David Brooks, via Mark Blyth: "I always wondered about David Brooks ability to spend most of his time being woefully wrong and occasionally bang on. Judge for yourself which one this is. Well worth a read either way." Sven Steinmo replies, "spot on"

recent. See also, Streeck, Therborn etc

etc

The illustration made it easy, but there's not much to wonder about with Brooks. Conservatism is founded in a pessimistic reflex as liberalism is founded in an optimistic one. Pessimism allows for hypocrisy as the inevitability of weakness, or of failure.  Radical optimism was also a problem once. Revolutionary pessimism still is. Ideologies, easy answers, are always "optimistic."  

The exception is revolutionary nihilism, which is still the need for totality, even total destruction.