Donald Trump hates everyone and everything except himself.
44
Trump in not "inclined" to tear fissures in the social fabric of American, he is DETERMINED to do so. He is first, last, and at his core - a fascist.
67
At the outset the driver of this piece is David Brook's long established deep distaste of the President. And he's quite aware that elitist distaste of the President is what his supporters love the most about the President. So he resorts to calling him un-American. You may as well say the President's supporters are a bag of deplorables.
17
REPUBLICANS hate America. REPUBLICANS. Donald Trump is not some isolated virus that landed here from outer space. He is the standard bearer of the REPUBLICAN Party. If the REPUBLICAN Party had not for decades been a toxic stew that drew much of its power from stoking racial and cultural divisions, Donald Trump would never have become president. By the way, those were decades in which REPUBLICAN David Brooks was happy to cheerlead for the REPUBLICAN Party, while having little but criticism for the Democrats who were desperately attempting to control the damage. That's REPUBLICAN, David Brooks. Say it. REPUBLICAN.
epublican, whether a Republican like David Brooks wants to admit it or not.
51
.
With titles like this article DB demeans himself as he elevates President Trump to Shakespearean levels of social and political drama. He is our King Lear: misunderstood and often betrayed. And when he is gone, you will miss him.
6
Circa 1850.
Know-Nothing party, byname of American Party, U.S. political party that flourished in the 1850s. The Know-Nothing party was an outgrowth of the strong anti-immigrant and especially anti-Roman Catholic sentiment that started to manifest itself during the 1840s. A rising tide of immigrants, primarily Germans in the Midwest and Irish in the East, seemed to pose a threat to the economic and political security of native-born Protestant Americans.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Know-Nothing-party
14
Donald Trump hates America but how any American could love Donald Trump is the billion dollar question?
24
Good job Mr. Brooks. Thank you.
16
I have yet to meet a trump supporter who can convince me of the value of this fiasco. President Obama created the economy that trump enjoys. Trump lives day to day. A new scam, a new scandal everyday.
Reckless tax cuts, government shutdowns, racial hatred.
What a pathetic mess.
53
America is exceptional just like my mom makes the best meatloaf in the world and my dad can beat up your dad.
22
Mr Brooks, I am disappointed.
You said everything but you failed to say that one thing on this subject that, all except 4, Republican Congressmen failed at, as well...
"President Trump is a racist."
If I needed to know anything about the health of GOP, well educated conservatives, this stark lapse tell me all I need to know.
18
Here he is, another clueless “conservative” harking back to a simpler time and place that never existed, except for landed white men and a few other white men that enabled the landed few with conservative writings about destiny, exceptionalism. Shining light on the hill, sure, but only if you were permitted to go up the hill. America is not post racial it’s not even post bill of rights. Get off your high horse, stop quoting/employing our founding as an example for today. Go out into the street (not the people you meet on your book tours) and look at the face of America. It’s not shining.
13
Excellent thought provoking article David !
I`ll excuse you for being a Republican.
Lokking forward to listen to you on PBS news Friday.
5
David, excellent piece, but you failed to mention that “Native Americans” populated this land long before the Europeans came here and took it over by force, and then of course they brought Africans here, against their will, to become their slaves. And to cap it off, they put the “Native Americans” on “reservations”.
But I guess God blessed America after all.
What a history. Jeez.
26
David, Republicans hate America.
~ They hate diversity.
~ They both misogynists and racists.
~ They hate any kind of equality: income, race, opportunity; you name it, they hate it. They want the law of the jungle which they laughably call 'natural law.'
~ They've been trying for 40 years to bankrupt the government with the ridiculous lie that tax cuts pay for themselves-something Mitch McConnell just called 'prosperity.'
~ They keep kneeling at the feet of extractionists. You hot this weekend? It's gonna get worse.
Republicans hate anything and anyone not straight, white, male, conservative and preferably theocratic.
You were their handmaiden for years-decades, even.
Own it.
35
The grabbag of ideas contains some elements of truth: "...new frontiers — to design a democracy, to create a new kind of democratic person, to settle the West," What defines America is the frontier and expansion into it. The settlement of "the West" was originally PA and the OH valley. And before that it was FL panhandle and even NJ!
Against indigenous peoples, George Washington committed what would now be considered war crimes in "la guerre de la Conquête" (aka Seven-Year War, or French-Indian War) and the American Revolution. Trump has illustrious antecedents, sadly (https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2017/05/18/dark-violence-and-atrocities-revolutionary-war/X4Kr4EzUUrNeVmnrNeSh2N/story.html) .
2
America has two dark, terrible original sins: the genocide of Native Americans, and the subsequent enslavement and then segregation of African black people.
The way I see it, the ideals of pluralism and inclusiveness, and the fact that the "American Dream" has always been open to people of all races and national origin, has been a way for America to atone for its original sins.
Trump in his crass ignorance and primitive ethno-nationalism is not only destroying the fundamentals ideals of the American Dream, he is also implicitly validating and accepting the acts of racist genocidal violence that led to the extermination of native populations and to the enslavement of entire African populations. This president is a disgrace and he has utterly destroyed the principles upon which America should be founded.
19
Ah, I forgot to add...
I am literally choking on this high and mighty concept of "American Exceptionalism" watching its own President telling more than 1/3rd American citizens to leave the country if you aren't happy with this melodrama.
I have a large friend footprint in Europe, and every-time this topic comes up, my friends and colleagues, be they English, Scot, French, Spanish, Greek, Turkish, Swiss or German.... (add as many religions and colour as well) read me a diatribe about exceptional-American-bad"-behaviour, projected as the "Exceptionalism.
Bush-II, Cheney and Rumsfeld are called war criminals in Europe. Well, so is Blair.
A German friend of mine said, despite Neo-Nazi agenda rearing its ugly head, "We recognize racism and Nazism when we see it now. Your Republican congressmen are in utter denial about the facts, that they have a racist President. Your problem is even bigger than you imagine."
34
Trump, his vocal supporters and those that give silent acquiescence to "the good ole days".... when being a white man meant you had dominion over all other people. For America it started in 1619 and 400 years later....SOS. For some a 400 year old legacy of hate, is the air they breath.
6
The Congresswomen of color (I refuse to use that term they use to refer to themselves - at least if they used "gang" that would give them some toughness but I digress) and others that are the target of Trump's racist idiocy need to go high, not low and certainly, do not react to every stupid remark he makes which is what they are doing. Calling him a racist does nothing - he denies it and his supporters don't believe it. Go aspirational as Brooks as done. Doubling down into an insult contest is counterproductive and I for one no longer read articles the media to include NYT keep showing up about the latest Trump insult. For example, the rally in NC where the crowds shouted - send her back. The headline told me enough which begs the question - why does the media keep feeding his ego?
10
America began by kidnapping Africans, loading them into coffin ships then enslaving those who survived. Rich whites got richer from this scheme.
America is now taking small children from their parents and putting them in cages without beds, adequate food and water, or hope. Rich whites are getting richer with this scheme.
That's exceptional alright - exceptionally perverse. There never was a shining city on the hill, Dave. Only an experiment that started with an ugly crime against humanity and is currently engaged in yet another one.
15
If only Americans could believe this instead of the inane childish follies of the woke left and the bigoted right.
1
Once blessed with enough room and resources to be dumb, America was able to forge ahead. Those days are over. Trump may hate, may not even understand the loftier ideals of America, but he sure understands dumb.
Being dumb himself, he is representative of far too many Americans, perhaps the heart of America itself. No more room, no more resouces, America is eating itself. Trump is but history's cattle driver, leading us into the slaughterhouse.
14
Trump loves Trump. Americans only matter if they meet his warped, narcissistic vision.
6
"We've given you a Republic, If you can Keep It."
Benjamin Franklin
3
So what you are saying David is eactly what Obama communicated for 8+ years. And was hounded every moment by the prejudiced, racist 'Right'
8
I don't have a problem with a hill full of Puritans... I have a problem with their incessant demands that I be one.
9
One question Mr. Brooks:
Who did you vote for?
4
Donald Trump is bought and paid for by Vladimir Putin for Russia's greater glory.
6
No, he loves America...it's AmeriCANS he hates, at least those that aren't rich, White and powerful.
1
Really? For three years I've been called stupid, smelly, racist, bigot, Nazi, cultist, Hitlerite and attacked for wearing a red hat, doxxed, screamed at in a restaurant and spat at, all for the crime of having the best economy in 50 years and peace abroad and desiring a strong southwestern border. All the Left has done is call the Betsy Ross Flag a symbol of oppression and racism, call the July 4th "Salute to America" tyrannical, applaud while antifa thugs bash a gay asian journalist, make heroes out of those who kneel during the national anthem and race bait day and night, night and day. Go virtue signal somewhere else Brooks, we're all filled up here.
6
Bottom line David. will you vote Democratic
3
I could not get past the headline, Mr. Brooks.
Tom
No Brooks. It is the Republican party and conservatives who hate America.
Trump's just channels their greed and racism to the suckers who enable the Republican party to destroy democracy.
5
here's your beer archie.
He does not hate America, he just does not have any loyalty to the Country or to others for very long unless they are his family. He is inept, petty, insecure, narcissistic...and on and on. He belongs with the Kardashians, both phony mouthpieces.
