Shame on you Mr. Brooks. You hopped, skipped and jumped past the most important points. The first is a simple concept: betrayal. Whether we support the mission of the G7 or not those member nations are our closest allies and friends in a world they have been in the same foxhole with all along. All of us have been struggling against Russian aggression since 1917. Nothing fundamental has changed. You seem to have no problem that Trump is aligning us with Russian interests. Trump will declare peace with Putin but we have to drop all of the sanctions and end any investigation we may have into their espionage activities in our country . . . in other words, why do we need Mueller - Trump has made us allies . . . Now all he has to do is make peace the same way with Iran. Then we can celebrate the fact that Trump made us members of the Evil Empire. Ronald Reagan's ghost must be howling somewhere . . .
29
excellent article. I just hope that the building we will eventually take on isn't the kind that happens after wars.
4
Leave the nonhuman animals out of this. We've done enough to them as it is.
11
One again, progressives get blamed for the global ascendancy of rapacious rogues. Thanks, Obama.
2
"The Group of 7 is an organization built in a high-trust age".
That's got to be the funniest thing I read in a paper in a while. G7 is nothing but a bunch of US dependencies - countries that gave up their sovereignty and independent foreign policy in exchange for military and economic protection - plus their colonial master. When Russia was a similarly obedient vassal state under Yeltsin it also was a member of G8 then. As soon as Putin showed any signs of independence Russia was expelled. But times do change. US simply cannot afford to protect their so-called "allies" anymore without bankrupting itself. So Trump made a very reasonable request - that the "allies" share the costs of this alliance more fairly, or at the very least not take economic advantage of their protector so blatantly. If they are unwilling to do any of that, that's their choice. But US is not obliged to keep bleeding itself dry for their sake. That is simply not sustainable economically.
5
Your number by number descriptors of the wolves -- the sense of historic betrayal, believing the world is a nasty place, the vicious scramble in a zero-sum game, distrust, suspicion and disbelief in a common good -- sent a chill up my spine. Not because it rang true for Trump and authoritarian leaders, but because it was so descriptive of the mindset of people I care about, who have become full-on Trumpsters. I have sought a reason for why good people can fall for this nonsense, can support this destructive president. Sadly, Mr. Brooks, you may have given me an answer that finally rings true.
15
Then why is everyone playing Trump's game. Why has the US bowed to his every whim. Part of the problem is that over the years we gave the leaders too much power and Trump was right there to take advantage of the power and he grabbed it. Our leaders just let him do it and same with the people. We can write scourging letters to the NYtimes but he doesn't pay any attention to the voices of the people. We are just serfs and the super rich that he does like support him because he gives them every dream they ever had.
His followers don't get what he is doing. And Neither do the rich. They are so greedy they cannot see the truth. His working class followers cannot see he is using them to pretend toughness but he's not tough, he's mean and cruel - just perfect for a dictator. We have given him a year and a half to build his base and to run over the people. He honestly believes that exercise will cause great harm to a person so we know he is not in great shape and most of us can outrun him.
But the easiest way to beat him is with our brains he only has a wee tiny one so why not use it against him. Not so easy you say but it will take peaceful people to do this. It will take dedicated ones to stick to it so let's so. Form little groups around these ideas and go for it. But we have to stick together something the Donald can't do.
8
Brooks: "Wolves perceive the world as a war of all against all ..."
Actual wolves live in family groups, so that is a hopelessly mistaken metaphor.
Brooks: "The wolves — whether Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdogan or any of the others ..."
The Hobbes reference is wrong too -- Hobbes was referring to "man" in general, not to specific men. Further, Hobbes was arguing for "a common Power to keep them all in awe". (Leviathan, Pt I, Ch 13)
8
I would add only one thing. The GOP has been totally financially-corrupted from top to bottom. Trump's not playing by the rules is a cover for his and their thefts.
21
Members of the G7 are not bound by faux trust and shallow relationships. There is only one defector. It is bound by the understanding that the sum of 7 yields synergies that make them 10+ and have lead them to the pinacle of power. Make no mistake, Trump's attempt to disravel the group only leads to irrelevance for its members at best and war at its worst. The failed states of the Soviet Union and Mao's China are great examples of the failure of one.
4
I begin to nurture new, unsettling thoughts. The Trump-Kim love fest seems to me to resemble nothing more than the Molotov-Ribbentrop (or Stalin-Hitler) pact of the late 1930s, which was a cynical betrayal of anti-fascist leftists and an even more cynical expression of Hitler's affinity for Soviet totalitarianism over the limited democracy of his western European neighbors. Trump and Kim are not quite in the league of Hitler and Stalin, but they are motivated by the same deep cynicism.
12
I am afraid anyone opposed to DJT is an elitist intellectual snob. Since that includes you David, you also don't get it, and must be deemed an arrogant progressive yourself. Some of your columns failed to recognize real achievements of the Donald. It's too late to suck up to us blue collar hard nosed types, you big sissy.
4
The number one requirement for a Trump supporter - rude name calling. Thanks for the demo.
40
Often Brooks’ insights are keen. This one is off-base. In Trumpism is an aberration, a backlash against socio-economic change, not in accordance with majority values and the American spirit. We are better than this and will prevail. This will pass —- and not be remembered kindly.
5
In a way this is the issue: reason or bullying.
The world is perpetually imperfect. We aspire and we innovate.
But a leader who is not well cannot fathom this complexity. His inward (self interest) feelings dominate his behavior.
History may exonerate him when he is eventually diagnosed.
1
Failing 45 is not playing by our rules, but nevertheless he is answerable to them.
6
Brooks misses the fundamental point: he talks about high-trust and low-trust ways of looking at the world as if the folks who voted against the "norms" have no judgement of their own. An honest look will reveal that some of our norms are deeply flawed. The poster child is email-gate. There were stories and hype, but we know the facts: Hillary set up a private email server in violation of federal government regulations after being told by both of her immediate predecessors that she should not do so, and after being told directly by her staff that doing so was against the law. Her reaction was to tell her staff to do it anyway. The press 'guardians of our norms' keep telling us not to worry our little heads about it. Many of us don't agree: a federal official who is told what she wants violates federal regulations and reacts by saying "I don't care about the law, just do it" is a problem. There is no debate about how important the particular regulation is or whether any damage came about because of it. It is not a question of people having a "low-trust" way of looking at the world - that behavior is untrustworthy. The press excusing such behavior, shows the press to be less trustworthy.
Can you imagine any OTHER situation when you would defend a government official responding to a freedom of information act request with "My lawyers will decide what the freedom of information act covers"? Why did we do it in Hillary Clinton's case?
5
The only rule Trump seems to abide by is Trump will do whatever makes Trump look good to a certain sector of the electorate.
He also idolizes autocrats like Kim, Putin, Duterte, and - let's face it - Netanyahu. This, in large measure is because they operate in a fashion similar to a way in which he'd like to operate. He has said it countless times: the only opinion that matters is his own. So the country does what Trump tells it to do. Ethics and laws be damned.
5
The core divide in our politics is between people who still care about such old-fashioned values as decency and fairness and those who regard such people as "losers." The latter, to borrow from William Faulkner, belong to the Snopes breed - rapacious and relentless in their grievances and pursuit of self-interest. With the connivance of the false 'conservatives" and the millions of easily duped voters and the Republican Party that was forged in Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, they've taken over the mansion. "It's our turn," they say to the rest of us. "And if you don't like it you can go to hell."
7
Several commenters on CNBC made a slightly different point that gets you to the same place. The only really important countries for most of the rest of the 21st Century are China and the US. Europe, Japan Russia and other nations are minor players that have to accommodate the actions of the two big players. Their aging populations, low growth and decades of problems make them sources of conflict, not solutions. Maybe Africa, if continues at current rapid pace, might make it a threesome towards the end of the century. Europe and Japan are simply not growing and they get older every day.
Someone more steeped in 20th Century traditions like President Obama, would clearly understood the new reality, but would be gentler on the power losers, the other members of the G7. It preserves more options however unlikely they would prove significant. He likely did more to appease their pride and potential contributions. President Trump does not give a tinker’s dam about traditions or appeasing anyone’s pride. He knows Europe cannot do anything significant for him on China. It may explain his blinders on Russia. For of all of President Putin’s bluster, his country is a minor player that likes throw a wrench into the wheels.
3
EXcept they have a high nuclear arsenal. That will get your attention.
Dear Mr. Brooks: thanks again for an excellent and well thought out column.
My only discrepancy is when you bad mouth wolves. These animals are notably caring of their young and their packs. Also they don't hunt unless they absolutely need to.
Totally different from the Wolves you cite in your article. Your description is very accurate, but applies only to the 2 legged king of Wolf.
Yours truly, R. Román L.
6
Same old vague stuff - pretending there is some kind of equivalence between racial supremacy supporting authoritarians vs. sometimes goofy educated progressives.
Also how is the great Lizard brain stuff going down in Singapore? Our chief clown unilaterally gave up on US military exercises in S Korea, while the North Koreans will strongly consider and review their nuclear posture sometime soon. What an incredible deal! Dennis Rodman is excited but I am not.
8
I'm not so sure that "[t]he next generation lost the thread." In fact, millions more people supported Clinton than Trump, but an antiquated voting system gave Trump the Presidency.
Until that time, other Western countries were on a moderate track. Apparently Trump's "win" gave many nationalists and nativists the boost they needed and some have even taken over their countries, such as in Italy recently.
We cannot succumb to our vilest, basest instincts, the ones Trump brings out in his base. We MUST work to repair the divide and move on with a democratic republic as the framers intended.
2
Don't compare Trump et al., to wolves. Wolves are far more humane than them.
4
Social structures can be restored when people have decent jobs, education and a safety net. These were torn down by the party and political philosophy expoused by Brooks. He conveniently separates the two. For him to connect them would be an admission that his belief system is responsible for this mess. No more columns, TV appearances and Whitehouse visits. Plus, he would have to reckon his actions with himself.
David, sooner or later, your going to have that reckoning.
3
You forget David that since FDR created S.S after Hoover destroyed the country, the GOP have been fighting to get rid of it to restore the roaring 20's that lead to disaster. The GOP hates Civil Rights and LBJ's sane programs of protecting vulnerable elderly American citizens. It has always been the GOP that has been out to kill democracy and the middle class.
Saying "the next generation lost the thread" is so misleading. When has a Deem withheld a SCOTUS position to street this country back to purging voters from the rolls? I think you mean well David, but perhaps a bit to naive and right leaning to be objective.
5
An alternative explanation to Brooks': the internet is the ultimate propaganda delivery vehicle and it has been exploited to turn fairly mild, pre-existing divisions into raging monsters where we can hardly sit in the same room with one another. Regardless, Brooks' "grand project" – his solution to the problem – seems like it has about zero chance of success. If it's really the only way out of this mess, we are doomed.
1
"Wolves perceive the world as a war of all against all and seek to create the world in which wolves thrive, which is a world without agreed-upon rules, without restraining institutions, norms and etiquette."
Wolves are highly social animals. A wolf pack is a well-organized hierarchy occasionally disrupted when the most powerful male ages and loses his edge. Wolves make excellent parents and disciplined hunters. Please leave the wolves out of it.
Trump and his soul mates are not wolves, they are parasites. Parasites do not cooperate with anyone; they compete with everyone to feed themselves and grow. They attach themselves to their hosts without being invited and contribute nothing of benefit in return. Instead, they drain their hosts of vitality and, eventually, life itself.
Putin and the Kim family seized power and emptied their countries' treasuries for their own needs. Trump and his family are on track to do the same. This is leech-like behavior, the way ticks operate. There is nothing wolf-like about them.
7
I see the G7 meeting as a plus. Everyone stood above Trump and gave him the finger. What outcome could have been better?
3
Republicans are the party that sows disinformation, vows to never cooperate with the opposition party no matter how dire the consequences for the people and incites vitriolic hatred of opposing viewpoints and the people that hold them.
Own it Mr. Brooks.
They literally stole a Supreme Court seat - tipping the Court's balance of power for the foreseeable future. Mitch McConnell refused to sign the document that would have informed the American people that the 2016 election was being influenced by Russia in real time, helping pave the way for the abomination now occupying the Presidency.
Own it Mr. Brooks.
This President just agreed to stop joint military exercises with South Korea to please the world's greatest despot and threw mud in the face of our closest allies and all democracies at the G7 meeting last week.
It is the Republican party alone that is anti-democratic.
Own it Mr. Brooks.
11
Trump is the end result of the lack of a moral center in the Republican party. I try to remember when it began, and I think it was with Nixon. He clearly was willing to break the law to win the election. Sound familiar? Then we sort of limped through the Carter years, doomed with the hostage crisis in Iran and my oh my, why did Iran release the hostages within minutes after Reagan's inauguration? Then it was steadily downhill during the Reagan- Bush 1 years. We didn't know it but that was the turning point of the beginning of policies that slowly, but steadily, stripped out the middle class and left the poor crushed. Clinton was actually more like "your dad's Republican party." Gave away welfare and got nothing back. Not even the promised day care vouchers and training promised to welfare moms. The Supreme Court intervened in the 2000 presidential election and handed if off to Bush 2. Months later, after the press counted ALL the jurisdictions in Fla. Surprise. Gore won! Too late. Obama was the last straw for the racist streak in the R. party. Trump's win was no doubt in part due to his, and his lemmings hatred of that black man in "their" white house for eight years. And that took us to Trump. The ultimate anti-American, corrupt, narcissistic, racist, misogynistic, candidate; representing the very worst of the extremism in the right wing of the Republican party.
8
The Republican party long enabled the rise of Trump. We have suffered from a continued assault from the right. Some of their best hits include the southern strategy, the disenfranchisement of those of modest means, decreasing tax burdens on corporations and the wealthy, an FCC which stood silent on the rise of partisan cable news, voter disenfranchisement, starving state budgets, and gerrymandering. The list is simply too long. And now Republicans are surprised at the damage this has caused? If Republicans really cared, they would annex those who are destroying their party and actually stand for something instead of catering to bigots and throwing gasoline on the fire. Great column, David. However, actions speak louder than words.
2
Brooks' analysis collapses one vital point.
If it is true that citizens of the countries he mentions have lost faith in their democratic institutions it is largely because the right wing has determinedly chipped, then hacked away at democracy's foundations. They have purposely undermined them, so they can retain power. Then they have the gall to claim that they are the only ones who can fix the resulting chaos, which they have caused. Leaders such as Putin and Erdogan are the architects of the collapse of faith. They are purposeful, devious charlatans who play a zero-sum game. The same can be said about the Republican party, which essentially has turned Congress and the electoral process into a confidence game. Bribery is legal, gerrymandering is accepted practice and lying in campaign ads is, well, just part of the game. Their misdeeds go unpunished. Instead, they pay handsome dividends. They win power. Societies have not suddenly and mysteriously lost faith or trust in their institutions. Their institutions have been ripped out of their hands and demolished. American society has been disemboweled by the right wing of the very Republican Party Brooks supports. Trump is the logical beneficiary. Putin's fool did not come out of nowhere.
In light of these facts, to suggest this problem can be fixed by a neighborhood street-cleaning party is naive beyond belief. It is a shameless attempt to absolve the Party of guilt. What kind of Pollyanna nonsense is this man selling!
9
If Trump had been a truly successful business man, his different rules might mean something. In fact, he hasn’t actually been that and he makes it up as he goes along, lying all the way. His “business” is basically to,franchise and sell his name attached to a product. Not exactly a “business,” but definitely a way to rake in bucks. Still waiting for his taxes and taking note of his making nice to the Chinese by throwing them the ZTE deal. They in turn gave him some nice loans for his company’s work in Indonesia and some trademarks for Ivanka’s business. So the Trump’s are making out very well from the Presidency, the US voter — not so much: The Court just decided that photo ID laws were perfectly all right as was the right to scrub voter rolls of anyone who doesn’t vote in two consecutive occasions. Both of these tend to hit the poorer, older voter and out of state students, all of whom tend to vote Democratic. On the other hand, many of the tariff from our erstwhile friends are aimed at the products of those who put Trump into office. Of course, they’ll blame Obama because there is no cure yet for ignorant.
3
The name of the game for the current Administration is power and profit. There is no interest in people. Enough of us, like the Russian people, have been duped into accepting what Timothy Snyder calls the “politics of eternity” which is what Trump offers. As Snyder said (The Guardian, Vladimir Putin’s politics of eternity, 16 Mar 2018)“Eternity politicians spread the conviction that government cannot aid society as a whole, but can only guard against threats. Progress gives way to doom. In power, eternity politicians manufacture crisis and manipulate resultant emotion...In foreign policy, eternity politicians belittle and undo the achievements of countries that might seem like models to their own citizens. Using technology to transmit political fiction at home and abroad, eternity politicians deny truth and seek to reduce life to spectacle and feeling.” Trump, who is all showman and no substance is the perfect model for this. This is directly from Putin’s playbook and Trump is Putin’s puppet. He is owned because Russians gave him loans. Some in his cabinet have strong ties to Putin/Russian Oligarchs: how about Wilbur Ross? And there are many American Oligarchs who apparently stand to profit by supporting Trump. Leaders of the Republican Party have also bought in to the Trump strategies because they are so focused on their Party, they have forgotten the people they represent. They now rule all 3 arms of government. We must vote them all out while we can.
2
Mr. Brooks, I believe that the intent of this piece was to promote optimism, but it’s actually increased my impression that the gap that divides humans is likely unresolvable. Maybe I can get a ticket to Mars in a few years...
You’ve said two things that are close to irreconcilable: that the only way to bridge a divide is to build things together, and that wolves are driven by deep mistrust and see other people as competitors. Which means that the likelihood of them being able to step up to the table to build something constructive and mutually beneficial is slim to none, because it means that their competitor will be gaining something as well, and “winning” wouldn’t be sufficiently assured.
I think I share the deep despair of many that practical solutions to that dilemma are in short supply. Short of the borderline eugenics of dividing the world in half, shipping all the wolves to one side (regardless of ideological bent), and giving them guns so they can spend their time trying to extinguish each other (and likely enjoy it), how do you even begin to resolve this problem when wolves simply don’t want to?
1
'' It was about the steady collapse of the postwar order and the way power structures are being reorganized and renegotiated across societies and across the world.''
No, it was about an illegitimate president at the beck and call of a foreign dictator, enabled, aided, and abetted by the most corrupt legislature money can buy, the Republican Crime Family. A foreign adversary has effectively taken over the executive branch of our government and has its hooks into the weak and cowardly half of the legislative branch.
7
David Brooks is wrong in so many ways here that I can't list them all. Trump is not destroying the old world order, on the contrary he is in way over his head. He is not a wolf, the strength of the wolf is in the pack and Trump has no pack. It's not that Trump has no loyalty it's that loyalty is of utmost importance to him, that is for people to be loyal to him. It is true that he is not playing by the rules but it is not because he has his own rules, it is because he doesn't know what the rules are. Rule 1 Always be honest, your word is all you have. Rule 2 Never let your enemy know what you're thinking vs Twitter, etc.
6
Are you kidding. Machiavelli goes way back, as does greed and self interest in the international community. It was true for Mr. M then as it is now. Your view of even human nature appears naive. What am I missing?
Trump is not routine in terms of politics and economics. As Dr. Krauthammer has recently noted, he is a beautifully functioning pragmatist. From my view, your allegedly scholarly view of Mr. Trump completely missed the mark.
4
Mr. Brooks: Call "Low-Trust" by it's proper and historical name: Feudalism. Examples include the fictional (Game of Thrones, Snowcrash) and the real (Afghanistan, Yemen). That's where we're going if we let this continue. This is what happens when you "burn it all down". I ask those who trust in Low-Trust: Do you really know how bad it can get?
5
RULES?
He's not playing with a full deck.
2
" He [Trump} and the dictators are basically playing the same [no conventional rules] game."
The observation summarizes the game very nicely. Basically it says that authoritarians, mostly self-serving like Trump, will take all they can get, as long as they can, and -- most importantly -- until they are stopped.
Dealing with Trump is not an intellectual event; it's not a matter of arguing over policy or even right and wrong; and it's not philosophical. He is constrained by direct blunt confrontation and opposition (e.g. No, you can't pardon yourself; No, Mueller is going to finish his work -- period) by every lawful means, including exposure (e.g. tax returns). Avenatti's (Stormy Daniels' lawyer) approach seems to work.
1
You quote Nelson Mandala with non critical worship. South Africa used to be a country which provided a good standard of living for Whites and Indians, and through technological development, White guilt, and a decent, expanding economy, some hope for a better future for Blacks. Now the new South Africa has a high Aids rate, leadership that spouts nonsense, and a rate of crime that terrifies ordinary South Africans of all races. Morality will lose to terror of chaos. Idealism is well and good for the comfortable elite; most people demand security first. That's the explanation for the new populism in America, not some failing of morality.
1
The problem is that he’s not playing by anyone’s rules. To think, his only contribution to humanity in his entire life cane by way of talking trash and name calling at the expense of a leader of a country. Now I and most others know this North Korea achievement is more about Putin than Trump, but that won’t stop the entire Fox News collective from shouting about the effectivity of their leader from the rooftops. Someone, foreign or domestic, will have to get into a war of words and wits with this idiot and prevail. Oh, wait...I almost forgot, I think that battle of wits already occurred in the general election - the Presidential Debates.
1
The notion that “Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in” is a circular argument. Trump is the one who by his constant deception (or outright ignorance or intellectual incapacity) causes people to lose faith in those systems, which he then uses as justification to dismantle them. Remember how he promised during the campaign that he wouldn’t touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid? Remember how he would be too busy for vacations or golf?
Moreover, he is really good at destroying systems, period. Like, say, election voting.
4
I just have one question: Why are people who revere education, and think that the more of it humans get, the better the world will be, called elites? What do you call people who revere huge disparities in wealth among the population, sit atop those disparities, and tend to treat those at the bottom with disdain and ridicule, if not elite?
Republicans have hijacked the use of the word "elite" by casting it as a negative and then warping it so it applies only to progressives. There is nothing wrong with being elite unless you use your "eliteness" to hold others down. Progressive eliteness is not a zero sum game. Conservative eliteness is, and it can get nasty, which is why conservatives don't want the term applied to them even when they deserve it. You think Trump doesn't consider himself elite? LOL.
11
Wasn’t it Saint Ronny who trashed our government back in 1980. Remember he said themost frightening words are I am from the government and I am here to help you. This war against our values, our faith in government has been going on a long time.
3
Gintom
Syracuse, NY.
Trump has a subclinical personality disorder. He is an "emotional vampire", one who drains you emotionally. These vampires do not abide by conventional rules. Getting into an arguement with them always ends in your defeat. They like to prey one on one.
Emtional vampires are basically children, emotionally. They lack real deep rooted confidence and must continually work hard to prove that they are ok but proceed in a flawed way that is distructive. They can't see the peril that they create. Mr. Trump is unsuitable for the presidency and is now more than ever, leading others to negative ground.
Those that have the power to negate this vampire's behavior have been hypnotized and paralyzed. So has 40% of the U.S. population.
Emotional vampires can demonstrate superior skill and, in this particular case, will conflagrate the political and social environment. Won't anyone of stature and conviction step up, denounce with conviction and persevere? Republicans in Congress--Help!!
David is right on.
5
Whenever Trump reaches out to humanity, he aims at its worst. We must struggle not to be dragged down by him. Now is the time to band together and demand that the common good for everybody is addressed. Maybe by insisting upon common courtesy, we can begin to raise the level of our society.
3
I am always amazed at how progressives and liberals ( and I put myself in that category) disavow any responsibility for what has happened to American values and the dismantling of the Post WWII world order. We are the righteous and the conservatives are too blame.
A detailed reading of the history of the Roman Republic and how it devolved into an absolute monarchy clearly indicates how all parties involved contributed to that change. Even supporters of the Republic got into power struggles with each other and failed to see the changing circumstances that needed to be addressed for the Republic to survive.
Brooks does not tend to engage in partisan politics recently. But the Democrats have shown themselves to be complicit with the trend towards authoritarianism by supporting a lot of regressive legislation e.g. The House approving a roll back of banking regulations in May of this year, majority of House and Senate democrats voted for the Iraq war - all to satisfy their base for the next election.
There are no good guys vs bad guys in this disintegration of the current world order. Could be the experiment with democracy and the ideas of the enlightenment will be a brief period in the history of mankind. Only time will tell.
3
Whenever I think about how Trump behaves or operates as a business man or as president I always look at organizations I am familiar with or that operate in my community. And I ask myself and I ask his supporters: If the leaders of your job, school, sports organization, church, or volunteer organization behaved the way Trump does, would you favor that? If, say, a youth sports group embraced other leagues that behaved unfairly at the expense of leagues that played by more accepted rules, how would you respond? To win at any cost. Is that the philosophy you would embrace? Even if your friends are degraded in the process?
3
Brooks manages to avoid this: the capitalist system as worshiped in the US is failing the vast majority of its citizens. The "elites" are those who perpetuate economic oppression in order to consolidate their wealth and power, be they Dem, GOP or "libertarian" who's fealty to "the market" supersedes any humanitarian impulse.
4
Excellent analysis! Thank you for putting things in such a clear perspective.
As per usual, Mr. Brooks dwells in false equivalence.
The Republicans have been the obstructors of a "fair and balanced" country and society.
Going back to Bush v. Gore, does anyone truly believe that if the phony decision instead was to recount Florida, the Bush team would have been as gracious as Mr. Gore?
That decision, and its political implications of our highest court was the beginning of my lack of faith in American institutions.
It is now a fully formed opinion.
3
Brooks misses the point. This is about Trump pursuing the future of his companies at the expense of US security. Trump is looking to nontransparent authoritarian leaders across the world for junior business partners. "We will invest in your country and you will facilitate this. I will make huge money. You will get a cut. We both will be rich."
7
Interesting analysis, except for the fact, that Republican conservatives, pro-business, anti-consumer protection, globalist, deficit hawks have been the Ruling Class since Reagan and have pushed moderate Democrats to the right.
A little less concern for corporate profits and more concern for income inequality would have prevented the rise of the demagogues who promise easy solutions.
13
As we say in Brooklyn "Gimme a break!" Only now do we start to head off that moral race to the bottom? Do we actually wait until someone had pulled down all our houses to start building them back up together? Or perhaps, should we join now to stop the house-destroyer? Your lofty sentiments are exactly the sort of thing you excoriate others for - all beautiful words and no concrete action.
6
David, when was the last time conservatives were on the right side of a domestic issue? Which of the major domestic policies of the 20th century were they in favor of at the time it was passed? By definition, Conservatives are resistant to change, often because they are at the top of the pecking order, and the status quo works well for them.
They were wrong about social security, wrong about Medicare, wrong about civil rights. These days they are equally wrong about the ACA, gay rights, global warming.
Tellingly, tea party conservatives look to Thomas Jefferson as a patron saint - he was wrong about the Federal reserve.
Your beautiful words about conservative ideology are completely divorced from the actual agenda advanced by the conservatives.
The good times Americans remember fondly were the not the result of conservative, policy. That was the the 19th and early 20th century.
24
Straw man, tribalist argument. Brooks is not defending GOP or conservative policies at all here. He is describing the features and horrible meaning of Trump's assault on institutions of global order.
Brooks seems to be in agreement with you here. What a lost opportunity for common ground in consolidating a majority view in support for baseline principles of justice.
@GenXBK293,
Brooks defended GOP and conservative intransigence throughout the Obama Presidency. Obama spent his entire Presidency trying to appeal to the likes of conservatives like David Brooks. Brooks was full of admiration for his demeanor, but always stopped short of supporting his agenda.
David always sounds reasonable, but when it comes to actual policies, he favors disagreeing agreeably. People like him, the ones who constantly signal - none of the above - are part of the problem.
1
Finally, David, you nailed it. No more throwing spaghetti against the wall.
2
I like the 'besotteds' of your 'sermon on the summit'.
Conservatives besotted with the power of the market.
Progressives besotted with the [meritocracy],
or perhaps the dream of a World Order.
It has been said that history is a series of reactions (against the current or previous errors), instead of a series of actions to solve existent problems. However, there may be a larger trend that we do not yet perceive. The force of evolution has created complex biological agents and social systems that no one could have foreseen. And so it goes.
2
The official poverty rate in the U.S. based on the Census on 2016 estimates that 43.1 million Americans live in poverty and that does not include the homeless, some military personnel, and incarcerated adults.
So what "Rules" do you want them to follow? Clearly the Rules of the old friendly, trusting order were not working for them.
People who are not officially in poverty are keeping out of it by working two or three jobs.
People keep asking - who voted for Trump? The answer - a lot of people who found the old Rules were not working for them, so wanted to try something different.
