David Brooks: I Should Have Seen This Coming - The Atlantic
I was reading The Atlantic last night. I found an article called “I Should Have Known” that was written by David Brooks, a commentator whom I have followed for many years. He was, in the same breath, chiding himself for missing what a nightmare for democracy Trump is, and yet clinging to the hope that America would make it through the misanthropic period of Donald Trump.
I have been watching over the past months a transition occur in this fairly middle of the road conservative commentator. He had been faithfully intoning the conservative standard. After the election he was on about the populist message. More recently, he has been alarmed at the state of government. This week on Brooks and Capehart (PBS), he called Trump a Mafioso . I about fell off my chair laughing. It certainly took him long enough! But then I was watching Washington Week , and right at the end of the program they mentioned this story by David Brooks.
So
I thought that I would pop on over and read it, but paywall issues ensued, after they had let me read part of the story. I thought that I had them beat when I hit the “Free Trial” Button, but I still had to fight with my computer for at least forever, or 5 minutes, whichever is longer, till I was finally in to the article.
So that is my rambling Preamble. This is the article by David Brooks entitled, “I Should Have Known”.
Enjoy.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
When I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, there were two types of people: those who cared earnestly about ideas, and those who wanted only to shock the left. The reactionary fringe has won.
By David Brooks Illustrations by Ricardo Tomas April 7, 2025
Charles de Gaulle began his war memoirs with this sentence: "All my life I have had a certain idea about France." Well, all my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world. From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Americans fought for freedom and human dignity and against tyranny; we promoted democracy, funded the Marshall Plan, and saved millions of people across Africa from HIV and AIDS. When we caused harm—Vietnam, Iraq—it was because of our overconfidence and naivete, not evil intentions.
Until January 20, 2025, I didn't realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country's goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely—toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—I've had trouble describing the anguish I've experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I'm living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I'm feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation's honor is embarrassing and painful.
George Orwell is a useful guide to what we're witnessing. He understood that it is possible for people to seek power without having any vision of the good. "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake," an apparatchik says in 1984 . "We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power." How is power demonstrated? By making others suffer. Orwell's character continues: "Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation."
Russell Vought, Donald Trump's budget director, sounds like he walked straight out of 1984 . "When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains," he said of federal workers, speaking at an event in 2023. "We want to put them in trauma."
Since coming back to the White House, Trump has caused suffering among Ukrainians, suffering among immigrants who have lived here for decades, suffering among some of the best people I know. Many of my friends in Washington are evangelical Christians who found their vocation in public service—fighting sex trafficking, serving the world's poor, protecting America from foreign threats, doing biomedical research to cure disease. They are trying to live lives consistent with the gospel of mercy and love. Trump has devastated their work. He isn't just declaring war on "wokeness"; he's declaring war on Christian service—on any kind of service, really.
If there is an underlying philosophy driving Trump, it is this: Morality is for suckers. The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. This is the logic of bullies everywhere. And if there is a consistent strategy, it is this: Day after day, the administration works to create a world where ruthless people can thrive. That means destroying any institution or arrangement that might check the strongman's power. The rule of law, domestic or international, restrains power, so it must be eviscerated. Inspectors general, judge advocate general officers, oversight mechanisms, and watchdog agencies are a potential restraint on power, so they must be fired or neutered. The truth itself is a restraint on power, so it must be abandoned. Lying becomes the language of the state.
Trump's first term was a precondition for his second. His first term gradually eroded norms and acclimatized America to a new sort of regime. This laid the groundwork for his second term, in which he's making the globe a playground for gangsters.
We used to live in a world where ideologies clashed, but ideologies don't seem to matter anymore. The strongman understanding of power is on the march. Power is like money: the more the better. Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the rest of the world's authoritarians are forming an axis of ruthlessness before our eyes. Trumpism has become a form of nihilism that is devouring everything in its path.
The pathetic thing is that I didn't see this coming even though I've been living around these people my whole adult life. I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, when I worked in turn at National Review , The Washington Times , and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. There were two kinds of people in our movement back then, the conservatives and the reactionaries. We conservatives earnestly read Milton Friedman, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers, and Edmund Burke. The reactionaries just wanted to shock the left. We conservatives oriented our lives around writing for intellectual magazines; the reactionaries were attracted to TV and radio. We were on the political right but had many liberal friends; they had contempt for anyone not on the anti-establishment right. They were not pro-conservative—they were anti-left. I have come to appreciate that this is an important difference.
I should have understood this much sooner, because the reactionaries had revealed their true character as far back as January 1986. A group of progressive students at Dartmouth had erected a shantytown on campus to protest apartheid. One night, a group of 12 students, most of them associated with the right-wing Dartmouth Review , descended on the shanties with sledgehammers and smashed them down.
Even then I was appalled. Apartheid was evil, and worth opposing. A nighttime raid with sledgehammers seemed more Gestapo than Burkean. But conservative intellectuals didn't take this seriously enough. In large part, I think this was because we looked down on the Dartmouth Review mafia, whose members had included Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D'Souza. Their intellectual standards were so obviously third-rate. I don't know how to put this politely, but they just seemed creepy—nakedly ambitious in a way that I thought would destroy them in the end.
Instead, history has smiled on them. A prominent publisher of right-wing authors once told me that the way to sell conservative books is not to write a good book—it's to write a book that will offend the left, thereby causing the reactionaries to rally to your side and buy it. That led to books with titles such as The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left , and to Ann Coulter's entire career. Owning the libs became a lucrative strategy.
Of course, the left made it easy for them. The left really did purge conservatives from universities and other cultural power centers. The left really did valorize a "meritocratic" caste system that privileged the children of the affluent and screwed the working class. The left really did pontificate to their unenlightened moral inferiors on everything from gender to the environment. The left really did create a stifling orthodoxy that stamped out dissent. If you tell half the country that their voices don't matter, then the voiceless are going to flip over the table.
But although Trump may have campaigned as a MAGA populist, leveraging this working-class resentment to gain power, he governs as a Palm Beach elitist. Trump and Elon Musk are billionaires who went to the University of Pennsylvania. J. D. Vance went to Yale Law School. Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Harvard. Vivek Ramaswamy went to Yale and Harvard. Stephen Miller went to Duke. Ted Cruz went to Princeton and Harvard. Many of Musk's DOGE workers, according to The New York Times , come from elite institutions—Harvard, Princeton, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Wharton. These are the Vineyard Vines nihilists, the spiritual descendants of the elite bad boys at the Dartmouth Review . This political moment isn't populists versus elitists; it is, as I've written before, like a civil war in a prep school where the sleazy rich kids are taking on the pretentious rich kids.
The MAGA elite rode to power on working-class votes, but—trust me, I know some of them—they don't care about the working class. Trump and his crew could have taken office with actual plans to make life better for working-class Americans. An administration that cared about the working class would seek to address its problems, such as the fact that the poorest Americans die an average of 10 to 15 years younger than their higher-income counterparts, or that by sixth grade, many of the children in the poorest school districts have fallen four grade levels behind those in the richest. An administration that cared about these people would have offered a bipartisan industrial policy to create working-class jobs.
