Full disclosure: I’m a huge fan of David Brooks. So, when I see his op-ed each week, I feel like I’ve received a gift.
Recently, he penned a piece, “When Politics Becomes Your Idol.” It spoke to me and I think it will speak to you. Here is part of what he said:
What you see is good people desperately trying to connect in an America where bonds are attenuated — without stable families, tight communities, stable careers, ethnic roots or an enveloping moral culture. There’s just a whirl of changing stepfathers, changing homes, changing phone distractions, changing pop-culture references, financial stress and chronic drinking, which make it harder to sink down roots into something, or to even have a spiritual narrative that gives meaning to life.
Today, partisanship for many people is not about which party has the better policies, as it was, say, in the days of Eisenhower and Kennedy. It’s not even about which party has the better philosophy, as it was in the Reagan era. These days, partisanship is often totalistic. People often use partisan identity to fill the void left when their other attachments wither away — religious, ethnic, communal and familial.
Want more? You can read the full article here