5
Brooks presents as an either/or something that the framers of the Constitution knew had to be balanced -- the inevitable organization of politics around short term, self-interested factions was seen as poisonous to the spirit of republicanism, so they elevated elites supposedly more likely to respect the common public interests of representative government and individual liberty. They expected leaders to set aside their immediate interests in favor of the common interest, but they also designed the government to require supermajority levels of consensus across rivalrous institutions in case the leaders lost their way. Politics without the intelligence to see that economics and coalition politics are not zero-sum games will inevitably dissolve into a corrupt form of majoritarianism -- exactly the sort of mobocracy the framers were wary of.
In the end, however, the conservatives are a shrinking minority so this reduction in our politics will not serve them well in the long run -- when the tide turns, there will be little sense of self-restraint remaining as an informal check on anything.
Since Trump gets along famously with Netanyahu, the latter must also be an immoral, opportunistic dictator.
Glad we agree on something, Dave.
6
My bet is that Netanyahu is at least twice as smart as thes truggling President. Playing Trump like a fiddle.
1
In literature, writers are free to invent whole worlds, universes if they choose. But in order for their invention to be compelling, it has to have some kind of internal logic that it doesn't stray from.
With Trump, I have no problem with him not playing by "my" rules. But the rules he does play by have no structure, no internal logic or consistency. They don't just appear to be random and undisciplined because I don't understand them. They are all those things because he's human and situations he's (supposed to be) dealing with are in the real world, no science fiction.
So, David, maybe you'd like to help me understand -- or believe -- that there is actually a plan? That this isn't just more right-wing destruction with no idea of what to put in the place of that which has been destroyed?
8
David, you're insulting wolves, who live in and contribute to well-structured communities in what little we have left them as the wild. You might come closer to the truth by choosing a human-invented human-flesh eater: ghouls, say, or vampires.
10
The most expedient and best hope we have is for an unprecedented massive Democratic (with independents) voter turnout. By VOTING IN Democrats and ridding US of the Republican's enabling trump and ruining our justice system.
Wish I knew how to motivate the foolish folk who don't bother voting...
9
It seems Trump processes, filters, and reacts to everything through an extreme narcissistic personality. His view of America and our relationship to the world is just an extension of his narcissism. This is not the kind of neighbor anybody wants, except maybe, in a gated community.
9
Never mind who was "besotted" with what, David, except for this: Donald Trump is besotted by one thing: Power, and what he can do with it, to benefit the only constituency that has ever mattered to him in all the world -- namely, himself.
The rest of your complicated theoretical construct is explained by entropy: it is far easier to knock things down, and incite people to distrust each other, than it has ever been to build something, and inspire trust. Lazy and selfish leaders simply follow the path of least resistance.
If it suits their purposes to claim there has been a betrayal, so be it (proof can always be found if you don't waste energy caring about facts)....and all the rest that you say follows. But please, don't drink their Kool-Aid! And who says Putin was even "elected" in the first place?
5
David Brook's column "Donald Trump Is Not Playing by Your Rules" may just be the most accurate assessment of Donald Trump by anyone. The two point he does not mention are: first that Donald Trump's ultimate goal is to turn America into a fascist state run by white people. Second, that the leaders of GOP have decided that as long has he makes them and their heirs rich, they are happy to throw away 200+ years of democracy.
We need to remember that there have always been vile and vicious men like Donald Trump among us, it's just that America has never had a GOP so morally corrupt and opposed to democracy that they would give a vile and vicious man like Donald Trump absolute power.
16
Nice logic, David. About 15 years too late and a hundred columns past the point where you continually rationalized and justified the path which has taken us to our present situation.
Invade a country which hasn't attacked us while treating 5000 now dead soldiers as cannon fodder and just happening to blow up the entire Middle East? ( I can still hear you on those Sunday morning talk shows telling people who objected to calm down, etc.)
The republicans' cutting taxes and adding 15 trillion to our national debt: (David B: "nothing to see here, nothing to get excited about.")
Torture of prisoners: (David B: we live in a dangerous world, so cool your criticism)
Every step down this path, you've been there supporting these measures, but now, Trump is a step too far. Sorry, David, this is simply the next logical step on a path that you have supported for the last 15 years or more.
You wanna see who is to blame, David? Look in the mirror.
16
What have Trump and his ilk actually accomplished aside from chaos for the sake of chaos? What will they accomplish aside from feeding their own greedy egos.
It should be pointed out the Liberal Democracy created a historically high standard of living for millions of people — whereas Fascism created millions of dead people.
Why are educated professionals on both coasts "elitists" and Republican billionaires are what, friends of the working class?
It should also be pointed out the fractures in this country were deliberately created by those billionaires, the GOP and its mouth piece Fox News. The issues that "anger" rural America—banning and confiscating guns, death panels, brown people endangering white people, mandatory unisex bathrooms—are all non issues create by the Right to keep their voters in line.
What we are seeing isn't new—it's something very old—powerful men flexing their muscles and dumping on the less powerful because they can.
Liberal Democracy is historically different in that it actually aims to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
David, I would not be such a cheerleader if I were you. The way things are going it's only a matter of time before Trump and Friends comes for the journalists
10
I don't like to be marketed, or spun by propaganda and that is why David Brooks always rubs me the wrong way, even at the few times I agree with him. He is so clever. Here he is in a nut shell, in this one sentence: " Conservatives across the Western world became so besotted with the power of the market that they forgot what capitalism is like when it’s not balanced by strong communities." Delete the word "communities". It is just a vague placeholder. Substitute "government", or better yet, "government regulations and rule of law". Brooks does this all the time! As much as I like him, and I do, he infuriates me with his disingenuous choice of words in strategic places. The true Republican agenda is pure greed and evil, but Brooks is still trying to be a nice person. Can the man be separated from the ideology? Can that be done while innocent human beings are being harmed by that ideology? I think not. Brooks is morally compromised.
11
I must heartily disagree with David Brooks assessment that "Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in." He is destroying them, yes.
Whether any majority of People have lost faith in these rules is highly debatable and beside the point.
Trump may have slipped past those who want simple answers in complicated times, as Charlatans often do,
but to state he can operate outside of the rules American's hold so dear because we have lost faith in those Rules is plain wrong and diverts attention from the truth.
Trump thinks his is an unfettered power. Period.
Unfortunately, it's the Republicans who must- but won't - stop him and it's not because they have lost faith in these rules.
Congress must stand up to this dangerous man.
8
A glimmer of light and hope in a dark world.
The British political economist and philosopher John Gray writes in "Enlightenment's Wake" and "False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism" (1998) that Soviet Communism and post-WWII Westernism both attempted to impose a universal civilization on the world. But, as Prof. Gray puts it, "A world economy that is organized as a global free market [cannot] meet the universal human need for security." Such a regime--one that "prevents government from discharging this protective role is creating the conditions for still greater political, and economic, instability." Prof. Gray anticipated Donald Trump.
1
This is a brilliant, thoughtful piece. The eighth paragraph ("It begins with 1, ...") is not as clear as it might be. I re-read it several times and think I understand it, but it could be clarified. Perhaps all it needs is reformatting to make the numbered concepts stand out more clearly.
But all in all, a wonderful analysis.
1
The backlash against neoliberalism and austerity and the return to a toxic, authoritarian nativism is not even partially the result of "besotted" progressives and their "educated-class experience."
If you want to talk about the destruction of social trust, let's instead talk about things that happened historically: the defeat of unions, decades of wage stagnation, social service privatization or destruction, using the tax code to shift wealth to the 1% or higher, the rise of finance coupled with the decline in manufacturing jobs, and the lavishing of trillions of dollars on the congressional-military-industrial complex.
Let's talk about the politics of racial resentment the Republic Party has thrived on since the 1970s. Let's talk about the endless culture wars that targeted women, people with AIDS, LGBTQ people, etc.
Your party made demonizing others its go-to strategy to win elections. Look to Gingrich, Helms, Atwater, et al. for why authoritarian nativism succeeds here now.
You're mythologizing a putative American folk, surely you know better, and normalizing a rogue party, the Republic Party, who have been single-handedly attacking the norms, traditions, and function of government for decades.
You and your party bear the responsibility for Trump and his ilk. McConnell thinks this is the best time ever to be conservative.
Let's not normalize this moment or justify it with a phony potted history.
20
Great comment Todd.
1
The simplest explanation for trump is that he is just a self-absorbed narcissist con man with the emotional makeup of a toddler. He is driven by what is good for himself or what makes himself look good. Unfortunately, we are at a time in history when enough of the electorate bought into trump's grift to get him into the White House.
But if you look at trump's business and political career, you will find that most of the people and businesses who have trusted him or worked with him, have been taken advantage of or have been diminished. Why is it that no American banks want to lend him money? That is why he had to look for Russian money.
I venture to say that will happen to his supporters. He talks a good game, but the things which he has actually done (tax cuts and reducing regulations) benefit the wealthy or large corporations. I fear that after trump has come and gone, the left behind will still be left behind.
Will trump destroy the system of "high level, civilized world order?" I don' think so. There are lots and lots of self-absorbed narcissists in the world and many of them are leaders in business and government. But most of them realize that they and their businesses are better off in a world which follows truth, rules, norms, etiquette, and at least want to give the appearance of honesty and ethical behavior. When I call the plumber to fix a leak, he doesn't demand up-front payment. Most normal people rely on trust every day
3
While you use your bully pulpit to examine our national navel, Mr. Brooks, the party in power right NOW is eviscerating our public school system, shifting billions of dollars from the poor and working classes to the rich, and chipping the foundations out from under our already-tottering health care system. While we bemoan the Russian attack on our voting rights, Republicans themselves are disenfranchising American citizens by the millions. Our government is holding prisoners in Guantanamo for decades, and tearing immigrant children from their mothers' arms in violation of our Constitution and every moral tenet we hold dear. Where is your outrage, sir? Where is your patriotism? Do you feel a responsibility to your nation, your Constitution and your fellow citizens? Or is your role merely to wring your hands in public while we spiral toward tyranny? When, Sir, are you going to Step Up?
7
Here here!!
Has Brooks, at long last, left no sense of shame?
David, it's much simpler than your column suggests. Trump's "ideology" is just greed and ego. He does what feeds his greed and ego in the moment, and these activities occasionally bear some semblance to (and are mistaken for) ideology and policy, but there really is nothing deeper there. You claim that Orban, Trump, Putin, etc. have a shared mentality, but who knows? e.g., Putin obviously has genuine policy objectives and long-term planning capacity, unlike Trump. I don't think it's the leaders who have the shared mentality -- I think these leaders' *supporters* have a shared mentality of impatience and fear--and what we see (globally) are different demagogues taking advantage of constituent discontent, each in his own way.
2
The glass isn't only half-empty, it's dirty and cracked, too.
How could the party of the sunny optimist Reagan become the party of the dark pessimist Trump?
It became that way because it went low. It went for the intolerant, whether or grounds of race or religion. It picked the fruit that was not only low-hanging, but sour and rotten.
It went for "greed is good," and preached that anyone not wealthy was either lazy or being cheated by "the others."
I am so sorry that my country is organized in such a manner that these negative values could prevail and bring to both Congress and the White House a minority party of such dystopia.
Sometimes I wished I believed in a benevolent God to whom I could pray for deliverance with some kind of faith that He would bring about. Sadly, I don't.
7
There's a lot in Brooks' essay I disagree with or at least find questionable, but his basic statement is correct: "Trump is acting to destroy those norms and constraints that disadvantage him". The key word here is "him". Trump is (obviously) acting only in his own self interest, uncaring for the damage he does to our communal institutions and connections. He is beyond narcissism - he is a sociopath with no moral connection to the world and society the vast majority of the rest of us want.
We need to stop him, and the GOP Congress that is enabling him, because he won't stop until he's turned our world into the dark ages. Get out and vote and contribute this fall, before your ability the change things with a vote is taken away from you. That future is in sight and we cannot allow it.
6
Was everyone playing by the same rules?
1
Trump does not play by my rules. He uses basic flaws in our background to manipulate such as (1) hostility between religions, (2) lack of knowledge on dynamic issues, (3) fear of economic issues, (4) fear of racial difference, and (5) inability to work your way out of isolation into a conscious stream of a poorly understood world. Trump is just a salesman without portfolio who can tell if you have the confidence to tell him to shut up or if you can be turned by his voice. He is amplified by publicity provided by Fox, Gannett, Sinclair and others that total more than 80% of the communications media in this nation because it meets their intent. Why do clever, smart, and responsible people work with him, work for him, and empower him is the mystery to me that I would ask Mr. Brooks to reveal. How do they profit? How do they communicate with each other? They have used Trump to disorganize any resistance to their intent by thoroughly confusing any political will. Any strong person is beset by their promotion of fake stories from Trump's mouth. And what is the end game when assets are concentrated in a small group, governmental processes are considered unworkable, and our legal institutions and law enforcement are thought to be untrustworthy. Tell me why important people use Trump rather than ignore him as a fool and turn him aside. Then we might say if this is a repetition of the 1930's or a new and more dangerous order.
2
What Brooks speaks of is global managed trade under the guise of 'shared values.' This strategic culture produced massive economic dislocation that propelled the cultural backlash we see today. The fact is citizens care more about their country (and themselves) than the global community and the plight of refugees; two incessant globalist talking points. And spreading democracy doesn't pay peoples bills. Trump is the worst messenger for a movement that isn't going away.
2
Angela Merkel and apologists weep because Trump is not Obama and that he questions the commitments that the USA made to the global order. Trump and many Americans see a USA that footed the defense bill for 50 years while the Germans concentrated on building an export economy that dominated the EU and ran up massive trade surpluses. If I were Merkel I wouldn't want to see any changes either. Not to mention the carte blanche handed to the Chinese. At the same time, the leadership class of the USA shipped our manufacturing base to Asia and destroyed a good bit of our economy and culture. Meanwhile, the MSM and the academics at places like Princeton tell us how beneficial globalization has been while telling us that we are stupid for not agreeing with them. Trump is only echoing what the average people in the USA have been saying to each other for many years.
2
West Germany also carried a large burden of unification with East Germany
Bravo !. Now find us an architect so we can start building.
Mr. Brooks makes good points, but the election of an incompetent narcissist who does not operate in a civil manner has much to do with the slave-era electoral college. We've now had two presidents elected in a generation who did not win the popular vote. Our presidential election system, not to mention an unrepresentative Senate, is the definition of undemocratic and unresponsive to the electorate. We wouldn't even be seeing columns like this and the million words written about the horror of this administration if we had majority rule.
4
Mark Reber: The problem isn't the concept of an Electoral College. The problem is that its proper implementation has been hijacked by those who have stripped the aim of the College of what it is theoretically meant to do. As many always point out, the US was not meant to be a straight democracy; it's a republic, respecting the power of states.
The EC was meant to do two things: 1. Balance the power of states that were populous against states that were sparsely populated, especially given that slaves were not counted for votes; 2. Provide a way for well chosen, rational, and principled people to get rid of a president-elect chosen for the wrong reasons and dangerous to the nation itself.
1. could be solved by re-examining how electoral votes are apportioned, since there is no need to err against the existence of millions of non-voting slaves. The numbers have been tweaked before, they probably should be again.
2. devolved into electors becoming mere rubber stamps for the current ruling party in the state. Return to them the ability to act independently of party
2
"The low-trust style of politics is realism on steroids".
No, it's not David. It's quite the opposite. The "low-trust style" merely reflects the lack of a moral center, not to mention pervasive and unhealthy interpersonal suspicion well out of proportion to circumstance and reality. Its how you destroy everything you touch.
7
Your comments about high trust and low trust relationships relate directly to our Congress. Before Trump even ran for president, relationships in Congress had deteriorated into low trust relationships. While our president is, at the least, an embarrassment on the world stage and, at the worst, a danger to a stable world order, our Congress is a domestic horror.
3
Our Congres is "a domestic horror" due to the permission - and in some cases the mandate - they have been given to value the needs and desires of corporate entities over actual Americans. It will not stop until they are forced to prioritize the needs of the people over corporate profit. And no, those are not one and the same thing. Not at all.
2
Clearly, the only way to restore social trust is to get rid of Trump and his swamp-mates. Either through election or impeachment.
2
There are better ways to repair what people have lost trust in. Brooks gives too much to Trump. Yes he is a disrupter. But he lacks any skill or integrity in fixing what he disrupts. He isn't helping those in the U.S. he promised to help. In fact he doesn't care at all about them except what they can do for his poll numbers. He may play by a different set of rules but remember that he cheated his way to money and fame by sending his goons like Cohen to scare people with little money and power. His rules don't apply at this level unless he becomes a dictator like Putin. That's not happening.
I keep bringing up Neville Chaimberlain and "Peace in our time" in these op-ed columns because most if not all of your readers (and columnists) are too young even to have heard about it. To one over 80 it is one of the first thoughts that come to mind. Here's hoping one of you columnists will remind us all why the Korea meeting is reminiscent ofsuch a scary precedent.
4
Mr. Brooks, you muse that Trump is "trying to transform the nature of relationships". Trump is not interested in transforming or developing relationships. He is only interested in loyalty, dominance, controlling the narrative, and a zero-sum game of I win-you lose. He has the backing of the GOP, his base, Congress, evangelical Christians, and the power structure. They're all afraid to speak truth to power. Trump is the emperor with no clothes, exuding his nakedness and defiling the very values, principles, and virtues that are the hallmark and foundation of this country. The British philosopher Edmund Burke wrote that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is good men do nothing. Mr. Books, you seem to be the blind guide that Jesus railed against in Matthew chapter 23:24 when He said "you strain for gnats and swallow camels".
3
I agree, with one exception, that being that Trump's base are not failing to object because they fear to "speak truth to power." They just don't care very much about truth as it is commonly understood, because by that measure they are so often and so obviously, laughably incorrect. They see in Trump a savior similarly unconcerned with reason, evidence, the lessons learned through thousands of years of science, history, philosophy who has legitimized racism, disrespectful behavior, intellectual laziness and greed - all qualities they share.
The G-7 is really the White bread alliance - excepting Japan, who was only grudgingly added after they bought everyone’s golf courses.
1
The present situation is not that we’ve become wolves (a poor symbolism given that wolves run in packs, and are not about individuals striving for god-like dominance). No. The present situation is the result of a huge propaganda machine brainwashing the public and inciting divisions by amplifying the reptilian subconscious of all humans.
That machine is run by a few billionaires that evidence a very short-sighted view of what’s good for them or us, one bordering on insanity, actually. For they not only suppress the rationality of the voters, but believe themselves that reason and fact are entirely ignorable in their pursuit of power and imposition of their own view of how America and the world should operate.
The cure for this spreading disease is demolishing the propaganda machine and its molding of radio, TV, social media into irresistible engines of disinformation and subordination of the rational mind.
There is our needed focus. Not some passion for old ideology that tries to counter the insane propaganda machine with a more savory belief system, but removal of this machine and its financial backing.
We don’t need an old ideology. Let some oxygen into the room. Fact, logic, awareness - the human side of the brain - not its serpentine ancient beginnings.
3
Trump is not the only one. Anyone who works for a publicly traded company (or one which emulates them), knows the rule book you so accurately describe has been in place for a long, long time. Indeed, as a lawyer, I spent the final years of my career trying to persuade company leadership that to be an "officer" of a corporation carried the obligations of the "trust doctrine" founded in common law, including a duty of loyalty, candor and accountability; and that pitting people against each other, tolerating a "truth optional" environment, bullying and bad manners, was fundamentally at variance with these long standing values, even if it seemed to lead to greater profits. Ask me how that went!
5
"a general outlook that says the world is a nasty place, and 3, a scarcity mind-set that says politics is a zero-sum game in which groups must viciously scramble to survive."
My father is a Trump supporter and this captures his outlook very well. Life is a zero-sum game. Any benefit or advantage obtained by some person or group can only come at the expense of someone else. That's why immigration is so big an issue - they want what we have and the more they get the less we will have. The idea that immigration can have a multiplying affect on prosperity is not a possibility.
2
This argument has a lot of holes. Here are just a few.
"European elites were so afraid of nationalism that they fell for the illusory dream of convergence — the dream that nations could effortlessly merge..." European elites did have a healthy fear of the downside of nationalism, but they never thought it would be effortless. They spent decades building diplomatic, economic and political foundations. They spent billions--plenty of it on farmers, blue-collar workers and retirees--year after year, decade after decade.
"Conservatives across the Western world became so besotted with the power of the market that they forgot what capitalism is like when it’s not balanced by strong communities." Conservatives besotted with markets and money is new? East India Company? Belgian Congo? Robber barons? Slavery?
"The Group of 7 is an organization built in a high-trust age. It’s based on the idea that the member nations have shared values...But in the low-trust Trumpian worldview, values don’t matter; there are only interests." The UN, Bretton Woods, Marshall Plan and much of the rest was done for interests as much if not more than values. Truman, Marshall, Churchill, Eisenhower pushed these institutions because they knew it was not in our interest to get into WWIII. Juan Jose Arevalo, Patrice Lumumba, Salvador Allende? Were they deposed because Western elites of the 50s, 60s, and 70s were living in a a high-trust, interest-free utopia?
3
There's little evidence that technology has pushed power downward. Reality is quite the opposite - it has consolidated power and wealth in the hands of a few. Social scientist Brooks should understand this.
2
"It’s why he is more comfortable dealing with dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-un than with democrats like Justin Trudeau. He and the dictators are basically playing the same game."
You may not like Pres Trump's personality, but that is not relevant here. What matters is POTUS has 4 years - maybe 8 - to exercise his executive will within checks-and-balances limitations, then he steps down. This makes him very UNLIKE the others. #Trust the system.
1
To re-establish societal trust in the Trumpian era, our government and institutions must become responsive to the vast majority of the populace they have ignore for too long. Forgive me for not holding my breath.
The United States benefited greatly in the aftermath of WWII. Having maintained an industrial infrastructure, millions of people were able to find good paying jobs with retirement pensions and health benefits. As world economies rebuilt and matured, manufacturing began to shift overseas. Ronald Reagan's election and Republican trickle-down economics soon grabbed the neck of the American worker and has never let go.
Over the last 40 years, Republicans have helped to sow distrust towards government and their fellow citizens with divisive rhetoric and right-wing media. Republicans have written laws which helped undermine pensions, gutted unions, attacked public education, fought against civil rights, created a gun epidemic, empowered faceless corporations and created tax laws which funneled profits from increased productivity into the hands of fewer and fewer corporate executives, leaving the working person with less and less. All this while allowing top executives to largely remain unaccountable, when corporations they run destroy people's lives.
Donald Trump is a societal cancer warning. He is a human molotov cocktail being thrown at institutions and fellow citizens who the Republican Party has actively undermined and slandered for decades. Good luck to us.
7
The primary goal of the United Nations and NATO, two of the post War organizations you probably admire , was to keep the peace and prevent another world war. Nationalism was the enemy, not socialism.
Unchecked capitalism did what it always does, exploit workers, desecrate the environment with its industrial waste, seduce consumers with overpriced and often useless commodities and capture the lions share of wealth for a tiny minority. It never cared much for merit, it worshiped profit. Only a government for the people can control its excesses.
The wolves love power and prey on the weak and vulnerable. So what else is new?
1
Donald J. Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States. The world order he has no respect for has basically kept the peace for 73 years. No small feat considering we had two world wars in less than 20 years prior to that. Trump thinks American leadership in the world is too burdensome and too costly because he does not understand it and the benefits the US gets because of our leadership.
4
I agree that Trump plays by his own rules, but, it is not true that he won't play by any other, particularly legal ones. When the district court judges stayed his presidential orders, his admin. went along (there were a few small issues, but not serious ones). Obama did not always do that. It also seems to me that Trump hasn't gone to war with a country that is not aggressive with us, like Libya, nor stayed at it even after his powers the WPA grants, expired, without congress's approval. Obama did. It seems to me that Trump get a law pass a very unpopular law by conciliation, which was highly questionable, which Obama did. Also, whatever problems Trump has with the press, he is available. Obama was said to have had the the most opaque adminstration since Nixon by mainstream (not conservative) journalists. And so on. Trump is a lot of things, including arrogant, impolite, insulting, etc. But, the idea that he thinks he is a king.
I didn't vote for him. I'm not a supporter, but his willingness to be Trump rather than presidential does have some benefits I like, some of which we see right now.
It may be a low-trust, wolf-like worldview, but a problem with Trump, specifically, is he operates in a world of ignorance, or, more likely, outright lies.
Yes, Canada and the U.S. are long time allies, friends and neighbors, but that doesn't mean that Canada couldn't be taking advantage of us in trade.
But it isn't. Trump keeps talking about a trade deficit we run with Canada. To quote the Washington Post: "First, we should note that, according to statistics issued by the U.S. government headed by Trump, the United States has a trade surplus with Canada."
To use a word the Times seems to hate using when it comes to Trump, he is lying.
5
What follows your #6, the loss of interest in the common good? Could #7 be violent conflict as groups try to protect and preserve themselves? And what can restore our faith in the common good and the institutions that champion that good? I fear that only in the face of great adversity, something that challenges the survival of all, will groups overcome their differences to survive. I hope it doesn't come to that.
1
Excellent. I worked as a clinical psychologist in a high security prison for nine years. The values, motives, and behaviors attributed to our dreadful president by Mr. Brooks are wholly congruent with my observations of the inmate culture.
5
Actually the book you should be referencing is George Lakoff's -"Moral Politics". In it he demonstrate that this untrusting, fend for your self "morality" is, indeed inextricably linked to the right wing mind. (Wiki-->) In this book, the strict father model is contrasted with the nurturant parent model. Lakoff argues that if the metaphor of nation as family and government as parent is used, then conservative politics correspond to the strict father model. For example, conservatives think that adults should refrain from looking to the government for assistance lest they become dependent.
3
"Wolves perceive the world as a war of all against all and seek to create the world in which wolves thrive, which is a world without agreed-upon rules, without restraining institutions, norms and etiquette."
Honestly, David. What do you know about wolves?
4
Nice try, Mr. Brooks. But in reality there is no such set of "rules" or philosophy, such as the one you articulate, actually governing the president's arbitrary and capricious way of disrupting world affairs. People who have their own personal set of "rules" and refuse to acknowledge the actual rules known and understood by everyone else are usually called delusional.
2
It's so obvious what is about to happen next. We will suffer another major domestic terror attack or perhaps the collapse of an overheated economy & markets or maybe a civil war will break out. In any event Trump then declares he will go it alone, meaning the U.S. will somehow get through this alone. Remember when few allies followed W and Cheney's trail of fake evidence into Iraq? That quagmire costs the lives of 100,000s and likely led to the rise of Daesh. The Golfer in Chief's collaborators will rue the day they elected this charlatan. The rest of us must be sure to vote and seek redress at every opportunity.
About Canada:
Canadian refueling tankers allow U.S. military jets to refuel in mid-air.
Canadian authorities allow ICE to extend the our borders into their airports.
Canadians are the biggest foreign customers of U.S. businesses.
Canadians own homes and operate businesses all over the U.S.
Name one good thing North Korea does for the U.S.. One.
7
Since the time of Tönnies we have distinguished between “Community,” and “Society” or, more simply, “Collectivity.” Collectivity, wrote Buber “is not a binding but a bundling together: individuals packed together. . .But Community is the being no longer side by side but with one another of a multitude of persons. . . Collectivity is based on an organized atrophy of personal existence, community on its increase and confirmation in the life lived towards one another.”
Communities are evanescent, and we have seen this happen recently. They have a habit of vanishing after the Thous are exchanged, as if their flimsy relational realities could not endure the rustling of the wind. This relation that is Care is so delicate that at the slightest push it may topple and fracture into a thousand splinters like a shattered crystal ball.
Communities can die in many other ways: they may dry up, like a pond in mid-summer; their
members may die with no replacements in sight who would be willing to maintain the flame, as
happened with the Shaker Communities; the ideals that made them rise may weaken and fail to
inspire new proselytes; relations other than Care — their name is Legion! — may gain
ascendancy and prevent Care from establishing itself, like weeds stifling a beautiful bush. Deprived of its soul, the Community keeps its form, but only as a carcass retains its shape.
We need Communities to survive as human beings. Is it wrong to expect a resurrection? Or too soon?
1
A bit of simplification might be in order here. Aside from the exhausted bothsidism and victim-blaming, there's something serious we all have to face.
If we don't learn to work together to solve problems, reaching for the best rather than the worst in ourselves, we are not going to survive.
Climate change/global warming is not like other problems. Complete civilizational breakdown is a symptom of our hospitable earth evolving to get rid of its apex predator.
If anything should be a wakeup call, it is the demonstration of the harm unshackled greed and stupidity, along with delusions of grandeur, can wreak on a country if it is enabled by a bunch of kleptocrats and otherblamers who see short-term benefit and to hell with the future.