These faux populists have no interest in that. Instead of helping workers, they focus on civil war with their left-wing fellow elites. During Trump's first months in office, one of their highest priorities has been to destroy the places where they think liberal elites work—the scientific community, the foreign-aid community, the Kennedy Center, the Department of Education, universities.
It turns out that when you mix narcissism and nihilism, you create an acid that corrodes every belief system it touches.
This Trumpian cocktail has eaten away at Christianity, a faith oriented around the marginalized. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The poor are closer to God than the rich. Again and again, Jesus explicitly renounced worldly power.
But if Trumpism has a central tenet, it is untrammeled lust for worldly power. In Trumpian circles, many people ostentatiously identify as Christians but don't talk about Jesus very much; they have crosses on their chest but Nietzsche in their heart—or, to be more precise, a high-school sophomore's version of Nietzsche.
To Nietzsche, all of those Christian pieties about justice, peace, love, and civility are constraints that the weak erect to emasculate the strong. In this view, Nietzscheanism is a morality for winners. It worships the pagan virtues: power, courage, glory, will, self-assertion. The Nietzschean Ubermenschen—which Trump and Musk clearly believe themselves to be—offer the promise of domination over those sick sentimentalists who practice compassion.
Two decades ago, Michael Gerson, a graduate of Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical institution, helped George W. Bush start the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has saved 25 million lives in Africa and elsewhere. I traveled with Gerson to Namibia, Mozambique, and South Africa, where dying people had recovered and returned to their families, and were leading active lives. It was a proud moment to be an American. Vought—Trump's budget director, who also graduated from Wheaton—championed the evisceration of PEPFAR, which has now been set in motion by executive order, effectively sentencing thousands to death. Project 2025, of which Vought was a principal architect, helped lay the groundwork for the dismantling of USAID; its gutting appears to have ended a program to supply malaria protection to 53 million people and cut emergency food packages for starving children. Twenty years is a short time in which to have traveled the long moral distance from Gerson to Vought.
Trumpian nihilism has eviscerated conservatism. The people in this administration are not conservatives. They are the opposite of conservatives. Conservatives once believed in steady but incremental reform; Elon Musk believes in rash and instantaneous disruption. Conservatives once believed that moral norms restrain and civilize us, habituating us to virtue; Trumpism trashes moral norms in every direction, riding forward on a tide of adultery, abuse, cruelty, immaturity, grift, and corruption. Conservatives once believed in constitutional government and the Madisonian separation of powers; Trump bulldozes checks and balances, declaiming on social media, "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law." Reagan promoted democracy abroad because he thought it the political system most consistent with human dignity; the Trump administration couldn't care less about promoting democracy—or about human dignity.
How does this end? Will anyone on the right finally stand up to the Trumpian onslaught? Will our institutions withstand the nihilist assault? Is America on the verge of ruin?
In February, about a month into Trump's second term, I spoke at a gathering of conservatives in London called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Some of the speakers were pure populist (Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Johnson, and Nigel Farage). But others were center-right or not neatly ideological (Niall Ferguson, Bishop Robert Barron, and my Atlantic colleague Arthur C. Brooks).
In some ways, it was like the conservative conferences I've been attending for decades. I listened to a woman from Senegal talking about trying to make her country's culture more entrepreneurial. I met the head of a charter school in the Bronx that focuses on character formation. But in other ways, this conference was startlingly different.
In my own talk, I sympathized with the populist critique of what has gone wrong in Western societies. But I shared with the audience my dark view of President Trump. Unsurprisingly, a large segment of the audience booed vigorously. One man screamed that I was a traitor and stormed out. But many other people cheered. Even in conservative precincts infected by reactionary MAGA-ism, some people are evidently tired of Trumpian brutality.
As the conference went on, I noticed a contest of metaphors. The true conservatives used metaphors of growth or spiritual recovery. Society is an organism that needs healing, or it is a social fabric that needs to be rewoven. A poet named Joshua Luke Smith said we needed to be the seeds of regrowth, to plant the trees for future generations. His incantation was beatitudinal: "Remember the poor. Remember the poor."
But others relied on military metaphors. We are in the midst of civilizational war. "They"—the wokesters, the radical Muslims, the left—are destroying our culture. There were allusions to the final epochal battles in The Lord of the Rings . The implication was that Sauron is leading his Orc hordes to destroy us. We are the heroic remnant. We must crush or be crushed.
The warriors tend to think people like me are soft and naive. I tend to think they are catastrophizing narcissists. When I look at Trump acolytes, I see a swarm of Neville Chamberlains who think they're Winston Churchill.
I understand the seductive power of a demagogue who tells you that the people who look down on you are evil. I understand the seductive power of being told that your civilization is on the verge of total collapse, and that everything around you is degeneracy and ruin. This message gives you a kind of terrifying thrill: The stakes are apocalyptic. Your life has meaning and urgency. Everything is broken; let's burn it all down.
I understand why people who feel alienated would want to follow the leader who speaks about domination and combat, not the one who speaks about healing and cooperation. It doesn't matter how many times you've read Edmund Burke or the Gospel of Matthew—it's still tempting to throw away all of your beliefs to support the leader who promises to be "your retribution."
America may well enter a period of democratic decay and international isolation. It takes decades to develop strong alliances, and to build the structures and customs of democracy—and only weeks to decimate them, as we've now seen. And yet I find myself confident that America will survive this crisis. Many nations, including our own, have gone through worse and bloodier crises and recovered. In Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis , the historian and scientist Jared Diamond provides case studies—Japan in the late 19th century, Finland and Germany after World War II, Indonesia after the 1960s, Chile and Australia during and after the '70s—of countries that came back stronger after crisis, collapse, or defeat. To these examples, I'd add Britain in the 1830s and '40s, and the 1980s, and South Korea in the 1980s. Some of these countries (such as Japan) endured war; others (Chile) endured mass torture and "disappearances"; still others (Britain and Australia) endured social decay and national decline. All of them eventually healed and came back.
America itself has already been through numerous periods of rupture and repair. Some people think we're living through a period of unprecedented tumult, but the Civil War and the Great Depression were much worse. So were the late 1960s—assassinations, riots, a failed war, surging crime rates, a society coming apart. From January 1969 until April 1970, there were 4,330 bombings in the U.S., or about nine a day. But by the 1980s and '90s—after getting through Watergate, stagflation, and the Carter-era "malaise" of the '70s—we had recovered. As brutal and disruptive as the tumult of the late 1960s was, it helped the country shake off some of its persistent racism and sexism, and made possible a freer and more individualistic ethos.
But the most salient historical parallel might be the America of the 1830s. Andrew Jackson is the American president who most resembles Trump—power-hungry, rash, narcissistic, driven by animosity. He was known by his opponents as "King Andrew" for his expansions of executive power. "The man we have made our President has made himself our despot, and the Constitution now lies a heap of ruins at his feet," Senator Asher Robbins of Rhode Island said. "When the way to his object lies through the Constitution, the Constitution has not the strength of a cobweb to restrain him from breaking through it." Jackson brazenly defied the Supreme Court on a ruling about Cherokee Nation territory (a defiance, it should be noted, that Vice President Vance has explicitly endorsed). "Though we live under the form of a republic," Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote, "we are in fact under the absolute rule of a single man."