5
Perhaps the question is: Does trump even understand America?
The Constitution?
The Bill of Rights?
The Preamble?
What was he doing when the rest of us were studying U.S. history? Elementary school social studies? High school world history? What was trump doing? Bullying in the classroom and on the playground?
By the way, the ku klux klan just endorsed trump.
11
Trump has always hated America. It’s laws and people get in the way of him plundering it resources and other people’s wealth.
Trump has always lived America for it vast opportunity to grift everyone and con them from their money. Anyone or thing that impedes him is awful and deserves his scorn.
6
Trump is nostalgic for the time before The War Between the States when when Whites were in charge & outnumbered all the black slaves they kidnapped, native Americans etc.
No accident that Trump's favorite president is Andrew Jackson.Trump had no idea Jackson existed until the banished Steve Bannon tutored him (Classic Comics version).
Trump's base is feeling the demographics & complaining that foreigners are speaking in tongues around them & deploring lack of respect for the White Man.
This an extremely dangerous time for the future of an e pluribus unim America.
I already live in a state where Whites are approximately 1/3rd of the demographics.
Hawaii shows a possible future but we have to work through Trump's dangerous base to get there.
2
Just like overcoming alcoholism, the first step in trying to heal America is to admit that its democracy has a problem.
3
Trump puts a new and perverse twist to American Exceptionalism.
Let's except Trump from America.
3
Here's the inconsistency I find with Brooks: Fine, Trump is a demonic divider in chief. We agree. But so is the rest of the Repub House and Senate. If not, they would denounce him. Instead, they consistently either agree with him or cower in silence. So, we have to say that the Republican machine is anti-democratic and Anti-American.
Based on this, how can Brooks remain a Republican?
7
"I believe that what this president has done to our culture, to our civic discourse ... you cannot unring these bells and you cannot unsay what he has said, and you cannot change that he has now in a very short time made it seem normal for schoolboy taunts and obvious lies to be spun out in a constant stream. I think this will do more lasting damage than Richard Nixon's surreptitious burglaries did." (George Will, 12July2019) And that was before Mr. Trump's obvious lie about trying to stop the "Send Her Back" chant.
3
Beautifully written, David.
1
Dear Mr. Brooks,
It is true that Trump is but one man with a distorted view of American culture and values. However, it is the racism, the greed, the xenophobism, the anti-science, the stupidity, and the moral poverty of your Republican Party that placed this man in office and continues to support him and his policies at all costs. There are perhaps a handful of elected Republican officials that have dared to question the barrage of filth raining down upon our country-- the rest are complicit. Until you--and other Republicans in this country-- have the courage to fight for decency, take on the animals running FOX news, and questions your representatives, the political, social, and personal carnage of our democracy will remain unchecked.
8
What Trump and his party really hate is the fact that their ideas and values are in the minority and not embraced by a majority of decent, moral, Americans who want intelligence and competence and compassion in our policies.
They hate that a clear majority of Americans leans left on EVERY major position and policy facing us a nation.
Prove it to yourself.
Especially if you are a Trump supporter.
Go ahead… if you can stand it.
www.pollingreport.com
You'll see that Americans side with the Democrat's position on:
- Immigration
- Access to safe abortion
- Health care issues
- Better background checks on guns
- Climate change
- Higher taxes on the wealthy
- Election reform - including security
Etc, etc, etc.
If Republicans can't draw people to their ideas, maybe they should try to get closer to American values rather than trying to rig the system with gerrymandering, draconian governance schemes and help from the Russians.
Try not dividing us in order to conquer us.
Try getting more popular with more and better ideas.
Rather than more cunning.
You're killing our blessed America.
4
A fourth proposition is that the truth does not matter. The bigger the lie the better.
2
I just now heard you on NPR saying that you can't support Trump (for reasons given here) but also that you could not support a "green new deal." This is utter hypocrisy and outrageous! Here you say that Trump attacks the American drea and that "The right response is to double down on that ideal. The task before us is to create the most diverse mass democracy in the history of the planet — a true universal nation." If you believe that you should support any reasonable vision for a better America. Trump and the GOP have NO vision for a better America, only an isolated Christian, White one in which women and LGBT persons are second class, and in which lies are truth.
7
Yes, Donald J. Trump is bad news.
But, if you look at the American past of bigotry and racism. Of some American's hatred of the Blacks, the Jews, the Catholics. the Muslims... plus the blatant homophobia and the use of woman-as-object...
Here a sad reminder of the wars Americans fought in building their empire with the Indians, the English, the Canadians, the Spaniards, the Mexicans, the Germans; and each other in the Civil War in which more men died than in all the wars of the 19th century.
Also the past fifty years or so under the abuse of power of Republicans that invaded and fought shamelessly in Vietnam (1955 to 1973) and then invaded and bombed Beirut (1982-83), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986-2011), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-96-98-2003), Somalia (1992-93), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1994-96), Sudan, Afghanistan (1998-2001), Kosovo (1999), Osama bin Laden (2011) assassination was carried out without permission from Pakistan, where bin Laden was hiding, etc.
The US provides more small arms and ammunition to Central America than any other country does and approved $2 million to $4 million in gun sales per year to Honduras between 2015 and 2017. Now the multi-billion-dollar arms deals the US conducts under President Trump with sale of military equipment, bombs, machine guns and powerful poisons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
This could lead to no other President than Donald Trump and ultimately to the demise of the United States of America.
4
Trump is the face of the Republican Party, their poster boy, their mascot. If Trump hastes America, what does this say about the Republican leadership and their super-wealthy donors that put Trump in the White House? What does this say about members of the Republican Party who continue to support Trump? They must all hate America as well, or Trump would not still be where he is with the enormous power to destroy everything this nation has fought and died for.
3
Sadly this is less about Trump and more about the people who enable him. A large swath of the American population, the majority of white men and women, support Trump. In supporting Trump, they support his behavior. How can so many support and condone the behavior of an unethical, immoral misogynistic racist?
4
This column is a perfect reflection of the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, GOP version of America’s legacy. Right out of the Frank Capra / John Wayne fantasy world.
6
I usually read lots of reader responses before I post. And then I don't post. Today I just want to thank David for his unrelenting attempts to speak sense, and draw us together. This is the only hope us.
1
Sorry, David. The espoused ideals of America are one thing, but the practical reality on the ground has always been much more ugly.
My Italian-American mother and her siblings were treated like dirt by their WASP teachers in the 1930’s. They were assumed to be stupid, and from criminal families. People these days forget that the WASP privilege has always been there and keeps retargeting it’s weapons to the latest “it” group to blame
So what is the “real” America? What is “un-american” about this kind of xenophobia? It’s as American as slavery, the “gentlemen’s agreement” to segregate baseball, Jim Crow, and many voter registration laws that have recently been enacted. It’s certainly ugly, but it’s not un-Amercan.
6
Trump wants to rule the USA like other totalitarians do such as in the Philippines, Romania, Poland, Russia, China and the like .... sad day for citizens that can only accept those that think and act like them, shame on us Democrat’s and some decent Republicans for letting this happen.
2
A picture embedded in my mind is the look from behind Speaker Pelosi when she first took the gavel. To her left, the Republican members, virtually all old white haired dark suited white men. To her right a diverse, male, female, colourfully coiffed and dressed collection Democrats representative of America.
The battle lines couldn’t be clearer.
6
Know what? I feel sorry for Republicans, especially Republican legislators, in the same way that Frederick Douglass felt sorry for slaveholders. He said those slave owners were corrupting their souls with their deeds and would have to pay dearly before God. Just so, defending Mr. Trump must require a terrible reckoning with the soul. God forgive those Republicans who stand firm and tremble.
2
The very best vision for America is "Dump Trump" and
all of his ungracious Republican cohorts. Make America decent, again.
6
But will you vote for the Democratic nominee and say so publicly?
If Trump had his way, America would be a lot like Putin’s Russia… a criminal empire, where the rich and powerful pay the top crime boss [Trump] for the privilege of taking unfair advantage of the rest of us.
11
One should be aware that Trump is not intelligent enough to actually have any philosophy about being American. As a dishonest narcissist, he is the marketer of whatever certain citizens want and, more importantly, don't want. They don't want the twenty-first century and most of the changes in their country, and he's their leader in this. A white America is precisely what Trump promises them, and they believe in him.
Is he a racist? If you have to ask, then, yes he is.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
1
What an eloquence simply put Yes we are designing a future for our kids and the towntrodden who wish to join us
1
Thanks but no thanks for trying to bring us all together during these dark times. Your fantasy about America "being inflamed by visions of creating a heaven on earth" is ridiculous. I do not believe that this has been the case for one day in our history. People have been fighting tooth and nail for basic human rights from the very second the ink was dry on the Constitution. Yes, there are these ideas born of the Enlightenment, but for God's sake, they are ideas that precious few have the privilege to sit around and write about.
Why do you need to smooth things over with this theoretical pablum? How can you paint a picture of brotherhood when this scabrous orange devil has unleashed the racism and hatred that has always been held in by decorum? In some horrifyingly wonderful way, we all get to see the truth. Don't whitewash it now -- let's acknowledge the vast chasm between our words and actions.