It is well known that punters will resist recognizing the con.
But this time, the stakes are bigger and more permanent. "Extinction may silence advanced civilisations": https://climatenewsnetwork.net/extinction-may-silence-advanced-civilisat...
5
"Trump takes every relationship that has historically been based on affection, loyalty, trust and reciprocity and turns it into a relationship based on competition, self-interest, suspicion and efforts to establish dominance."
But what about Trump's relationship with Netanyahu?
Brooks's fantasy doesn't work - and that's why David only states his opinion as a fact, but cannot provide a concrete founded reasoning for concrete Trump's approaches and decisions.
2
"Elites of all stripes were so detached they didn’t see how untrammeled meritocracy divides societies between the 'fittest' and the rest."
This statement is almost as crazy as something trump would say.
Let me remind you, Mr. Brooks.
Progressive and liberals have certainly believe in meritocratic judgment of character and performance rather than preferences tied to a person's skintone, gender, religion, etc.
But our enthusiasm for meritocracy has not prevented us from also fighting for individuals who fall through the cracks of such meritocracy....namely universal healthcare, pre-K educational support, college education support, etc.
Your analysis falls flat on that regard.
9
A lot of historical revisionism running amok here.
Trump is not the cause of the decline of the Western Order, he's the symptom.
Fact is the West was already declining since the oil crisis of 1974-5. The neoliberal reforms slowed this process down at the cost of its working classes standards of living, but then the bill came in 2008. Obama did not -- contrary to many believers -- saved the Western economy, but just rescued the financial system and dived the world economy into an endless depression.
Sure, Hillary Clinton could've won 2016, but that would mean just an even worse delay of the inevitable. Fact is: the USA doesn't have the resources to keep the Western Civilization intact anymore (as it did have in 1946) -- it doesn't even have the US$ 96 billion to rescue Puerto Rico, let alone Europe, Southeast and Central Asia.
4
Actually, we have untold resources but have been emasculated by wolves...some of whom did it on purpose.
Half of our arable land is not put to use. In some cases, we pay people (mostly bloodless brainless corporations) not to produce. Our factories were shuttered because of lousy tax policies based on phony theories like "supply side" economics and the "domino theory."
Consider "vulture" capitalism. Most of the vultures need to own up.
1
False choice. It may be that American Empire is time-limited, but it does not follow that the logical alternative is to blow up alliances and sow disorder.
1
In just over an hour, I'll be out in my neighborhood, knocking on the doors of fellow Democrats. We'll talk about the issues that matter to them. We'll talk about our candidates for office, especially the five Democrats running for Congress. I'll tell them who I'm supporting; they'll tell me who they're supporting. We'll all agree to get out and vote. Yesterday, I spent three hours canvassing with a first-time candidate for a local town board. She was talking to voters who had never once had a local candidate listen to their opinions or ask them, in person, for their vote.
THIS is how you rebuild political relationships that are healthy, "based on affection, loyalty, trust and reciprocity." You do it door by door, neighborhood by neighborhood. Democrats all over are doing this, because our values of standing up for the little guy, of working collectively for the common good, and of helping each other when we fall on hard times require it. If Brooks's dystopian vision scares you, join the Democrats, who have always believed in community.
9
Please explain the loss of unions and all the manufacturing capacity (particularly in flyover country) that the US has given up under our two-party system. Dems and Repubs have both presided over the dismantling of the middle-class. They created an opportunity for a reality-showman to become president.
The assessment of the problem is accurate enough, but the solution suggested: restoring social trust and restructuring power at all levels, is going to be extraordinarily difficult. Ronald Reagan made greed OK, and money has so corrupted our political system, it's difficult to see a way forward. Now Trump is working hard to make racism and nationalism OK. The November mid-term election is a referendum on Trump's world view.
14
"Elites of all stripes were so detached they didn’t see how untrammeled meritocracy divides societies between the “fittest” and the rest."
'Untrammeled"? Any untrammeled meritocracy implies a hierarchical norm ordered by a simplistic sense of what is socially best -- whether that be nationalism, capitalism, socialism, or any other 'ism'.
'Detached'? Isn't that what happens in a society that never advances the arts of genuine communication, i.e. the arts of fortifying each other through learning conversations? If so, then participating in politics would become more than the mere learning of either 'the art of the deal' or of 'the audacity of hope'. Such participation would mean engaging in conversation for the purpose of discovering/creating rational ways forward for gain in the well-being of everyone affected.
4
I am uncharacteristically in total agreement with Mr. Brooks. Restoring community and trust are goals that the Trumpsters do not understand or desire - division and distrust have fueled the Trump rise. The Trump movement will ultimately fail, as will he and his cronies. In the mean time there is a great deal of damage being done. The Trump economy? We are floating along on the froth in the economy that (of course) is going to pump up temporarily after massive tax cuts. In the end his supporters will be damaged more than his detractors.
11
So what do you recommend to us that are your friends and neighbours ?
To let Mr Trump imposes tariffs to Canada and asking Canada not to do the same ?
The US have a trade surplus over Canada in 2017, of $12 billions.
While US had a deficit of $375 billions with China.
So, is there anybody that understand why Mr Trump imposes tariffs on Canada products and services ?
10
Because they impose tariffs on ours. Quite large ones in some cases.
The issue is that under the WTO, have a way to redress grievances by enact tariffs to the extent justified. That is why there are all kinds of tariffs already. The issue now is the belligerent and arbitrary way these tariffs were put in place: not according to any kind of rules-based order. Then, it is for this reason that it is particularly destructive to address them at allies.
Silly reply. The reader doesn't look beyond Trump's cherry-picked examples. Check U. S. tariffs on peanuts, yoghurt, etc. etc.
Perhaps Canada's supply management model needs to be reworked--will the U.S. then reduce its farm subsidies?
These things are only simple for simple-minded people.
1
There are illuminating parallels between the "new world order" you describe here and Italy during the Renaissance. I recommend Jacob Burckhardt's essay, "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy," especially the early chapters dealing with the despots of the 14th and 15th centuries.
1
It is completely insane how once stalwart conservative (meaning believing in slow change) republicans will turn themselves into a stream of consciousness pretzel to avoid admitting the leader of their party is devoid of values, destroying Americas place in the world and fundamentally bad for the country.
9
David Brooks has been doing precisely that since GW Bush was "elected." That is, as you say, "turning himself into a stream of consciousness pretzel" to justify and rationalize Bush/Cheney's damage to our economy and our relationships with other countries. Trump is just the next step down the path that he's been justifying for decades.
1
Week after week after week, Brooks does mental gymnastics to avoid admitting the following: Trump is the Frankestein of the GOP.
He is not polite. He is not smart. He is not competent. He is a monster.
True.
But his agenda? 1000% reflective of Republican values.
He is not inclusive.
Well, ask the poor, women, LGBTQ and immigrants how they have fared under the GOP in prior years--and how they would fare under the GOP platform even now if Trump flew away!
He is a liar and a cheater.
Want to talk gerrymandering? Republicans have been cheating poor people out of votes for YEARS and stacking the courts by whichever means necessary.
He is an elitist.
Exhibit C: :the entire GOP agenda.
I could go on and on. Republicans have largely backed him because, inelegant as he is, he is driving their agenda. But they are dealing with a reckless narcissist. They should be nervous about the decay of our democratic mores.
But let's stop talking about the poor white man feeling bad that the rest of us want his foot off our necks. Let's stop talking about complacency by the elite. "Progressives" have long been fighting for the rights of the disenfranchised. The right just wants their white privilege without a side order of guilt... or a drink of conscience.
Let's stop talking about the collapse of the post world order as though it was the inevitable result of factors beyond our controls.
It was YOUR party that set the table for this immoral buffoon, Brooks.
Own it, will you?
29
Hogwash... Trump is simply destroying structures and institutions erected by others, because he has the authoritarian impulse, and aspires to be a tinpot dictator.
Mr. Brooks, enchanted with his own intellectual pipe dreams, sees relationships and make connections which are totally lacking. The West is not the GOP, despises Trump, or had you missed that, Mr. Brooks.
While a narcissistic bully plays havoc with our foreign policy, our Economy, our political institutions and political life, and our society, Mr. Brooks fiddles with his intellectual constructs to legitimize him.
Mr. Brooks will be numbered among the enablers when Trump succeeds, or crashes to the earth in flames.
Wake up.
9
Treason has taken place at the highest platform of our democracy a GOP lead congress needs to act to maintain a shred of dignity and restrain this guy that does not represent our best interests as a nation of people with morals.
9
Did Brooks just call Trump a want-to-be dictator?
1
The problem Brooks is getting at is the ethos of might-makes-right/the law of the jungle. It is essential that party leaders, funders, voters, and activists counter this in all its forms, at all levels of government, in all states Red and Blue. Whether we work to curb pharma pilfering of Medicare, wasteful defense contracts, or swampy MTA contracting and pilfering of MTA funds (following decades of outright gangsterism during which Trump cut his teeth), we will be contesting an oddly American a-moral ethos that is distilled fully in Trump.
1
Mr. Brooks continues to write in vague ambiguities, hidin g his denial of socialism, in favor of a tax code where the rich always pay less and the cost of education, healthcare, and our imperialism, is paid by the middle class.
As for Trump, Mr. Brooks states the obvious; not worth whatever the Times pays him.
Rabid, feral dogs would be more to the point, your metaphor, Mr. Brooks.
4
Again, he is talking about ideas at the abstract and moral level. From there, with that languange, we can formulate and assert an alternative view of justice. What is the alternative political order, in contrast to rabid feral dogs?
Substitute "Republican" for "wolf" and this article makes sense.
Other than that it's just another pathetic attempt by party intellectuals to belatedly share the blame for their creation of Donald Trump.
Democrats didn't do this, you did. Gleefully.
5
I am a lifelong democrat, but a huge blame falls to the Dem's. An utter failure of to create systemic change at the grassroots level to make elections competitive: public campaign funding, rank-choice voting, etc. Instead, the reliance on big money at all levels and the stilted intellectual dishonesty creates a major vacuum and vulnerability. The dysfunction has festered and grown more fetid at all levels, despite the fact it lives at the level of espoused values at the door of the GOP/Ayn Rand/Market Fundamentalists/Norquist/Rambo.
2
Plus a failure to engage in planning for the dislocations caused by the various free trade agreements the Dems supported.
Is it possible that the G7 Summit in Canada and then subsequent tweets by Trump along with his effusive and weak dealing with the mudering dictator Kim have made them consider that the man they are dealing with has completely lost his mind?
6
Or with a full deck.
4
Honestly, David, you are so dramatique. It is quite easy to gather a whole bunch of dots and create a great big drama out of them. But let’s step back from your dots and remember that trump did not get elected by the people. He ginned up some bored mid-westerners (heck, I’d be bored there too) with his crazy rallies, and then he got handed the keys to the car by our undemocratic, in-the-pocket-of-political-party-structure (which our founding fathers abhorred) Electoral College boondoggle (created as a concession to southern slave-owning States).
How ‘bout that for some simple dot connecting?
And now this charlatan is driving the car all kinds of crazy ways, but I once again see no dots that mean diddly-squat. And I don’t see the rest of the world veering in any new direction either. Of course there is what’s going on in Singapore right now. But that’s another weird bunch of dots. No one can predict how they’ll fall.
5
I'm sick and tired of David's criticism of smart people.
I'm done reading your columns, Mr. Brooks -- and I bought and read your last book.
7
Meh. It ain't worth it. Most people are too stupid to care for. There is only a few in your circle you trust. Outside it is 'freedom' which is just another word for anarchy. There is no common good. People, en masse', are very ignorant. They just parrot what they are told, like good drones.
2
The government of Europe and America are genociding their own people with unlimited Third World immigration. These regimes need to be destroyed.
2
Based on ignorant prejudice, this is a fairly simple way to be publicly wrong headed. Immigration is and has always been good for countries, except when armies do it by force.
Trump has, in the past, expressed sympathy for single payer health care as in Australia. Democrats could take him up on this and enact a single payer system with the support of all or almost all Democrats and a few Republicans.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0vl-_TxXYg
True, they cannot avoid the new system being called Trump-care but they COULD point out, "We Democrats worked with Trump to get Americans a good deal." That would help them in November and in 2020.
How about giving "sneering a Trump" a rest and seeing WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE?
1
That was then, this is now. Trump only speaks to appeal or appease whatever audience is before him. If democrats bring up universal health care, he will deny ever supporting it and be told to call it 'socialism' by his sycophantic advisors.
2
No one is "sneering" at Trump. They are horrified, and reacting to his greed, unwarranted self-love and seat-of-the-pants stupidity with the loathing it richly deserves. There is no good that can come of Trump, other than as an example to future generations of the weaknesses in a democratic system which does not require that voters understand the issues they are to influence, and is instead so captive to special interest money that the truth can be successfully discredited in favor of simplistic and obvious falsehoods blatantly sourced in self-interest.
Remember just a few months ago it was "little rocket man," and now he's Trump's best buddy? It's the same with Australia's single payer - that admiration is now non-existent.
Trying to pin this guy down for ANY past statement is a fruitless task, because the past does not exist for him.
1
Think long term. Think of how long it took, and how difficult it has been to reach the level of civilization we have now. I read what's happening now as not just a change in the way politics is done, but a turning back from the long march to civilization. Stone Age, anyone?
2
What are you talking about? The US is a charlatan nation. Promises of meritocracy dancing in your heads.
Fact is where is the Republican Party? With McConnell at a religious conflab telling the theocrats that they are getting everything they want: judges, legislation and war .
You sir have been an enabler. You sir are part of the problem.
15
'You sir are part of the problem.' Actually a big part of the problem is the Democratic activists who are considerably to the left of the Democratic party and even further to the left of the nation.
They think that everyone who does not think like the progressives is "part of the problem."
Maybe the time will come when progressives allow the rest of us to think for ourselves, but I am not holding my breath.
1
Brooks is trying to have his free market captialism and excuse it too. Trump is an obvious product of our system of values. Which does not excuse him, of course. He is in and of himself a creature so bloated with self-regard and cheeseburgers that in a saner society he would be laughed out of office in a New York minute. But those who do not recognize this, and instead attempt to portray him as an extreme example of one side of the economic argument, to be counterbalanced by a left wing example yet to be named (perhaps because one does not exist), must bear their share of the blame, too. He is intolerable, and any attempt to tolerate him only delays the hoped-for day when his electorally-sanctioned tantrum will stop claiming victims.
There's another word for what Mr Brooks describes as the failure of the elites of all stripes creating the effect (3). It's "Lebensraum".
2
How I read a David Brooks column: 1) I scan it to see just how dishonest he's being. 2) I read the "readers picks" comments to see how he's being called out by much better thinkers and writers. 3) I wonder why a second rate thinker like David Brooks still has so many job opportunities as a pundit. 4) I despair of our future.
5
You sure are putting a lot into a person that was elected by a country in which half the people do not vote, And even with that fact, significantly less then half the voters, voted for him.
Thanks for your nonsense talk about how bad all the other people at the G 7 were and are.
And your comments about Putin who DID not win ANY election period, have no relevance to your argument either.
It is tough to be a "conservative" when the world showed you that it's an ideology built on a lie now lead by a liar.
Mr Brooks it pains to read you columns, it feels like it pains you to write them as well. You know a lie when you see one. And "conservatism" and the party it resides in are a big lies.
10
So now that the leader of the once-free world has crawled between the sheets with a menage a trois of communists ranging the gamut from strongman to president for life to absolute god, how long before the concrete sets and the situation becomes more or less written in stone?
Or is it too late already to make things right...again. Is this what the voters who put Trump in office hoped for when they bought the MAGA gimme caps, an orgy with dictators?
3
It is beyond any doubt whatsoever, based on intelligence agency consensus and reams of documented facts in the public realm now that Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE conspired and colluded with the Trump campaign to get him elected President of the United States.
And we have now seen him reward these benefactors mightily, always championing Russian and Putin, inviting this enemy to rejoin the G7, giving the Saudis every last weapon they wanted to purchase, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, shredding the Iran Nuclear Accords and on and on. And we have seen him attempt to destroy relations with the peaceful democracies in the western world - Canada, which occupies a special place in hell according to the President's lexicon, Mexico, which is comprised entirely of rapists and criminals and all of Europe.
And today the President of the United States gleefully met the most heinous dictator on the planet by exclaiming what a great honor it was to do so, not getting a single thing in return for offering this meeting and platitude.
Trump slammed the Chinese until he got $500 million in financing for one of his resorts and his son in law did the same to the Qatari's until he got billions for his garbage property in New York.
Mr. Brooks, it is really quite simple to see what is happening and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything you wrote in your column. Wake up!
9
"As Jonathan Sacks writes in his 2007 book, “The Home We Build Together,” there’s only one historically proven way for people to build community across difference. It’s when they build things together."
Some years ago, my home church fell into a pit of polarizing internal politics. Trust between members was lost. Camps formed, and people stopped talking outside their own camps. I thought the place might really fall apart, a mass exodus leaving behind a tired remnant to pick up the pieces.
It didn't happen. A number of slow, difficult processes helped keep us together. One of the most transformative: we built a courtyard, open to the street to give access to the the larger community, with a cobblestone labyrinth floor. The courtyard project had nothing to do with the internal issues ripping us apart. That made it possible for people who were angry with each other to hold their noses and work together. People from all the warring camps worked on this project because they wanted it to happen. Building it together helped trust form again. It helped us rediscover our common values.
So, yes, let's build something together. Nothing directly related to the hot button issues ripping us apart. Build something useful and beautiful that benefits your own community. If possible, do it by hand, working right next to that pesky neighbor who's hard to talk to these days, because they vote the other way. Don't talk politics. Talk about what you're building.
4
This is jibberish.
If you have nothing to say, say nothing, you will appear smarter.
3
Mr. Brooks once again seeks cover behind his own hyper-intellectualization of that which he was instrumental in creating.
4
Very funny!
“The wolves — whether Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte” Only Duterte was not the focus of Russian hacking, trolls, propaganda, weaponized profile attacks. Absent are the UK Brexit and Italian efforts and nationalist/populist efforts in Poland, Austria, Germany, France, Slovenia, Sweden. Seems David Brooks is suffering from the Trump/Putin disease. Could it have something to do with the continued complicity of the Republican Party’s relationship with Trump and willingness to exploit Trump’s popularity and the rabid base. Putin is exploiting the fear and insecurity that is the product of growing inequality, racism, mass migrations and religious distrust. It is textbook Marxist/Leninist tactics. Somehow Brooks does not to recognize Political Science 101 unfolding. Lenin is credited with: “ To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.” A circular firing squad is forming and “conservative” intellectuals are exhorting Party regulars to “aim”.
2
It's telling to me that when David Brooks lists his wolves beginning with Trump and ending with Erdogan Benjamin Netanyahu isn't included. What's up with that omission, Dave?
8
Just when I lost patience and think that there's no point ever in reading something from Mr Brooks' word-processor, he turns out a piece like this. Well, well! Surprised congratulations, and keep typing.
1
Brooks's lumping Trump in with Putin, Duterte, Erdogan is understandable but there is a definite difference among them. They are all brutal despots. Trump is merely a brutal despot wannabe.
An insult to wolves!
Apart from that - this disaster really spells the end for human and individual rights, unless we stem the tide.
I don't think the Trump rally types have really thought this through. They cheer when the rights of others are damaged. It's fun to tear Mexican families apart. It's awesome to laugh at disabled people and mock the poor.
Somehow, it escapes folks that their rights might be next.
That's a paramount issue in the postwar order. Nazi Germany represented the pinnacle of dehumanization. People were exterminated on an industrial scale. Everybody marched for Hitler or else. Intellectuals and dissenters, Communists and Catholics died alongside Europe's Jews. There was no room for gypsies, for gay people, for people who simply disagreed.
If indeed the oligarchs have decided to end democracy then we have indeed lost all. It feels to me that this has already happened in the US. Mitch McConnell's refusal to hold hearings for Merrick Garland was a punch in the mouth of all the people who voted for Barack Obama, by far a larger number than those who supported Romney - so we were silenced. We lost our rights.
We lost our rights in 2016 too, and the fact that Trump proposed Russia rejoin the great democracies in the face of that robbery is a clear sign that he knows what happened and he approved of it, has done nothing to stop Russia or the likes of Bannon from stealing another election in 2018.
The GOP is going along because they agree.
8
As if the republicans have ever played by any rules.
Silly, stupid Trump is only a pale replica of a GOP figurehead. The party of hypocrites, obsessed with other people's sex, that still sees women as things, that won't compromise on the right to bear weapons of mass destruction. The GOP has been consistently hateful, resentful, angry, racist, willfully ignorant, and downright dangerous throughout time.
They would deny civil rights, affirmative action, encumber or deny democratic voters. W took the country to war with lies on a simple whim to avenge his equally dim father and one-up him at the same time, a frat boy arm wrestle. The GOP gave us the banking crisis through deregulation and will do it again. The GOP is full of wind-up, life-like doughy McConnells who vowed to make Obama a one-term president, wouldn't work with him and cheated us out of a supreme court justice.
The GOP never denied Trump's birther nonsense, never missed an opportunity to insult Obama. Super ultra GOP 'Christian' evangelicals don't mind Trump's misogynistic groping and tawdry sex, they advocate murder by 2nd amendment and hide their discriminatory prejudice in the name of "religious freedom". Personhood Ryan would criminalize women and their doctors for abortions.
The GOP will let the NRA terrorize us, big oil poison us, big pharma gouge us, big ag fatten and sicken us. That's fine. The GOP has no rules.
5
Kim in Atlanta has it right: "Why isn't your team" doing something about it. This is one reason why: The Republican voters finally have their guy that is anti-immigrant, a racist, and believes that America can and should go it alone. None of that is true, but with the Electoral College, a law based on slavery, and gerrymandering it will remain that way, so get used to it Brooks, and take responsibility for your part in it. What is interesting about the foundation of the Electoral College law is that it was based on southern states crying that they wanted their slaves counted in the census to have electoral parity with the North. Now they want the descendants of those slaves, as well as all other brown people, not counted for voting. Stupid, eh?
3
Sure, David, and when Trump was running for President, you were notably silent. You knew better but did not have tthe courage to speak out. You as a conservative endorsed him with your polite silence. Shame, shame, shame on you for that and for your post hoc intellectual “analysis” that anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear could have predicted two years ago. How pathetic!
7
David you always get caught up in esoterica. These guys tear down knowledge. Not very different from Pol Pot who executed people for wearing glasses, an obvious sign of wisdom.
2
Wow. man of the people, David Brooks is still blaming self-righteous "progressive" elites. Brooks's inability to be reflective is astonishing.
3
Wolves have been insulted. Trump and friends in admin are a pit of vipers.
8
Trump will return from Singapore saying to himself:
“I’ve won big time, but it isn’t enough; Mueller is still annoying me; the November election is almost here; there’s no good reason to trust Rocket Man regardless of what he promises; I always cheat, so why shouldn’t he; I don’t know or care anything about North Koreans; I don’t even know where their lousy country is; blockbuster bombs will be wildly popular among my deplorables; so that’s what I’ll use; give it a few months and then I’ll make up some excuse to bomb the living daylights out of Kim; the country is solidly behind me; bombs are always whole lot simpler than meetings."
2
"... bombs are always a whole lot simpler than meetings."
1
Sometimes I think all of these description of politics today are jumping to conclusions. What Brooks & many others are doing, I believe, each somewhat differently, is taking events of the 1930s and assuming they're repeating now.
And this isn't b/c they lack imagination.
Its just really hard to know what you are going through, WHEN you're going through it.
Things are always easier to understand later, when there is time to reflect on them. But while they're going on, what we do is reach for the most familiar analogies to explain them.
Surely there is a new kind of globalization, & new politics that goes w/it, & there IS something to the idea that its a war of "all against all".
But new explanations have to found, some new elements need to be added to the analysis.
And conservatives aren't really good at new.
The trouble is though, that progressives aren't especially good at understanding the anger & grievances that so many people have right now either.
And I hate to seem harsh, but a lot of libertarians are simply ideologues who don't have the ability to think outside an idealized view of what should be.
We don't just live in scary or uncertain times. We live in times that, for now at least, defy traditional or conventional forms of analysis.
Somehow we have to understand the anger of the "anti-voter"--anti-immigration/globalization and whatever else in a new way.
We can't assume they're all brownshirts, b/c the 30s analogy doesn't apply any more. So who are they?
1
The NY Times remind us of the 1930s at least once per day: it's the only historical period relevant to its political mission.
This is really well put together; total nonsense, but well put together. I guess Mr. Brooks has written his one good column for the year a couple months back. How about this for a fairly simple and straightforward "common project?" We create circumstances that encourage all voting age Americans to vote. Which party, which groups of people are prepared to do that?
4
Obviously nobody is prepared to discard the grossly malapportioned relic of slavery system that God supposedly created to be immutable.
Too bad both sides are not interested in all voting-age Americans actually voting.
Thus spake the Idiot King: Wrong! And for once I agree with something he said. Show me a Democrat who doesn't want "motor voter" and other procedures that open the voter rolls to all citizens. Name one. Go ahead... I'll wait.
The only thing interesting about a Brooks op-ed is his staggering, persistent, and irremediable blindness.
He literally cannot "see" that his beloved GOP created tat monster currently kissing up to Kim Jong Un and taking a break from trashing the Western alliance.
But Trump will be back to carrying out Putin's agenda, just as Brooks will be back to singing off-key lullabies about how a kumbaya moment is just around the corner.
The man is hopeless and has been proving it for years.
2
According to Brooks, somehow, someway our current situation always ends up being the fault (or at the very least equal fault) of intelligent, liberal progressive "elites".
Through use of false equivalency, looking backwards through rose colored glasses and remembering a past that never really existed Brooks manages to blame our current situation on people who have consistently fought (and sometimes died) to make our country a better and fairer place for everyone, not just rich white people.
Own what your party has become and take responsibility for the part you played in bringing about this very dark reality we live in today. Repudiate the republican party and stop trying to wash your hands clean by wiping them off on people who had no part in making our country a borderline fascist state.
7
Wolves are fascists and fascism inevitably leads to war. Given the state of technology today, that option may not be survivable. Maybe Brooks' lame elites, with their education, liberal values and meritocracies, aren't so bad after all.
3
Donald Trump plays by and follows the rules of the 63 million Americans who voted for him including the 58% of white Americans made up of 62% of white men and 54 % of white women.
Donald Trump does not play by nor follow the rules of the 66 million Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton including the 42% white American minority along with 95% of black Americans made up of 92% of black men and 98% of black women.
1
Seriously, I don't think Trump puts much effort into a world philosophy. Trump is a cruel bully and a relentless self promoter. Many of us remember from elementary and high school that such people exist and can wield power. It is just shocking to see such a person in the White House.
2
Elites, progressives, wolves....oh my!
Let's boil it down, David. In America, we have freedom of choice, an overabundance of stupidity, AND a republican party that knows how to take advantage of both!
Voters in Russia, Turkey, Hungary and The Philippines had different pressures and reasons for their choices. Widespread poverty, corruption, theocratic neighbors, a history of oppressive governments, and a lack of resources and opportunities, for starters.
You can't equate the reasons for their current situations with ours, with the possible exception of The Philippines, to a degree.
On the other hand, Countries that govern by democratic socialism still seem to be doing fine. They have as much freedom, education, opportunity and resources as we have, and still seem to make better decisions.
It's the stupidity, David. That, and a republican party whose prime mission is to exploit it.
4
What I saw was a petulant amateur trying to fake his way through a meeting of his betters by throwing a tantrum. It's time to stop worrying about the coward Donald Trump and start laughing at him. He is joke and he's been one all of his spoiled life. I would end my comment with a heart-felt apology to our allies. We Americans do love and support you even though this goof in the white house evidently doesn't.
2
A question (nothing to do with David Brooks's column): This Group of 7, in every photo I've seen, has 8 or 9 people. No caption, as far as I can tell. Who are they? I can identify 7, but who are the extras?
1
Trump likes autocrats like Putin because they are" strong". He hates small d democrats like Trudeau because they are "weak."
1
You're giving Canis lupus a bad name, David. Real wolves are devoted family (pack) members, faithful and lifelong partners, excellent parents, and key to the healthy functioning of their native environments. Donald Trump is a self-centered small-minded egotistical jerk. He's thrown two wives ad countless business partners under the bus and is in the process of trashing everything good about this country. If his species goes extinct tomorrow we will all be infinitely better off.
3
We've been carrying Europe's water since 1945 and they haven't event had the decency to say 'Thank You'. President Trump was elected because we are sick and tired of being the patsy for a bunch of effete snobs who think they are better than us.