But Jackson made the classic mistake of the populist: He overreached. Fueled by personal hostility toward elites, he destroyed the Second Bank of the United States, an early precursor to the Federal Reserve System, and helped spark an economic depression that ruined the administration of his chosen successor, Martin Van Buren.
In response to Jackson, the Whig Party arose in the 1830s to create a new political and social order. Devoutly anti-authoritarian, the Whigs were a cultural, civic, and political force all at once. They emphasized both traditional morality and progressive improvements. They agitated for prison reform and for keeping the Sabbath, for more women's participation in politics and for a strong military, for government-funded public schools and for pro-business government policies. They were opposed to Jackson's monstrous Indian Removal Act, and to the Democratic Party's reactionary, white-supremacist social vision. Whereas Jacksonian Democrats emphasized negative liberty— get your hands off me —the Whigs, who would turn into the early Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, emphasized positive liberty, empowering Americans to live bigger, better lives with things such as expanded economic credit, free public education, and stronger legal protections including due process and property rights.
Though we've come to call the early-to-mid-19th century the Age of Jackson, the historian Daniel Walker Howe notes that it was not Jackson but the Whigs who created the America we know today. "As economic modernizers, as supporters of strong national government, and as humanitarians more receptive than their rivals to talent regardless of race and gender," Howe writes, the Whigs "facilitated the transformation of the United States from a collection of parochial agricultural communities into a cosmopolitan nation integrated by commerce, industry, information, and voluntary associations as well as by political ties." Looking back, Howe concludes, we can see that even though they were not the dominant party of their time, the Whigs "were the party of America's future." To begin its recovery from Trumpism, America needs its next Whig moment.
Yes, we have reached a point of traumatic rupture. A demagogue has come to power and is ripping everything down. But what's likely to happen is that the demagogue will start making mistakes, because incompetence is built into the nihilistic project. Nihilists can only destroy, not build. Authoritarian nihilism is inherently stupid. I don't mean that Trumpists have low IQs. I mean they do things that run directly against their own interests. They are pathologically self-destructive. When you create an administration in which one man has all the power and everybody else has to flatter his voracious ego, stupidity results. Authoritarians are also morally stupid. Humility, prudence, and honesty are not just nice virtues to have—they are practical tools that produce good outcomes. When you replace them with greed, lust, hypocrisy, and dishonesty, terrible things happen.
The DOGE children are doubtless brilliant in certain ways, but they know as much about government as I know about rocketry. They announced an $8 billion cut to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract—though if they had read their own documents correctly, they would have realized that the cut was less than $8 million . They eliminated workers from the National Nuclear Security Administration, apparently without realizing that this agency controls nuclear security, and had to undo some of those cuts shortly thereafter. Trump seems to be trying to give a bunch of Sam Bankman-Frieds access to America's nuclear arsenal and IRS records. What could go wrong?
When Trump creates an unnecessary crisis, it's unlikely to be a small one. The proverbial "adults in the room" who contained crises in Trump's first term are gone. Whatever the second-term crisis—runaway inflation? a global trade war? a cratered economy and plummeting stock market? an out-of-control conflict in China? botched pandemic management? a true hijacking of the Constitution precipitated by defiance of the courts?—it is likely to crater his support and shift historical momentum.
But although Trumpism's collapse is a necessary condition for national recovery, it is not a sufficient one. Its demise must be followed by the hard work necessary to achieve true civic and political renewal.
Progress is not always a smooth or merry ride. For a few decades, nations live according to one paradigm. Then it stops working and gets destroyed. When the time comes to build a new paradigm, progressives talk about economic redistribution; conservatives talk about cultural and civic repair. History shows that you need both: Recovery from national crisis demands comprehensive reinvention at all levels of society. If you look back across the centuries, you find that this process requires several interconnected efforts.
First, a national shift in values. In the late 19th century, for example, as the country went through the wrenching process of industrialization, America was traumatized by severe recessions and mass urban poverty. In response, social Darwinism gave way to the social-gospel movement. Social Darwinism, associated with thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, valorized survival of the fittest and claimed that the poor are poor because of inferior abilities. The social-gospel movement, associated with theologians such as Walter Rauschenbusch, emphasized the systemic causes of poverty, including the Gilded Age's concentration of corporate power. By the early 20th century, most mainline Protestant denominations had signed on to the Social Creed of the Churches, which called for, among other things, the abolition of child labor and the creation of disability insurance.
Second, nations that hang together through crisis have a strong national identity—they return to their roots. They have a leader who replaces the amoralism of the nihilists, or, say, the immorality of slavery, with a strong redefinition of the nation's moral mission, the way Lincoln redefined America at Gettysburg.
Third, a civic renaissance. After the social gospel took root, Americans in the 1890s and early 1900s launched and participated in a series of social movements and civic organizations: United Way, the NAACP, the Sierra Club, the settlement-house movement, the American Legion.
Fourth, a national reassessment. As Jared Diamond notes, nations that turn around don't catastrophize. Rather, they develop a clear-eyed view of what's working and not working, and they pursue careful, selective change. According to Diamond's research, the leaders of successful reform movements also take responsibility for their part in the crisis. For instance, Germany's leaders accepted responsibility for the country's Nazi past; Finland's leaders took responsibility for an unrealistic foreign policy before World War II, when they had to deal with a looming Soviet Union on their border; and Australia's leaders took responsibility in the 1970s for a political culture and foreign policy that had become overly dependent on Britain.
Fifth, a surge of political reform. In 1830s and '40s Britain—racked by social chaos, bank failures, a severe depression, riots, and crushing wealth inequality—Prime Minister Robert Peel, a leader of great moral rectitude, built the modern police force, reduced tariffs, pushed railway legislation that literally laid the tracks for British industrialization, and helped pass the Factory Act of 1844, which regulated workplaces. In early-20th-century America, Progressives produced a comparable flurry of effective reforms that pulled the country out of its industrialization crisis.
Part of political reform is an expansion of the circle of power. What that would require in America today is, among other things, a broad effort to include working-class and conservative voices in what have traditionally been cultural bastions of elite progressivism—universities, the nonprofit sector, the civil service, the mainstream media.
Finally, economic expansion. Economic growth can salve many wounds. Pursuing a so-called abundance agenda—a set of policies aimed at reducing government regulation and increasing investment in innovation, and expanding the supply of housing, energy, and health care—is the most promising way to achieve that expansion.
in the long term, Trumpism is doomed. Power without prudence and humility invariably fails. Nations, like people, change not when times are good but in response to pain. At a moment when Trumpism seems to be devouring everything, the temptation is to believe that this time is different.