3
"This sense of mission has often made Americans arrogant, and somewhat dangerous to be around."
Somewhat dangerous??? And you don't have to be around it as we will gladly bring danger and a whole lot more to you wherever you are on the planet, at least to those places where we can do it with impunity.
Or perhaps this foreigner's perspective can clarify it:
As a matter of fact, the United States is the most colossally aggressive empire in world history: the number of US military bases around the world is simply bewildering. Through its bases, the US spreads its economic and cultural influence by profaning, subjugating and silencing others. On all continents it finances and arms the governments and guerrilla movements it favours, frequently switching sides. The US employs death squads to do away with dissidents, and wages war when needed. Every now and then, as a reminder, the US bombs old proud Iraq. The US is the most wretchedly villainous state of all times. Anyone aware of global issues can easily imagine how vast the hatred for the United States — a corrupted, swollen, paralysing and suffocating political entity — must be across the Third World — and among the thinking minority of the West too.
4
“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder,” John Adams declared.
I wonder if that includes the virtual extermination of the Native Americans who roamed the land for many generations prior to the arrival of the Europeans or perhaps the institution of slavery to to reap the bounties of the new land due to a lack of cheap labor.
1
David. you were my favorite columnist and political thinker for a long, long time. I've shared dozens of your columns. but with this column, I'm really finished with you. you have succumbed to your hatred of trump, and you're not fighting him. you're complaining. I'm weary...of your weariness. I understand. It is depressing to be faced with Mr. Trump's personality day in and day out...but you are a journalist and need to look at policy as well as social considerations. You've become a dreary, disappointed social worker. I'll be hopeful and check in with you after a year or so. Be well!
3
Any psychologist will tell you that deep down inside Donald Trump hates himself most of all. And that why he always projects his insecurities/inadequacies on to others, especially those he secretly envies/perceives as much smarter/superior to himself. He’s nothing more than a weak misanthropic man with a major (if not monumental) inferiority complex.
5
Brooks wrote, “The Puritans settled this continent with visions of creating a future city on a hill. They had an eschatological dream of completing God’s plan for this earth. By the time of the revolution it was well understood that America was the land of futurity, the vanguard nation that would lead all of humanity to a dignified and democratic future.”
Brooks is wrong. The Puritan vision is a myth that we tell ourselves.
Capt. John Mason commanded in 1637 the militia that massacred the Pequots. He wrote, “Let the whole Earth be filled with his Glory! Thus the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their Land for an Inheritance: Who remembred us in our low Estate, and redeemed us out of our Enemies Hands: Let us therefore praise the Lord for his Goodness and his wonderful Works to the Children of Men!”
That is a succinct distillation of Manifest Destiny: The white Christian God gave Englishmen someone else’s land. In 1876, Native Americans reversed the situation and massacred Lt. Col. George A. Custer and his 7th Calvary who were doing what Mason’s command did: Taking the native’s land.
Mason’s praising his god for slaughtering hundreds of people echoes, resonates, in Trump’s words, tweets, and treatment of immigrants.
The Pequots probably wanted Mason to go back from where he had come.
A swashbuckling statue of Mason drawing his sword exists. I would have no problem if the statue were melted down.
6
Some years back I worked with a man from Albania.He thought very highly of Bush because he said he liberated their country from Russia.He spoke Albanian ,Russian and English.He and his wife had a two family house and two sons born here.The dream of many who come here.I asked him if his sons were bi-lingual.His answer was simple yet profound.They told him they did not want to speak anything but English,because they were American.
3
Brooks is making amends for his tepid response to the rise of Trump and his base of bigots. Remember his 2016 columns that said, well, Trump is bad, but his followers have legitimate grievances?
No they don't. Their grievance is dealing with people of color.
Stephens and Douthat will soon follow with their mea culpa columns.
Sorry, gentleman, you bear considerable responsibility for the buffoon that sits in the White House.
3
Don’t you agree that with most DB articles there is always something missing in them. I mean he seems to never be able to get at the heart of the issue. White Americans of all persuasions have tolerated White racists among us as long as it benefited them or theirs. This is the heart of the matter.
2
Trump puts a new and perverse twist to American Exceptionalism.
3
I am always confused by the idea of America being originally white. No, original people of the land were brown, the whites came and tried to wipe them out along with their culture. Western Europeans established themselves here only about 500 years ago. Even during that time they needed blacks and browns to do back breaking work to build America: they brought in blacks to do work for them, imported East Asians to do tough work, while bringing in cheap labour from Latin America has continued. It was not just bringing in the physical workers, America has imported a lot of academics who go on to win Nobel prizes, contribute to the universities and places like Silicon Valley. Could we please stop talking about colour and accept others as human beings? Could the politicians, from both sides, stop calling each other names? It would be nice to see Congress discuss policies, do some constructive work and stop wasting time on DJT.
5
Cowardly and calculating , Brooks spared the GOP; the party and its leadership are not even mentioned ( other than Trump, the leader of the party.)
Brooks envisions Trump surgically leaving office and pretends the GOP will return to the virulent strain of compassionate conservatism. It’s too late: the GOP is the white nationalist party and Brooks offers his prose as camouflage .
1
If you do your own geneology homework you will probably find that your ancestors do not appear on any of the passenger manifests, and thus your ancestors were also illegal immigrants, probably escaping from the law or the church.
1
Bravo, David Brooks.
Incredibly well-said.
1
I’m sure black Americans, especially those who descend from slaves, and native Americans would wholeheartedly disagree with the notion of US exceptionalism going back to our country’s origins
We need to keep telling the deplorables in flyover country that the elite Democrats on the coasts know what is best for the country.
3
Donald Trump is just the latest out of the Republican Party.
Remember W? He started two illegal wars and trashed the world economy. Now he's a straight up guy?
Republican trashing of America goes back to Ronald Reagan's voodoo economics. Now America is for the rich. End of story.
5
Mr. Brooks elegant prose notwithstanding, America was always infused with a veneer of White superiority if not supremacy.
In a scene from the movie The Good Shepherd which theme was the foundation of the OSS during WWII, later becoming the CIA after the war, the main character ( played by Matt Damon) is a CIA officer - a white Protestant male from a prominent family - who, in one scene, is tasked to meet an Italian mafia boss (played by Joe Pesci) to attempt to secure the mafia’s support in the invasion of Cuba.
The dialogue that ensues is revealing.
« We, Italians, says the mafia man, have our families and our food. Jews have their traditions. Blacks have their music. What do you white guys have, he asks?
We have the United States of America responds the CIA officer. The rest of you are just visiting.
Trump has just tapped into that ugly, but real, veneer and brought it fully blown to the surface.
1
Oscar Wilde "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."
5
On second thought......I think Trump’s crowd wants him to tear down all those who look like invaders, intruders, outsiders. Let Trump decide who belongs here. This is elementary school behavior......kids shouting “Fight. Fight” as soon as a conflict appears. And name calling as soon as someone looks like they don’t belong. Trump isn’t the instigator. He’s the fearless representative.
1
In my opinion, Trump just loves himself way too much. Trump’s Raison d’être is: “What is in for me” - all the time. He doesn’t have any allegiance to anyone or to our country. It’s “Trump over America” - that’s it.
Trump is not a leader. He lacks probity and comity. Trump is essentially an irresponsible “Shock Jock” provocateur masquerading as the President. Furthermore, he has lowered the prestige of the “Office of Presidency” forever by his unforgivably vile demeanor.
My heart goes out to Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, AOC and Ayanna Pressley as I feel viscerally repulsed by Trump’s racist rants. Trump is inciting xenophobia in his rallies through his anti Muslim and anti immigrant histrionics by being totally oblivious of the fact that these irresponsible and reprehensible acts may result in disastrous hate crimes. He totally doesn’t understand the notion of accountability because he is an uber selfish, solipsistic and narcissistic psychopath.
As Americans, next year we should take our country back by collectively proclaiming to Trump: “You are FIRED”
4
Dear Mr. Brooks, I’m waiting for your column when you announce that you have registered as a Democrat. Ignore the crazies on the left. The moderates, centrists and pragmatic liberals and progressives will welcome you.
I just wish the entire West Coast could bow out of the current "US experiment" and join the "Canadian experiment". I have a tremendous amount more regard for it at this point.
Problem is, after all the productive Blue States leave, the shambles of the Red State Takers would morph into an unchecked military threat to all their neighbors. Because what they could not get by being productive, they would demand at gunpoint as their "birthright", or more accurately, their "whiteright".
5
Donald Trump doesn't "hate" America...he just loves himself much more.
2
City on the hill indeed. First own your own important role in promoting what this nation has become--namely an indecent, xenophobic, kleptocracy. Then talk about how you will work to accept those people whose viewpoints differ from your own capitalism uber alles mentality. Perhaps then we can have a discussion.
Careful David, some of your ideas might be construed as socialist.
1
Other than the glaring omission of Native Americans — NYC bubble effect? — this is a compelling read.
1
I admire David Brooks' stalwart effort here, but there's a problem:
For most Republicans, it appears, there is simply nothing more evil than a Democrat. Pedophiles, rapists, exploiters, poisoners of the planet, vote cheaters in league with Russia, it's all about "winnning" at any cost. And cost there is, as value is removed from the economy and the wealth gap increases.