Maybe they would've said "Thank you" to someone who treated them a little better.
How's that for another opinion?
1
David Brooks! We get it -- Trust and cooperation. So what do you have in mind?
1
seems a little hard on wolves. Brook's description of the G7 is a good description of the social organization of a wolf pack. His "wolves" might be better characterized as wolverines, but let's just go with the animals they are middle-aged, white, petit-bourgeois men.
1
Then please explain the German woman and Asian man?
it's the economy stupid. There will be problems as long as there is blatant inequality with tax breaks for the rich and rising unequal distribution of money. everything else is secondary.
2
Actually, those problems will keep getting worse, because 63 million voters won't accept what really needs to be done about them.
Mr. Brooks - you are where and who you are because your parents were well-educated liberals and made sure you had the same advantages...I don't know what your problem is, Mr. Brooks, but you really put down every one who strives to have what you were effortlessly given.
4
That's what makes him a conservative: a basic emotional and intellectual insecurity along with a pathological need to grove at power. It's a deep, personal weakness that he can't help.
This is perhaps the best analysis of the Trump mindset I've read. And Brooks is right - we need to build a shared community based on the old virtues.
1
Theres another word for what Mr. Brooks describes as the (3) effect of the failure of the elites of all stripes. It's "Lebensrahm".
Social entropy?
Do you really want to live in this sick man’s version of the world?
1
I always get a bit antsy when David Brooks brings up elites, as if he weren't one. I would like to see an article where he tells us exactly who these "elites" are. Maybe there are more Mid-westerners reading this who have similar feelings.
More to the point, the G-7 Nations have joined to preserve the gains made after WWII, both economic gains and guarantees of human rights. To date they've done a pretty reasonable job. I think Trump feels out of place with this group of young, energetic, dedicated leaders who clearly love their countries, care for their people and have a broad understanding of governance. Trump is an elderly businessman who has no knowledge of history, governance, rule of law and cares little for his own country. His only interests lie in what kind of press and possibly money he can make by associating with them. It's pretty simple. To add to that, Prime Minister Trudeau is actually taller than Trump. Younger, taller and much better looking. Is it any wonder that Trump chose to lash out at him and not the entire group?
7
Yes, who exactly are the "elites"? I don't think it means people with billions of dollars and yachts and helicoptors. Elites seem to be people who are educated and by merit, rose up. I used to think that was what we were supposed to do, particularly if we were born into the lower or lower middle class. Now it seems that anyone who is educated and rises a rung is an elite and an enemy of the people. Education and merit based achievements in life are now bad? Merit means you earned something. What is wrong with that? When did being elite become evil? It's ok to be an elite athlete, it is not ok to be an elite of any other kind. I don't get it.
1
I wish you‘d stop insulting wolves. And the educated.
4
Who is the "your" in "Your Rules?"
Another walk down another David Brooks History Lesson where I get lost among the shrubbery.
3
Any rule besides "Me First!" isn't Trump's.
Totally unfair.
To wolves.
What Thump & Co. are is human.
H. Sapiens (H. Saps) Extremis. Or, more precisely, H. Narcissus.
The only "animal" we behave like is ourselves.
5
You took the words out of my mouth.
Absolutely unfair to wolves. They are social animals and live by their rules.
1
What other animal believes that one of its own made the whole universe?
1
It takes incredible chutzpah to lay the likes of trump and his posse of Jokers (proper name deliberate) at the feet of “European elites” and “progressives.”
3
The use of the word “wolves” to describe Trump and other dictators is an insult to the Canis lupus family.
3
Mr Brooks makes all this too complicated. It is much simpler.
A skunk showed up at the picnic.
6
Wow, a very damning and on-target portrait of the USA president and his approach to politics! From my perspective, the failure of many national moral leaders to address the issue has actually contributed to it. Well, indeed, whole segments of religious communities of all faiths have seemingly bought into the Trump "modus operandi."
2
"The core issue in our politics is over how we establish relationship. You can either organize relationship at a high level — based on friendship, shared values, loyalty and affection — or you can organize relationship at a low level, based on mutual selfish interest and a brutal, ends-justify-the-means mentality."
Mr. Brooks, the KKK, Nazis, Bloods, Crips, Mafia and other like minded groups have been around throughout world history and cultures. Such groups have the high level of organized relationships you mention. GOP members have failed repetitively to publicly castigate their party's Standard Bearer. Therein is a problem. Its not just 'social' relationships that matter most but the degree of individual morality and ethics each member personally represents.
4
Brooks is the absolute last person I would ask to analyze foreign policy, now or ever. An inch wide and an inch deep.
4
For those looking for more on this topic, “Decline of the West” by Oswald Spengler is a jolly read.
Capitalism has run amok to democracy attested by a rising proletariat bonded in debt to the money monger yet unable afford the amenity of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Where some see gulags, others see condos.
3
What you forgot to mention is the pivotal role liberal intolerance and overreach played in getting there. Trump would never have been elected, if left-wing radical idealogues had not tried to ram-rod their coercive rules down the throats of so many people who were 1) not ready for dramatic overnight shifts in societal values, and 2) were rightfully resisting being told that they have to be either liberals or they are racists and bigots.
The way liberals behaved during the last Obama term was effectively indistinguishable from the way fascists behave to subjugate people, with the exception that the liberals would destroy your identity, pillory you, bankrupt you and make you homeless and the fascists kill you outright. The latter may actually be more merciful. Unhinged gender identity politics, bathroom fights and exorbitant fines for unbaked wedding cakes was too much for the people to absorb.
Trump was the emergency brake. It was pulled emotionally, not rationally.
Obama was right when he asked: "What if we were wrong?"
Well, he was.....
Now, how do we get our America back????
2
You should be thrilled. Thatcher said it years ago and you loved her as the Irish hunger strikers were dying; "There is no society". Your idol Reagan chimed in "vote with your feet" and "welfare queen". Well this is the end game, yet you still support Republicans who embrace this vile strain of lunacy.
4
Not playing by your rules? he is not playing with a full deck.
2
There's another way to look at this. Change is difficult and we are in a period of change. People feel anxious and respond to hate and fear.
Some leaders exploit that. They offer solutions that feel good to the anxious.
Looking at the rise of Adolf Hitler shows a similar pattern. It was a lesson I learned studying the lead-up to WWII when I was in high school.
Textbooks were explicit. The losses by Germany in WWI, the Great Depression, the breakup of empires, the rise of Communism, etc., etc, helped Hitler take power in Germany.
It's not "progressives" who are creating this problem, or at least no more than any political group trying to take advantage of opportunity. "Conservatives" have done their part to undermine trust and civility.
"Concentrating power upward" isn't what caused the decline of a sense of community. People go to whatever level of government that seems responsive to grievance. For many that had been the federal government with economic programs and support for civil rights.
What will happen when that system fails as it has been doing for at least a generation? Hoping for some sense of community seems kind of futile.
2
Why is it that Mr. Brooks' recent columns are so stuffed with glittering generalities lately? Why ask anyone to read, or give credence to a conclusion built upon the sand of "liberals think," "conservatives think," "Europeans think," "wolves think" (yes, wolves' thinking is somehow important to Mr. Brooks' thesis). It is silliness that Mr. Brooks presumes to know, and attempts to argue those diverse groups think homogeneously about anything at all---much less the ordering of world events.
Mr. Brooks, is there a difference between a wage slave and a real slave?
No and let me explain why.
Trump is attempting to merge the world of politics with the ethics of our business community and as you know Mr. Brooks, business in its rawest form has no ethical framework beyond profit at all costs. It's actions are completely detached from the community it is supposedly serving. If they blow up, then they now have the means to bail themselves out, while destroying the wealth of those that exist beneath them.
One can say it is primal or part of the human psyche or Randian thought run amok, but Trump's actions do make perfect sense if you frame them entirely through the prism of business.
Everyone is your competitor, but we are still the biggest player.
And Trump now has trillions to play with.
Who needs the EU in this kind of a world? China clearly understands this and obviously so does Russia, but we still have the most tools to be that bully.
Trump has brought the Reagan Revolution full circle and turned it inside out and the GOP is finally getting its wish.
Why have ethics or morality when you can force your competitors to play by your rules?
How can anyone not see that the Kim/Trump summit was completely orchestrated? Is it not ironic that it was timed right after the G-7 Meeting?
This is the GOP's answer for governing.
Trump is the trojan horse, the bull in the china closet.
Trump wants everyone to be slaves to these conditions.
Now what?
Comparing Trump, Putin, Orban, Duterte, and Erdogan to wolves is an insult to our lupine brothers.
1
The working class being squeezed by globalization are not wolf-like animals. They may be rough around the edges, but most are hard working, good people who simply recognize that the system favors the educated elite (which would include David Brooks). Also, if our political and economic system promoted LOCAL commerce and social organization, rather than national/global, we would have a more prosperous, adaptive and sustainable society.
1
Too much of the black and white either / or in this piece. Either a wolf or a sheep. Either high trust or low trust. This piece does not view Trump and other authoritarians as symptoms of a gradual decline - incompetents elected because of the magical promises they offered to idiots who believed they will deliver. They will not be able to clear the rot that has set in. They are the rot made manifest.
This is a worse situation than an adrift and rudderless ship. This is a ship piloted by a madman who gleefully believes his ship is impervious and can sustain any amount of running aground, taking on water, abandonment of crew and cargo, etc. Trump actually views himself as the state. L'etat, c'est moi. Sure, Trumpy. Sure. What a fine ship to wreck.
As a malignant narcissist, Trump cannot see a world without him in it. As a mortal, nearing decrepitude - he is absolutely terrified of his end. So are the baby boomers, nearing decrepitude and the status anxiety whites who elected him. All are terrified of old age and the unknown of death.
What we are watching is Trump's slow suicide, played out in the public sphere. His thrashing, wailing, end. His thrashings and wailings will only increase as he becomes at the same time the most isolated and most heavily microscoped person on the planet. Reality television, indeed.
Hold on.
2
I see the guillotine in our future. They are quite efffective in handling extreme greed. The oligarchy care nothing about our infrastructure, which includes public schools, and our environment. We are nothing but serfs to them. How many children of the ultra wealthy serve in our military?
2
How quaint.
David nicely summarized the traditional conservative world view, although it would be more accurate to skip number 1 and begin with number 2:
"It begins with 1, some monumental sense of historic betrayal. This leads to 2, a general outlook that says the world is a nasty place, and 3, a scarcity mind-set that says politics is a zero-sum game in which groups must viciously scramble to survive. This causes 4, a pervasive sense of distrust and suspicion, and 5, the rupture of any relationship built on friendship or affection, and finally 6, the loss of any sense that there is such a thing as the common good."
1
Long ago, a very wise person gave me a guide to live on. She said, "Anything will work in an atmosphere of trust and nothing will work in an atmosphere of distrust. If you cannot establish trust, you simply have to leave."
We are in an era of distrust that demonstrates the correctness of her advice. Brooks's excellent article states it well. The trick is how to re-establish trust. We must not leave the nations with good values. The US must not be part of the wolf pack.
1
Please, try to be smarter. There is nothing wrong with wolves. Corrupt humans are the problem.
From President Trump's second inaugural address:
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a group of Americans dedicated to personal enrichment--born in the last century, emboldened by war in which they chose to not participate, made rich by a hard and bitter peace, indifferent to our ancient heritage--and willing to witness, permit, and encourage the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation had always been committed; rights to which we are committed today to destroy at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall have our people pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of our profitability.
4
"The grand project for those...who believe in a high-level, civilized world order is to find ways to restore social trust."
Trust of any sort, whether it's interpersonal or social, always begins with an acknowledgment of one's limitations and failings, one's own "part" in whatever went wrong.
Notwithstanding things like the Marshall Plan and Peace Corps, the US is, and has always been, far from perfect - particularly, I would suggest, morally.
The considerable good we've done for the world has not been done for purely altruistic reasons. What we've given the world has generally been substantially less than what we've taken from it.
Trump has lifted the veil. We should be grateful he's causing us to acknowledge how profoundly "America first" we've long been.
The grand project for those of us who want to believe in a high-level civilized world order is to stop settling for appearances, take off the mask, and seriously commit to telling the truth - about where we're at, why we're where we're at, and what we want to do DIFFERENTLY.
1
I believe both the deeds and pronouncements of Mr. Trump are fully consistent with those defining the extreme-right for centuries. Indeed what Mr. Brooks calls "selfish interest and a brutal, ends-justify-the-means mentality" has always been the hallmark of the extreme-right, wherever they have come to power.
What Mr. Brooks is reluctant to admit is that the Republicans have always wanted to run the US based on the extreme-right philosophy. But until recently, they did not get the chance to do so. Right after WWII, they had to deal with Soviet Union and the communist movement. So, they had no choice but to form alliances and have friendly relationships with other countries.
After the fall of Soviet Union, Bush 41 declared "The New world Order", but he did not get the chance to implement that for the US public decided to make him a one-term president. And Bush 43 time-in-office was spent dealing with 9/11 and two wars in ME. So, Mr. Trump is indeed the first president who is in the position to put into action policies of the extreme-right, unthwarted by any major conflict forcing him to seek alliances with other countries.
In other words, as a true extreme-right conservative, Mr. Trump is now free to dispense with the mask of friendship, alliance, or comradery. He can forgo with slogans such as "compassionate conservatism", "a kinder, gentler, America", or pretend to be disgusted with "a flagrant disregard for basic human rights" inside or outside the US.
4
But we now are in a moral race to the bottom. The elections of Donald Trump and all the other demagogues are proof of that. How do we reverse this trend?
1
This seems overly complicated. Yes it is high-trust vs. low-trust, but fundamentally itis just another chapter in the quest for the right balance between cooperative behavior and competition.
Competition has its benefits. Evolution is the prime example. What else could assemble a rocket ship from subatomic particles? But evolution is red in tooth and claw, and pure meritocracy seems to result in the top 10th of 1% owning everything. We end up with pitchforks at the gate. Trump.
So we look for cooperative behaviors that benefit all. The Marshall plan. Welfare and retirement benefits. International trade agreements. But everything can be over done. Communism seems to take away incentive, and, like trade agreements, comes with many restrictions on individual actions. These restrictions get annoying, as in Europe. So we get Republicans and libertarians. Then there is the issue of who will make these group decisions and how much power they should have.
So there are no easy answers. But apparently Trump, with his background of Roy Cohen his father‘s real estate dealings, has thoroughly internalized the competitive model. And thus he has become the great destroyer of agreements, starting with his subcontractors and creditors and ending who knows where.
Find another metaphor, David. Wolves cooperate, across groups as within their own families. They are also a natural part of a balanced, sustainable ecosystem. Or maybe you find Trump, et.al to be that?
2
You are correct. The other wolves in Trump’s pack are named Putin, Xi, Kim, Erdogan...
Donald Trump's world view is strikingly medieval. He is attempting to push the poor , in a feudal fashion, back to serfdom. He treats other countries , not thru their democratic interests, but rather as if they have Royal families. Thus , he deals with Putin, and his oligarchs, Kim and his dictatorship, Duerte , Erdegan, and whatever other strongman appeals to him. The relationship , rather than family , second cousins and ancient whatnot , is money. We have never had a President who has had the divided interest of country and personal company before, except for George III. How long until our ideals are returned ?
5
Forever with the analogies to the Middle Ages. What you are describing - essentially absolute monarchy - was unknown in the Middle Ages. The roots of shared governance are in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The would-be absolute monarchs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries bent their minds and their resources to creating regimes in which they did not have to consult or negotiate with anyone on the formulation or execution of policy. What you describe is a modern phenomenon, not medieval. The autocratic urge is real enough, but the institutions and ideals that you would have returned have their ideological, legal, and institutional origins in the Middle Ages and then, after a fervent attempt at absolutism in the early modern world, in the American and French Revolutions.
I'm not a historical scholar but I knew what unclejake meant, and I think you are totally missing the point.
David Brooks makes some interesting and valid points, but, fails to answer to key question: Why is it so easy for the Trumps of this world to destroy the relationships built on trust among the like-minded peoples? Could it be because the needs and aspirations of the masses got subjugated to the ideas and goals of self-appointed "educated elites"? Interestingly, he ends by quoting Mandela's inaugural address plea. Well, we can see how well that is working out...
5
The bad inevitably drives the good out of any human pursuit that neglects to enforce minimum standards of conduct on its participants. I didn't make this up. It is called "Gresham's Law".
Or perhaps Trump threw a tantrum at the G-7 because he knew he could get away with it, like a tempermental adolescent knows that his parents won't throw him out of the house if he breaks the stereo. On the other hand, throwing a tantrum with Kim Jong-Un could lead to a war in Korea and who knows what else. When the stakes are low, Trump feels he can act how he wants knowing that the negative effects will come years later, if ever. When the stakes are high, he backs down.
5
I'd be tempted to agree with at least some of this were it not--as usually--suffused with Mr. Brook's delusional nostalgia for "post-war order" (in the West) and its "founding generation". Things were far from all hunky-dory in that order, and it was unsustainable in the long run which is one reason why we are where we are today. Another is the so-called "triumph" of capitalist society over communism. Communism was never the problem--the Soviet Union, Stalin et al (yes, including Putin) were.
The truth is, civilization has yet to devise a "world order" that accounts for and neutralizes the darker side of human nature instead of ultimately valorizing it.
4
High-trust always plays the dupe for low-trust, but Brooks doesn’t want to admit that.
He claims: “The grand project…is to find common projects…that diverse people can do together.” David, unless you mean projects like trading recipes, your proposal sounds a lot like Socialism where everyone participates in and benefits from the project. Otherwise, your grand project is imprisoned in the realm of the abstract (“faith,” and “trust”), all marketing and little substance - a mass hysteria project destined to be exploited by the powerful, patriotic opiates disseminated by oligarchs.
Because while everyone is joining hands in displays of social trust, capitalism and the oligarchs will be stealing the profits, all the while convincing us that unity (like standing during the national anthem} is the Holy Grail. And many Trump supporters are just fine with that, because they believe, like Brooks, in self-reliance as the bedrock American value, and are willing to be sacrificed over and over for a dopamine fix, a jolt of tribal nationalism.
Brooks’ project of old-time unified faith is Trump’s art of the deal – a con, a hustle. “Shared values”? Whose values?
It’s folly to cling to abstractions for salvation. “Building things together” should mean that everyone gets a piece of what they have collectively built. But Brooks wants it both ways: rugged individualism with a glossy veneer of unity. As long as we pray together, it’s ok for rugged individualists to game the system.
2
Michael, like David Brooks' writing, I found your response just as riveting, with one exception: you seem to revel in the futility of life, 'together' or not. Brooks at least outlines the source of his bias, identifies his interpretations roundly and suggests that such an emphasis MAY lead to something more positive than the status quo. His humility allows me to be open to his thoughts, while your emphatic judgements, simply add to my concern and fears.
Thank you David Brooks, for one of the most insightful articles to surface in the New York Times in months.
This article should be required reading for anyone who wants an education about how Donald Trump truly operates .
"1, some monumental sense of historic betrayal. This leads to 2, a general outlook that says the world is a nasty place, and 3, a scarcity mind-set that says politics is a zero-sum game in which groups must viciously scramble to survive. This causes 4, a pervasive sense of distrust and suspicion, and 5, the rupture of any relationship built on friendship or affection, and finally 6, the loss of any sense that there is such a thing as the common good."
This is the Republican Party since Reagan. The historic betrayal of giving non-whites a seat at the table and using taxes to help the less fortunate among us. Government is the problem, ergo Democrats are the problem. Regulation is bad. You are on your own. Good luck! Now let's go spend your money on wars of choice!
5
Wow! Nice column, David Brooks. You have really thoughts things over and have contributed fresh insights into our changing, shifting culture.
2
Trump is governing like a businessman. There are few rules in capitalism, competition and market dominance and winning are stressed. Trump is demonstrating why you cannot run government like a business, especially a family-owned corporation. Corporations have little use for the Constitution--they barely acknowledge their own charters. Which is fine, because it's a different environment where many of those values are critical. But in institutions created by the will of "We the People" there must be more accountability and legitimacy than what is expected or perhaps even possible in business.
6
Knowing that Congress was wary of the growing European war a farsighted FDR recast the debate about helping England in the creation of the Lend-Lease plan by asking who would not offer a hose to a neighbor whose house was on fire?
Before becoming president Donald Trump argued against having fire extinguishers above a certain level in his Trump Tower, apparently not believing in protecting his tenants if he didn't have to. So it is with alliances; a fire brigade of one is not enough to deal with calamities, economic or otherwise, among democracies, but our nation is not protected from whim or insults with this level of personality driven government.
It has to change or the seeds now being sown will turn out to be salt on the failing soil of civilization advancement.
2
Mr. Brooks's has come up with one of those profound-sounding uber-theories that gives philosophy a bad name. He would have it that on one side are those who have been undermining the postwar order by forgetting how capitalism was once "balanced" with communities, and on the other side are elites who are so arrogant they forget that human beings need strong communities.
In the entire history of capitalism, including its innocent beginnings in the late middle ages, there was never a single moment when capitalism was "balanced" with communities, and even the idea that it took any account of communities at all is risible. It was a political and economic system based on private greed played out in the public sphere, with capitalists, instead of the state, getting control of trade and production for their own profit. Capitalism, by treating human beings as replaceable cogs, strips human beings of self-respect and dignity--the very things that make for strong communities.
Elites and the educated did make one big mistake, however. We all forgot that modern liberal democracy is fragile. Ignore the needs and longings of regular people, insult them, fail to flatter them and treat them with respect, and the stage is set for the demagogue.
15
While I disagree with much of this column, there is a lot Brooks gets right, and I am depressed at the fatal combination of arrogance and ignorance on the part of Western Society's elites that has - once again - brought us to this very dangerous place.
I say "once again", because the progression Brooks describes in the eighth paragraph might just as well be taken from Eric Hoffer's relevant little book, "The True Believer", which is a study of the psychology of mass movements and should be required reading for every single Democrat in the country.
We're in dangerous territory, and it will take someone other than Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Chuck Schumer to get us out.
1
Well done! "Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in." How true! And emphasis on shared activity for building social bonds and trust. Also true but difficult to accomplish.
1
You establishment conservatives have enabled the racist populists, and now you try to blame the rest of us. Shame on you.
22
Once again David Brooks weeps over the ashes while he smells like gasoline.
11
The incombustible go where angels fear to tread,
David Brooks is right that Western Leaders after WWII were afraid of Nationalism. They saw what ethnic nationalism did in Germany and vowed to take a different course. What David Brooks gets wrong, however, is that there is a different course: civic nationalism. This is the nationalism where 4th of July parades are about kids on decorated bikes and local community groups rather than the tanks and planes you see in Russia and North Korea, and now the US with Trumps Military Parade. This is the nationalism that is supported by the majority of American voters who did not vote for Trump and his ethnic nationalist agenda. The only reason Trump is building up Putin and Kim and tearing down Trudeau and Merkle he wants to legitimize the authoritarian ethnic nationalism he wishes for his own rule, while delegitimizing the pesky liberal democracy that keeps telling him he's not the king. Republicans like Brooks love Trump because he gives them everything they want without compromise. Brooks is happy to have a king that thinks like he does, even if it destroys democracy.
2
I believe if you read David Brooks often, and this article again, you will understand that Mr. Brooks loathes Donald Trump and is once again trying to understand how he ever became president of the United State of America. Many of us who are registered republicans are trying to do the same.
It is important that we all continue to explore and understand where we stand and what happened to the feel good patriotism and what that means.
Those of us who opted for Hillary were not happy with that choice and wonder how we can get to a choice of leadership that is respectful of others, pragmatic and wise. No one seems to have an answer.
5
Thank you for for reply. I would love to work with you to build a better community within the US. The main problem I see with moving forward is that 80% of Republicans support Trump in the job he is doing, which very sadly puts you in the minority. Even worse, I hear many Republicans saying that they don't like Trump's "character flaws", but are very happy with the political agenda he is enacting through his brutal political tactics. For this article, I see a similar problem: I do agree with what Brooks that people elected Trump to attack "liberal elites" and that it is his brutal style that makes him more comfortable with authoritarian dictators rather than democratic leaders -- and has changed politics in the US into one of brutality vs cooperation. However, the problem I see with Brooks's columns in general is that he says he does not like Trump, and yet over the years he has advanced exactly the same narrative that Trump uses to justify his politics: that cultural elites are "out of touch" and that he's here to give a voice back to the little guy. Whether or not the "cultural elite" are wrong or even exist at all, I think neither Trump nor Brooks are succeeding at helping the little guy -- or anyone -- with this approach. My post above was a bit of a rant -- and I guess this one is, too --, especially compared to your measured and well thought out response. I really do hope there is a way forward, but it is going to require a change in narrative as well as leadership.
Unfortunately, there's more than "one historically proven way for people to build community across difference:" the other is war.
3
War imposes uniformity by annihilation.
After praising the founders of the postwar order for building a "series of alliances to create a stable trading system, " David Brooks criticizes European elites for their "illusory dream" of establishing a Pan-European community. Perhaps Mr. Brooks would have a more favorable view of the European Union if he were a Frenchman who had seen his country invaded twice by the German army in the first half of the 20th century.
13
Well put. Every village in France, however small or remote, has erected a monument to the sons it sent to war and never welcomed back. If he has not already done so, Mr. Brooks should spend a week in Verdun. He should tour it's cratered landscape, see the crosses stretched out for miles, and visit the ossuary with the skulls and bones of young men -- French and German together -- heaped together by the millions. European efforts at pan-national alliances come not from economic greed but a desperate desire to make and preserve the peace. Mr. Brooks proves time and again that one can read history and commit dates and events to memory without ever, really, understanding them.
2
Thank you. Well said. But I doubt any of the people who should read this and take it to heart will do so. Trump not only despises anything about old world order, democracy, loyalty, or any similar values, he doesn't care who or what he destoys. And he has no other plan except to destroy. Many good people and things are being savagely butchered through his psychotic dictatorship.
6
This has nothing to do with historical trends of leaving people behind by the elites. There have always been aggrieved groups filled with self-pity that have salivated over demagogues who promise to make everything better for them. This has everything to do with a foul-mouthed buffoon who has taken over 40%+ of this country and the political party that is aiding and abetting his dreadful actions. Nixon taught his party the power of the "southern strategy" in a racist country and Reagan planted the seed in the minds of the poorly educated that government is evil. Since then the Republican party has been on an anti-democratic, every-man-for-himself course that set up the electorate to be blind to what progressives have to offer and to bring to power the current aberration of the Trump presidency. Mr. Brooks, you were along for the long part of that ride and now that you see where it has led you are aghast but without you and your cohorts we would not be in the mess we are in today.
29
Absolutely, but I remember a few years ago when after visiting South Carolina I think Brooks talked about a wing of the Republican party being the white supremacist party and was shocked that it existed. It's as if he had not heard or studied the Southern Strategy of Nixon and that generation of cynical Republicans. When you dance with the devil, he calls the tune.
5
Darwinism, Mercantilism, Fascism, America First...
Mr. Brooks, the institutionalization of liberal democracy with independent judiciaries and free press was overlaid upon a world seething with hatred, frustration and scapegoating. World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and the hundreds of regional conflicts bear testimony to the 20th century's nasty, brutish and short human condition. And every century preceding it. The world's dictators--Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao especially, knew to harness these hatreds and fears and redirect them to 'Communism First', 'Fascism First', 'Nationalism First'. This was not an unmitigated disaster as oppressive ruling oligarchs and feudalism were destroyed in the process. But humanity being humanity, new brands of oppression, oligarchy and human oppression emerged.
The "grand project" is to name these aberrations and unite the forces of good to defeat them. To defend against being coopted by the rich and powerful. This is what the EC, UN, NATO, international trade, progressive taxation, education and healthcare are about.
Mr. Brooks does little to advance these causes with ambiguous nostrums exhorting us to build a better world. We're facing a return to right wing barbarism, arrogation of power and wealth, oligarchy in the guise of populism. Europe, Russia, China and here in the US.
If you're reading this op-ed you're likely comfortable and part of the problem. If you've authored it you are a problem.
5
The Trump fans like Trump are nihilists up for a joyride with no game plan. They let themselves get played for the most part by the Republican establishment, and now they are getting played by Trump and the Republican establishment.
Trump plays by no rules because he is some foolish entertainer who entrances his fellow fools into tearing up the playing field.
Somehow everything will be great- the same but better. How, you might ask? Trust me Trump knows what he's doing. Like the Rain man he's an excellent driver.