But history doesn't stop moving. Even now, as I travel around the country, I see the forces of repair gathering in neighborhoods and communities. If you're part of an organization that builds trust across class, you're fighting Trumpism. If you're a Democrat jettisoning insular faculty-lounge progressivism in favor of a Whig-like working-class abundance agenda, you're fighting Trumpism. If you are standing up for a moral code of tolerance and pluralism that can hold America together, you're fighting Trumpism.
Over time, changes in values lead to changes in relationships, which lead to changes in civic life, which eventually lead to changes in policy and then in the general trajectory of the nation. It starts slow, but as the Book of Job says, the sparks will fly upward.
This article appears in the May 2025 print edition with the headline "Everything We Once Believed In." When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
About the Author
David Brooks is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen .
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It has taken a lot for Brooks to see the light. I mainly look at him as someone who likes to hear himself talk, but there are a number of good points in this article.
Brooks is right about some of this. Trump Republicans aren't Romney Republics. He probably should have seen this coming, as the change in Republican politics has been going on for more than a decade. Gone are the milquetoast republicans who talked about doing things and then meekly rolled over when the Democrats democrats. Trump is a former democrat and that's how he operates, no holds barred and no compromise. Anyone who's lived in a big city with a functioning Democratic Machine should be very familiar with this as it's been their operating model since Tammany Hall and Aaron Burr.
Brooks even dances around how obvious a reaction would be:
Even though this massively undersells what's happened the last 50 years, what does he think the reaction to this was going to be? For decades, Republicans just sat back and let Trump style Democrats do this. That was always unsustainable. It's funny that he's rending his garments because decades later, Republicans have started acting like Democrats. The idea that Democrats would destroy norms, aggregate executive power, use taxpayer dollars to make themselves wildly rich while using the government to enforce their moral codes while Republicans just "tut tutted" and never would start doing the same was always pure fantasy. Republicans are not supernatural beings, they could only take so much until the natural reaction to fight back would eventually come to the fore. And Trump is a fighter.
Mitt Romney was the straw the broke the camel's back. Romney and Ryan, two milquetoast guys who wanted to make small changes on the margins and would have no doubt settled fo changing almost nothing, were pilloried as Nazis and threats to civilization by the Obama and his lackeys in the MSM. Romney was painted as a literal murderer and the media was more than happy to go along and even interfered in a debate to protect their hero, which then, of course, became SOP. So Republicans tired of losing with "nice guys" chose someone who wasn't and would fight like a Democrat.
While it is true that Trump is a formerly registered member of the Democratic Party, that is not the genesis of his behavioral style. He learned how to behave from his father and his father's lawyer, Roy Cohn, the man "always at Joe McCarthy's ear."
So, as we can see from this 60 Minutes video, it is little surprise that these behaviors (ie., no holds barred and no compromise) are being exhibited. I therefore disagree in this instance and in general with the broad brush paint job of "most" groupings either from David Brooks or anyone else. It is an oversimplification to attempt to pigeonhole most people, have they an uppercase letter or four attached to their names.
The part that you quoted from the article shows that he is not above overgeneralizing to make a point:
"The Left" did no such thing. Certain people did. Blaming the left for all of these occurrences was poor form on his part. "The Left" does not bear sole culpability for these real or illusory slights. They belong more or less to the whole of society and it is up to us, liberals and conservatives, libertarian to autocratic, to put down the pitchforks and come to some kind of peaceful accord.
Your argument can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be a snowflake or a warrior. Lets just examine one of the assertions made in your comment:
My some trusty but still fallible sidekick chatGPT said:
I could do this with the rest of your claims and would find as much hyperbole contained within them.
I wish to have a substantive conversation, not a fact checking brawl, and not a war of differing AIs.
Why?
Because I believe that more can be achieved by speaking to one another than by talking at or past each other. I also believe that we are at a potential existential inflection point. Right now there exist multiple possibilities of which way this situation plays out. Some of them are beneficial to human and civil rights, and some of them are not. I do not wish to take the path of Trump because, as he has clearly shown, he cares nothing for any other persons rights but his own. The poison pill in all of this is the bad faith dealings of Trump and Company, which lead towards more of the same. More of the acid that Brooks mentions eating corrosively at all that it touches.
Call me naive if you wish. I will take the criticism, but I ain't gonna melt.
That's such a simplistic, reductionist narrative that it destroys any attempt to have a substantive conversation. He met Cohn when was almost 30 and runnning his dad's business. Cohn did not mold him, despite your need for a boogeyman.
MY point was that Trump operates as a machine democrat. You can blame that on his dad, or Cohn or Napoleon for all its relevance. His style is Richard Daley's or Harry Truman's. Winning is the goal, opponents get cut out, and friends rewarded. If like Truman, you have to dishonestly smear an opponent as a Nazi to win, that's what you do.
That's how Trump operates, and as I said, if you've ever dealt with a Democratic machine, you'll have met plenty of people just like him.
Of course the left did. The acts were done by "certain people" surely, as acts must be done by people, but the left adopted and benefitted from them.
Not being able to recognize that will prevent you from understanding anything about what motivates the people Brooks is attacking.
Y do this with the rest of your claims and would find as much hyperbole contained within themI wish to have a substantive conversation, not a fact checking brawl, and not a war of differing AIs.
You can try and fight over weeds while ignoring the forest if you want to, but it will prevent you from having any sort of substantive conversation. That the media favored Obama in his campaign, that Obama and his party tried to destroy Romney on a personal level, isn't up for debate. His campaign literally admitted their goal was to "kill Romney," not win on achievements, or any positive accomplishments. THe idea that somehow it's okay because it was only a super pac ad, and blah blah blah it was no big deal. Anyone who was online in 2012 can tell you how those charges were taken up left wing activists. Imagine what would happen if a Republican PAC accused Obama of murder.... A congressman criticized his suit once and Democrats acted like it was a hanging offense and didn't stop whining about it for years.
If you actually want to have a substantive discussion you are going to have to deal with the reality that Democrats don't walk on water and they do engage in dirty tricks, lie and use their control of the culture and education to their benefit. If you can't, or won't admit that, you'll never have any understanding of what motivates the people Brooks is talking point.
Did you even watch the video? How long was Trump's father a client of Cohn? Look at the actions and the style of Cohn. Look at the actions and style of Trump. They are virtually indistinguishable. And they both suck.
To your point-
How does this further the conversation? We know how he operates: Do anything, and say anything, and deny anything less than perfection, and everything is always someone else's fault. It is my point that this is a faulty operational scheme. Hiding behind the cover of "Democrats did X first" is not going to save your argument because it is an attempt at distraction and not even an argument. It is like yelling, "Squirrel," in the movie UP.: Temporarily Distracting and not at all productive. I guess it is a good thing we are all not dogs.
Your commentary would suggest that the "Big Mean Democratic Institutionalized Power System" is Orwellian while the Republican Party is sitting timidly in their bunk beds, awaiting their savior in the form of Donald Trump. For each and every point that you try to bring as proof that Democrats are "dirty", I can publish examples of the Republican Party doing largely similar actions. That type of argument does not further the conversation, it just pollutes the digital air and adds nothing. We cannot break the cycle of one-upmanship by continuation of the same. We will end up, Oh! look! Right where we are.