Only they, and especially Trump supporters, are the "true Americans". Any treachery is OK to assert their might as right.
5
I agree with Brooks. I wonder if he's ever encountered any female writers, poets, or philosophers who marvel at the ideal of a pluralistic America? It's a little ironic that all his sources are male, and all white, save Langston Hughes at the end.
1
Where was this America that Brooks describes? And when did it exist? Certainly not in my lifetime.
1
What does: "America is exceptional precisely because it is the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past" mean? The only nation on earth? You sure? Half the country is pining for an imagined whiter yester-year. I'm not sold.
I recently wrote the Times a letter about this oft-repeated myth that the US is the "greatest country in the world." Not sure what that means, but given the state of US politics, the White House, your crooked and shameless AG, Fox News' viewership, income inequality etc., I think clinging to that idea gets in the way of progress. Like every other country, the US has a lot of work to do to come close to fulfilling its own professed ideals.
Time to look straight in the mirror and say "I love this country, and will work to make it the best" rather than perpetuate the delusion that it is the best.
8
America has always been that paradox wrapped in an enigma buried in a mystery.
It has been a lot of things: British colony, a farming nation, small towns and long trips; railroads and industry, smoke and fire and good jobs; innocence and depravity.
We have been nationalists seeking isolation and a great force that saved the world.
What we are now is a war profiteering capitalist mutant that threatens to destroy not only the America we all dream of or remember but the entire human race.
We have wars in the Middle East. We have wars on drugs. We have wars by proxy. We have now wars on children.
M.Brooks, you need to get out more.
4
This article is definitely encouraging and a good reminder of who we aspire to be. I like that Brooks is attempting to remind us of our heritage and to call forth our better angels.
Trump and the Republicans are already calling the Democrats, and anyone who disagrees with them, unpatriotic.
So I think it is imperative that the Democrats magnify this message, outlining what makes a good citizen, and point out forcefully how unpatriotic the Trump message is.
A third of our countrymen have been led astray and brainwashed by FOX. But press, the Democratic leadership and the presidential candidates all need to point out that real patriotism means understanding our core principles, and incorporating them into our governing. NOT abandoning them as Trump seems intent on doing.
5
Meh.
I think it's becoming clear that the US isn't really special or transcendent in any way. It is composed of the descendants of pirates, slaves, profiteers, desperates, guttersnipes, wanderers and misfits, but so is every country on the planet.
We are only special in the stories we tell ourselves about our origins. We must do that to hide the true story, which is an ugly one filled with genocide, death and oppression. We must do that to avoid actually having to remedy the injustices of the past. We must do that to avoid sweeping change and to continue the experiment in incremental steps.
Our current situation is yet another symptom of the sickness we have never cured from the start.
The line in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….” must become an actual truth to cure that sickness and set us on the path to transcendence once and for all.
2
Trump has no allegiance to America. Trump has an allegiance to himself and making money. He has proceeded to denigrate and to demean so many of his fellow Americans, it’s pitiable. He is not an American, he is a celebrity. And there is a big difference.
8
Unless, of course, some Democrat is a little intemperate in condemning Trump's open racism which was aimed directly at them. Then, hey, both sides are exactly equally wrong and it's okay if Trump wins. Right, David?
2
Trump’s vision of, and for, America extends about as far his insecurity. He’s a humbug, as unsavory a character still walking the streets as you might ever run across, the unearned recipient of money, its power, & privilege … the only things he knows, and which he uses to coerce. He neither possesses nor respects intellect, law, reason, concern for human rights & dignity, ethics, principles, or empathy. At least he can dress himself. He has one interest, himself. This self-proclaimed greatest (you fill in the blank) is at the same time the perpetual victim, a whiner who is never satisfied, and shows no awareness of the contradiction.
Trump knows only a past that allowed him to become what he is. His vision is limited to maintaining that past or dealing with any threats, real or imagined, to it. All else is bluster. He has no plan for America to address the challenges of the 21st century and move the nation to a better future, unless you are rich. This is someone who should never even be allowed to visit the WH. Unfortunately, he has found an easy alliance with the GOP which was infiltrated & corrupted by Big Business eons ago so in kowtowing to Trump their loss of any remaining honor, dignity, & self-respect was hardly felt.
1
I have always admired David Brooks' intelligent, moderate and usually optimistic opinions, including those in his latest piece. But reading the readers' comments, I am shaken by the cleavage in views even among the so-called progressive elite who read the NYT. This extraordinary divisiveness threatens not only America, but the future of free world. We Canadians shiver these days not so much from the cold, but from the chilling dark shadow being cast over us by our best friend and neighbour.
2
Trump has no love for this country and it's people.
He uses all of the tools of a fascist and a demagogue in service to his true love of power, wealth and himself, most of all.
His abandonment of his Oath to the Constitution and the people of this country is clear and the consequences have yet to seen anywhere. His allies gather more and more power and defend him with lies and without shame for their abandonment of their Oath.
The supposed defenders of our great dream, our Democracy and it's future, have left their courage at home. The tools available to check his power are now part of a political calculation instead of the appropriate and equally aggressive and meaningful response. He is emboldened with each act that goes without consequence. I see our leaders who are choosing to pass on action , just as reprehensible in their failure to stand for what is right and good. We need their courage. We will support them. Until then, we worry that we may lose everything to hate and lack of courage. VOTE
1
As many other comments have indicated, I too think the American ideal has not really matched the reality of this country.
3
"In fact, Trump’s national story is much closer to the Russian national story than it is toward our own."
The Soviet revolution achieved women's suffrage in Russia three years before the USA. Langston Hughes, who Mr. Brook quotes approvingly, once described Soviet Moscow (which he visited) as "capital of the new world", and the USSR as a "land where racial prejudice was ... taboo".
While reading Mr. Brooks column, I tried to imagine myself as Elizabeth Eckford (Little Rock nine), neatly dressed, carrying her notebook, trying to enter Little Rock Central High School in 1957. A large crowd of whites were screaming at her as she was merely trying to go to school. Can you imagine the fear she must have felt? Elizabeth Eckford was an “American”. There are millions of people in this country who are native born legal citizens, but not “American”. They are a significant part of our present problems.
1
"This is a white man's country. Let white men rule." That was the slogan of the Democratic Party convention held at Tammany Hall right next to Union Square in Manhattan in 1868, after the Civil War. The largest newspaper in Brooklyn maintained the same ideas consistently until 1911, last time I checked.
Racism is part of America. We are also a country based on hope for a better world, where justice shall prevail. I am patriotic to this country, and I strive to make it just. My patriotism means fighting racism.
But fighting racism also means acknowledging that it is as American as apple pie. The people who say racists things call also claim credit to America.
"The Puritans settled this continent with visions of creating a future city on a hill."
Let's not forget that the Puritans were basically fundamentalists who were run out of every place they tried to establish their church in Europe because it was too rigid, draconian and intolerant.
Their vision likely not include heretics like me.
1
A reminder to Trump and many of his base regarding their recent "send them back" vilification of four Congresswomen of color. We all get sent back eventually. You know that old "dust to dust" thing. You can search endlessly for what motivates so many to fill their interim with this hate and meanness. The complete answer is probably unknowable, but regardless of the cause, the result is a destructive, tragic waste for all. Carrying the July 4th spirit forward, let's get back to the idea of "liberty and justice for all." Trump and company, please, for the benefit of all of us, stop the racism and bigotry.
1
These are lofty and fundamentally agreeable thoughts, Mr. Brooks.
Perhaps, however, today's "Puritans" have let some folks down. The result? Our noble promised land has left many feeling stranded, ignored, angry and sour.
Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" remark comes to mind. As does the skyrocketing cost of college tuition and Golman Sach's bailout under Obama.
Sadly, we get the politicians we deserve.
1
Not sure DJT really "hates" anything...sure he's extremely prejudiced and has both conscious and unconscious biases that inform all his decisions. He seems singularly driven by an extreme instance of self worship that masks tremendous insecurity.
Just recall the last five words of our pledge of allegiance. "Liberty and Justice for all." Not a few. Not some. All.
2
What is Trump presidency for ?
So far everything indicates Putin has some plan for America and it was executed by the higher office in this country.
2
Trump is thrilled you have used his name in print. Criticism energizes his base. You will never change the closed minds of his supporters. Ignore this egotist and his followers. Without attention, he will dry up like a salamander in the Sahara.
1
Sunlight has a sanitizing effect. The bright side of this dark administration is that the hatred and prejudice is revealed. We now see what many of us already knew and others of us chose to deny. As all of you from the 60s and 70s will recall, we need to "Let The Sun Shine In."
3
I've been enjoying Brooks' columns lately, but this one misses the mark. I'm not a fan of the squad, but this issue is about racism, and the dream of America has never included dreams for African Americans, unless their dreams were to go to prison.
1
Thanks for writing. Unfortunately, this piece misrepresents history on many levels. Exactly what higher ideals were being engaged on the genocidal westward "expansion"? Or the fact that the US's wealth has been built on the backs of enslaved people and invading countless countries to either steal their resources or install someone favorable to them?
No, what's sad is everything ugly that Trump says has been going on all along.
1
Thank you, Mr.Brooks, for this impassioned erudite call to arms in defense of America. I imagine your detractors didn't consult their dictionaries before making their points.