If we don't crash, and if we are "great again" it will be at the Trump voter's expense and their destructive wrath
When they come to their senses and Trump is out of the picture we can build a better world
For once I can agree completely with Mr. Brooks. Unfortunately there are fellow citizens unable to discern truth from fiction, and screaming rants from actual facts. Trump enthusiasts are either ignorant, wealthy or religious zealots. The religious see trumps misogynistic, racist, abhorrent behavior as between him and God, ignoring reality, morals and ethics. The wealthy, whether they be individuals or corporations view him as a cash cow showering them with money. The ignorant watch Fox news and laud trumps tweets and actions, as their safety nets are shredded, science is ignored, dictators are admired, lakes are polluted, the environment is ravaged, and health care is dismantled.
3
Nice, lofty words but as someone with a bully pulpit you have a responsibility to speak up loudly and constantly about the treasonous devastation this president is causing our country. I would refer you to today's Michelle Goldberg column.
3
He learned at the knee of Roy Cohn. There is no other acceptable trajectory for him, regardless of the outcome on global systems.
1
You demean wolves by the comparison. We fool ourselves to think this president is rational, can be tamed, or there is still hope for him. He is who he is. 3 more years, that's all. Then we recover and re-build.
3
“...power structures are being reorganized...across the world.” When Trump became President the US had alliances with over 70 countries. China had one — N. Korea. Trump is destroying a very valuable geopolitical advantage. I’m sure neither Xi nor Putin can believe their good fortune.
2
Wolves? Please don’t insult these beautiful, loyal creatures. Jackals? Now there’s an apt comparison. Hideous cowards that feast on the fruits of another creatures’ labors.
5
A liar has a built in advantage over truth tellers, but it is an inherently limited advantage, lasting only until the lies are exposed.
Then the liar needs to move on to another innocent mark. Despite the accepted view that Trump's supporters don't fit this mold, they merely occupy the sucker's chair, waiting for the ax to fall, and the lies that they rely upon to become manifest.
Trump has, or will shortly, run out of marks.
1
“Those who lost faith in this order began to elect wolves in order to destroy it.”
Please don’t tell me that Trump voters analyzed the “order” , decided that they can’t trust the “order” anymore and voted for an uneducated and ignorant buffoon with the mandate to destroy it.
You give Trump voters way too much credit for their ability to make a rational election decision and you give Trump way too much credit for having an actual plan.
4
This is what happens when we elect a classic huckster into office.
P.T. Barnum's statement "There's a sucker born every minute" applies here.
We have to educate the young before they find out the hard way.
1
How many troops did Nelson have ?
To return to the 'high level' relationship is now likely impossible. True, it happened following WWII, but there is now a big difference. It is not technology or concentrated wealth, it is that back then there were about 2 billion people on the planet, now there are almost 4 times that number. With almost 8 billion people and many more on the way, the planet's natural resources are being exhausted and the future is 'low level' relationships as we fight over the remaining resources.
1
To wage war on each other over resources, we must procreate more soldiers. History just repeats on grander scales.
You write about the world "in which wolves thrive, which is a world without agreed-upon rules, without restraining institutions, norms and etiquette." I disagree. Every rule-breaker depends on the rest of us to follow rules, norms and etiquette. Why else is Donald Trump so bothered about people being "mean" to his family, while he trashes presidents, senators, and prime ministers? If he has no use for restraining institutions, why pack the courts and why file bankruptcy through them instead of merely walking away from his debts?
6
Start with corporate culture. You describe two types of relationships, "shared values, loyalty and affection — or you can organize relationship at a low level, based on mutual selfish interest and a brutal, ends-justify-the-means mentality." Which one describes the daily work environment for most people, and the attitude of Management (capital) towards labor. What culture is pervasive in America most resembles the catch phrase "you're fired". What system have most Trump voters lost faith in.
3
Agree with everything written, except comparing these men with wolves is insulting to wolves. Give me a wolf anytime, at least you know what you are getting, behavior is based on nature. Trump is based on narcissism, ego, greed, and hunger for power, all humanity at it's worst.
9
In the words of Voltaire, Democracy is rule by the idiocy of the masses. What we have in America today might serve as a textbook example to illustrate his point, at least for roughly 40% of the population.
4
Mr. Brooks, you define a trend towards "wolves" and place the American President in a list with those of Russia, Hungary, Turkey and the Philippines as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The US doesn't naturally belong on ANY lists with those four. This is not normal. This is not a natural evolution. This was not inevitable. The man was not elected by a majority of citizens, nor does he have the support of the majority of our country.
It's almost noble how you seek and craft sophisticated explanations for the mind-bogglingly dangerous behavior of a simple man. Forget trends. Trump is a willfully ignorant narcissist, a masterful con man, and most likely a compromised Russian asset. Looks, acts, talks, destroys–duck, duck, duck, duck.
13
Amanda...You show a stunning lack of knowledge as to our republican form of democracy...
Our national government is known as the United STATES of America for a reason.
And whether you are willing to admit it or not, most of the governing of our nation occurs at the STATE level.
What is needed to stop gangster capitalism? Strong government, strong unions and strong law enforcement Mr. Brooks. Why do you always seem to miss the obvious, is it deliberate on your part?
4
"The only constant is change."
-- Heraclitus
"All things must pass."
-- Matthew 24:6-8
"What goes up, must come down."
-- Blood, Sweat & Tears
"I'm not afraid of death.
I just don't wanna be there when it happens."
-- Woody Allen
1
It's not only Trump not playing by the rules, it's 40% of Americans backing him. It's not only his/their mistrust of the other side, it's his/their casual disregard for objective facts and scientific expertise. I'm seeing more people demanding respect and equal time for their often-unjustified or unproven beliefs and opinions not because they're true but because of freedom and individuality.
8
They are trained to wish things into existence, as their God imposed the universe on empty space. Working out the details for engineering purposes loses the spell.
Brooks has some good ideas here.
There's only one problem. He never, ever can bring himself to say that income needs to be redistributed. He cannot face the fact that income inequality is the real problem and that government has to do something about it.
No, in Brooks' mind, the problem is that we're all immoral. I wish he would speak for himself on that one. I'm not immoral. My problems have arisen because the politicians the right has raised to office want to manipulate social structure so that they get payed well helping the hyper-rich appropriate everything to themselves. Pickety pretty much proved that laissez-faire capitalism leads to the enrichment of a few and the penury of the many.
It's time for Brooks to come to terms with this.
14
Mr. Brooks also forgets to mention that dysfunctional systems often cannot be corrected by minor adjustments...
And aren't the attitudes of the elites and bureaucrats an insidious expression of selfishness and disdain of concept of government of The People, by The People, for The People.
Perhaps a Trump-like figure is what is needed to jolt the governing classes into understanding what the United STATES of America is and how its constitution says it must be governed.
Another shallow Brooks interpretation. The real problem is the underlying story we've been telling ourselves. The free market capitalism we claim to practice is not the free market capitalism of Adam Smith. The Christianity we practice is not the selfless, compassionate faith of Jesus (pray for and love your enemies?). The Doctrine of Dominionism is simply a cover for rapacious greed. Manifest Destiny is great if your not Native American. The land of opportunity is wonderful if you're not a black man.
You see, Brooks has all his life jaunted around with the privileged power class, and he's, well, just ignorant. His world view is based on unproven and dishonest fairy tales and he's too afraid to dig down and have his ego-protective cognition challenged.
12
Mr. Brooks, the rise of Trump or someone like him was the inevitable result of your party's march against reason, science, diplomacy, decency, and democratic values. You and your ilk enabled this.
28
Build together. If community is to exist, this is a base line imperative. How many opportunities have required this but not delivered on its necessity, health insurance? Budgets reflecting divisions, not shared dreams. Governing by pen and telephone? The constitutional order is predicated on compromise which is a necessity when building together.
We have lost that ability in our national and many state and local governing institutions. It is what can we get and how to get someone else to pay. One supports the military and another unlimited migration from favored populations.
Obama felt forced to govern alone; now Trump is forced to do the same. And both parties cry shame on one but not the other. Those who would work together are mostly shunned.
3
If I had the email list of the 1.7 billion millennials world wide, or even the 75 million in the United States I would send David Brooks column today to every last one of them and simply say: You have a choice coming and what will you choose: to live under authoritarian rule(s) or live under freely elected leaders (even at the risk of making a mistake in selection occasionally).
But I will send his column to the 20 millennials I interact with and sometimes mentor because they believe in me knowing up front that I believe in them. And they will do their best in the years ahead to win more millennials to turn away from authoritarian rule(s). Some may not agree
with David's column today, but for me it is quite simply one of his best columns ever.
9
Excuse me, Mr. Osterman...In spite of thinking to the contrary, the election of 2016 in our country was a free and fair one under the rules that have been in effect since 1787.
Ah, but the popular vote went to Clinton, you say...
Yes, that is true. No denying it. BUT...
Let me remind you at we are the United STATES of America, not the United PEOPLE of America.
Our states retain far more power over the lives of the residents of the states than the Federal government ever will. That is how our Constitution forms our federal republic.
I recommend that you look up in your dictionary the words "republic" and "federal, and then reread the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the rest of the amendments...
What you think they say is far less relevant than what they ACTUALLY say.
Trump's Executive Branch has been far more respectful of the institutions and processes than Obama's by a large margine...
And that branch of the government has been far less authoritarian, too.
Mr. Brooks and pundits of similar persuasion have been willing coconspirators in the transformation of the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Trump. This didn’t happen overnight. It has been an ongoing process for the 40 or more years during which any initiative to promote the common good has been denigrated as a needless and wasteful extension of the welfare state. It has destroyed all norms of governance and installed a Senate leader who refused for a year to have a vote on an open Supreme Court seat and a Speaker eager to use the teachings of Ayn Rand as the guiding principles for how we treat our most needy citizens. They also remained mute when informed by our national Security community that a foreign adversary was meddling in our elections because they were benefiting from the meddling.
The last Republican president falsified intelligence to justify an invasion that the word community opposed. Are Trump’s action that much different? He is not an aberration. He is the culmination of transformation of one of our political parties into runaway force for the destruction of all society’s norms. Until the punditry admits this fact, little can be done to reverse the process.
24
The current GPO was hasn't been the "Party of Lincoln" for about a century. All the ideals of anti-slavery, anti discrimination and help for the poorest among us disappeared when all the Southern (and Northern) racists fled to the Republican Party with the Civil Rights Act.
1
Canada has a youthful vital leader who brims with compassion and optimism.
The USA has a sclerotic fat old man who trusts nobody and is jealous of all.
That is the reality of who we are.
8
Nothing ideological about Trump. In 'Vanity Fair Diaries', Tina Brown related how his brother said that as a child Donald was the kid at the birthday party who threw cake at everybody. She also personally witnessed him at a large gathering grab a drink and throw it down the back of an editor's dress (one who had written an unflattering column about Trump ) and then furtively leave (Brown: 'the petulant infant and coward didn't even have the courage to confront her to her face').
2
Great article, wrong metaphor. Wolves don't behave like this. They are highly social animals that are successful in nature because of their cooperative group structure. Nothing like Trump and his fellow demagogues.
10
"The low-trust style of politics is realism on meth"
fixed your definition, David. Low-trust is not realism pumped up; it's paranoia, blown out
5
Trump is not playing by different rules, by his own rules. He's simply a cheat and a nasty bully who has a long history of not honoring his side of deals that he has made.
And he enjoys it when he hurts other people. If you haven't looked at all the times he ruined his business partners, notice his business policies.
3
Grossly unfair to wolves. They are pack animals, bound by loyalty and affection to the group. The people Brooks writes of are much worse.
5
"Donald Trump Is Not Playing By Your Rules"
Donald Trump is Not Playing With A Full Deck. FAR more accurate headline.
16
It's one thing to dislike, even despise Trump (how could an irrelevant elitist like Brooks?) but to compare him to a murderous thug like Rodrigo Duterte is an outrage. It is so wildly off as a comparison that it raises serious doubts about EVERYTHING else you say. As for the crude comparison between those who continue to "trust" and those who don't -- it's not a simple divide between "sweetness and light" on one side and dark nationalism on the other -- it's between the winners in the globalist game and those who either are among the losers or who have only recently emerged from historical isolationism into the freer air. Give them time. As for the sophomoric Justin Trudeau and Trump -- it's not about Trump's preference for the monsters. It's about a much more familiar phenomenon: it's much easier to berate someone in the family than a stranger or outsider. Occam's Razor is a better guide than most of Brook's pseudo "Big Think" formulations. He's not Talleyrand; he's an embarrassment.
1
The wolves were NOT “elected.”
5
Please stop saying “conservatives”, Mr Brooks. Call them what they are: Republicans.
4
I'm tired of elitist conservatives bemoaning thought and criticality.
11
Comment of the year candidate right here.
Short, sweet, and searing.
I salute you.
2
Wow. A whole column without the false equivalency Brooks usually uses when criticizing the right. What, no quick sentence about how bad Hilary and Obama were? Wow.
4
Things used to be based on trust? You mean like between the Revolutionaries and the Loyalists? Between the free states and the slave states? Between the Pinkerton backed factory owners and the Haymarket strikers? Between whites and blacks?
It has been turtles all the way down, David. The current version probably isn't even any uglier than the others. It's just right there in our faces.
10
Mr Brook's editorial starts out with some good analysis on the evolution of Conservatism, Nationalism and Progressivism. I was looking forward to an in depth intelligent critical thinking piece. Instead I got more Trump bashing. Now he equates Trump with Putin and Edrogen. Really Dave? Lets keep it simple so Dave can understand. Dave if you had a brother who owned a business with you and had made a deal with some friends that benefited them more than you and your brother and you found out what would you do? Keep it in place? Change it? if you tried to change it does that make you someone who is seeking to change your friendships. Someone looking to become a huckster? Maybe it just makes you someone who is looking out for yourself and your family as all people do. Maybe just maybe those friends will respect you just a tad more and become better friends. Food for thought Dave. "All we are saying is Trump a chance" I think John Lennon said that. Bye
1
Nothing like a good justifiable war to bring us together á la WWII except that now our friends are our enemies and our enemies are our friends.
3
We have always been at war with Eurasia. Or Eastasia. I forget which one.
How do you intellecutalize what the Republican party has been up to since 1980 and fail to see Trump coming?
Brooks, like Megan Kelly, continues to have "the checks keep coming" while he, like the overwhelming majority on the right continue in their media induced blather of the the 1980's. Reagan conned you then-talked obout prosperity and left us a debtor nation. In my lifetime I have never witnessed anything else like the purpoesefull denial of history and conginitive dissonance of those who pulled the lever for Reagan's GOP, knowing full well it's success was predicated by Orwellian hate monsters like Lee Awater and Terry Dolan.
Community? Really? What did you think your complicity would really create? And don't say you were not aware of the resentment Reagan fed on. Buy the con in 1980. Get the full blown version in 2016.
1
Gosh! I cannot believe it, Mr Brooks is actually finding serious fault with Trump. At last.
6
Let's give President Trump some credit! He is making fine progress and the Liberals don't like it!
Dave, the last time something like you're describing happened, we got World War II. Thank you, Conservatives everywhere....
5
We were on the way, Mr. Brooks, just one President ago, just two short years ago. I cringe on how the Right, which include friends and relatives, belittle Barack Obama at every turn. On a domestic front, his mere identity, being African-American defined unity and diversity. He fought to elevate the health of his people (ACA), we women, the LGBT community. He, NOT Trump, pulled us out of the Great Recession and attempted to bring jobs back to all of us. On the global front, he treated our allies from Europe to Canada with friendship and respect. We nations worked together on climate control and denuclearizing a rogue nation. We were always a team. That can happen again. Trump is an outlier to the trajectory of this country. He is but a bleep, albeit threatening, in an almost 250 year history of a democracy and a Constitution which have withstood the tests of time. We can have that back again, you know...but it is up to us not this Congress, not this Cabinet, and certainly not this president.
3
Trump has no rules.
2
What a slander against wolves! Wolves live in very strong communities with rules, etiquette, norms, etc. I wonder if they ever ask each other to stop acting like such human beings. If there is one species that is a disgrace to the earth, it is ours -- the one with all that "intelligence."
3
Brilliant. Low-trust is the ultimate darwinistic philosophy; where minorities, the economically, mentally or physically disadvantaged get shoved to the side and we become more and more a two class society bent on hate, white supremacist groups and militias, right-wing religions fight their way to the front and power. And maybe a world war thrown in just for kicks.
It's all happening. Just read the Times.
3
“Progressives were so besotted with their own educated-class expertise that they concentrated power upward and away from the people at the same time that technology was pushing power downward and toward the people.”
This statement is almost unbelievable.
So it’s Progressives (Democrats) who’ve been selfish, elitist, and eager to concentrate “power upward”?
And it’s conservative Republicans who’ve sought to defend the civil rights, health, housing, schools, and safety of “the people”?
Yeah. Right.
Is that why Republicans have now adopted rhetoric that preaches hatred of anybody with dark skin or of anybody who fails to marry and procreate according to the laws established by their own churches? Is that why Republicans have both planned and celebrated tax breaks for the filthy rich? Is that why Republicans, including your sainted Reagan, have done their best for years to destroy labor unions? Is that why Republicans are now in the process of erasing those pesky environmental regulations and are perfectly happy to know that children in Flint Michigan were poisoned by water saturated with lead (it saved money) and that young children of immigrants seeking asylum are being ripped from the arms of their parents?
Mr. Brooks, look around you. Then examine yourself.
33
My rules are the constitution. What are your rules, Mr. Brooks?
10
You can't build anything on a rotten foundation. The current order has been out-of-kilter economically and politically for some time. Trump is a wrecking ball that scrambles the order and gives us a chance to make needed changes.
2
Destroying the long held alliances, our own State Department, the EPA, HUD, FBI, et al, are "needed changes"? The list is much longer of course, but everything out the window? And what to replace it all with?
6
Yes, they need changing.
Any government agency that decides that their views are more important than those of the elected officials that "lead" them, there needs to be change.
Deep state, not matter how it is formed, is a threat to government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Dear Owl, you have it exactly backward. The US is built upon ideas, not personalities. It's precisely the rule of law and the continuity of ideas that keeps us functioning as a country.
It's also ironic that you extol the virtues of democracy while heralding, in this and other comments here, racism, authoritarianism and a cult of personality and also, seem firmly in the camp of a President who emphatically was NOT elected by a majority of voters and who is loathed by 2/3 of the country and whose party is both a minority party and behaving like tyrants.
Our agencies, our government, is not subject to the whims of people but rather is built on laws and ideas that are passed from term to term and generation to generation, evolving through the political process as the people see fit, but through consensus, not through the kind of destructive nihilism we see with this administration which in the case of EPA alone is tearing our country and our world to shreds.
I think that after some decades of civil wars, international wars , a few genocides, after tens of millions of deaths, the World will tired and go back to try to create a pacific coexistence.
2
Broks really got this one right. He succinctly lays out, often in a single sentence, the fundamental errors of thinking which have caused the factions to fail in their responsibility to 'make the world a better place'. My own group, 'Progressives were so besotted with their own educated-class expertise that they concentrated power upward and away from the people at the same time that technology was pushing power downward and toward the people.' None of this is to let the Trumps and Putins and Erdogans and Netanyahus off the hook, they are maggots attempting to take advantage of the situation. But there is still time for the decent people to wake up and embrace both reality and their decent values and goals.
1
Another half true (which makes it better than most of the McCarthyist myth making here or at FOX it's mirror image) article that nevertheless manages to avoid many unpleasant truths while refusing to acknowledge the reality that the so called good guys (ie the West) are as responsible as any for the mess we are in.
Let's start with the point made about trust, war and peace. In 2008 one could argue persuasively that it was the GOP who had lied and betrayed the common weal. (think Iraq, WMD's etc but in that they were helped by the MSM who lied and helped start a war)
You had Mitch McConnell and the others 'praying for America to fail' so as to hurt Obama. You had stupid destructive wars in the ME (Iraq, Afghanistan) that did not deal with the source of 911 but was a mere excuse for more US destructive nation destroying hegemony.
But what happened under Obama? Did we punish those guilty few who broke the worlds economy hurting the middle classes globally?? No we did not! Did we stop destroying the ME and help plug the flow of refugees that have done the real work of boosting neo fascism and racism in Europe?? No we doubled down on invasions, attacks and meddling (Libya, Syria, Ukraine) while supporting dictators over democrats (Honduras, Egypt) and attempted democracy overthrows (Turkey and Venezuela).
We continued the marginalization of the UN started by GW and pushed for McCarthyism and blaming Russia for everything while denying our own responsibilities in this mess!
3
You do wolves a great disservice
4
You write:
Progressives were so besotted with their own educated-class expertise that they concentrated power upward and away from the people at the same time that technology was pushing power downward and toward the people.
As your boy RR said "there you go again" with your distortions to contrive your dangerous false equivalencies between progressives and whatever "conservatives" are these days.
Ironic isn't it, the day after your SCOTUS cabal of 5 vote to suppress democratic votes in Ohio, and therefore across the 40 states dominated by Republicans, you somehow twist your otherwise brilliant mind in a pretzel to support the notion that your Republican party is just a coequal party with Democrats in the dissolution of our Democracy,
Please couple your mind with a moral spine and stop being the loyal apologist for this current group of political thugs.
3
David Brooks talks a good game, but he's not in the game. The couple of paragraph beginning "The episode illustrates..." are illustrative. He uses the royal We when talking about issues and relationships, but when it comes to actual work he immediately shifts to "you."
Mr. Brooks: We have a problem. You are the problem.
8
Van Jackson of Foreign Policy, probably understands the history of North Korea better than any other pundit, describes Trump as just another circus act one sees in Wrestlemania.
He has to stay in character for his groveling know nothing base and inner circle of John Bolton, Stephen Miller, and Sean Hannity.
Jackson goes on to explain that Trump must look nothing like an elegant leader such as Barack Obama, Macron, or Justin Trudeau. No he sneers at pretty boys who seek to play nice, then tweets that THEY are weak and dishonest!
But with brutal dictators he has found his niche. Trump is fascinated by Duterte, Putin, and Kim Jong Un as they are the “bad boys” that Wrestlemania’s audience (Trump’s base) has come to see.
At EVERY rally the base screams death threats at the journalists, then cheer as their number one bad boy walks in applauding himself.
Trump actually fought and wrestled at these events in the past and the crowd went WILD.
Now Trump sees other world leaders as either effete like Obama and Trudeau, or real men such as Kim and Putin. It makes NO difference that his heroes kill and starve their people...no to Trump that makes these autocrats stronger.
Our president lives in the fantasy world of pro wrestling with his own following screaming for takedowns and blood.
And the media goes right along with him actually suggesting that world peace will be accomplished with these witless brutes.
Sad!
13
Trump is a conman.
He is motivated by needing attention for himself.
He creates constant chaos to get that attention.
The question is why a percentage of Americans fall for it.
And history will not be kind to Republican politicians like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell who did not stand up to Trump.
It also may turn out that Trump has done Russian money laundering in his past.
4
Title should read: Donald Trump is Not Playing by Rules He doesn't know what rules are
4
Mr. Brooks column does a disservice to wolves.
10
So the burger chomping, twitter feeding, self proclaimed misogynist, white supremacist, Russian colluder actually has a plan and thinks about a new world order ? The rest of the new autocrats know very well what they are doing. Let’s not give Trump that much credit. He’s is a simple minded, mean spirited man that channeled enough American anger and got elected due to a flawed electoral system with the help of a foreign power.
2
Sir, this piece makes one want to purchase a ticket to Bourdain's latest destination.
1
A lack of trust in our current political institutions has been brewing for decades. To regain trust we need revisit our agreement on the rules. A constitutional convention could force the ruling class to face these disagreements and either accept the current social contract or forge a new and different one. For example. Do we want a presidency with all this power. Should we end the electoral college and have election of the president on a popular vote only? Should the congress select the president and be able to remove him by a vote of no confidence. The new politic is attacking our constitutionally mandated institutions and their legal schemes without a replacement other than an autocracy and or oligarchy which are operated by unfettered power schemes. The only measure of political value is wealth and celebrity - a recipe for oligarchy and autocratic rule.
It’s called democratic socialism, David, a/k/a “capitalism with a soul.” You’ve rejected that path for years, but now embrace it under another name. We don’t care what you call it; welcome to the club of those who care about each other and the world.
Trump is an extreme narcissist driven by egomania and greed. Those are the only factors that determine his "rules".
There is a complete failure in this analysis to recognize that in his undermining of the G7 alliance Trump is doing Putin's bidding. Trump's looks first and foremost after his own personal interests and in this case those interests are best served by continuing to play ball with Putin, to whom he owes his financial survival and possibly his election.
1
Crude, corrupt, and incompetent. There is no larger meaning to what he does. The world must be patient while we restore our house to order and have faith in the true character of the American people.
I tried to finish this piece but couldn't get past Brooks' love of his own flatulent concepts.
As "opinion" makers like Brooks continue to analyze Donald Trump through the lens of "institutions, norms and etiquette," the greatest con man in the history of the world and his abettors in Congress are dismantling democracy and lining their pockets.
Robert De Niro said it best on the Tony Awards telecast. Hopefully voters in November will heed his call to action.
Can I assume you have changed your mind about Trump being nothing more than a “pond skimmer”, Mr. Brooks? While running through your list of how wrong everyone else has been about everything, you might mention some of your own bad calls. It would be refreshing and a courtesy to your readers.
Trump admires and idolizes corrupt autocratic thugs abroad, while violating the Emoluments Clause at home. Self-interest above all else, pining for excessive adulation and facilitating personal enrichment — just like pals Putin, Duterte and Jong Un. Little concerned with his sworn constitutional oath, it's more rewarding for Trump to dangerously destabilize our world order in effort to seek approval from likeminded despot "wolves." His followers certainly seem content with photo ops and inflammatory tweets — the lack of policy details, substance or diplomacy unconcerning to them — while the rest of America and our closest allies remain mortified.
1
'Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in.' I am generally cool to organized religion, but seeing Trump hit that frequency of the shofar that crumbles pillars of civilized behavior, I'm ready to pray, God help us find the creative new thing in this destruction from the top. Following is from the Times article on Women's Day in UK, to show what it is like coming from below:...One woman knitted a pennant with the suffragette slogan “Deeds not words.” Another came with a banner evoking the phrase that became a tool of the women’s movement last year after United States Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was silenced during a debate: “Nevertheless, she persisted.”
Artichoke also hoped to erase any notion of the suffragettes as prim campaigners from a more polite age. They defied the law, went on hunger strikes, broke windows and set off bombs in pursuit of their goal.
“They were really extraordinary people,” Ms. Marriage said. “A thousand of them went to prison. They were force fed in prison. In today’s terms, they would be described as terrorists.”..
“They were really quite anarchic,” the artist Quilla Constance said while standing with a riotously colorful banner from the group Bedford Creative Arts. “They had to really fight. And we still have to fight.” Have there ever been boring times? They were celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the right of women 30 years old, Who Owned Property, to vote.
You do a disservice to wolves. Chimps might be a better analogy...
3
Hmmm, an argument for reverting to a Hobbesian state of nature cloaked in lamb's clothing.
This is surely Mr. Brooks's silliest column. He and the Progressives are high-minded and trusting. The others (Trump and all those who voted for him in 2016 and all those others who will vote for him when he is re-elected in 2020) are low-minded and distrustful (apparently "angry" has fallen out of favor in Mr. Broooks's circle).
Keep singing these lullabies, Mr. Brooks. The American people, however, are not playing by your rules any longer.
And just who do you mean by "The American people"?
We are many.
And not all of us are like you, or Mr. Brooks.
Speak for yourself.
2
"The grand project for those of us who believe in a high-level, civilized world order is to find ways to restore social trust."
Way #1: Vote Trump and the spineless sycophants who have enabled him OUT OF OFFICE.
2
"Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in".
Except most Americans, and our allies, have not lost faith in the post-war system. Trump is destroying the system because in his deepest core he doesn't believe in the possibility of a win-win situation. For him there is are only winners and losers. That is why he admires dictators - because they have "won".
What he has achieved in the past week is to anger our allies and empower our enemies. Anyone who thinks Russia has our best interest at heart must be in bed with the same people who are making Trump dance to their tune.
2
"But in the low-trust Trumpian worldview, values don’t matter; there are only interests."
David, this really isn't anything new in post-WWII American "diplomacy." It's just that most administrations at least try to wrap Ugly Americanism in nice wrapping paper and ribbon - Trump by his crudity and brashness is ironically being a bit more honest about American hubris and arrogance. Though it was evidently misattributed to the sanctimonious triumphalist (and supremacist) John Foster Dulles, and instead said by Charles de Gaulle, the quote is still apt, "The United States has no friends, it has interests."