The conversation that I want to have is about how American people, us, can move forward without submitting to or being subsumed by hate of the other, because that hatred seems real and palpable right now.
I am not a Democrat. I belong to no organized party. I think that both parties should be abolished. Both stand for power. Both have the detailings of power under strict control: Just try starting a third party.
The problem lies with both parties growing old on one another. It was bound to happen. What's that? The parties got 'good' at what they each do. Which leads to them mimicking and pivoting off each other. Locked in a 'perpetual' cycle of whataboutisms. Whatever you can do; I can do better. Now we have presidents coming into office and the first thing they do is strike whatsoever their predecessor has accomplished to the best of their abilities.
It's sad. Stupid. Childish. And we teach children to not be so. . . .
And these same people wonder why foreign (older) nations are starting to look beyond us. Well, it's because the United States is not true to its own official narrative. They knew it would come to this. And so it has.
So how do we change the script?
With diligence. Start voting out the 'Far extremists' in both political parties - for this country can not settle itself own with irreconcilable persons clogging up offices. All irreconcilable people are control 'freaks' - they are not conducive to a free/d people. If it makes voters feel better. . .give the 'freaks' fair warning of impending removal before ousting them from their seat/s of power and influence.
BTW, republicans/conservatives are already doing this with their 'purist' conservative report cards on officials in their party. They used in in inverse of the above paragraph to which end they have a nicely packed MAGA 'outfit' and all other types of conservatives 'pressed' against the party glass apparatus peering in from the outside.
It won't be easy, but tacking back to the middle has to begin sooner or later. What we are doing now - is eating the nation 'alive.' Of course, extremists want to 'survive' - everything does. But the ends of the political spectrum on both sides are toxic. We can all see that now. Nothing gets accomplished. Our debt is astronomical. And still they fight like cats and dogs who do not understand how to do what we the people pay them to do on our behalf!
Because that's the whole point which so many democrats refuse to grapple with. Republicans were sick of playing by the rules and losing. Nominating someone like Mitt Romney, who received the same apocalyptic reaction Trump got. Many Republicans wanted someone who fought like a Democrat, ergo Trump.
The point you are missing is that the system would never survive with Democrats free to lie and break laws without consequence (CLinton) and Republicans like Romney treated as threats to civilization. Republicans were not going to sit back and let Democrats do this forever:
If you can't see how that engendered a reaction, I can't help you.
"Democrats did X first" is not going to save your argument because it is an attempt at distraction and not even an argument.
Thank you for perfectly demonstrating my point. In a discussion about the current state of the political system, Democrats misdeeds, no matter how brazen are deemed irrelevant. Perfect illusion of "Whatever Democrats do is justified and above criticism, when Republicans do the same it's the end of the world. "
This is how you end up with Brook being denounced in a Stalinesque term as a "both sider" for daring to point out Democratic imperfections. Thus, no matter how much Brooks criticizes Trump, he'll always be a heretic to progressives.
Again, if you can't see how all this leads to someone like Trump becoming popular on the right, I'd advise you to study human nature because it's basic stuff.
The conversation that I want to have is about how American people, us, can move forward without submitting to or being subsumed by hate of the other
I don't think you do. You seem to want to lecture people and tell them their beliefs are "distractions"
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The downfall of political discourse began with the Rush Limbaugh show going national in 1988. This style of commentary from the right has been going strong for 37 years now. That style ? Lies, conspiracy theories, personal attacks on the "other side" and of course bigotry against various minority groups. Limbaugh opened every show during Bill Clinton's first term with the words "day (fill in the blank) of America Held Hostage. He spread the conspiracies that the Clintons were having various people killed to cover up their crimes. He started the "magic Negro" description of Barack Obama, and he promoted "skepticism" about Obamas birthplace. Shortly before Limbaugh died Trump gave this poisonous piece of shit the Presidential Medal Of Freedom.
The descent of the Republican Party into Limbaugh created and inspired madness is what created the current political climate, not the way the Democrats treated Mitt Romney.
You may want to change that tune.................
You have to understand, Democrats only did that because Rush forced them too.
Democrats shoot a congressman = Republicans are violent extremists
Democrats try to assassinate a republican presidential candidate......twice = republicans are violent extremists
Republicans stop buying beer because they don't support the company's position = Democrats burning dealerships and vandalizing personal property.
I think he also had a memo sent out to the rush heads every morning because I would hear the rush heads say shit and then I would hear it later coming from rush's fat mouth
Do you ever look at your own links???
2012????
Just when in the hell did Romney run? 2008? Yep. 2012 yep, 2020? 2024? Do you ever think before and afterward trying a "gotcha"?
... and you have nothing more recent...
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You stick with the "big mean Democrats/saintly Republicans" line, even though we can both sit here and trade misdeeds of both. That is not why I am here.
I don’t think it’s fair to say Democrats created all these problems or that Republicans were just helpless victims because they were supposedly playing by the rules. But I do think a lot of Americans, all over the political and cultural spectrum, have felt unheard and pushed aside, whether by governmental, media, or academic actions. That’s a real problem, or even the real problem, and it’s bigger than just left vs. right, big D vs. big R.
My frustration is that we seem locked in this cycle of mutual contempt, every misstep by “the other side” justifying our own, and the goal becomes winning rather than understanding. I’m not trying to lecture anyone or deny that people have legitimate grievances. What I’m trying to ask is: what does it look like to break out of that cycle? What does moving forward look like if we refuse to be governed by resentment or fear of each other?
It is important to realize and understand how the phenomenon of Donald Trump came to be, if only so that we can prevent it from happening again. He is the proverbial "Bull in the China Shop." But we cannot expect the country to hold together under the rapid and sustained assault on the norms that have been accruing over the past 250 years. He will fracture the country if he keeps this assault on the Bill of Rights going. Everyone can see it: some are complicit, others are blaise, but I think that a growing majority are alarmed and quite worried about the fate of the nation.
When I came to the Vine and later NT, it was because everyone supposedly could "Speak Their Mind" and "Get Smarter Here." We could all learn from the differing perspectives and maybe even change our own from time to time. We still can do these things, but not from trenches and silos.
Its been a long time since I've seen anything from the right on NT that is seriously worth paying attention to. Most of it is nonsense and trolling, which is why I have almost all of them on ignore.
I could agree with the right on some social policy issues and some of the culture war stuff, but as long as they support the MAGA mindest and Trump its off the board.
My entire point is that Republicans are now acting like big mean Democrats.
But I do think a lot of Americans, all over the political and cultural spectrum, have felt unheard and pushed aside, whether by governmental, media, or academic actions. That’s a real problem, or even the real problem, and it’s bigger than just left vs. right, big D vs. big R.
But all those aspects of life are dominated by Democrats. It's not 1955 anymore. Republicans are reduced to a few small niches here and there in those fields, while Democrats exert overwhelming control of those fields and it's the most fervid progressives who control those fields. There's no balance or push back which is how you end up with pretty much the entire media industry saying "Joe Biden is fine" because of in the words of the editor of axios, the "herd mentality" of left wing reporters who just go along with the controlling dynamic and narrative.
