People Like Us

“People Like Us” employs multiple literary devices and careful word choice to create an opinion piece backed by demographic data. The piece paints a picture of a country in which residents increasingly cordon themselves off into communities where they fit in.

Brooks’s arguments gain much of their force from the research he cites to back up his claims; however, it is important to note that writers can frame objective, statistical information in ways that are either more or less subjective. Brooks’s section surrounding academia is a good example. The primary data Brooks presents to uphold his claims is a voter registration poll by a major conservative-leaning think tank that reported that 90% of arts and sciences professors who are registered with a political party are registered as Democrats. The poll found that 54 out of 59 party registered Brown professors were Democrats, with similar trends from other schools suggesting a preponderance of liberal and progressive views among academics. Brooks presents this data in contrast to the general population, arguing that in a proportionally representative university system, “32 percent of professors would be registered Democrats and 31 percent would be registered Republicans. Forty percent would be evangelical Christians” (Paragraph 13).