"Elites of all stripes were so detached they didn’t see how untrammeled meritocracy divides societies between the “fittest” and the rest." Right. Meritocracy is the root of our problems? Sure, Capable people are what's wrong in the USA. That's why Trump graduated from Wharton without going to class. That's why "W" Bush was admitted to Harvard even though he was at the bottom of his high school class, and, graduated at the bottom of the Yale class (instead of being flunked out due to lack of capability). David, you really are disconnected from America's real problems. Capable people keep America RUNNING while the "W" and the Trumps seek to destroy it. "Merit" is not the problem in this country. "Legacy"; that process that promotes mostly white males of low/no capability into power is the problem. Let's re-define "Legacy" to what it really is: Low capable, White male, affirmative action. And, let's declare it the real root of the problem in America. Because, those that have benefited from "Legacy" for generations are the real problem in the USA. Not those with real capability who won their spots with excellence.
1
Incredible first sentence.
It's easier to go metaphorical and blame "wolves" than a virulently racist Republican Party for America's decline and fall. The GOP has descended into a Cult of Personality that Mao would envy were he still alive. I love my Country more than I despise the GOP. If only Republicans believed and acted the same way.
2
Mr. Brooks has it backwards. It is the likes of the G-7 and other supra-trans national groups businesses that are the wolf packs.
The clearest example is USA Tech, Google-Microsoft-Apple-Facebook, et al. This is a pack of wolves stalking the globe for the cheapest labor to devour.
Perhaps your best ever. Thanks.
1
Hobbes vs. Locke all over again
1
Brooks is wrong and I can prove it easily.
Obama had the Chancellor of Germany phones tapped.
www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-spying-obama/obama-acknowledges-damage-fr...
If relationship was based only mutual values and trust and friendship why did he tap her phones.
He didn't trust her.
Why would anyone think the USA would tap only her phones.
I believe he did the same with Israel and with his allies in Europe and in Asia.
In addition they probably do the same with each other and with the USA.
Just for the record. It has also been reported by German SPIEGEL magazine that the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) also had eyes on the U.S. -- so it's no big deal.
Every nation on this planet is spying on each other.
1
Trump's world is so much like Game of Thrones. Civilization deserves better.
1
But the "fly in the ointment" was one man: Trump. And Trump's actions are the failure of our democratic government, most directly the failure of the GOP Congress to do their jobs. The only way to rein in Trump is to treat him with the means he respects, a firm NO backed up with action. Talk is cheap and meaningless to an invertebrate liar. Trump has found the elected GOP Congress is completely toothless and hanging on his coattails because the entire nation has finally realized the GOP Party is solely interested in accreting the nation's wealth into the top percentages via corporate "welfare" and massive tax cuts to the very richest. (For the first time ever they publicly told us: they are voting his agenda to pay back their donors.)
Is there anything the GOP has done lately to help the majority of us? They are allowing corporations to poison our air, land and water with impunity, destroying our health care system while extracting maximum profits, and destroying the remaining safety net. Yes, work is an antidote to medicaid....except that most people capable of work are already working...tell your aged mother in a nursing home that she needs to go out looking for work, or the teenager with cerebral palsy or the adults that simply cannot work due to illness, mental disability or even that this country requires a car in most places (which requires a job to obtain).
The G7 reflects the failure of the GOP in governance.
"...systems that people have lost faith in." It seems to me that only Trump and his followers had lost faith in the G7.
Trump has rules...any rules? This is chaos theory with attitude, albeit incoherent attitude, in action.
There was no announcement..yet...that Trump has forged a military alliance with PRNK against the evil empire of Canada.
Can I assume you no longer believe Trump is nothing more than a “pond skimmer”, Mr. Brooks? While running through your list of everyone who has been wrong about everything you might mention some of your own bad calls. It would be refreshing and a courtesy to your readers.
4
Hmmm. I guess you could say that it takes a village to get past all this Trumpism.
Perceptive and accurate in most part, but you continue to try to salve your conscience by attributing failure to liberal and conservative parties equally, or to make the current state of affairs seem somehow part of an inevitable evolution of ideas. Wrong. Conservative greed, capitalist worship of money, resistance to programs that cost money but save people, false notions of some sort of benevolent economic aristocracy, all of which are notions you have endorsed for years, form the foundation for this wolfish behavior. Recognize your complicity and expose the GOP as the seed for this noxious weed. Understand that the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus are just racists, fascists, and nationalists dressed up in corsets and lipstick. Expose them and condemn the rotten core of your conservative belief system.
1
WOW! Mr Brooks is finally getting away from the pablum of the last 6 months and is finally writing some columns with teeth. Trump is a wolf and a bully, while having no convictions at all OR knowledge of the issues. Time for the GOP to recognize this and stand up to him. WAY past time.
The "base"
1
Trump trusts no one and redefine ethics and morality in the moment, redefining it again in the next. If we are to re-establish order, friendships, courtesy and community this must be done on the local level as we will get no leadership from the trumpians or their enablers n government.
Mr. Brooks' 6 point progression sounds a lot like what happened to the Republican Party after Nixon. His near impeachment sent many Republican movers and shakers over the edge (see Dick Cheney). They embraced the Dixiecrats who were also nurturing a long-standing grudge. Both took up Constitutional fundamentalism as a cudgel to defend their survival using imagined conspiracies to feed distrust and suspicion and hasten the destruction of community and the sense of the common good. Thank you Mr. Brooks for your concise and accurate observation.
What if I were to write that many men encountered are dimwits in the emotional department? The Red Queen used to tell Alice that while they were superior in her view, they were born with a far more sensitive nervous system. This made Alice snort.
Mr. Brooks remains honest and gives his readership something of value in this latest political fiasco, but it is no longer applicable when President Trump is portrayed in the midst. He is not in possession of his senses, and the title 'not playing by your rules' is borderline rude, because it is what is known as a blinding flash of the obvious.
Not playing by the rules was instrumental in having half our country vote for him. And watching him deteriorate, while we go about our daily business, is not only cruel but dangerous for all.
Here's a thought. Why not start with the fact that Donald Trump's behaviour wasn't only an a spectacular examole of brinkmanship, but unnecessarily rude -- especially that parting personal shot at the host of this summit and Prime Minister of our closest neighbour and second largest trading partner.
And try as you might, there's no way you'll ever convince very many that had Barack Obama pulled such a stunt as this, impeachment proceedings against him would be in full swing before he even left Canadian air-space.
Another apologist piece for a president who doesn't know the first thing about diplomacy except how to further isolate this country from its traditional allies and mug for the next photo-op....SAD.
2
What Mr. Brooks talks about sounds an awful lot like what Timothy Snyder calls the “politics of eternity”. I suggest reading Snyder’s On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century or his Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America.
The title of this column, "Donald Trump Is Not Playing by Your Rules," reminds me of a famous scene from the film, Apocalypse Now:
Colonel Kurtz: "Are my methods unsound?"
Captain Willard: "I don't see any method at all, sir."
Actually, I've thought of this scene many times since November 2016.
2
David, you insult wolves who are social animals. I won’t think of a replacement for your metaphor; I’ll leave that to you.
You cast too wide a net of blame. I think Obama was essentially correct when he said he was, perhaps, too early. Now THAT you CAN extend to the larger world. I’m afraid that the pressures of population, migration and environmental degradation will challenge a progressive world view with
the likes of Trump appealing to the “volk” and religious zealots in a downward spiral.
1
We must get back to building our democracy, one citizen at a time.
My wish is for every Republican Congressman to read this at breakfast.
Why is Russia a dictatorship?did not Putin win an election which by russian history was a fair election,Trump came in second by popular votes but he wins,guess that is an example of american exceptualism.Imagine if America suffered a defeat as Germany did after WW1and then hyperinflaltion followed by a depression,the world would again need Russia to defeat a new threat to world peace.
Gosh David, sounds like an awfully potent argument against capitalism to me.
Who said,”Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing?”
Vince Lombardi, but hopefully he only meant in "sports."
1
I keep thinking that you have reached the limit of your self pity and then "Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in."
You are once again projecting your gloomy poor David vision onto reality.
The only people who have lost faith in the systems that we have tried ever so hard and ever so long to implement the Principles of Liberty Equality and Justice for all and always against the greed and fury of the would be super people such as Trump and his many co-criminals are people who despised the Principles to begin with and others whose courage and drive faltered when their rose colored glasses did not see what they liked.
An warrior in these ancient and on going battles once said, "From the Beginning they struggled.
From the Beginning we conquered!
We do not admit into the great battles the small worms that crawl in the mist."
The constitution was designed to separate powers so no President or Congress could wield dictatorial powers.
The Republicans who control both Houses have failed their constitutional responsibilities to curb the President who thinks he is king. The moral race to the bottom of the slime pool has been led by McConnell and Ryan. Not me nor the rest of the American people who do not have a hand on the levers of power.
Is it time for Brooks to lay the responsibility for Trump exactly where it should lie, the Republican Party.
1
The trend sometimes affects relations between the sexes too, turning affectionate cooperation into meritocratic, “non binary” competition.
Trump is not playing by the old rules. Unfortunately he's also not playing with a full deck.
2
I sincerely hope that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau not only washed his hands after shaking hands with American president Donald Trump; I hope he took a long, hot shower. It may be years before the bacteria are gone.
"The grand project for those of us who believe in a high-level, civilized world order is to find ways to restore social trust." Sorry, Mr. Brooks, your Republican Party gave away the store; the great watershed in American politics wasn't the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon in 1968. It was the election of Ronald "trickle-down" Reagan in 1980, a man who blowtorched the meaning of America when he said, on his very first day at work, "government is the problem." It's awfully difficult, Mr. Brooks, for a country to relinquish its soul to greed and ideology and racism and, some three dozen years later, comes to find out that it cannot locate the keys to civility, decency, fairness. "Government is the problem" said to America: "go your own way; we will not save you."
Your comparison of Donald Trump's atomization of the Republican Party to that of the G7 summit over the weekend is an empty falsehood. None of Trump's rivals for the GOP nomination were good and decent individuals with "We, the People" in mind; they were plutocrats and bigots and imbeciles and religious zealots, the lot.
Madames Merkel and May; Messers Trudeau and Macron and Abe and Conte were blowtorched by the unprecedented rudeness of the American president, a proxy for Vladimir Putin.
3
David, you try too hard. More on that later.
Trump doesn’t play by our rules? You must kidding us, David.
We know that David. We’ve been telling you and the Republican Party that very thing for a long time. Every respectable Republican has been saying the same thing. What took you so long?
This is really simple stuff, David.
Forget the new world order. Trump is a cheat - that really is all one needs to know.
He has cheated everyone at every level throughout his life. He is a serial bankrupt, for heaven’s sake.
Can you name anyone that Trump has not cheated? Of course not. Now he holds office that allows him to cheat the very people that put him there.
I am hopeful that Americans will provide Mueller the support in the midterm elections that will provide backbone to your feckless, grossly immoral, Republican party so that the mechanisms put in place by our Founding Fathers will come into play and we can impeach and then indict and punish this evil, repulsively immoral man.
In the meantime, David, spend more time on the basics (cheating and other immoral character flaws) and less time searching for explanations in a maze of silliness and nonsense. Except for the cheats, the world is salvageable.
A teacher once told me: If you can't explain it in a few paragraphs, you probably don't understand it – either that or you are in denial. What do you think? Denial? Me too.
Good luck and have a nice week. I always look forward to you and Mark Shields. Thanks
2
Trump is the epitome of kicking someone (or something) while they are down, and then rallying people to join in. I can just picture him leading a "ideal lynching"; one built upon of democracy, decency and lies. I really like the expression, "Say what you mean, and do what you say". Trump is the exact opposite of this, and embodies it with his actions on a daily basis.
The life of a wolf is not very long outside the pack.
2
Since when have we been a meritocracy? Perhaps since the 1970s things began to open up, but come on. Socioeconomic mobility is not stifled in this nation. David Brooks stop deluding yourself, please.
1
I meant that it is stifled.
1
President Trump is patriotic enough that h refuses to let other nations take constant advantage of us. That upsets our globalist elites because they, like the previous president, feel the United States has succeeded far too much to be fair - even though every other country could go the way American did and enrich its own citizens.
''Trump doesn't play by the old rules'' is pretty much the thumbnail motto for these eight years.
For all your brilliant analyses, doesn't anyone suspect that, perhaps, Mr. Trump might not have won if his predecessor hadn't been African-American? Are we still ignoring this issue?
Europe today at peace. That is until we tried some regime change 2014 revolution in Ukraine that backfired and moved NATO into Warsaw Pact countries; on the quiet. Not that Ukraine could ever sort itself out; even now. Instantly Russia reacted to regain control of Crimea; like Georgia.
For Americans "old Europe" holds no particular place in the order of things. US more uncomfortable with China rising. In fact Americans view Europe with suspicion judging by some comments in this respected journal. Even Soviet ambassador in Dr.STRANGELOVE 1964 quoted NYT as his news source.
Germany holds Europe together with France ready to accept their dominant economic role through the EU in Brussels. The trouble with Germans they like working and going on long vacations so politics given no time. Trump is a mystery to everyone. But Americans elected him because the Clintons were not really suitable and Obama assumed they were entitled to inherit the mantle. Trump has rules; his rules.
The Rolling Stones were way ahead of Trump:
There's gotta be trust in this world
Or it won't get very far
Well, trust in someone
Or there's gonna be war.
--Good Times, Bad Times (Jagger/Richards 1964)
Mick is smarter than The Donald. Is it because London School of Economics is superior to Wharton?
The historically other proven way to build community is to have a common enemy. So after the end of communism (and the inadequacy of Islam as the "other"), when are those hostile Martians finally going to arrive (War of the Worlds) to trigger global solidarity?
And you're doing a great disservice to real wolves, which are highly social creatures:
"Wolves are complex, highly intelligent animals who are caring, playful, and above all devoted to family. Only a select few other species exhibit these traits so clearly. Just like elephants, gorillas and dolphins, wolves educate their young, take care of their injured and live in family groups."
https://www.livingwithwolves.org/about-wolves/social-wolf/
2
A thoughtful and thought provoking opinion that warrants serious discussion.
While I agree with much of what Mr Brooks has written, I think he left out one very important element in his five stages of this socio-political transmorgification (a nod to Calvin and Hobbes); eg, the steps beginning with "historical betrayal."
The step that's missing is the need by the powerful, or power wannabes, to fixate their followers on a scapegoat. The shared trait of all strongmen who have destroyed world order in the modern era targeted a scapegoat as the cause of their followers' diminished situation. That was just as true of Trump as it is of Khamenai, Bin Laden or Hitler. Same could be said of Bull Connor. All on the same trajectory, just at different speeds and positions.
The other step is when a political party compromises or abandons its professed values by aligning with the strongman. The good Germans of the 1930s are the historical benchmark, but today's republicans are not far behind. Neither Lincoln nor Eisenhower would be welcome in today's republican ranks. Jeff Davis on the other hand...
One other thought.
Technology has not driven power downward to the people. It has extended the reach of the strongmen.
Technology, at least in the realm of internet fueled communications, has made propaganda the weapon of choice for strongmen and their political adherents. Goebbels would have wept to have the tools available today to the likes of Putin and the Murdochs.
4
While regarding the state of my country and my world, I find that only one thought now comforts me: Thank God I'm old.
2
Mr. Brooks, along with the many NYT readers who are commenting, want everyone to think that any future unfolding contrary to the way they wish it was leads to an end of the world scenario. A little bare knuckle diplomacy isn’t going to spin the world off its axis. In the Hillary alternative universe, after all, Harvey Weinstein is still out there. Many other examples abound. Sometimes you gotta rip the bandaid off.
1
The transformation of the U.S. has been coming on for decades, thanks to right-wing anti-government, anti-liberal, and, more recently, anti-elitist propaganda at the behest of the selfish rich and their chosen political party. The result, thus far, is the election of a man to the highest office in the land who embodies everything you teach your children not to be. And it could get worse. Much worse. Nearly half the country has been thoroughly brainwashed to oppose what is good and decent (e.g., democratic norms, civility, truth and protection of the environment), so long as their tribe gets a win.
In 2008 Stephen Covey (the son) wrote a book called The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything. Here is what he said about building trust/killing trust:
Talk Straight / Lie, spin, tell half-truths, double-talk, flatter;
Demonstrate Respect / Don’t care, don’t show you care, show disrespect, or show respect only for those who can do something for you;
Create Transparency / Withhold information, keep secrets, create illusions, pretend;
Right Wrongs / Don’t admit or repair mistakes, cover up mistakes;
Show Loyalty / Sell others out, take the credit yourself, sweet-talk people to their faces bad-mouth them behind their backs;
Deliver Results / Fail to deliver, deliver on activities not results;
Get Better / Deteriorate, don’t invest in improvement, force every problem into your one solution;
Confront Reality / Bury your head in the sand, focus on busywork while skirting the real issues;
Clarify Expectations / Assume expectations or don’t disclose them, create vague and shifting expectations;
Practice Accountability / Don’t take responsibility, “It’s not my fault!”, don’t hold others accountable;
Listen First / Don’t listen, speak first, pretend to listen, listen without understanding;
Keep Commitments / Break commitments, violate promises, make vague and elusive commitments or don’t make any commitments;
Extend Trust / Withhold trust, fake trust and then 'snoopervise', give responsibility without authority.
3
Trump is "more comfortable" dealing with brutal dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-un because he has an insatiable thirst for power and control, just like them.
And his evil hatchet man, Sessions, is humiliated into gaining back Trump's favor with heinous acts of separating parents from children and rejecting abused women seeking asylum. These are people who are LEGALLY standing in line at the border to apply for entry.
The six phases in David Brooks' ascendance of the wolves are close to Umberto Eco's 14 characteristics of fascism. Brooks could easily have substituted "neo-fascist" for "wolf" in his column. However, it could be much worse: what if Trump were competent?
1
I keep thinking back to the beginning of Trump's presidency when in a recorded call he begged the President of Mexico to at least "pretend" he would consider paying for the wall. Trump needed the appearance of it politically. Unfortunately for Trump he was dealing with an honest broker and the answer was "no."
Now we have a situation where it is politically strategic for the leaders of both North Korea and the USA, hardly honest brokers, to pretend ground breaking agreements have been made. Each can claim to their own people that they got the better of things. Fox News will tout it, Trump's multitudes will cheer. What comes of it all, if anything, isn't really relevant. Until I see otherwise, to me it is all a show that two have cooked up to their own political advantage. Trump is a liar first and forever.
It's going to get much worse before it gets better. He is going to cling to power no matter what Mueller finds or how Congress votes. He is consolidating his support with dictators and alienating democracies as fast as he can.
1
A wild oversimplification of reality. Perhaps the most thoughtless column Brooks has ever penned. Conditions and issues and economic and military strength and the reliability of intelligence and many other factors determine when and for what purposes one negotiates in a high trust or in a low trust environment. The idea that the world consists of those of us who believe in a high-level civilized world order and those of us who don't is puerile and delusional.
And the idea that there is an elite of beneficent and trusting and civilized internationalists who have a universal good in mind might be surprising to, say, many in Greece and Italy and Poland, and many others--say, many in our own opiate- and unemployment- and suicide-ridden communities.
It is perhaps possible for peoples to have friendships, but nations are not peoples. They have a different role and a responsibility. I can remember how many of the "trusting" people I knew reacted to 9/11--by supporting the irrational and cruel war in Iraq. At least they were consistent: childish and dangerous in peace and in war.
Nations operate best on intelligence and brute realism. Whatever trust is needed must be grounded there.
Where trust is low, however, it is hard to find common ground. And without common ground, upon what do you build?
You give Trump too much credit. Your analysis assumes Trump acts in good faith towards his perception of what is good for this country. I don't.
His actions portends interests for himself, his family and businesses. A new world order as you described does not necessitate abandoning our friends and consort with our enemies. Economic in nature, it does not require us to placate those who threaten our national security and offend those that join us in that protection. In fact in the case of China, it does not even protect our economic interests.
Although he acts without understanding and principles, he does have his agenda -- simply, protects his image and his personal self interests.
The world is complicated, your analysis of it is sophisticated, but Trump's actions in it, is not.
He is seemingly successful because his supporters are fools. Never have I realized the awesomeness of the people's power in a democracy. Despite our chaos, this power also saves us from descending into armed conflicts, instead, his opponents are laboring to defeat him at the ballot box.
What most urgently requires understanding is why his supporters support him? Why Fox News supports him? In fact, what is Fox News's agenda? What is the agenda of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, and any of the "conservative" media spouting untruths and lies? Assuming they value democracy, how do they think our democracy can survive the electorate believing in lies and delusions?
David, is conservatism deception based?
I disagree with your assertion that this is "reality on steroids". Instead, it seems to me that it is a reality distortion field.
He said "realism" which is a term used to describe a kind of foreign policy view. I agree with you about "reality", though.
Unfortunately a world that descends into alliances that led to war , WW1 and WW2 for example. Each with horrific results of death and destruction. The Putin's of this age only care about power and influence over other countries, that's why they should be contained and america should realize the path they are now following will only end in war of the nuclear kind.
What I think Mr Brooks is saying is that what President Trump represents is a harkening back to the feudalistic past of the Middle Ages where-by all power within a society was granted by a 'Lard', treaties between nation-states meant nothing, borders were fluid and dependent only on brute strength and the idea of interdependence and working together for the common good was suspect. In other words, we (under the Trump Regime) are entering a new Dark Ages.
I agree with Robert De Niro's sentiment about Trump as expressed at the Tony Awards.
I think this is a really valuable perspective on the situation but I think it’s also important to remember that the low/high-trust divide has always been there in the population, the low-trusters just happened to have installed a particularly destructive champion in high office. I use the terms “enlightened” vs “ignorant” myself (which is obviously a rather more loaded way to put it) and it’s a war that’s been raging for centuries. Due to an unfortunate confluence of technology (the internet, the great democratizer, gives voice to anyone), Putin actively scheming, Reality TV allowed a celebrity to become president, etc., we find ourselves staring into the abyss.
There have always been barbarians at the gates ready to tear civilization down, but civilization has always rebuilt itself. Unfortunately if it goes down this time, it goes down for good. Life on the planet will cease to exist if this is allowed to play out.
The world is in the hands of a mad dog...
What people don’t see is the long view. Would people, of any class, in any country prefer to go back to the world of say 1935?
Thank you David Brooks. I used to call you ‘my favorite Conservative’ columnist. You may turn into my favorite columnist. In the age of Trump, I find myself turning to your column first - and rarely being disappointed. Thank-you.
Thank you David for pointing out, once more, the obvious without indicting the present GOP and yourself as enablers of the Trump autocracy.
1
People have woken up and realized that globalism only helps the few not the many. That equation is why Trump was elected. When people see their paycheck shrink, their jobs gone , their culture and beliefs under attack what did you expect was going to happen? Living in your bubble you can’t see it.
I like David Brooks and his thoughtful writings. However, this piece avoids an unpleasant truth: people and therefore nations tend to act in their self-interest. The concept of building together sounds great but if you examine history, you'll notice that humans always take from those who have more. Those who have more rarely seek to equalize with those who have less. Perhaps what's happening here is that the American public is tiring of giving away its prosperity and we've hired someone (Trump) to stop the leakage. Just a thought. Insults welcome.
At the "bottom" lies ruin. 44% of this nation prefers the Trump way. At least another 10% are almost certainly willing to go over to his side for the "promise" of protection. Another 25% will remain silent when the knock is on the other guy's door. Who will be the resistance when your very life is on the line? If we are to survive this, there will need to be a next "greatest generation" to answer the call on our very own soil.
2
This is interesting, but there is another element at work here as well. Forty five cannot stand it that France and Canada are governed by two young, handsome and virile men; and that Britain and Germany have two women as heads of state. And one woman--Merkel--is a brilliant tactician. That's four out of six leaders of the G-7 minus one. He can't stand to be shown up, and these four outshine him by just showing up. (Pun intended).
3
Mr. Brooks,
While I do generally agree with your construct about Trump's approach to relationships (and thus, politics), I would like to point out that your use of "wolves" is a completely inappropriate metaphor because they are among the most social species on earth, relying completely on each other for mutual survival and routinely exhibiting "loyalty and affection" for each other. Please don't denigrate an entire species by comparing them to this other pathetic beast.
1
Brooks blames Trump for not playing by the rules -- or does he? I recall Brooks standing squarely behind other Republicans, president or not, who didn't play by the rules. Now he's assailing Trump?
1
I was impressed with David's pronouncements until I got to:
"What Trump did to the G-7 is essentially the same thing he did to the G.O.P." Trump didn't "do" what's happened to the G.O.P. They did it to themselves, pandering for decades to the worst instincts of what has now become the Republican party. The Republicans, fortified by Fox News, Rush LImbaugh, et. al. have made their party what it is today. They couldn't win with just the few old time, wealthy, free market conservatives who are now calling themselves the "never Trumpers". So they pandered to their base's fears of "the other", "the elites", "the crooked media", and on and on. Donald Trump is the just the result. And the G.O.P. is so frightened of losing power, knowing that 90% of their party approves of DJT, that they are too cowardly to do anything about our deplorable president. They just watch as the painstakingly crafted, but fragile world order is bludgeoned by this man.
1
Slavery
Jim Crow
Lynching
Abrogation of federal laws
Polygamy
Elimination of Poll Tax
Women's Right to Vote (Suffrage)
Voting Rights at age 18
Equal access to housing and education regardless of race
This is just a short list of the many freedoms guaranteed US citizens by highly specific federal mandates (constitutional amendments and laws) unafforded them by "strong communities." Local governance does not always equal the best governance. Complaints about over-regulation are always made in broad strokes and are invariably hyperbole. Who among us welcomes rules that makes one's life more difficult? Yet, should one recognize that these same rules make us and those we love safer, healthier, and happier -- well then...things change. But that requires self awarness and the ability to reflect.
4
To expect Trump to love the other G7 members would have been foolish in that none of them can't stand each other. Angela Merkel, who has been around way too long, considers herself superior to the EU in Brussels, Italy and Greece are furious with northern EU members because they are stuck with immigrants crossing the Mediterranean, the UK split away from the EU for selfish reasons only, Spain is highly corrupt, Italy agrees with Trump to include Putin to the G7 as opposed to the others, etc. Just a quick listing of Europe's management idiosyncrasies. Trump did the right thing to express his frustration - that G7 meeting in Canada was a joke. The one G7 member from Asia (Japan) was there to stay close to Trump and keep a close eye on the US/North Korea development.
1
Let me put this in as simple terms as possible. Who would you want as guests in your home? Putin and Kim or Merkel, Trudeau, and Macron. Who would you trust not to steal the silver?
Mr. Brooks, wake up your party. You are lost in the forest for the trees... You are throwing the entire kitchen sink in with blame. I suggest you spend a month doing some genuine introspection, and see how you and your party personally have contributed to this mess.
I became able to go to college because there were government grants for diploma nurses in the 60's. As a result, I pay back by volunteering in my community, work on registering voters, providing a sliding scale for needy families who want therapy, etc.
The Federal government is meant to provide protection and opportunity for all Americans from those who do not believe in human rights, and fairness. Your party never got over the Civil rights laws and has been fighting against them ever since LBJ signed it into law.
There are no perfect parties nor are there perfect Presidents. This is, however, the first President in my life time that does not protect the constitution, attacks our allies and lines himself up with dictators. What is your party going to do about this?
Brooks cannot say that the majority elected Dumt because Dumt was elected by an Electoral College that was created to avoid Democracy. This is not a democratic country, and the elites which founded it only pretended to care about democracy when they really cared about Plutocracy.
1
Isn't this the way patriarchy was always going to go (worldwide)? Could it really have evolved into anything else, across the world, given the male gender's hard wiring, and the types who gravitate to money and power?
You can't train a wolf not to kill. You have a far better chance of doing so with a dog. They are superficially alike, but fundamentally different.
I believe that people like Trump, Erdogan, Duterte and Kim and many others are missing an essential characteristic of what makes us human. There is no persuading them not to behave as they do. They look like the rest of us but are not.
So how do you control them? Limit their influence. Act collectively against their essentially personal, and not communal, goals. Never imagine for a moment they think like a human being. Their actions prove they are not.
2
I have only one objection, which I offer sincerely: If you'd like to restore community, civility, and shared goals--prove it in your language. How about "Donald Trump Is Not Playing by *OUR* Rules?"
As it is now, the title of this piece both undermines Mr. Brooks' intent, and makes the NYT look like they're encouraging divisiveness.