That was what Democrats were supposed to do from 2021-2025, right? Remember a return to normalcy? And they made things a thousand times worse and on top of that, ceded even more power to the executive branch instead of reeling it back in. So the cycle keeps compounding when the AOC's of the world demand a Democratic President ignore a Supreme Court ruling and there's no pushback from the party.
So why should Trump if Democrats object to him potentially ignoring a Supreme Court ruling. What credibility do Democrats have on any topic? Take election denial. They spent 20 years claiming every election they lost was rigged and promoting election deniers. Who, outside of their own bubble, could possibly take their complaints about Trump denying he lost in 2020 seriously?
Nothing is going to change until a party starts holding its own members to account and following the rules or norms themselves. Until one does, they have zero credibility.
I respect your frustration. I can let David Brooks "in." Of course I can. It is who I am- an inclusive being. Up to your comment 8.2.3 I carried on a difference tact about Mr. Brooks that let me express some of my frustrations with a certain subset of journalists based on how they come across on camera to me. I am open to anybody willing to see our society work for "all" of we the people.
Republicans were saying Trump was fine LONG before Democrats said Biden was fine. Trump is the most unqualified and unfit person to ever run for president of the United States on a major party ticket. How many Republicans said that when it counted? Trump called Cruz wife a dog and a few days later Cruz endorsed him for president.
Until Republicans reject Trump, and oppose him all the problems will go on and on. To say we had to elect Trump because Biden was declining is absurd and always will be.
Steve Bannon on "Real Time with Bill Maher" Saturday, April 12, 2025:
Republicans are not going to reject Trump. They are setting the stage for him to 'negate' the 22nd amendment . . . based on being 'unbeatable.' Because of his authoritarian ('forceful) actions since returning to office of which he plans on continuing to 'exert' maximum force on the systems of the federal government.
Wake up, democrats! See the man! Don't get 'had' again!
You’re saying that because Democrats have acted in ways you find hypocritical or norm-breaking, it is now acceptable, maybe even necessary, for Republicans to do the same or worse. No principles. Just payback.
That is not a defense. It is an abdication of responsibility. It is not a bold strategy. It is surrender to the maelstrom of chaos.
If we all abandon standards whenever it is convenient, then no one actually believes in the rules. They only believe in winning. At that point, it is no longer about fixing anything.
Eventually, someone has to grow up, hold their own side accountable, and stop treating "but they did it first" as a governing philosophy. Until then, it is not justice anyone is fighting for. It is just their turn at the trough in a barnyard brawl.
It's worse than that. When this country began moving in the direction of more liberties being just for all citizens in this country. Conservatives sat in their conventions miffed and 'defeated' that liberals were winning the country over. Then, they concluded that liberals had to be doing something wrong, illegal, and dishonest to confuse "righteous" citizens to their points of view over the conservative worldview. Instead of just becoming accepting and inclusive, conservatives concluded what they should do is fight liberals by using what they would label, "liberal tactics" against liberals. That is, whatever you do. . . we will do 'better' and double-down on it (do it to "the max"). That is what is happening now. Conservatives are even going so far as to deliver a pretext that democrats have done this or that thing. . . and then actually ACT on doing that thing to "the Max" and project it back on the democrats.
It's all bull-crap. But that is what you see happening with the "whataboutism" effect. Incidentally, at this point is it hard to know (unless we see the original 'act' or 'deed') in context, that is important, in context, which party acted or taunted the other first , because of how similar the parties are in their 'back and forths' nowadays.
You 'caught' the reference to the song! I wondered if you would! Great tune. Loving me some "WHO"! ♪ We won't get fooled again.♫
So that's what that (R) after his name means.
Stop trying to blame dems for trumps bad behavior, he's a republican and I would bet real money you voted for him...
OWN IT.
Blah, blah, blah. I saw the/an interview done by Brooks yesterday with his down-casted facial expressions. . . and while I was I guess, glad he is no longer suffering the illusion, I will not pretend to care that he had to sat his butt down in the 'tub' of the water of clear-thinking instead of simply drinking from its cup.
I was glad when say, Michael Steele and Nicole Wallace all made the 'jump' to understanding the danger with handing touch with potentially dangerous people. People who have a built-in chip on their shoulder for anybody who dares to tell them they are wrong—and where so.
Therefore, good for Brooks. Now then, use that 'pen and ink' of his to get busy REVEALING all the conservative SECRETS he knows that can aid in us understanding why republican politicians and court 'bodies' are not fully tuned to what is happening with this very disagreeable man we have given the office of presidential leadership over us.
There is actually no time for long 'lane' shifting. Brooks you have moved. Now act to help improve. Next week, write something that has value, real substantive value, to this predicament that has beset and is vexing our federal system. Or, just go away.
We do not want to merely help you feel good about yourself and your bottom-line.
The only shift this country needs to make is to tell the opposing teams of extremists to just go to Hell. The nation is convulsing daily from the bile from all of its extremists. The practical truth, between diverse political groups can be found in the relative "happy" middle—it is not going to be in one side dominating all other sides. It just is not. Everybody bring your political views to the middle and let the best policy requests get a proper and respectable airing out and if serviceable-put into service. We may not all be happy all the time. But at least, we can stop with these daily puking. . . and, more to the point, we will have put a 'spacer' between reasonable people in this country and those who are politically 'mad' (as in politically insane).
Agree but I am concerned that the extremists on both sides are increasing in numbers and becoming more mainstream. Either that or the folks in the middle are too quiet and allowing the extremists to control their party. Maybe the parties are starting to believe the only way to fight extremism is with extremism. I don't know but I sure don't like the direction we seem to be taking.
Well, the only way back is to get up and travel. Hit: "REFRESH" and get. . .coming. . .to the middle. The nation's kids think the adults are out to lunch.
I even heard an interview the other day where a young 20 something podcaster stated, rather matter-of-factly, that his generation does not expect to be homeowners. He stated it and did not miss a beat in moving on to another point in the topic he was responding to. Simply put: That is sad. Really sad. To know that youth see their future as one of little 'hope' of wide and persistent wealth.
Adults need to wise-up. Despair is making tomorrow's adults - vulnerable to the surrounding world. For real.
The two sides are typical of 'Far' politics. . . in one regard: Far sides or ends on a spectrum, by design, can NEVER come together over anything. They simply argue too much, because it is their lot on the spectrum. For them, there can be no reconciling (making friendly) or compromise (mixed agreement).
Yes, the extremists are increasing. Why? Because this is their 'moment' in politics. They are 'up' and performing for all its worth and for all to see! It is a bad performance, thus far. Divisions are pervasive throughout the body politics. The whole head is sick and getting sicker. Time to call in the 'drs': The moderates, to strap the patient down and give it the infusions and IV drugs it needs to return to a sense of calm and normalcy.
My concern is that both sides of the spectrum are taking more and more control which means compromise is becoming extinct.