Your audacity to hope is stirring and, I hope , infectious.
It’s amazing to me how much discord the Democrats and their voters have with each other. I get the sense that they would lose if Mickey Mouse was running for the Republicans! The only successful strategy the Dems have, in my humble opinion, is to get every Democratic voter to the voting booth in November 2020. In order to do that, they need to bring every color, every viewpoint, every aspiration in the dynamic of the Democrat party into the same tent. Democracy Now has reported recently that the DNC refuses to allow a one off presidential candidate debate focusing only on climate change. Further, if any candidate participates in a climate change debate outside of the DNC structure, they will not be invited to any future DNC debates. If this does not outrage Democrats, and if the DNC does not get with the program, good luck in 2020. You are going to need it. By the way, the number one concern that Americans have right now is... climate change. Wake up, voters! The DNC is working against you, not for you.
"The Puritans settled this continent with visions of creating a future city on a hill." Wait. Stop it right there. There is the Eurocentric perspective again. It's like repeating that nonsense that Columbus "discovered" America. Please, just stop it! These statements continue perpetuating a history that does not reflect reality on this continent. Give the indigenous peoples from the Aleutian Islands to the southern tip of Chile and their forebearers more respect and acknowledgment.
2
Thank you Mr. Brooks for this BRILLIANT essay.
"The Puritans settled this continent w/visions of creating a future city on a hill. They had an eschatological dream of completing God’s plan for this earth." This continent was already settled by the indigenous peoples. The 'Puritans' invaded an already settled continent & the white men from Europe kept coming & slaughtered millions upon millions in our history's worst genocide! Not a good start to creating a 'city on a hill.' And I don't think this was ever part of God's plan. White men have always twisted God's word to suit their own needs/wants/desires. Frankly, I'm sick of hearing that this is the greatest country in the world. I'm an elderly white woman who loves my country but hates a lot that's been done in the past as well as our current trajectory. We used to be tops in education. Now we've cut out PE, art & music (to make more time for learning) & yet we keep falling behind. What's happened? Our infrastructure is crumbling while the rich get richer & avoid paying their share of taxes. The 1% getting richer was/is far more important than the progress of the country. Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people & gerrymandering is legal. Sebastian Gorka summed it up when he said the "Alpha males are back." He meant the white ones of course & he meant back in control, lording over all. White men cannot come to terms w/what our ancestors did to people of color, whether black, brown, red, or yellow. In order to move forward, we must face our past.
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for finally saying what so many of us know to be true: Donald Trump hates America.
"The Puritans settled this continent with visions of creating a future city on a hill"... A hill upon which you were to be promptly hanged if found to be a Quaker. Sorry, but the founders I admire were the ones smart enough to reject the extreme puritanical mindset. The Puritans had NO desire to create a land of religious liberty, quite the opposite; their goal was to create a land in which they held religious supremacy.
I couldn't help thinking that David Brook's reading of Langston Hughes' "Let America be America again," is skewered in affirmation of American worldview being futuristic. But Hughes' is picturing an America that has always been a paper tiger whose promises have remained theoretical; the historical America in Hughes' poem is narcissistic, hypercompetitive, racist, violent, built on a fundamental denigration of the weak. The poem advocates something radical--to change the course of American history, the wretched of the American earth have to wrestle the reins from the wealthy. In other words, the future he envisions for America is a Socialist or a Communist one. Do we have the stomach to see the validity of this future, or do we--to our long-term detriment, reject it as "Un-American."?
Regarding Donald Trump--we all know he is a home-grown product of this nation.
1
“A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South”...Abraham Lincoln.
No matter the issue, what is different in the year 2019 between all Americans and between the 7.7 billion humans on earth???
Good on ya, David!
Now, please carry this righteous, anti-Trump zeal forward into the only practical alternative available to your: vocal support for the Democratic presidential nominee, whoever she or he might turn out to be.
1
Trump's America
Shows our dark underbelly.
Remember the light.
1
To sum up: America isn't what it used to be, nor will it ever be.
This is the first David Brooks' column that I have ever agreed with 100%.
Well done and well said, Mr. Brooks!
Mothers and children living in poverty in rusting cities
The idea of American greatness is gone
education system is failing to educate
Gangs are all over and killing us
this Mess of a country needs leadership
there are lots of killers in the world, you think we are innocent?
The world is laughing at us
Our roads and bridges are falling apart
Yes, these words spoken by Trump .often, and he really does have lots of negatives about our country. So, if criticizing our country is reason to remove someone, where do we send him to? back to Queens? Not welcome. Back to Germany? Not welcome. Maybe Putin would take him in? How about back to Solvenia since his wife has dual citizenship?
1
On a completely other thought, I ask this question:
Are we “Americans”? What about Brazilians, Hondurans, and Canadians? Don’t they also live in The Americas?
Just a question that always crosses my mind when I read these kind of things.....any thoughts anyone?
Trump has no version of "American". He doesn't have three propositions of what it means to be American. Brooks, like almost every so-called journalist, historian, or expert, gives Trump way too much credit. He's a con man. That's his world view. That's it. That's all he is and has ever been.
Mr Brooks I’m reading your book “The Second Mountain” and it just dawned on me that the comments by Jake Roberts on this article are those of someone who (as John Ruskin would describe it) “sees”. The tug of war between two different visions is part of and (I dare say) essential to the dynamic and evolutionary character of who we are as a country. It’s messy (kind of like sausage-making), but it’s how it works.
"Toward a more perfect Union....."
I don't think we're working too hard on that concept....If the truth will set us free,
then we are in trouble.....as we have been since the original
sin of our founding caused some of the signers to avert their eyes from that sin.......as millions still do today.
1
too bad David Brooks and his right-wing bros spent 8 years undermining the superb expression of most of the aspirational ideals highlighted in this column— President Obama.
1
By chance after reading this article "Donald Trump Hates America" I read an article that claims Michelle Obama is the most admired woman in the world right now.
How do people make these facile judgments? And more important, why? Can't they conceive of metrics that mean more than mere popularity?
I can. Look at actions, not words. What actions show that Donald Trump hates America? Can you give me any, David Brooks? What has he done (not said, done) that shows that? What has Michelle Obama done (again, not said, done) that is admirable?
1
Beautiful, as always. Trump needs to walk across the street to the US Capitol building where the tour movie ends with those words...e pluribus unum.
For Donald Trump, anyone who disagrees with him must be destroyed. His view on what it means to be an American is colored by how much he can add to his personal wealth.
He is more than ignorant, he is incurious. He doesn't know what he doesn't know, yet he thinks he is the smartest person in the room. He eked out a win by a little more than 70,000 votes. He expected to lose and parlay that loss into his own TV reality network.
He wakes up each day laughing at his good fortune while millions of us weep for what he is doing to our country.
1
the religious component you offer is only icing on the cake of your complicity - republican ideology hasn’t changed under trump, it’s only been streamlined. history won’t be kind to trump, his party, or you.
Mr. Brooks:
Leave the Republican Party. Everything that you find detestable in Trump is now the heart of the Republican party. You can't redeem it by hoping for the best. The party is now the darkest heart you can imagine. Say good by. What you now espouse is Progressivism. Embrace it; admit it; join it.
I observe that many of Brooks' pieces start with a title meant to capture interest thru a sensationalist nature. Like click bait. Kind of formulaic manipulation.
And then a web of often curious logic.A fun challenge.
But I have to work too hard to spot the faults.
I guess I'm saying I'm tired.
I would rather read from a person who's political bent IS LESS CONFLICTED.
THANK YOU for reminding us what AMERICA means, I believe to a majority of humans! How then, has it come to be that a significant fraction of Americans, Trump's base and much of the GOP, share such a different view of what it means to be American? Is it because xenophobia (fear), white-supremacy (racism), and nostalgia for an imaginary idealized past (ignorance and lies) are constantly transmitted to our citizens by propaganda channels working in league with oligarchs (both domestic and foreign) who aim to literally steal our nation from its citizens? America is under attack, and we must fight back with whatever tools we have: the truth, hope, and most critically, our votes, while we still have them.
With the lowest unemployment figure ever recorded President Trump has provided a much brighter future for African Americans. Next point?
Though David Brooks can be at times infuriating, it's columns like these that keep me coming back.
I'm glad he didn't ruin this with an addendum such as, Even though Donald Trump hates America, the Democrats better nominate someone moderate enough for me to support.
I guess Mr. Brooks discussion of hope to keep working on the unfinished agenda of America has had to leave some things assumed and not clearly mentioned, i.e., working on redeeming our expansion through killing Native Americans and enslaving people of color. But I'll take what I can get from him, as I hope he has finally realized that the Republican Party that he has enabled all these years has culminated in the Cult of Trump Personality.
For many white Americans - what they want is a ‘white’s’ only country. Obama’s election threatened that vision of America and Trump is how they responded. Simple as that. Most white Americans voted for Trump....even white women. All non white Americans voted against him. This is the political reality of “Trump’s” America...it’s so darned ugly that articles like this one dare not even speak it plainly.
12
As a practicing clinical psychologist for over 30 years, I'm often amazed by Mr. Brooks' accurate psycho-sociological analysis of social phenomena. From what I've read he has no formal psychological or psychiatric training. Yet another example of the amateur besting many professionals.
