David Brooks is at it again. In his New York Times column today, Brooks once more went after Ted Cruz, writing:

Senator Ted Cruz has not yet reached the point where he can make policy, rather than just make political trouble. But there are already disquieting signs that he is looking out for Ted Cruz — even if that sets back the causes he claims to be serving.

This is just the kind of thing you’d expect from a card-carrying member of The Establishment, a neo-statist and a RINO, a person who regularly appears on Meet the Press and The News Hour.

Except that the paragraph I cited comes not from David Brooks, who in truth is one of the most thoughtful and interesting columnists in America, but from Thomas Sowell, one of the most influential intellectuals within conservatism, a man revered by the right, and a friend of the aims and animating principles of the Tea Party. Which makes it a bit harder to dismiss Sowell as easily as it is to dismiss some other (conservative) critics of Ted Cruz. 

There’s a deeper point to be made here, which is that so often these days substantive arguments aren’t really engaged. It’s so much easier (and intellectually less taxing) to try to dismiss those whom you disagree with rather than actually answering their critiques. 

That is a fairly common practice on the left, but it happens on the right as well. Think about some of the conservatives who often resort to this kind of thing. X person’s argument shouldn’t be listened to because he’s not one of us. He’s not part of The Movement. He doesn’t pass The Purity Test. (A few individuals on the right, including one with an evening talk radio program, have sought to discredit George Will’s conservative bone fides by pointing out that Will wrote favorable columns like this about Howard Baker 35 years ago. The work of Prefects of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith never ends.)

This is the kind of mindset that would eventually allow you to fit the number of people in a political movement in a phone booth. Fortunately this attitude is not dominant and, while it remains vocal, one senses it’s losing steam. For one thing, it’s not terribly conservative. For another, the excommunication fires eventually burn out. Because pretty soon there’s no one left to expel.