Nothing on the spectrum can become extinct. All spectrums are self-contained! The fact is, right now the middle is being ignored by those whom have not gotten sick and tired of being sick and tired of the 'highs' and 'lows' of extremism. Less call them out! Extremists are addicts and should seek aid for their disease. They are sickening the 'whole' of the spectrum and evidence shows this won't end well. Eventually, we will get back to the middle of the spectrum. . .even if it takes us 'limping' and licking our wounds to do so! Better just do it. . . without further affliction/s!
I'll give you an example of how to accomplish a return to moderation. Tell cable news channels (that profit off of exploitation of their audiences -rightly or wrongly) that the jig is up. The public will start advocating 'all around' about the liars, cheaters, exploiters on cable news and if need be "death to cable news"! Let cable news channels on all sides become defunct and decrepit since neither side can define for "we the people" which one or several is truly on the up and up and is not doing mind-manipulations strategies and tactics, and heavily-laden with guile against 'listeners.' All of them can just lose/die off the air from starvation of viewers!
Spot on.
A critical problem. Trump surrounded himself with unqualified sycophants who daily kiss his ass.
Let us hope it does not have to do with large explosive devices
Brooks is a good writer. As usual for him, his ideas here are "too little, too late".
There's simply no excuse for any intelligent person to not have understood the rise of Trumpism. All the signs were blinking in bright neon: lies, fraud, misogyny, racism, ... With power, those combined inevitably into fascist kleptocracy. Brooks was a well-placed professional observer - but he didn't see this.
Why should anyone listen to him now?
In my preamble I noted several stops along the way in his journey.
Why should anyone ever listen to anyone else? Perhaps to learn why they think the way they do? Doesn't that help us all to understand each other?
Sure. But my time is finite...
So is mine. What is your point? That you won't even bother? I mean, you don't need to listen to everyone in the country.
How do you propose to change the script that the country is following? Obviously you do not think that we are on the right path. So what is the path that we should be on?
Did you notice that I have an opinion of Brooks? That I gave a reason for that opinion? I have subscribed to the Times for many years, so I have inevitably read a lot of Brooks. As I say: good writer, lightweight thinker.
If you appreciate him, fine. He isn't the worst out there. His conversations with Gail Collins were sometimes both thoughtful and fun.
David Brooks is an intellectual, at least on the spectrum of that trait that exists among journalists. By their very nature his columns lean into both sidesism, and for the last 10 years he has been finding both the bad side and the good side of Trump. The truth is Trump has never ever been fit to hold public office in America. I strongly suspect David brooks realizes that, but he has rather settled for putting forth his pet theories about our society.
I agree. I don't mind pundits being wrong - it happens to us all. But then they must publicly analyze where they went wrong - which Brooks does here... and publicly explain what they will do to avoid the same mistake(s) in the future - which Brooks does not do here.
I was asking in a more generic sense. Sorry if I was unclear.
Appreciate? Depends on how you define it. At least I can see how he is arriving at his opinions because in his writings he usually tells one his process of reasoning. I don't necessarily agree with him, but I can tell from whence his opinions spring, and I have already noted that he was late to the party with this one.
To be honest, there‘s surely some confirmation bias in my opinion. I used to enjoy George Will, even when he infuriated me. Then he got crochety. Brett Stephens is sometimes legible.
Otherwise, there are no "conservative" pundits worth the time to read them. Their "ideas" are anti-social and therefore unpalatable to normal people. So they must jump through lamentable logical and semantic hoops to promote them.
Yeah. I'm somewhere to the left of Rosa Luxemburg.
I'll state this. There are times (still are) when like Bill Maher of recent visit to the White House to 'meet' with Trump, I try to give the conservative point of view an honest and respectful 'listen.' But, there is an 'ought' I find with the conservative mind. . . there is so much 'CLUTTER' occupying their minds and their writings that is seems scatterbrained and as such hard to pin down a single point to devote oneself to explaining.
Honestly, I think conservatives have some good points and thus I think all politics should move back to the Right-Center-Left model.
That said, 'every' time I look up I find new evidence that conservatives are 'at it again' trying to politically deny one group or another their rights to be included in main society. That is, I have plenty evidence that generally-speaking conservatives see themselves as real America, and everyone else here as second-class citizens. You can comprehend this in conservative writings, rallies, and interviews.
Is this "conservatism" really the voice of the mainline conservative opinion?
My friend, why yes it is since "mainline" conservative is where its president leads the party. Furthermore, before Trump (see 8.2.2 below) the conservative movement has always had its conservatives, those non-reactionaries, like Barry Goldwater, who were nothing if not hardliners detesting every move by government to 'socialize' (serve) its people. That is, they simply wanted to be left alone as an entire nation running itself (how the hell that would work and what it would look like is anybody's guess). It is what they taught then. . . and strangely teach now-in-spite of the cruelty of MAGA.
I would say that Trump leads the Republican party, not the conservative movement. Trump is not a conservative, he is a reactionary with delusions of grandeur.
I would opine that Trump leads the "ultra conservatives", that "moderate conservatives" have no leader and the Republican Party that Ronald Reagan knew no longer exists
David Brooks, 'Vicar Of Both Sides' Hilariously Claims Trump Runs A 'Normal Good Mtg'
2018
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Apparently New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase “intellectually dishonest” or the word “disingenuous” because he is both. Brooks is claiming to be a part of the resistance, an “anti-Trumper” to be precise, but you would never know it to read his blather. New York Times:
It gets better. Here’s how Brooks’ column from January 8, “The Decline Of Anti-Trumpism” began.
Trump leads his cultists -True Believers - and an army of sycophants.
Thomas, that is an interesting point you make: "Trump is not a conservative, he is a reactionary. . . ."
Hmm, Barry Goldwater, how would you categorize that 'old-timer' hardliner: Conservative or Reactionary?
I would agree and sadly their numbers seem to be holding steady - a decline prior to midterms is needed in order to apply some brakes (congressional) to the out of control train.
In my heart of hearts the above articulates how I feel about conservatives like Mr. Brooks, who deign to hold in reserve the view that they can just walk away when the crap gets clearly 'untangle-able.' That is, when the reactionaries'. . .mud. . . makes all conservatives in the party look the same. Then they bail.
However, then they wish to 'move' their services to their ideology to a new 'front' -even willing to 'crash' with liberals for such a time as this - until trouble-the storms- blow over and then they return to their true conservative colors of wishing to be exclusive once more. Just not - reactionary exclusive.
To me, principle matters. I am not sure that folks who play the 'game' are doing anything more than just moving a piece on their chess board of life. . . until the storm blows over. That is, I have observed that conservatism, which is exclusive in many ways and fashions, is still not inclusivity of all people of good will in this country.
The conservatives hanging on to the rim of their party. . . not finding a proper 'squat' there are standing at the door - startled and beginning the discussion about their personal futures in new political surrounding. . . if only they can be 'invited' in and allowed to flourish in new 'digs.'
Good analysis.
Hello, Friend.
