David Brooks, however, has serious identity issues and a genuine sense of existential dislocation. And his angst is firmly rooted in his own final Triumph of Commercial Civilization. Brooks is a former Wall Street Journal hand. He's great about business practices and consumption patterns. Now, he and the colleagues at The Standard are paid to talk ideology and clarify partisan thinking.
Bohemians sell out all the time.
That's always been part of the Boho game. For political commentators, this is a scarier matter. If cash is the almighty solvent that drowns bohemia in the bourgeoisie, cash will drown political idealism far, far more easily. But any serious American politician today must consume many millions of dollars. Then consume more millions after that.