9
It’s almost abundantly clear, Donald J. Trump and his cohorts, want to ignite a race war, and appears, will not stop at nothing to get it. Be very careful who you follow, and what you are asking for.
How’s that for does “Trump hate America?”
8
Trump is affront to America but don't try to give to many people healthcare or I might vote for him again!
- David Brooks
3
Missing from David Brooks' glorious rendering of what America supposedly really is is a single mention of several glaring contradictions that have been with the "American project" since the Pilgrims. These are: a dark religious intolerance (for the Pilgrims actually set out to construct a theocratic society that gravely punished, expelled and even killed heretics), slavery, both the temporary indentured form and the far viler permanent dehumanization of racial bondage that turned people into property, and finally the genocidal conquest of the native peoples who to their fatal misfortune, were "in the way" of the euphemistically termed white "settlers" -- covetous people who were really invading hordes stealing land from its true owners through force of arms. Let's at least be honest about what this smug "city on a hill" was built upon.
14
Thank you.
That’s all.
1
We must take back Congress and all levels of the legislative branches of government, from local to state to Capitol Hill.
Democracy will die on Capitol Hill unless we don't.
2
With liberty and justice for all. Amen.
Two things get Trump re-elected:
1. Economy
2. Media
3
Donald Trump is heavily indebted to Putin and his oligarch buddies. He does their bidding. Does whatever they want him to do. And now his greed and Kushner family's greed and need are pushing him into the same sort of situation, viz-a-viz, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, MBS. Our goose is cooked unless we get rid of this eternally, greedy clan - on the quick.
9
After the 2012 Election Brooks could only talk about what Republicans needed to do to capture the White House in 2016. Never did he mention anything concrete regarding what Republicans could point to that was good for the US or the world. He was only focused on getting back into power.
Now Brooks has a true Republican in the White House, but without the window-dressing and hypocrisy. Trump is a mirror "decent" conservatives hate looking into. Out-indecent conservatives love him. David, enough of your milquetoast whining! Quit being a baby. Your prayers were answered!
6
U-u-u-um, David, when you say, "The Puritans settled this continent with visions of creating a future city on a hill." You seem to continue to forget that the continent was already "settled" by what the Europeans called "Indians."
What part of your story, your narrative, you myth making depends on perpetuating these blatant mischaracterizations of "our" history?
15
I guess you’re saying that Trump is a lot like the squad of four Democrats that Pelosi keeps lecturing. Both hate America.
Mr. Brooks, thank you for saying what many of us have been feeling! In the last couple of days of thinking about our President’s tweets, the idea that he is the one that hates America began to form in my mind. I will not try to fathom his motives. But thinking about his words and actions, it seems that he is a mean spirited, greedy, narcissistic, misogynist and racist old man who is completely out of touch with the majority of Americans. I tire of his constant ad hominem attacks and lack of respect for others. I am an old man too. But, I try to be positive and embrace the future, welcome our diversity, and now long for some common decency in our discource.
7
Great quote by Langston Hughes. Trump's crowds would chant for him too!
But, the idealism in this essay reinforces the sanctity of Manifest Destiny. Yep, it was God who granted "us" this continent... from sea to shining sea... so all men could be free, have justice, and pursue their happiness!!
Uh...ok.
The trail of tears left behind, the brutality, enslavement, and genocide belies a different destiny. This is the part we like to overlook when we speak of "our exceptionalism."
Trump is really nothing new. Trump is white privilege in all its corpulent, gluttonous, lethargic glory.
Trump is the result of Manifest Destiny. Welcome home, America!
This is MAGA!
11
When I read that "...The real American idea is not xenophobic, nostalgic or racist; it is pluralistic, future-oriented and universal...." I wonder what the remaining Native American's think.
8
It’s too bad that Trump won’t be able to read and understand your column.
13
I rarely agree with David Brooks but I can agree with him on one thing: Donald Trump Hates America.
7
I think this column would be beautiful except it completely disregards our holocaust of all Native Americans over a century plus. Their land was confiscated because the White Europeans had firearms and no qualms about killing every last Native American. Shame on us and Brooks for ignoring that.
13
We are watching kabuki theater on white fragility. At the moment the nation is turning more brown than white - there are white people who are very afraid and resentful. It's like watching a frightened animal become aggressive. These folks cling to Trump as their savior.
7
David, REPUBLICANS hate America. I understand you're desperate to distance yourself from the monster you and your party created, but Trump=Republicans and Republicans=Trump. They are one and the same.
14
Judy, the concept of tribalism is an African concept. The hierarchy of loyalty in tribalism is loyalty to one's family, tribe, region, and lastly nation. This is one of the main reasons why sub-Saharan nations continue to have huge problems in their post-colonial existence . . . . There is no allegiance to a nation . . which is an artificial construct. Tribalism is rampant in America now . . . black . . hispanic . . muslim. You will note that tribalism is not an element in the white European cultures . . the cultures on which the principles of America are based.
2
Tom Friedman will thank you for taking the tweet heat off of him.
1
As do all Republicans by supporting/enabling him. C'mon David, you are almost there. Just a little further and you will come to acceptance and all will be better.
1
Too little, too late, David Brooks. You've been cheerleading what is now the current Republican party for many many years, and now you're suddenly shocked, shocked I tell you at what you've been instrumental in creating.
13
I think it clear he hates and always has hated democracy. The hatred grew more intense of course when he did not win the popular vote (quite clearly) and when that result repeats itself he will probably go into the most crazed lying spin cycle we will ever witness. Of course singling out individuals who have followings, entire groups of people or races and particularly women and people of color and dissing them repeatedly does somewhat diminish the amount of voters on your side. But a dim bulb rarely gets the consequences of stupid or stinky actions.and because this one is extra dim (worship me I tell you!) expect no progress in the resembling a human department.
1
The truth is that America has had a racist, xenophobic, intolerant, ignorant and violent vein from its very founding. This ugly facet of our nation has been dominant or below the surface depending on the epoch and/or geography. It’s in ascendancy now as a reaction to the First Black President, who was brilliant and honorable, and to the pressure so many people feel from income inequality which has made scapegoating minorities and immigrants so successful. Trump is a symptom - he would have never gotten within striking distance of the WH if our democracy was not so impaired and compromised by dirty money.
8
Memo to Donald J Trump:
"If you don't like, indeed hate, the America that has grown from the aspirations described by Mr. Brooks, well, you are free to leave. We'll gladly give you a send-off with a flyover beyond your dreams.
Or just decamp to the gilded grotesqueness of Mar-a-Largo, where you can whine, pout and bellow to the everlasting content of your your wizened heart and strangled mind."
5
The article makes no reference to the "settlers" and "explorers" that originally took over the land from the indigenous populations already established in this part of the continent. Why is that fact conveniently ignored?
If there is any vision that Trump should even hint at, it should be about everyone but the native Americans to leave this country for where their respective ancestors originated. But, that assumes the Trump Team knows a bit about historical facts and will give a hoot about the truth.
The issue is not about who loves America but more about the foundational ideas that created the United States. It is hard to make idiots follow rational thought, so the one hope for rationality to re-emerge in the US is when Team Trump gets sacked at the polls.
3
The modern Republican party has done terrible damage to our democracy the last 39 years.
Terrible damage.
Brooks is attempting penance or apology and honor. Noble but I'm tired of his pontifications riddled and wrinkled with conservative fever.
10
Dear Mr Brooks,
It is not just Donald Trump who hates America; it is the modern (post-war) Republican Party. You had Joe McCarthy and his friends and fellow travellers,, Richard Nixon, Sarah Palin, Spiro T Agnew and yes Ronald Reagan. Limbaugh/Savage/Hewitt, all of them major forces in the Party you supported.
This is what you get. You had a good mind and a good education, and you couldn't see what I could with my third rate education and just useful brain. Read Max Boot, will ya?
10
Great article David! Where have you been for the past five years?
2
Sigh... Brooks means well. And he gives us a rosy ideal, tarnished, to be sure, under the vengeful hoofs of regressive nativist populism. But what Brooks cooks here, is half-way done; he takes it out of the oven with the still raw elements. This "dream" he invokes coincided with the nightmares of hundreds of thousand native people killed or rounded up, the children removed from families and forced into re-education (ah... doth China have a model for it's Uyghurs?). And ...slavery! The return of the repressing forces now surge to sully this dream? We need better smelling salts than idealized nostagia and ideogical deracinated neatness. No--invoking Langston Hughes, as if a musical coda sums up the missing refrain, doesn't do it. Meanwhile, the howls of those dark forces grow in the dark and seek the fullness of daylight--again. But... sigh. Brooks means well.
6
Kinda overlooks native Americans. Maybe they had a view for America.
7
Glad to see the media tell it like it is. Trump has always hated America. He hates the things that make America special, which is why he tries so hard to make America more like other countries. He looks at Russia, China, Turkey Hungary, North Korea and Saudi Arabia and wonders why America can't be run the same way.
But most of all, Donald Trump hates the American People. You've heard it in his speeches. He says America is not great. He says that anyone who doesn't like the way he runs the country should just leave. Since 55%-60% of the American people disapprove of Trump, the meaning is clear. He wants more than half of the country to disappear, and he will do everything within his power to make it happen.