You said:
I think that being exclusionary is the problem, but not just from one side, but from all around. We are all people. We all have to live on this rock. The conservatives have certain views, as do you, as does everyone. When circumstance dictates that one must leave the no longer secure nomenclature -- the party -- that they had once comfortably inhabited, hopefully they can name a place and not have it be exclusionary. The two party system has, at times, looked inclusive rather than exclusive. I think that we should extend the open hand to all those who are anti-exclusionary, even if they have become that way begrudgingly. Mayhaps they have grown in perspective? We can always ask them.
That said, I think the Trump administration is antithetical to the American ideal of self determination. As a liberal libertarian (Way of viewing the world, not the party!), I think that this is one of the ideals that most defined Americans, and the loss of the ability to truthfully and freely say, "This is who I am!", no matter who one is, I find deeply troubling. This administration deals almost exclusively in bad faith and the chilling of free speech. While it is instructive to ask, "How did we get here?" it is equally (and probably more) important to ask, "Where do we go from here?"
When I ask the latter question, the answer deals with people who are willing to stand up for the future they believe in. More important than an artificially generated tag of "R" or "D", the beliefs that support them as a person, as an American who sees the way the Trump administration is driving the country and the economy off of a cliff as wrong, well, they are good enough for now because we need everyone who agrees to stand up and raise their voices to tell the administration, "It's the price of eggs, stupid!"
Friend Thomas, this is where I would choose to 'start' with a somewhat open discussion about David Brooks based on his writings here. First, let me add, that I have seen him on many panels on cable news. Interestingly, it was not a highlight on the panel to mention his conservative bona fides to my knowledge. So I will rely on his statements in this article solely to talk about now.
Mr. Brooks, seems a typical voice of the past conservative movements which has always, I repeat always, looked for someone like Donald Trump to come into the presidency and take the hard conservative stand that would bust up what movement conservative republicans and conservative libertarians pejoratively labeled: "Big government."
Thus, conservative libertarians would say they were not against inclusion, but against communism and social welfare which meant people helping people whether than every tub standing on its own four legs. But as presidents discover when they take the oath to serve the nation and 'we the people' - all of us - some of those 'tubs' were formed without four legs or any combination of losses. And so, even Reagan was compelled to be a less aggressive conservative than his fellow conservatives hoped to see throughout eight years of his presidency. In fact, Reagan gave out more aid services in his second term because the NEED was real in the country. Much to the distrust, chagrin, and anger of his party.
In the quote above, it strikes me that Mr. Brooks is able to feel for 'the best people he knows' and that this 'home' to him emotionally—where he lives. But, where is the empathy for people in this country, whom have really suffered the conservative movement since Eisenhower days as president. Since Goldwater? Since Reagan's presidency? Brooks was 25 years old in 1986.
Jumping ahead. . .the history of the conservative movement to simply cap 'big government' and even yes as they said it themselves, "drown big government in a bathtub" makes me wonder this: Why David Brooks did not see that suffering of the 'best people' of his younger years as a republican even as he plied his profession?
The conservative movement' history as always looked for the spirit, mind, and embodiment of a Donald Trump. I find it odd that Brooks went through one brash term of Trump unmoved to depart the 'movement,' and returned for a second term of Trump and is so moved now.
That Brooks mentions 'wokeness' in a glancing fashion that does not serve his notice well. He seems to be implying he agrees "wokeness," which is a conservative boogeyman used to scare conservatives into fight or flight modes against minorities and marginalized people is an acceptable negative.
He clearly is 'awake' and moved by Christians in 'service' being hurt. That is admirable. But still. I could ask: Why David Brooks did not see that suffering of the 'best people' of his later years as a republican even as he plied his profession?
Friend, I just watched a CNN special presentation of 'The War on Government" Fareed Zacharias.
You can watch it in segments in the archive version (above link) if you wish. It details the history of how conservatives and conservative libertarians have negatively acted against government being of service to the people within this country. To use the segments just keep clicking the boxes and STROLL over to the next segment until the end. Sorry, Mr. Zacharias is 'notorious' for keeping his productions close to his vest.
I am by no means an apologist for Brooks, and my knowledge of his accumulated writings and utterances is limited, so I typed his name into a ChatGPT prompt and this showed up after I hit the "enter" key:
You may find somewhat of an answer in that, or not. He seems to be genuine in his opinions and forthright about how he arrives at them.
Thomas, I don't know why I thought I had finished reading the entirety of the article you posted-it appears I had not. (Maybe due to an abundant set of distractions on my plate this weekend.) I have finished reading it now and. . . it's pretty interesting and pretty good:
This is interesting and worthy of consideration. . . .
Let me tell you why I, personally, came out some strongly jaded about David Brooks. . . it's just an observation, but certain journalist appear through my television set to be 'elitist' in their opining. . .so much so that it seems that they say so much that adds little or nothing to the practicable debate that is raging all around them. That is, their analysis seems redundant to me. I am thinking of Peter Baker as an example of an "elite" who talks plenty but it strikes me there is no 'there' after he finishes.
That being stated, I realize that I actually don't know either man's backgrounds. . . they appear only as 'faces' on my television set. . . . Somebodies that I feel only frustration after spending the time to hear their 'report'.
But okay, back to the 'rest' of the article. I see some "action-ables" in Mr. Brooks' writings above. I will 'pay attention' and try to give him a fair assessment based on it.
Thank you for continuing on.
Like I said, I am not an apologist for him, but he does seem sincere and earnest.
I have found that I agree with him more than disagree as he progresses farther into the realization that we are truly.... ehhhemm. Well you get the gist. If more people do then maybe we won't be.
Peace and tinsel.
Nice event. Nice musical opening.
Being a self uneducated idiot, this article and commentary is well above my free pay level, but what it does dishevel, with a spade calling a spade a shovel and a hoe as where I watched it do and go, is that irregardless of the mixed messengery, weather is not always the same across this vast country, I find it rather apparent that perceptions will vary much. As ones own direct environment and interactions with others, are usually what determine the directions taken, by so many sisters and brothers, and fathers and Muthers, who gave, after birth, a placenta full direction of bloody ridiculous reasons as to why this past dire election became our direction, as elected was a mind infection who, imho, got elected via the misleading of the masses by the programing of media to mind shape and misinform with the purpose to implement reform of a society that no longer exits, and that is as a majority of white eastern Europeans that had settled here and took for granted that since written by old white men, like they, it is how and why, they feel they must keep changing the rules, as if our laws and Constitution were only brought about and written to serve the rebellious forefathers hailing from Britain, and such the desire to hold onto power, is what is causing the loss of, of said power.
Through a manipulative media that produces purveyors of propaganda and pseudo truths, as the actual reality remains aloof, and the propaganda resembles a spoof, as how I see elected was this , Goof ! As he spouts LIES consistently, whilst being in, and makes goal post so diffi-cult to pin, so he just proclaims it is he, that did win, and his mandate Elon shall do as they wish, as they pay know attention to the little, go fish, as the Trump card has always been to divide, and force this country into War, within itself, buy itself, yet, not for itself. For only the very few can profit from this tiny misguided veiw, , to the fall, to the fall of the places we all once knew....
Exactly. The wool! Look there it is. Why over our eyes is it so tightly pulled?