A quote from his new book, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) In the Future Tense (quote courtesy New York Times):

In America, it is acceptable to cut off any driver in a vehicle that costs a third more than yours. That’s called democracy.

If that’s democracy, then Michigan has democracy (or, I guess, reverse democracy, since the cutting off usually comes from the vehicles that “cost a third more than yours”) in spades.

But David Brooks never makes any sense, so never mind.