Dick Cheney. Or that balancing the budget by destroying the New Deal is the same as balancing the budget by destroying corporate oligopoly.
- Or "But they ["network liberals"] tend to believe - the nation being as diverse as it is and the Constitution saying what it does - that politics is a complex jockeying of ideas and interests. In other words, "36 is the new 60" -- so long as Republicans are the 36!
Somewhere out there, there's a PhD. thesis waiting to be written on the role of Brooksie's political discourse in the downfall of the American Republic. Unfortunately, it's not going to be written for another 2,000 years or so. If global warming turns out to be bad enough, make that 3,000.
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