As the only member of my extended family to have earned a college and post-graduate degree (thanks to the Vietnam era G.I. bill and my willingness to work as a janitor and dishwasher in my university's student union building), I now learn that I am a member of the hated educated "elite" that has trampled on the salt of the earth and forced them to vote for that uber-wolf, Donald Trump. Who knew? I was always taught that education was a means to further oneself and society in general. Now, thanks to Mr. Brooks, I know that I am one of the arrogant know-it-alls responsible for the decline of western democracy. Not only that, but I am also an elitist because I am an educated progressive. We all know that educated conservatives, even those who attended Ivy League universities, cannot, by definition, be elitists. They are just plain folks. I'm getting measured for my hair shirt today and have ordered my cat o' nine tails from Ebay. Should be here by next Tuesday.
Until the American public decides to rebuff their worship of wealth and embrace a more shared common welfare—a republic of civility, we shall be left out of any civilized world order. We live in a cynical, "me first" society. This must change or we are lost.
Obama and Trump have shown very different approaches to the end of the American Century.
Please, Mr. Brooks, give credit where credit is due. There would be no President Trump without Mitch McConnell.
Mitch McConnell's declaration of war on the Senate's obligation to govern for the common good upon Barack Obama's election was, I believe, a decisive blow to our system of government.
But he didn't stop there. McConnell enlisted his political allies to push a culture of political nihilism and soul-numbing greed ideally suited for Trumpism to flourish and infect first the Republican party and now the body politic.
And make no mistake about it: America is sick now. When and how the fever will break I shudder to think. Men corrupted by power and riches do not quietly lay down their whips, no matter how ill the subject of unbridled exploitation might be. Personally speaking, I'm preparing for a hard fight.
A final note: Please, give wolves a break. The depravity of humans acting with cynical impunity has no equal in the animal kingdom of which I am aware. For better or for worse, the capacity for immoral conduct on such a grand scale belongs to our species alone.
While I enjoy a good navel pondering, I wish the Times would do some in-depth reporting on the actual state of tariffs and trade...and lead with that story every time the government does something news worthy regarding trade. The educated population needs some facts and figures to allow us to draw our own conclusions. The best way to convince reasonable people of an obvious position is to lay out the data as clearly as possible and then let them arrive at the conclusion themselves. I find myself being baited into an opinion and then hunt for the facts. We need to be given the facts and the context before we get to the shouting match. But I guess the data doesn’t sell newspapers.
Trump is proof that marginal, psychologically deviant, intellectually challenged narcissists are inappropriate and dangerous in positions of authority. Traditional Republican conservatives abandoned the party over the last 25 years as it moved ever more rightward and purged itself of moderates. Those who voted for the demented Trump are far right but not bright, and they support him because they are incapable of comprehending the bargain they have made with a sociopath. There are no rules in the chaotic mental world of individuals like Trump. It's all attitude...no content, no substance, no intellect, no moral compass.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
12
This is one of many recent writings that describe the mess we call governance in this country.
As far as looking to "restore" civility, we arguably need to establish better and stronger civil bonds for all groups of citizens, bonds that have frayed over generations (or were never fully established). We require better treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, mitigation of economic inequality, and more. We must recognize the importance of central government in the construction of social pacts that support the general citizenry, not just the upper 10%.
At this moment we appear headed in the opposite direction. We tunnel further into our social silos. Too many believe the rantings of the snake oil salesman in the White House, more at home with the audience at a professional wrestling match than with a majority of our citizens. How can this man help foster a civil society when he does not read or care about much of anything besides himself and his immediate sphere? He decries expertise (you cannot bury this need, no matter complaints about elitism).
I am all for soaring speech--but that is not enough. I understand the conundrums when insisting on a "high-level, civilized world order" and all the ambivalence contained. We also need government that accepts its role in supporting basic services for our citizens, that facilitates a more civil discourse, None of this will happen with the two major tribes hollering at each other via electronic media.
5
Some might say that Brooks' analysis is too simplistic. After all it's the balance between selfish self interest and the common good that all peoples struggle with. Nevertheless, his analysis is a good starting point for understanding what is currently happening in the world.
8
While I appreciate his hopeful attitude, Mr. Brooks forgot to mention another way that disparate groups can join together: war against a common enemy.
So many current geopolitical stressors could result in new wars. For example, when (not if) North Korea next misbehaves, and we reinstate our military exercises on the peninsula, that could easily trigger all-out war. Aren’t we already seeing signs of an expanded war in Yemen and Niger? And what about the culture war in our own country-the demonization of immigrants?
Sure, people can find common cause and build something together. But that often happens when a country needs to rebuild after destruction.
3
"there’s only one historically proven way for people to build community across difference. It’s when they build things together."
Yes, we are Stronger Together.
Someone kept telling us that but all the press said was emails.
17
We are playing by two sets of rules. The Nova Scotia humourist, best selling author and statesman of the the early 19th century Thomas Chandler Haliburton gave us the adventures of Sam Slick and the vulnerabilities of people who grew up in small isolated towns and villages.
Today we have the small isolated vulnerabilities of America's FOX news viewers who world is extremely small and whose unawareness is extremely large. For those of us whose world is a "Global Village" and those who understand how isolation rewards the wise men of Chelm our concern over the direction of the mightiest and most powerful nation on earth our concern cannot be overestimated.
To us the domination of America's so called conservatives over your country is a recipe for global catastrophe in the early 21st century.
Despite it all and instability in places like the Middle East the average human inhabitant of this planet is better off than it has ever been and is getting better every day. What this world needs is leadership and the days of strong men and bullies are over we need need leaders who are historians, psychologists and psychiatrists. We need the reassurance that the reality of the human condition is good and getting better. The snake oil salesmen deal in convincing us that we are in deep doo-doo and they offer a cure to our misconceptions.
3
We need to convince the choir-children appointed to the Supreme Court as a result of corrupt politics that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" means no respect for snake oil peddlers, and we are seriously injured when con artists are issued government imprimaturs to practice on the naïve.
2
The role of self interest is absolutely part of the world view of high-trust politics. The difference is that the followers of low-trust politics, as espoused by Brooks, are dismissing all of the other components that make up relationships.
How much trust does anyone have in someone who has made it clear that their "friendship" is strictly based on what you can do for them? In this country, we celebrate the heroism of our first responders, our front line military, etc. How many of them act from pure self interest?
6
As if in the old order the wolves were not already there. They were part of a very strict club, which dictated the way the rest of the world should behave, or else... Actually, what’s the majority of the world has to loose?
1
Very insightful. But social "rules" reflect a general level of moral consciousness that has been in decline for decades in the West. The reasons for this are complex but need to be understood before we can embark on any "grand project" to restore social trust.
4
This analysis is too simplistic. Trump was legitimately elected, even though he didn't win the most votes; Putin remained in power by changing and altering the legislative process, that gave him an advantage but in an actual election, Duterte also won in an election, and so did Erdogan. The question is why such figures with illiberal tendencies get actually voted into power in the first place? If trust were the issue, why did so many people put their 'trust' in them? Isn't it a big risk for people to vote them in? Is it some kind of security that they perceive in them that previous regimes or those in power has not delivered well and equitably to everyone that lead to such a state of affairs?
3
It’s distress intolerance, but like a bad habit often what alleviates our feelings in the present harms our life in the long run.
3
Brooks is talking about social trust, or trust in rules and their outcomes. Trump's voters trusted in him as their paladin against their enemies, and to his, uh, credit?, he has delivered on that. His actions have been an uncompromising zero-sum attack on the perceived enemies of his voters: educated elites, the professional/bureaucratic class, urbanites with their new sexual frontier, dark skinned people, foreigners. They lost their trust in their countrymen who have mysteriously and therefore nefariously gotten unfathomably rich while their own jobs and towns are dying off. So they can only trust someone who promises to go to war against their enemies.
I think your refusal to accept the election results is keeping you from seeing the changes occurring here and elsewhere. Just look at the election results map BY COUNTY for the 2016 presidential election. It is VERY clear who our president should be right now - a painful truth, perhaps. The millions of late votes from the west coast for Hillary are pretty inconsequential, since they were never part of the contest....Trump didn't even step foot there. They are really a time-zone artifact. As long as we refuse to have a pre-election media blackout period (like ALL major democracies have) the west coast will be non-participants, nationally - and under-represented.... and they are very liberal! (Unfortunately, voting behavior and, especially, voter turn-out are so influenced by perceived election results that campaigning in those areas is ineffectual and simply avoided.)
David Brooks nailed it.
Progressives still believe in unity of nations and hope for the future.
The Trumpist just want what's theirs (and they want it now). No unity, and no future.
One of your best essays ever.
20
'“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem..." Ronald Reagan
And thus began the slow drip, drip, drip of tearing trust, common values, belief in our country as a whole.
Decent and reasonable people voted for Trump. Decent and reasonable people cannot understand why.
And so the beat goes on and the trust erodes further, decency and courtesy is cast aside, and "I, me, mine" is becoming more and more the way to see the world.
17
Wolves are social, nurturing, cooperative and powerful amongst themselves.
Just helping the metaphor here.
12
Right. It’s tribalism. The problem is that we have a global society now where tribalism leads to war and poverty in the long run. Who of any class in any country would want to go back to say 1935 when tribalism was in control of the world? We have forgotten the lesson war taught us.
More like upending it. You've pointed out that it's an insult to wolves to compare them to people like Trump.
Regardless of our poltics and nationalities we are all ridding the same civlization lifecyle. Civilizations are either growing and maturing or the decling and decaying. Our societies lifecyle up until Trump was grwoing and maturing. Since Trump we've been in decling and decay.
The good news is civilization self correct.
7
concord,
Words often make a big difference. I am a Canadian and very optimistic about our future. Did you real mean societies or did you mean society's.
1
@Memphrie
You have every reason to be very optimistic -- Donald Trump is not your president.
N.
Donald Trump is our President and is the President of most of the World. I am optimistic but we are forced to decide whether he will continue to be our president. Many of us fear a future where your president will not continue to be our president and we must leave the nice comfortable nest and strike out on our own.
John Ralston Saul wrote The Collapse of Globalisnm and the Reinvention of the World in 2005 and Saul who is Canadian, an historian and an eminent world public intellectual seems to have understood where we are going seems to have hit the nail on the head.
We are in uncharted waters and the captain is as drunk as a skunk.
It's hard to argue against the common sense of building something together to overcome our differences. But would Brooks have a point regarding the post war order if the U.S. didn't have an Electoral College?
10
It's strange and frustrating to see so much of the reporting on the G-7 summit veer off into political opinion and tweet drama. Personally, I'd like to see more objective reporting on whether or not Trump is correct when he says, for example, that Canada unfairly penalizes dairy imports from the USA. Ditto for steel, aluminum, etc and other nations.
This riff on world communion is all well and good, but I'd argue the summit was very much about trade. Show us the tariffs involved by product and country, so we can have a more informed opinion about whether the trade in question is fair or not.
12
One of the reasons Trump gets over is that too many people refuse to look things up, or read the many articles in the Times and elsewhere that explain this stuff in considerable detail.
The facts are that China's the biggest offender on tariffs and swiping our stuff; that Trump's not really going after China; that Canada isn't remotely the problem.
The facts are also that TPP would have fixed most of this, and a rational approach to renegotiating NAFTA would have fixed pretty much the rest.
You could look it up, but another set of rules Trump and Trumpists couldn't care less about have to do with basic, simple research.
19
I see your rather biased opinion, not the facts. Show us the tariffs that Canada imposes, for example, and let us decide. If the tariff facts rebuke Trump, so be it. But if they don't, that should be reported as well.
Low-trust politics, as you describe them, are what motivate the enemy in the "Star Wars" movies. By contrast, adherents to the "Force," the Jedi, are practicing high-trust politics. May the Force be with us!
5
Who has ever made Trump verify?
Why do we ignore the fact that our president is mentally ill. He suffers from significant narcissism and yet we try to explain his behavior as if he is sane and focused on a goal outside of himself. He is not. He does everything for the attention it brings him and we need to not read any further into his actions.
28
A good reminder. The combination of rage, grandiosity and paranoia are the real drivers of Trump's behavior. I fear that it is only going to get worse.
Yes, at the base level there is the narcissism, but there is also the cognitive style that rides on top of the narcissism. It is well to attend to both.
This feels like a too US centric point of view, one that made more sense in 1950
The G-6 has a clear way to move forward. Throw the US out (Trump does not believe in a G-6 anyway). The remaining G-6 has an economy and population larger than the US, has military spending four times greater than Russia, its only military threat. It would be free of getting drawn into US military adventurism, and could negotiate its own deals with Russia and Iran in terms far better than if the US was involved. Banking would need to evolve, but the US is the world’s greatest debtor nation, dependents on foreign capital for investments, and for the cash to run its economy. It is not remotely a self sufficient entity.
If the G-6 wanted be creative it could add China to the effort, something far more likely to find positive dialogue
12
“When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation’s elites, it’s a strong signal that the elites are the problem.” -- Robert W. Merry (as quoted by David Brooks in the New York Times, 23 May 2017)
This was correct when first written, and it's still correct now. The time for elites of all stripes to wake up is long overdue! Oh, and do you have any good ideas about how to rein in another major underlying cause of societal disruption and discord: pervasive, rampant greed among the "already haves" a la Steven Brill's insights in 'Tailspin'? Lacking that, all the high ideals and good intentions in the world are doomed.
6
But Trump didn't run "against the nation's elites". He ran against the nation's immigrants. It's anti-immigrant fervor that accounts for the votes that gave him his Electoral College margin. And it's anti-immigrant fervor that's animating his administration's policies. The "nation's elites" are doing very well under Trump. The immigrants and the rest of us are paying the price for it.
2
Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, the poster girl for the elite establishment. Had Trump been running against Senator Sanders we'd not be dealing with President Trump and his anti-immigrant policies now. But the Clinton/Democratic machine pulled the rug out from under the Sanders campaign. And yes, the rest of us are paying the price for it.
"The grand project for those of us who believe in a high-level, civilized world order is to find ways to restore social trust. It is to find ways to restructure power — at all levels — in order to reinspire faith in the system. It is to find common projects — locally, globally and internationally — that diverse people can do together."
That sounds very nice indeed. Trump aside for a moment, does that sound like the GOP playbook? Find common projects? Diverse people? Was that the grand project Rep. Wilson had in mind with his "you lie!" at Obama...when McConnell declared war on any/all Obama initiatives. Or when Obama--dangerous radical that he was--adopted the Heritage Foundation/ Mitt Romney insurance racket plan only to find the GOP and the affiliate Tea Party/Fox/Rush cabal turn it into an epithet--Obamacare! with its death panels and dismantling of Medicare! (besides--who in their right mind wants people to have any insurance at all, defective though it may be). We'll pass over poor Dubya, but how about the learned Mr. Gingrich (never met a gov't. shutdown I didn't like) and his refinement of politics as bloodsport?... or the GOP's complete and slavish obedience to Grover Norquist? And the NRA.
These are your comrades-in-arms Mr. Brooks. They've been pushing their agenda ever since you've been a pundit. With your eager assistance.
Reap, sow. Repeat.
23
In other words, both our national discourse and international diplomacy have been essentially transformed to resemble the world of sleazy real-estate from which the current president came. He who shouts the loudest and longest 'wins' the deal. A disastrous way to run a country, or international affairs. The damage done will take generations to undo, if it can be undone. Certainly not in my lifetime.
11
Thanks for the excellent piece. My generation (Boomers) seems intent about further destroying the future for others. Four presidents and their counterparts in the EU and elsewhere, have tried and failed to either create a new world order--or create another, more coherent and moral alternative. Trump is only the sad and empty epitome of our failure.
4
Fabulous article. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
One thing that struck me on second reading is that some of the low-level ways of working that Mr. Brooks discusses in a negative fashion reminded me of how Hillary Clinton approached her campaign. The elements of selfish interest and not working together struck a chord. Working together is something Mr. Obama understood well and something Hillary benefitted from immensely. When her turn came, she did not do it. At her peril.
4
You’re mistaking Hillary’s campaign for the now etched-in-stone media caricature and resulting public memory of Hillary’s campaign. Her slogan was “Stronger together” and her rallies and website were full of wonky proposals, programs, and policies to help communities, including coal country and legions of others she was accused of being disengaged with. The simple fact of the matter is that her campaign was boring, so rather than actually look at it most people just allowed themselves to be told what was in it. So all they retain is one word at one rally that in fact accurately describes white supremacists.
2
There's one problem with your entire essay Mr. Brooks: you refuse to admit that the GOP is thrilled with these developments. They are the party that went out of their way to magnify every reasonable demand African Americans made into a threat to the rest of America. The GOP claims to be the party of family values while advocating and sponsoring actions and laws that hurt families. We have an administration now that is far less diverse than the one we had before. The only thing that any of the cabinet members have in common with the rest of us is that they are citizens of America. But they do not share our interests, our goals, or our experiences. They don't want to. They don't even want to travel business class.
What we are witnessing now is the dismantling of our society. The tax cuts give money to those who need it least. The people who have the most need still more. People who need to work can't find it. People who need healthcare, affordable housing, a decent K-12 education, or special services are being told to forget about it. The people who keep America running are being told that their sole purpose in life is to support the rich while making do with nothing themselves.
I don't know what you, Mr. Brooks, ever saw in the GOP to make you support it. I know that I cannot support a party so intent upon destroying middle and working class Americans while lying to us about everything. Pinocchio can't compete with Trump or the GOP in the lie department.
27
The fact is that Trump is a person without manners. He is basically uncivil. He operates on the premise that you must bludgeon your competitor,r and is unaware that behavior must fit circumstances. Spaniards have a saying: "Lo cortés no quita lo valiente" which freely translates means "being courteous does not diminish your valor",
Acting with courtesy is never amiss, even in the most strained moments. That's something that Trump will never understand because he is stuck in the jungle of corrupt urban construction.
5
Before we can restore trust and friendship with our allies, we must begin by restoring trust in our own country. Someone has to proffer the first hand to the other out of the belief that we are stronger together than apart. Maybe it has to start on the local level, in neighborhoods then in States and finally on a National level.
We cannot hold back in fear that we will lose face. Maybe that is how the Democrats can help. Granted it is the Republicans who have lead the race to the bottom, but that does not mean it is written in stone that we will stay there. There are good Republicans who will meet halfway. Susan Collins comes to mind. She put together a coalition of Republicans and Democrats not too long ago. Granted we have not heard much about that lately. Maybe the press can bring that to light again.
The Democrats need to stand up and declare that they will be the party of rebuilding this country, neighborhood by neighborhood. Granted it will be tough with so many ideologues ready to pounce on anything that may relieve the pain of economic hardship, racism, disregard for our health care or safe and affordable housing, but with the will and activism of women, children and men of good faith it can be achieved.
We have to try to rebuild our country despite those who are trying to stop our progress in living in a humane and democratic country
We do outnumber them, by the way.
2
David, thank you for your optimism and for your continuing efforts to offer solutions.
1
"What Trump did to the G-7 is essentially the same thing he did to the G.O.P." I believe the GOP, minus an insignificant handful of moderates, has happily succumbed to the Trumpian deal: all of its innermost wishes accomplished (low cost government(no social welfare state or money 'wasted' on public education), law and order (protect property however acquired and business interests around the world), remove all environmental regulations and consumer protections that stand in the way of profit, ensure that the legal system is skewed toward property rights over human rights....etc.) at the price of some grudging and low cost (pro-life, anti-immigrant, protectionism) concessions to the populism that brings the votes to sustain power. The GO is not a victim of Trump but a willing and admiring enabler.
16
Rules?? Trump don't need no stinkin' rules.
8
Kim has faith that Trump will see him safely home. That's a reach.
Interesting that this "low-trust" world view is only fostered in kleptocracies, authoritarian regimes and the good 'ole USA. Everywhere else shared values and common benefit among friends continues.
10
You never know who is about to stab you in the back here, usually in pre-emptive self defense.
The transactional nature of this game in the world created for wolves--the one that Trump likes to play--produces a winner through a survival of the fittest process. Trump is using the same playbook that he has with his business: bullying lesser "equals" in deals because he has more wealth. Backed by the great wealth and military of our nation, the game is well-suited for Trump and the nation to succeed in the short-term.
Whether the success lasts is a function of how the "winners" treat the also-rans. For anyone that has been to countries with great wealth disparities and fewer (and weaker) institutions than the USA knows that the wealthy live in heavily guarded compounds for fear that they will be victims of a revolt led by the impoverished. If it becomes unsafe to walk across the street in our North American (or North Atlantic) neighborhood because we've alienated all of our friends, the "victory" Trump wins will be pyrrhic and we'll all have lost.
3
This President is not playing by our rules and that is the problem. (especially the other 2 co-equal branches of government are doing their job, to be a check of the executive)
The man can be different and the policies can be different, however the rules need to remain the same for the continuity of Democracy itself.
If the President (and party) are elected by illegal ways (with help by a foreign power) and then when in office are swayed by said foreign power, then that is against the rules. Anyone's rules.
If Congress fails to act, then the electorate must. They will.
8
I doubt Trump treats the ancient traditions of diplomacy as sacred and immutable.
1
If they are helped by a foreign power they are absolutely under their sway. Much more powerful blackmail than icky videos.
1
Well said, David. The wolves now roam the countryside (and Congress) with impunity. As one of the sheep, the food chain seems more sinister than ever.
3
The only thing I didn't like about this column is that it's unfair to actual wolves. I wish someone else besides Hilary Clinton had been the Democratic candidate against Trump. Both her gifts and her husband's were outweighed by their considerable baggage, some of it laded on and some it that they packed themselves. But it really does take a village. Both parties play identity politics and the insistence on emphasizing white privilege (and yes, skin color is something that can snd should not make life hard) gets us all scrapping over whose misery is worse instead of looking at the economic and social issues that are causing the misery. Brooks takes a lot of grief, but he has always been a moderate and a centrist. The story about Morristown and the raid on the meat packing plant shows that getting to know our neighbors erases some of those barriers, but even the workers who do not want poverty level jobs have to understand that we all benefit from the exploitation of workers. Nothing is free, but Brooks is right: we do better when our neighbors do better.
5
Regardless of what you think of Mrs. Clinton and her husband we would not be in this mess if we had her in the WH. She is level headed, and truly concerned for the welfare of this country and it's citizens. Did she make mistakes? Yes, absolutely. But she would never become the dictator like the one we have now living in the WH.
1
nicely put. probably your best op. ed. in a long, long time. though the modern day GOP lost the plot long before trump. It started to snowball with Reagan, sorry to say. and your unwillingness to acknowledge the direct line from Reagan to where we are now is forever frustrating. of course, that would make you complicit, so i get it. your attempt to lump progressives in with conservatives here is also pretty strained, at best. but overall, well done.
7
Reagan once made a joke announcing a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union near an open mike. That was a close call.
What exactly are the disqualifications for leading a democracy?Oh right...I forgot, there are none.
3
Brooks still doesn't get that "those of us who believe in a high-level, civilized world order" doesn't include the Republican party leadership and voter base.
Or he refuses to admit it. I think he just wants to be the special one, who sees the shortcomings of both sides, and has the ideas that will bring us together. If we will only listen to David Brooks. That's his ego dream, and he clings to it in column after increasingly irrelevant column.
He doesn't want to join the rest of us in the crowd of people who believe in a high-level, civilized order, and are struggling mightily to find a way to stop Trump and the Republican party from burning it to the ground.
14
This is why I believe we need a massive American civilian national service program.
We have a small one, Americorps, which does extraordinary things and changes the lives of its participants.
Republicans, needless to say, have been trying to destroy it for years. It didn't take Trump for the GOP to become the enemy of any idea of a common good.
12
I agree, having to do 2 or 3 years of National Service would help people from all walks of life get a grip on what REALLY is going on in the World by being on the spot and participating in the events.
Myself, as soon as possible I joined the Navy, and I am very happy for the training, travel, and most importantly, the seeing and meeting other cultures where THEIR way of life is the Rule, and you learn to accommodate rather than trying to force your own, narrow viewpoint. One learns a lot by getting out and mingling with other cultures that way, as well as the mix of people we had on board ship. I was in from 81-84, with bombing of barracks in Beirut to conflict with USSR being the standard fare of the day, with Reagan at the helm.
But if everybody were Required to do service, even if they have "bone spurs" something can be found for them to do, so there is no reason, other than serious mental or physical disability for people to not be patriotic and do service for their Nation.
From that a national health service, infrastructure rebuilding and restoration of environmentally impacted areas, as well as rescues from mass casualty events such as earthquakes or cyclones and mudslides. The people would get a better idea of how things really ARE, instead of just taking for granted that things are a certain way because they were told that, whether true or not, and they believe it.
Many people would have their eyes opened, for sure.
4
What you call the high-trust society, and I simply refer to as the progressives, have had decades to try it their way. It has led to the people of nations like Poland and Hungary deciding that their ways of life are considered bucolic at best, and dangerous at worst, and attacked on every front as anti-democratic even though a majority of the people want them to remain. It has led to an American candidate for President referring to the same type of people in this country as deplorable.
First off, let us be honest. Progressives do not like democracy. They believe that the people, the Lumpenproletariat as it were, are too unadvanced to know what's best for them and the elite need to rule them until some magical time when they will come to their senses.
Also, you are being unfair to wolves. They have a very structured society which protects the young, the old, and the lame within it. Unlike most of the great cats, they defend one another to the death. The pack is not a bad model for a society, in my opinion.
1
Yeah, sure, but the choice of wildlife analog is unfortunate and unfair--to wolves, the original dogs. Their packs are the sort of "restraining institutions," built on "trust and reciprocity" (and dominance, to be sure), with "agreed-upon rules... norms and etiquette," that Mr Brooks celebrates.
Perhaps he meant "wolverine"?
5
We need to keep this simple. Trump is a danger to democracy and is orchestrating the demise of the fundamental principles, institutions and ideas that have made our flawed but great country the leader of the free world. The Republican majority in Congress is allowing this to happen. It would not be happening if Democrats were in the majority.
If we've lost faith in the "postwar order", it's largely because Republicans have been demonizing government for decades ("..drown it in a bathtub"), marginalizing the importance of diplomacy (shutter the U.N.?), and espousing divisive policies that have created debilitating income inequity.
The only "building" that Donald Trump is interested in involve monuments to his self interest and agrandissment.
11
My Dad, like many of his generation, spent several years of his young life overseas fighting to help establish the system which Donald Trump, draft dodger, is now trashing. And Trump looks more and more every day like the demagogues whom he was struggling against.
I take Trump's sedition personally.
21
Mr. Brooks,
Well said. I have become a reader of your once you began your analysis of the mess we have made in Washington. It is clearly no longer about which party is in power, it is about our ability to keep our form of government. I read Ms. Goldberg's column just before yours; her use of “First they came …” and high/low road are a very powerful combined statement. Thank you for your insight and your needed move to the big picture view of what is increasingly an abyss of lies and graft.
2
The six steps to the death of a sense of "common good" outlined by David Brooks should be followed by step 7 - a boycott of the U.S. by all nations. Perhaps then we will tragically discover where Trumpism has taken us.
3
Yes, Trump plays by no rules but his own. One wonders if Kim will make it back to Pyongyang.
1
David,
Trumpkoff is not "good at destroying systems people have lost faith in." He is "good at" destroying a certain set relationships at the moment he has tremendous positional power as President. Beyond that, he is not "good at" it, and people have not lost as much faith as you keep repeating in column after column. Do you see any evidence from prior to Dumpkoff's Presidential tenure of him being good at destroying systems people have lost faith in? Not paying vendors and losing lawsuits doesn't seem like a super skill to me.
Have some perspective. It was only after Dumpoff was elected that you began positing your current IT-boy thesis that the world is falling apart. You say his current moronic actions are what many want. That's simply wrong. Not even the 40% of "Trump supporters" want that. Most of them are simply die-hard Republicans who will accept any Republican any time. They close their eyes and support Trump because he supports their agenda of criminalizing abortion.
You end by saying we must act to end a moral race to the bottom. Your moral equivilancy in column after column is accelerating this race, not ending it. You have the option of showing courage and leading. So far you have not done it.
9
I take issue with Mr. Brooks' "wolves" metaphor. Wolves operate in cooperative social groups. This is the antithesis of the qualities of Putin and Trump.
9
Brooks assigns Trump - the mantle for an emerging world
- one of self-interest ONLY, where values don't matter;
- one of low-trust politics, with no agreed-upon rules.
Brook's distillation of Our Present World is
- a collapsing post-war alliance of detached elites running meritocracies, not strong communities.
- the reorganizing power structures are beyond the elites' control as "Those who lost faith in this order began to elect wolves to destroy it."
Except for his G7 meeting translation, I see Mr Brooks' warning signs; and his solution to "find common projects .. that diverse people can do together" is relevant and optimistic.
So there are ideas and hope, BUT America's standing and influence are melting away NOW.
And the G7 meeting showed WHY:
- trade objectives were rendered as angry sound bites;
- any supporting evidence was dissonant; and
- bridges were burned TWICE.
