David Brooks says we're having a moral convulsion.

As usually seems to be the case with David Brooks, there are enough germs of truth and even inspiration here to make you think that maybe this time, he'll make a strong case and reach a forceful conclusion. 

Then you reach the end, and you're still hungry. 

There'll be those on the right who insist the mistrust of which Brooks writes stems from matters like not enough prayer in schools, and of course abortion rights. Conversely, the left will point to racism and the patriarchy preferred by the right. 

And yet, while the first great "shock" may have been Watergate, how can we rationally discuss any of this without taking into the deep dive into capitalism's late-stage cancerous mutations? Brooks tap dances around it, but he doesn't get near this third rail. 

He should. We all should, in fact. 

This said, it's a piece worth your time to read. My advice is to keep expectations low, and sniff out those few nuggets of worth.

America Is Having a Moral Convulsion, by David Brooks (The Atlantic)

Levels of trust in this country—in our institutions, in our politics, and in one another—are in precipitous decline. And when social trust collapses, nations fail. Can we get it back before it’s too late? 

The events of 2020—the coronavirus pandemic; the killing of George Floyd; militias, social-media mobs, and urban unrest—were like hurricanes that hit in the middle of that earthquake. They did not cause the moral convulsion, but they accelerated every trend. They flooded the ravines that had opened up in American society and exposed every flaw. 

Now, as we enter the final month of the election, this period of convulsion careens toward its climax. Donald Trump is in the process of shredding every norm of decent behavior and wrecking every institution he touches. Unable to behave responsibly, unable to protect himself from COVID-19, unable to even tell the country the truth about his own medical condition, he undermines the basic credibility of the government and arouses the suspicion that every word and act that surrounds him is a lie and a fraud. Finally, he threatens to undermine the legitimacy of our democracy in November and incite a vicious national conflagration that would leave us a charred and shattered nation. Trump is the final instrument of this crisis, but the conditions that brought him to power and make him so dangerous at this moment were decades in the making, and those conditions will not disappear if he is defeated. 

This essay is an account of the convulsion that brought us to this fateful moment ...