8
When Trump doubles down on some nationalist idea, it is ALWAYS to distract attention from some negative scrutiny of his past and/or finances.
At this point, we must not get distracted by asking "what is American?" but rather focus on "why is Trump fussing about this topic NOW?" Is it Epstein's arrest? Is it the state of NY's inquiries into his taxes? Is it his complete lack of any coherent trade or healthcare plan?
3
@David Brooks
God bless you, Mr. Brooks. In fact, an electronic hug, an electronic high-five, and an electronic fist pump to you for your column. Now if only more of your fellow Republicans followed suit. And you already are far from the only Republican or even conservative Republican who disagrees big-time with President Trump as it is.
A few countries can make this claim: America is a nation of immigrants from other countries. Canada and Australia can and most of Latin America should but don't! I love America because it accepted me for my own worth and gave me an opportunity for that worth. It did not check my skin color or ethnicity before it gave me that privilege. Now I fear that my children will have that worth challenged by their skin color and it make me sad and angry. We have lost a lot by electing Trump!
1
I’m somewhat surprised at what David Brooks has written. It is almost entirely bunk. America started its mission as a revolt against taxes by those rich enough in 1776 to actually pay taxes.George Washington and the others aligned with him, some of whom were also slave holders, understood this and not surprisingly, their sentiments have filtered down to today to the Republican Party. The lofty ideals he recalls written by those in the 19th century did not dwell on the fate of the Aboriginals who owned America before it was taken from them by either fraud , theft or violence or some combination of the 3. America over the centuries has exhibited racism to all newcomers since the founding of the Republic, if they looked different from themselves. Over time these such as Irish, Italians, Russians and other white races were assimilated. That process of the so-called melting pot ended when the immigrants started to be coloured.
So to take all of this history and to whitewash it, which Brooks has done, is merely delusional on his part. I for one am not persuaded.
9
"America is exceptional precisely because it is the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past."
Ok now that's a lovely bit of empty boosterism.
6
I remember writing a speech along the lines of this article, in high school. It won an award. I got a plaque. I think I still have it, somewhere...
I agree with virtually everything about your article -- save one thing. Only one. The title.
As I watched Trump 'set back' and smugly watch the crowd chant "send her back", I was reminded of a time when I had, as a joke, purchased a set of bagpipes, which I could never get to work properly, owing to a mix of my own ineptitude and lack of quality from the manufacturer. The reeds supplied with the instrument were defective, so as a joke I replaced the reeds with the metal squeakers from pet chew toys. The resulting sound produced by the pipes made fingernails on the blackboard seem like a happy memory.
As an occasional experiment, I would bring these pipes to different social occasions (sometimes by request), inflate the bag, and watch the results: people's eyes bugging out of their heads, cats fleeing the room in single, horrified bounds, oversized dogs cowering in laps...you get the idea. It was a sound calculated to annoy beyond all reason.
That's what I saw on Trump's face, as the crowd chanted "send her back"... the look of "let's see what they do with THIS"...
I don't think Trump HATES America.
I think he just doesn't care. He's smacking a big hornet's nest like a Piñata, just to keep things interesting. For him.
The opposite of love isn't hate.
The opposite of love is indifference.
8
David Brooks is great - One of the few sane Republicans left. However, the "Trump Hates America" article is all about "America the Beautiful" and ignores America's dark side - like talking about Luke Skywalker without mentioning Darth Vader. What about Slavery and Jim Crow laws; treatment of indigenous people; forced sterilizations; immigration laws in the last century; etc? Trump may hate "America the beautiful", but he's also Darth Vader leading his followers to our dark side.
4
I haven't read this column yet, and David Brooks usually leaves me underwhelmed. If he fails to state that he will support any legitimate candidate of either major party who opposes Trump for president, I will be disgusted. Now I begin reading today's effort.
1
I agree with many of the things David says about America. This is why I find it so perplexing that someone we have extended a hand to, Congresswoman Omar, is so resentful of America. Is this how we are thanked for putting her in a position to be so successful? She is a hater. I only can hope she will come to see the error of her ways.
1
That concept of exceptionalism is really unacceptable.
Each nation has a story . The USA are not an exception.
France helped the United States ( not so united years later...) to become independent.The war of Independence was paid by France. General Rochambeau paid of his own pocket so that the Continental army would walk to Yorktown , to the trap with the French fleet of De Grasse coming from the West Indies. They had refused because not paid since month or years.
Rochambeau could not get the money on time from France so he borrowed it to Spanish bankers in Cuba who had the silver sailed in from the mines of Zacatecas in Mexico.
Soldiers walked to Yorktown behind 13 ox carriages with Rochambeau's silver on them.
When the British officer presented his sword to Rochambeau in Yorktown as a sign of British surrender, Rochambeau pointed General Washington as the commander in chief.
That is exceptional history.
17
This column speaks of the value of a diverse America but is accompanied by a picture of George Washington and a large group of white men. Where was the diversity in the founding of our great country?
5
@Aaron Adams
The founding fathers were first known as rebels. If they lost, they would have been tried as traitors and executed. That risk lasted at least through 1812. No one was thinking about anything other than survival, as it had to be. Political purism rarely considers fundamental context.
1
I am a first generation immigrant. Unlike many prosecuted people seeking safety in America, I am fortunate that being an American was a choice. For many of us, we choose to be America exactly because it is the first and only universal nation in the world. It is still a beacon of hope for all humanity living together in peace. The American dream is under siege by fearful narrowed mind people like Trump. I made my choice and I am willing to fight for a better America of the future.
21
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for reminding us all of what makes this country great. "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty" cannot be real unless we always remember that its promises are for everyone. No matter their race, no matter their religion, no matter the country from which they came, the promises of this country must extend to all or they extend to none.
14
A large part of the Republican Party always felt this way, but they did not control the party. Things have changed as there is no place anymore in this party for those that want equality.
My surprise is how long people like Brooks were in denial about those they invited to join them. It has been clear for years that they wanted votes and did not care that they had these other views.
The sorcerers apprentice all over again.
7
I always appreciate Mr. Brooks' sense of optimism and his way of finding ways in which people are doing good things at local levels, and as one who taught US history for over 40 years I try hard to share his sense of who we are. But it is increasingly hard to see how the Founders' hopes are shared or even understood by the kind of people who could vote for a caricature of a leader like Donald Trump. What seems to be missing here is a full, raw sense of our history. Yes, the Puritans thought they were building ' a citie on a hill', but as others have noticed here, it was for them alone. In addition, they pioneered the idea that material success was a sign of divine favor, another American idea which has pervaded our history, as it still does. Lastly, of course, we have been too certain that we somehow enjoy divine favor, in spite of the fact that our founders knew far better than we seem to that a state that mixed religion with government was on the road to state sponsored prejudice against those of other faiths.
Yes, our stated dream remains pluralism, although it would be most interesting to see what our Founders would have thought of the amount of diversity we now have here; and how they would have felt about the effects of the vast amounts of money now being used for political purposes, something they could not have foreseen. Even Alexander Hamilton might have had second thoughts about his embrace of capitalism.
8
David is clearly a Reagan Republican. You can see the optimistic narrative here that Reagan tried to "bring back" when he was president. And I remember David in another column writing about how optimistic the 1980s seemed to him, and comparing them to the darker mood of today.
I didn't much care for Reagan or for the 1980s in general. Looking back, everyone says we needed to feel pride and unity again, and end the "malaise" of the 1970s and the Vietnam era. But I saw another side of all of it, and it was more negative, and unfortunately, it does remind me of today in many ways.
But having said all of that, I think there's an underlying opportunity he's presenting here. If a social conservatives like Brooks can see how completely contrary Trump's message is to historic American values, why shouldn't Dems think about the fight against Trump not as some triangulation strategy, but as a kind of "grand coalition" of anti-Trump forces?
A lot of us who've been around awhile do have a lot of bones to pick w/the entire conservative agenda since Nixon, BUT what if we think about defeating Trump & what he stands for as a kind of emergence that requires unity--for now at least--between many former adversaries?
Forming working coalitions in any democratic system is always tricky, and with our current polarization it may be harder than ever. But think of Brooks' piece as an admission that Americans have a common enemy, and frankly, what's more unifying than that?
20
A previous poster talked about a lack of purpose, and that we haven’t had such a unified vision since the Apollo program following JFK’s challenge.
We have the perfect opportunity right now. It’s called climate change. We really could lead the world in a cause incomparable in greatness to any other - save our planet from ourselves.
The wealth that could be generated would be vast. The goodwill might even offset our recent poor choices. The group effort required would help bring down barriers among countries.
But one needs an aspirational leader that is capable true leadership, not one with greedy, selfish, cynical, vision of short-term gains in a zero-sum grifting con of plunder.
16
Love your title, Mr. Brooks. Especially if you are conservative &/or Republican, it's good to hear you call him out.
Your description of what America means is a beautiful one that was implicit in our founding documents (Declaration of Independence, Constitution), in great speeches by Lincoln & Martin Luther King, & the Pledge of Allegiance, even though they were ideals we weren't living up to from the start, & it has taken a civil war, great protest movements (for which some paid for with their lives), & contentious legislation to get closer to making those ideals reality.