We can believe in a great future for a more united world, but we can't do it from the ashes of our greatest friendships. Secure that cannon!
1
"The grand project for those of us who believe in a high-level, civilized world order is to find ways to restore social trust."
In the age of Trump, there are demonstrably zero Republicans who would share in "building something together."
10
Countries are not "friends" -- they share interest and if their interests diverge their "friendship" is over. Many of our current "friends" were once bitter enemies -- German, Japan, England -- and some of our enemies may in the future become "friends" as interests change. Trump may or may not be right that our interests may now diverge from the interests of our "friends in the post war period. I don't find the hand wringing analysis in this article helpful.
4
once this said, I wonder what is the next step. Economical elite thinking national ? It is a bit too late, thanks to Thatcher, Reagan and all their friends, don't you think ?
2
As long as there is the wide inequality in incomes between the top 1% and the "rest of us", the likes of DJT will always be willing to take advantage of those who feel the system is rigged against them. That is no secret.
The real issue; however, is that those like DJT who rise to power, almost always don't really care about the "rest of us" and use those who believe they have been hurt by the system to gain power and stay in power. We the People need to speak out with our vote this November to show DJT that he is not the answer to the country's problems, as he cares only about DJT first and foremost.
The Govt. response to the financial crisis showed Main Street that Washington only cares about Wall Street. That bitterness and hatred for Washington continues. Unfortunately, DJT's policies, which are now the official GOP policies, won't help the family on Main Street much, if any.
9
President Obama's biggest mistake was continuing the Bush bank bail-out without first obtaining guarantees of relief for the people and true Glass-Steagall restraint on the banks. Once the banks were relieved of any responsibility for their reckless greed, millions of Americans were thrown out of their homes and left to shift for themselves, leaving Obama with little negotiating power against Senator McConnell's "destroy his presidency" Republicanism after those few short months before Teddy died, leaving the R's free to block any effective legislation.
One party created Social Security, Medicare, the GI Bill, the VA, rural electrification and countless other programs that vastly contributed to the expansion of our economy. The other has fought for years to smash labor unions, slash taxes on the rich, and transfer democracy-destroying wealth to the CEO class. Regrettably, the latter has done a bang-up job of buying up the media and convincing the public that they have their best interests at heart. So, the public will lose the ACA and much else besides, and the lessons of unregulated class warfare will have to be learned again.
"But in the low-trust Trumpain worldview, values do not matter; there are only interests."
-David Brooks
"America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests."
-Henry Kissinger
Mr. Brooks seems to think that Trump's cynical worldview is unique to Trump, but this "low-trust" outlook has defined American foreign policy for decades. The only difference between Trump and previous leaders is that he is completely transparent in his cynicism. Until we start electing public officials who hold values in higher regard than money or interests, however defined, we will still operate under Kissinger's rules. Campaign finance reform would be a good start in turning back the tide against moneyed interests. Bernie Sanders, anyone?
15
I agree with this op-ed. The other thing that building things together creates is trust. Communities thrive when members trust each other. But when communities cant't trust the government it lives underneath, it dirties the water we drink from -- sometimes literally. Healthy communities need to start with a trusting, honest leadership at the top. Without that, local communities are always looking over the shoulder, wondering if all this work will be destroyed by inept policy.
The word which David Brooks is searching for in seeking to understand Trump's style of politics is 'authoritarian'. There is nothing particularly novel about this mindset. Authoritarians means high trust within the group, especially towards strong group defenders, and low trust towards everyone else in the world. This mindset tramples upon democratic norms of social tolerance, compromise, cooperation and engagement.
4
Unfortunately, David's insight is diminished by his use of "wolves" as a symbol of a destructive force. His use of wolves, in this manner, is not only incorrect, it is harmful to the conservation of these magnificent and endangered animals. The fact is that a wolf community is built on trust, affection and a strong sense of the common good. The common good takes the form of "what's good for you is good for me". Wolf communities look after each other's children. They protect one another, including the injured and infirm. A wolf community bears no resemblance to Trump's America. It's a shame David doesn't understand this.
10
Wow, you really missed the point
Mr Brooks exposes many truths buried beneath some wild over-generalizations. My take aways are quite generalized too. I hope we're simply going through a short Degradation Donald phase. Mr Brooks has no team to call his own at this time. And, no, it's only a conservative trope that Progressives are highly educated elites.
A surprisingly good analysis.... so, where do we go from here ?
1
Often I begin to read David Brook's column nodding my head saying that, yes, this time he has it, Then I hit a pivot that my reasoning simply can't follow and say, no, he missed it again.
Today from beginning to end, David Brook's has nailed it.
Here's a thought. None of the other countries in the G7 are in need of a Trump hotel, so he can dismiss their importance. We elected someone who actually represents our self absorbed, me-first national personality. Trump trusts no one, except possibly his children and is a loner. For insight into the next few years of this presidency, read his recent speech about North Korea's beaches being perfect for a resort. Follow the money to learn the motivation.
1
The left/right divide always has been about how people approach the world. The left being about using relationships, shared values, loyalty, and affection to advance the common good ant the right about exploiting "mutual selfish interest and a brutal, ends-justify-the-means mentality" to obtain power. Trump just shines a light on what has always been the fundamental difference between the two.
3
Brooks overthinking...The playing field, Abused by domestic American greed, and global naivety(which got us Trump in the first place), requires re-balancing through disruptive intervention. Once some domestic economic parody, and global security and fairness are re-established, there will be plenty of time for Brooks tea and crumpets.
"The grand project for those of us who believe in a high-level, civilized world order is to find ways to restore social trust. It is to find ways to restructure power — at all levels — in order to re-inspire faith in the system. It is to find common projects — locally, globally and internationally — that diverse people can do together."
But do Republicans believe in any of that, Mr. Brooks? "The system", and "common projects" are democratic government projects, or multi government projects, and Republicans want to drown government in the bathtub, supposedly to increase "freedom", but in reality to make a few very wealthy sociopaths all powerful.
Doing things together is "socialism" or "communism", the greatest evil there is, according to the party you have touted for decades.
Why is the blame put solely on the United States and President Trump? It takes two to tango and Justin Trudeau is not totally innocent. President Trump is looking out for American interests which were ignored by past administrations. The liberals are upset that someone like Mr. Trump has finally taken an interest in American values. He will not be a chump and stand by while we are being taken advantage of. Good for President Trump.
3
This is the kind of idiocy that is the real enemy within.An instinctive aversion to fact and reality;a desire to believe in a strongman who will redeem the country by restoring "true" American values;the perverse refusal to see Trump for the truely horrible person he is and that our country is paying a high price for that refusal.What is really troubling is that so many Americans believe in this man and by doing so show a moral and intellectual bankruptcy that I never thought possible in America, not on this scale anyway.
I only object to your use of the wolf analogy. It is totally unfair to associate our furry friends with the likes of Putin and Trump.
3
Facts are hard things to face, especially if you start with the assumption that everyone is lying to you. Our democracy is a frail being and is constantly challenged by people like Trump and his minions. For anyone posting in this discussion that Trump is restoring anything, is proof that people are more willing to believe what they want to than to actually face facts.
Trump really does believe he is above the law. He doesn't believe in the principle that our Founding Fathers, even with their original sin of accepting slavery as the trade-off to establishing a nation, promulgated. His power comes from the mistaken belief of his supporters that what is really needed is a strongman, however, in the U.S., this strongman can't be a Putin or Kim. No, that's too far. The strongman his supporters crave is one who will tilt justice in their direction. The issue so hard to digest is that Trump is tilting that justice toward people like himself while his supporters get little or no benefit.Technology, something he has little use of other than letting him tilt elections in his favor using propaganda that helps support regimes like those in Moscow, China, Turkey and North Korea.
The breakdown of our democracy is hastened by the evolution of the "one issue" voter whether that be abortion rights or the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. If the current Supreme Court (the "arbiter of truth") ends up willingly allowing this ignoramus to destroy our democracy, I fear we are lost.
2
Our ability to build a shared community was destroyed by Ronald Reagan and Movement Conservativism's obsession with destroying functional government and obliterating any notion of the common good. It all flows from the mentality that led Margaret Thatcher to proclaim that "there is no such thing as society."
Somebody once said:"We need to hit rock bottom before things change."
Are we getting close?
The global problems you cite in this column aren't caused by the G6 countries. They come from Donald Trump, period! All nations have their differences regarding trade and many other matters, but in this day and age they are mature enough to sit down and negotiate. Why must you continue to ignore the elephant in the room here? He doesn't need any more enablers. Please give your readers a break.
1
Hasn't the Republican party operated on Trumpian morals for decades. Have they not been winning elections by promoting competition between whites and non whites. Don't they justify tax cuts by saying your taxes are going to "those people" who don't deserve them. Isn't suspicion of government a GOP staple? The war on the Justice Department and the IRS is really about wolves who don't want to conform to the law or pay taxes. Isn't voter suppression and gerrymandering a method to establish political dominance? Voter suppression was upheld yesterday by the GOP Supreme Court. Wake up America, Trump is not an anomaly.The Republican party is an existential threat to our nation.
1
David, since the Editorial Board's "America Isolated" editorial provided no comments, I'll comment here, as I would have there, but using and quoting your insights.
I'm very impressed with your opening insights:
"Occasionally you can see eternity in a speck of time, and occasionally you can see the logic of an entire historic moment in one event."
And, "The failure of that summit wasn’t fundamentally about trade, or even the Western alliance. It was about the steady collapse of the postwar order and the way power structures are being reorganized ... across the world."
However, IMHO, "seeing of an historic moment in (this and the next) one event" is really about the possible "collapse of the power structure" of Empire.
Never has our country seen such an obvious Emperor in the seat of power, and never have; our people, our country, and our world had such a choice between cooperative 'inclusion' in political/economic and social democracies vs. a poisonous fight for being the exclusive Empire on earth.
Let's hope and pray that 'we the American people', and all citizens of the world, somehow miraculously 'sense', if not recognize, the import of our decision on democracy over Empire.
2
Really? The “elites” and “progressives” are completely to blame for Trump and his actions? No mention of the misinformation campaign of the extreme right, led by Breitbart and Fox News to convince people that they were the victims and that only Trump could save them? No mention of their promises (lies) to bring back dying industries so that workers would have to get retrained in new and growing areas?
It’s okay, I’m a woman as well as a progressive so I’m used to being blamed for all that is wrong around me. It just disappoints me that someone like David Brooks, with his ability to reason and find actual insights, keeps returning to these ridiculous assertions on the cause of the Trump disaster.
I can tell you that in my experience, it is the Trump supporters who are the mostly to complain of victimization and refuse to do anything to actually improve their situation, while the progressives meet setbacks as challenges and strive to move forward.
I would love to see Mr. Brooks find it within himself to move forward and stop blaming others for his party’s disaster.
1
Mr Brooks forgot number 7: Continued breakdown of the post war order will lead to another war. This is what Trump is leading us to. Probably unknowingly by Trump and certainly unknowingly by his supporters who seem to accept fascism as a matter of fact to achieve their own racist and bigoted ends. Humans have not survived because of the "survival of the fittest" mentality but because we cooperated with groups and learned that survival was a based on a commitment by a community not by individualism.
1
Trump and all the others depend on others having values and that they try towards community and trust. That is exactly what they abuse. Look at Putin, Trump, Kim and the lack of any sort of adherence to facts.
Trump, like all the others, have to be dealt with with hard reciprocity by the rest of the group. One has to match Trump style people act for act, while not engaging with the disengenous lies and rhetoric because these are not people out to resolve things through debate.
Negotiate with these regimes based on hard targets with well defined outcomes. There is no trust, only verify. Everything is hardball. These are not people who believe in a common interest, so they can't be treated as one of the group working towards a common good- because they aren't. They are at war with you!
The rest of the G6 should, for instance, each put in place tariffs that combined match those of the US, to best target Trump's supporters. Not individually but as a group. Same amount in total but hitting hardest from a group position. If the US relaxes those tarifs do the same. The key is to also to continue to go through the WTO, because within the community one has to maintian the standards and values.
Trump et al. is not your friend. They shouldn't be treated as such. They want to beat you not help you.
1
“Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in.”
This observation by Mr. Brooks answers the question I have pondered for nearly three years: why is Donald Trump so popular in spite of his obvious moral failings?
Enough people feel betrayed by the core institutions of our country and want to “drain the swamp” that they will elect even a chronic liar who brings new monsters to the swamp. Enough people in our country and elsewhere are suspicious of the UN, NATO, NAFTA, EU, etc. that these institutions are experiencing significant disharmony. And that same disharmony can be found in just about every community.
Mr. Brooks is right that social trust is the key; and that to increase trust, we need to build things together, changing hearts one person at a time. For example, try taking this idea literally: volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. People from all faiths, all colors, all political persuasions, all over the world work together to build a house for someone who needs it. That is an action that transcends prejudice and politics and builds trust and hope for all concerned.
Complaining about Trump has taken too much of our energy for too long. Complaining about his supporters ignores their valid grievances. Let’s convert the energy into taking a hard look at the grievances and build homes, communities, and maybe a few bridges.
2
I just get irritated reading this material knowing that my vote never counts just for where I live.
In my life I've seen the "zero sum game" only work for a short amount of time, and in the end, fail miserably.
The forces that led to the rampant inequality you blame for the rise of neo-fascistic nationalism were the forces promoted by the party you embraced, Mr. Brooks: unfettered capitalism and denigration of education as "elitist". If the GOP had spent the last 20 years promoting sensible economic and social policies, we wouldn't be in this position today. Every step of the way the GOP has done what it can to destroy safety nets in the name of "freedom" or "liberty," as if coming together to help one another (i.e. build a national community that takes care of its own) were akin to life in a gulag. You keep trying to offer solutions to a problem you and your ilk created but your solutions never recognize the source of the problem. The GOP must be thwarted or the U.S. will become a hellish brutal place.
Your column attempts to explain too much. Donald Trump is either a blip in the United States history to date, or a trend that you are attempting to identify. But your analysis is more akin to the way anthropologists of old try to explain the origin of Man. The story changes every time an older skull or archaeological site is discovered.
Your analysis conveniently ignore the complete lack of integrity and backbone of current GOP lawmakers elected to the House and Senate. Those who decide to retire because they can no longer stand to work with Trump has managed to find some of their backbones. It is time for those who have elected to retire to join force with the Democrats to response forcefully to the random policy actions of our Enfant Terrible President.
3
Perhaps the beginnings are in Reagan's "states' rights" and "welfare queens," and Gingrich advocating negative words like "sick" to be used for Democrats. It's the undermining of fellow Americans by lies and false labels and the pushing of deep enmity that made it OK to steal a Supreme Court seat.
No, it wasn't "elites" being enamored of a course that could have been corrected. It's that we lost a (uniting) enemy with the fall of the USSR, and Repubs replaced it with Dems.
Now the undermining extends to the FBI and justice system, because there are no greater ideals than "our side winning."
8
They just play all the states against each other to divide and conquer the people. There ain't no equal protection of the law and religion will chase you everywhere.
In comparing Trump and dictators to wolves, Mr. Brooks continues the fallacy and alienation from nature that is part of the problem he's bemoaning. If we are to learn from nature, and be a part of nature, we need not be ignorant of it. Wolves, as do perhaps all social animals in undamaged biomes, live by rules. As Brooks would say wolves build things together, including strong effective bonds of cooperation built on respect and affection. A wolf that acted like Trump would not survive. Much of the world's problems today are due to our alienation from the natural world. False metaphors continue the our dangerous ignorance.
4
I agree in general with what Mr. Brooks says. I wonder if any system needs regular disruption to avoid reaching a point where winners begin to fight to ensure that the system maintains the current slate of winners and losers. What I see in western democracies is an unwillingness to make changes that alter the power structures. On the world stage, this is being copied as leaders decide that relationships should mimic what they see in their own countries, with winners and losers.
"That’s the only way to head off a moral race to the bottom."
The paradox is that it is the most religious amongst us, the evangelicals, who trumpet words about the decline of individual morals but are Trump's more ardent supporters, that are the greatest contributors to our national moral decline. I'll never fully understand this phenomena, but sometimes I just think their religion is a cover for their anger and resentment.
Interesting analysis of the Trump fiasco at the G-7.
But the analysis goes off the rails when Brooks asserts that "The low-trust style of politics is realism on steroids." Where was the "realism" at Singapore that led to Trump stating of Kim, "He trusts me, I believe, I really do. I think he trusts me, and I trust him" and "I do trust him, yeah"?
Of course, we all know that the president tends to use the English language loosely, i.e., he lies, exaggerates, confabulates, etc. He probably doesn't really trust Kim, and if North Korea doesn't make fast enough progress with denuclearization, Trump will likely resort again to insults and threats.
So, what's the point of bringing up trust at all? North Korea doesn't have to trust our good intentions towards them; they're never going to give up their nuclear weapons. And our allies know now what Kim knows: the only trust you can place in a sociopath is that he will sacrifice any relationship or convention if he feels that he's been personally disrespected. The best way to get what you want is to play up to his ego.
1
"Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in"
No, Trump is really good at destroying things that people have faith in, and in doing so he causes them to lose faith. That's why he is so dangerous.
1
Thank you for giving me a new paradigm with which I can evaluate the chaos that appears to be engulfing us.
For some reason you seem to have a need to include "Progressives" as a part of the problem. This is hardly the case. I am a progressive; I am educated. If I am an "elite" because I want the best guy for the job, then so be it but I sure don't feel very elitist as a guy who lives off of Social Security and some meager savings after a lifetime of work.
I just want my government to protect me from the wolves. And, as it presently seems to shape up, they all have an "R" after their names. David, you would be writing about some exotic philosopher if, some how, we could get money out of our politics. It's all about money, and it has always been that way. Domestic money, Russian money, Saudi money, Qatari money...all kinds of it. You call them wolves. I call them barbarians. They have stormed the gates. We must push them out.
There is a world of goodwill out the the hinterlands but it is being smothered by the money of the real "elite."
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George Washington said it best in his farewell address: "Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation."
Mind boggling to hear a conservative accuse a person created by conservatism of being a pariah. Moreover, that same conservative attacking capitalism and extolling the liberal virtues of promoting the common weal. Down with the "rugged individualism" of saint Reagan and his ilk, says this conservative. All Trump has done is release the conservative message in all its infamy. David truly does not see this. But of course conservatives do not see reality.
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David, since the Editorial Board's "America Isolated" editorial provided no comments, I'll comment here, as I would have there, but using and quoting your insights.
I'm very impressed with your opening insights:
"Occasionally you can see eternity in a speck of time, and occasionally you can see the logic of an entire historic moment in one event."
And, "The failure of that summit wasn’t fundamentally about trade, or even the Western alliance. It was about the steady collapse of the postwar order and the way power structures are being reorganized ... across the world."
However, IMHO, "seeing of an historic moment in (this and the next) one event" is really about the possible "collapse of the power structure" of Empire.
Never has our country seen such an obvious Emperor in the seat of power, and never have; our people, our country, and our world had such a choice between cooperative 'inclusion' in political/economic and social democracies vs. a poisonous fight for being the exclusive Empire on earth.
Let's hope and pray that 'we the American people', and all citizens of the world, somehow miraculously 'sense', if not recognize, the import of our decision for democracy over Empire.
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"The episode illustrates that the core divide in our politics is no longer the conventional left-right divide. The core issue in our politics is over how we establish relationship. You can either organize relationship at a high level — based on friendship, shared values, loyalty and affection — or you can organize relationship at a low level, based on mutual selfish interest and a brutal, ends-justify-the-means mentality."
I think this quote from the article says it all. Trump is a dysfunctional misfit trying to wreck the world order because he doesn't know how to do anything else.
Trump works for We-the-People. Unfortunately, he doesn't believe that and sees himself as an autocrat - just like he is inside The Trump Organization.
Of course Trump has his supporters and many among the group of American Oligarchs who want a free hand to do whatever they want while We-the-People pick up the tab for their mistakes and clean up their messes.
He also has supporters among the segments of society that have been ignored by both political parties for a very long time.
He manipulates peoples fear and anger like a Maestro leads an orchestra.
Unfortunately he has no depth, no long range ideals. He is the ultimate opportunist.
The US will survive as will The Constitution and Laws and Americans will rebuild their nation. We've had poor leadership before and will again. This is a test of our nation and we will eventually rise up and rebuild.
Be careful about those Victory Laps coming out of Singapore. That "deal" is far from complete and will probably, like all the ones before, fail miserably.
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Mr Brooks, please do not equate wolves with the reprobates you describe. Wolves are highly evolved social animals with strong familial bonds. To equate Trump and Putin to wolves does a disservice to the natural world.
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The wolves — whether Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdogan
They seem to break down into two camps: cynical manipulators of inherited power (Trump and Putin), or cynical manipulators of the masses by whipping up anti-minority resentment (Erdogan, Duterte, Orban). In some cases, the two camps overlap.
I'm pretty certain that their only legacy is more mean societies, more resentment by their followers from not being led to the promised land. False messiahs one and all..
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"Trump is really good at destroying systems people have lost faith in." And in his way, he is as much an "interrupter" as, say, Obama encouraged "disruption" by the left (Obamaism, New Yorker, 2009). In the American creed, these are no doubt trustworthy positions if the purpose of disruption and interruption is to put complacency and privilege on notice, or?
David, as always I enjoy and mostly agree with your beautifully written opinions, I would however add to your observation “we are headed to a moral race to the bottom”, with one equally or more important to most people is our “race to the bottom “ in fiscal terms of not only the diminishing middle class as the one percent keep all the profits and the rest are left with the debt and little to no security. This could be measured on a governmental level as well as we must seek monies to rebuild our infrastructure from those such as the Saudis and sell off our assets to private parties in lieu of taxes. There is no better examples of this than in Palm Beach where billionaire Jeff Green was allowed to buy a jewel box of a Post Office built in the era of the W.P.A. and a large piece of property for a pittance while the U.S. Post Office continued to rent another property from a politically connected group at a rate that made no economic sense whatsoever. Also, a current 40 billion$ infrastructure deal being handled by Trump buddy and fellow Palm Beacher Stevie Schwartzmann head of Blackstone, this is not done with magnanimity but for a fee that will be in the hundreds of millions. We lost our moral compass long ago David, maybe it’s in our DNA as we gave the smallpox infested blankets to the Indians, whatever that case may be, we have a much more pressing problem, these cretins are robbing us and our nation blind.
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Trump only succeeds because of his congressional GOP enablers. They are the ones who are letting him get away with this. The majority of our country wants none of this, but republicans are clinging to power as hard as they can. They will be the downfall of our democracy - done purely for their personal gain.
This country was created to throw off the yoke of kings and their sense of entitlement driven by the idea that they are king by "divine right" and have absolute power. A system perpetrated by the church. Many people died throwing off the mantle of that corrupt system and yet there seem to be many who long for those days. Kind of a "if I'm rich God must have wanted it that way" mentality. Not so different. These are trying times for the idea of democracy and the rule of law.
I'm not sure this narrative quite captures the moment. I wouldn't say it's wrong exactly-just not right in my view.
trump and Putin, as well as Duterte and Erdogan have tapped into veins of anger in their respective countries. In Putin's case it is Russia's lost military might and the respect that gave it; for trump it is multifactorial- racist self pity among many whites who don't accept that their "situation" is of their own making in this new "meritocracy", anger at those speaking a different language who cross over from Mexico illegally for economic reasons and the changing social landscape where all the foils one could reliably offend are now in protected space due to liberal elites.
Russia's situation is predictable and the United States must bear some blame for not foreseeing the problem and making efforts to mitigate it before it got to this point. The problems in this country were also predictable. Racism, nativism, homophobia and a kind of patronizing misogyny have been part of our culture forever. The new spotlight on these problems, and the suddenly changing social norms without a period of adjustment, have alienated a large segment of the population. They are taking great satisfaction in the discomfiture trump is causing those they believe are responsible. The trashing of the Group of 7, a synecdoche for those liberal elites, is a good example.
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From the underlying hatred of 'Birtherism' to the trashing of the G7, there is nothing about Donald Trump and his behavior that could not easily be foreseen. He told us what he would do well in advance and we voted him into office to do it: pull out of the Paris agreement, trash the ACA, destroy the Pacific Alliance, reverse progress on environmental protection, cancel the Iran nuclear deal, weaken NATO, endlessly grovel to Putin, etc. etc. If you measure a presidency by what the occupant vows to 'accomplish' we may be experiencing the most successful term of office in a long time. If the measuring stick is the degree of social chaos and upheaval, Trump is well above expectations. In his view and in accord with the rules by which he plays, he's 'winning' and even his diehard supporters may truly find themselves "sick of winning".
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When Trump, the flawed human being, as all of us are, and as President, touts that: "It's just my touch, my feel, it's what I do," he simply is voicing one of his irrelevant twitters which may bring joy to his followers, and stimulate outrage among his critics. His history of failures, in many areas, and levels, is well documented, notwithstanding whatever his successes are/may have been. A key issue, which is not "touchy, feely" is that he has not, does not, and most likely will not be personally accountable for any of his words and deeds. Whatever the rules are. Whatever their underpinnings. Whose ever rules they may relate to. Whatever their harms. Temporary or more permanent. Including deaths of people for whom, as President, he is responsible. Regarding viable types, levels, and qualities of equitable well being for all. Trump is out of "touch!" Experiencing shame, guilt, remorse, etc. are not part of his human-emotional-makeup, and resources. And although he himself did not create the ongoing daily, toxic, WE-THEY culture of violating selected "the others" in the USA his harmful words and deeds have reenforced current divisiveness! This is what HE does well. Has done.And, aware of the built-in limitations of accurate prognostication in a reality of uncertainties, unpredictabilities, randomness,and lack of total control by anyone, Trump is likely to continue to do as he does, daily, in the future as well. Unaccountably! Unless...Other's rules are not his raison d'etre!
Eloquent clarity regarding Trump’s US-vs-the-world mentality. Everything I’ve read about Trump indicates he truly does not understand how trust and friendship work on any level. To hope he could value those things on the international stage is folly.
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Very nice Mr Brooks you have clearly described the methods of organized crime. You have described The USA as a seminal criminal state. It is obvious that Trump has a criminal mind and he is leading the country to a very dark place.
Our grandchildren will love us for what we are unleashing upon them!
For some reason, the thing that jumped to my mind after reading this was "Ribbentrop-Molotov." If that's the kind of cynical world we've descended back into, the future looks dim.
"Untrammeled meritocracy"?
Most of us, looking at the "experts" and the very rich and the preposterously well rewarded, see no "untrammeled" brilliance and high achievement, but crooks, rentiers, trust fund brats, monopolists and charlatans.
Where is all the merit Brooks sees? If it truly existed, would we be in this predicament?
Complete and utter nonsense. The post-war order was built out of American self-interest - enlightened self-interest maybe, but self-interest nonetheless.
By making Western Europe and Japan dependent on American military protection, the US could build an order that protected American property rights, established the greenback as the world reserve currency, made the US the main beneficiary of direct foreign investment, and gave it huge political leverage.
What Trump is doing is - from a realist, hard-nosed power-politics perspective absolutely NOT in America's interest. First, the EU has more or less the same GDP as the US. A trade war between these two blocs will damage the US economically just as much as the EU, because the EU only runs a trade surplus in durable goods, but not in services, where the 21st century economy is.
The trade war will also have political consequences, because, out of self-interest. the EU will side with China to set up a parallel international payment system that will circumvent the Dollar and neutralize much of America's financial policy clout.
And if Europe and Japan should ever become militarily independent of the US, US leverage will disappear. The US can the forget about billion dollar fines to foreign companies or exert any kind of pressure.
Trump is destroying America's dominance in the world, and he and his moronic supporters think that he's making America great again.
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Kudos to Mr. Brooks for getting beyond the 17th century in his political theory lessons. Despite the early gesture to Thomas Hobbes he has here managed to conclude with a 21st century thinker and a person of color!
Now, turn over to the Post and read what Eugene Robinson has to say. Perhaps then we can also nudge you away from the wistful melancholy of believing that the GOP was ever anything but venal, greedy, sexist, racist, and leading to Trump as its logical and fullest realization.
Finally, some unvarnished candor from Mr. Brooks. Yes, Trump is a wolf. Also known as a sociopath, as are the other dictators named here and most of Trump's appointees. The big question for us is, why have we let this wolf into the fold? Handed him all the keys, in fact? Given him the benefit of a spurious equivalence?
I really believe that this fall is our last chance to take back the reins of our own government and sustain our democracy. I don't want to live in the American equivalent of Turkey, or China, or Russia. I won't vote for a single Republican in November. Even the "good" ones are complicit in this authoritarian, amoral power grab.
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