But we're still not there, especially not for people of color, & the Me Too movement has revealed how far we still are from gender equity.
Yet I agree with your fundamental premise: there is a GOOD American Dream (as opposed to the materialistic, shallow American Dream) that we all could believe in--& work toward.
Sadly, not every American believes in that good American Dream. The super-rich, to whom the Republican party leadership sold their souls, only care about the American Nightmare of wealth inequity & depriving the poor & middle class of what they have so the super-rich can be even super-richer. Then there's the bigots who don't believe in "liberty & justice for all."
We need to teach the American people about the good American Dream you & Mr. Blow described in the first part of his column about Trump teaching hatred. We need to teach it in schools, in popular culture, in our homes.
11
I feel in the last 10 years or so, that’s what we as Americans have been missing. A unified goal or purpose. Our previous goal seemed to be to spread democracy and equality to other nations, but I feel like democracy hasn’t brought the rhetoric that it promised. Or the work and sacrifice (think of Iraq) has been so unequally hard. It’s really painted and created a division between those promising (the so called elite class) and those doing the actual work.
In any case, I feel like we lost our centralized goal or purpose as a nation. Something that all Americans can stand behind. This comes at a time when millennials are craving this more than ever...purpose. They want a larger purpose in everything they do. So the question really is...what is now America’s purpose going forth in the future? What’s our vision? I feel like neither party has painted a good vision of this. The deepest division I currently feel in America is the sense of inequality. Our we all here just to work so corporations and ceo elites make more money? Is that America? And what do we do with this extra money and freedoms? Play, spend on cool toys, burn energy, waste...what’s worse is we without guilt do this while some go hungry, others lack medical care, and the world is losing diversity and species. Is this our American dream? Where is our installed national, world, and social responsibility? I guess the bigger question is, what is our long term vision as a country? Our we getting there?
7
Being a bit ironic here, but I long for the America that promised to land people on the moon within a decade and did.
Yes, I am nostalgic for futurism.
That idea of coming together as a nation and "doing something."
As both parties are squabbling over who said what or who did what, we are not ending the nation's dependence on fossil fuels, we are not curing cancer, we are not innovating the infrastructure that FDR and Eisenhower began, we are not designing me the flying car that The Jetsons promised we'd have by the twenty-first century.
12
While I agree with Judy from Canada that "American exceptionalism" is offensive to many, and I certainly don't like the term or the baggage it carries, I would give Mr. Brooks the benefit of the doubt. I don't believe he meant the hyperbolic ideology of "American exceptionalism" that implies we are so much better than everybody else and look down our noses at other nations. From his other writings I would say he finds that offensive as well, and perhaps he should have been more clear. To me his point is that we are supposed to be the embodiment of the motto on our national seal, "e pluribus unum," and that we should be embracing that motto exceptionally well. However, that motto is being trashed in the pursuit of power, and such trashing is an insult to our nation.
11
David:
Bravo! This made my heart lighter in the knowledge that a seemingly conservative Republican can summarize the beauty in the American ethos at a time when it is under attack from the pinnacle of American government. I watch you each Friday with great assurance that you will create a balance in a terribly destabilizing time in our life as a democracy. May your work continue apace and find new heights of insight into the character of this great Republic. Patrick Murphy, Minnetonka, MN
9
We would not be as strong as we are without immigration. That doesn't mean we cant be smart about how we handle immigration. Yet, Trump wants to gin up hatred of immigration - xenopohobia or fear of strangers - to excite a base of voters.
I know Democrats can convince Americans that immigration is, on the whole, good for America. My folks were immigrants and I know how well they were treated. I don't have to be told. However, Democrats will have to convince America they can manage immigration. Republicans like to sell "security".
Perhaps the democrats would like to name some examples of what immigrants have done for America during the debates. They could take turns.
8
Hmm, well..
I was born in the USA and expect to live here till I die. There are many attributes/ aspects/places ETC that I love about this, my country, but having traveled even moderately know that there are other beautiful and highlyy liveable countries which, had I been born and raised there, I would probably also never want to leave other than for vacations! This article brushes over the very significant negative pieces of our history both on and off shore; the critical role of slavery, the massacre and marginalization of the indigenous peoples here before our arrival, the otherizing of and racism toward newer immigtants every step.of the way right through to the present, our history of imperialism throughout the 20th century. We all hope that The Goiod will overcome and must fight as long as we have the power of speech and action to make that happen. But the whole "exceptionalism" is simply not so. Ours is one of a significant number of good places to live all over this plamet.
12
Samplings from the Mueller Report:
pg. 58
Candidate Trump can be heard off camera making graphic statements about women.
pg. 5
The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign” or “Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks’s releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks’s first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State.
Vol. 2, pg. 4
On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre
12
I like your Langston Hughes quotation, and I think it sums up what you were trying to say in your essay. I find it odd, and slightly humorous, that partisans find fault in nearly everything you write. I would like to think that people are capable of changing their opinions of things as they move through life. If we can't do that what is the point?
12
Put simply, to win against Trump, his competitors have to weave a better story of America’s past and present and a more impressive, brilliant vision of America’s future. Think back to Obama and “yes you can”. Easy slogans, hopeful future, nobody wants or needs the details - that’s for the elected to work out and for scholars and elites to sweat over. Nobody needs to be reminded of the warped things going on in DC right now - the media won’t let us forget, no matter how hard we try to escape. Let us know how things will look once you’re elected (when you paint this picture for us, just assume everyone will cooperate with you and you’ll get everything you want - we don’t need to hear about how unlikely this will be or what you or we will have to give up to get there, the media will drench us with this information) and we’ll vote for the fantasy we like best.
9
The definition of Trump's America in this article is spot on, and toxic.
But in touting how great America really is: "to design a democracy, to create a new kind of democratic person, to settle the West, to industrialize, to pioneer new technologies, to explore space, to combat prejudice, to fight totalitarianism and spread democracy...to give life meaning and shape by extending opportunity and dignity to all races." overstates the positivity of the American case.
America is full of humans. As such, it is a melange of human-ness, the good, the bad and the in between. America's sorties to conquer the continent came at the lives of Native Americans. Our industrialization brought innovation, and child labor, sweatshops, the idea of people as things to use, not human.
It's taken Americans a heck of a long time, and we're still not there, to begin to extend opportunity and dignity to all races. We have forced ourselves on other countries, to pillage their resources (Congo, for example), but have not brought democracy to them.
The current administration models itself on totalitarian governments and rejects the Constitution. About 30% of the electorate support this.
So, yes, the founders had a good vision. The people left to carry it out have been inconsistent in this job. We the people must be ever vigilant, fight for democracy and freedom, and vote.
19
I recently spent a full month in a rehab facility. All of the professionals were young, born in another country, had good educations and most were citizens ( I asked, citing the man in Washington. They all knew about him.) I come away optimistic---these talented people are our future.
12
Thank you for articulating the platform on which the Democratic party should be running. I hope the candidates take the time to listen.
9
I guess I'll survive either way. I prefer to look to the future as anyone interested in progress does.
But from a conservative, past-is-future perspective--and as the descendent of no fewer than ten Mayflower passengers, I say to Trump and his followers, GET OFF MY LAWN.
15
Mr. Brooks knows many good things about America.
Those are not just ideals of pluralism because a majority of Americans enjoy sharing them.
Peace train sounding louder
All aboard the peace train
- Cat Stevens
Thanks for sharing, Mr Brooks,
"Let America Be America Again"
LANGSTON HUGHES wrought literal prose from that figurative "melting pot". For those who sweated and bled, America - an empty bag, for many, and a mixed bag, at best. But, an incredible vision of America - restored, green. Wow.
5
It wasn't Omar that spent the last fifty years saying,"the government is the enemy." That is the Republican mantra.
"He’s got his vision of what it means to be American, and he’s challenging the rest of us to come up with a better one."
There is only one vision necessary: The Constitution of the United States of America with its Amendments.
The Preamble of the Constitution says, We the People make our Union (Trump divides) more perfect with:
-Justice and Tranquility ("Law and order are not sufficient).
-defense (not an expensive global offense).
-promoting the general welfare (not the specific welfare of shareholders).
-Liberty for all (not just those that can afford a team of lawyers).
-and Posterity, which is how we leave the world for furore generations (not today's close of the Dow).
Article I gives Congress the responsibility to tax and regulate trade. (Republicans are against both.) It also tells us to spend on the things in the preamble. Republicans borrow top spend on billionaires, then blame Democrats for the debt.
The 14th Amendment says everyone born here or naturalized is a citizen, equal under law (not corporations).
The Constitution changed us from subjects into sovereign citizens. The Party of Trump wants to change us back. That is why Trump keeps questioning the citizenship of Citizens.
Trump is attacking all of the Constitution at the same time, trying to kill it in a death of a thousand High Crimes.
It's not about impeachment. It's about High Crimes.
11
I've become a genuine fan of David Brooks. I don't always agree, mind you, but his sensibilities are of the sort that has always typified the best that America has to offer. Bravo.
12
Excellent piece - well stated, as usual for you. Pls. keep it up going forward, in these perilous times.
8
I have always loved, and relied on, Jefferson's idea of a "natural aristocracy." It doesn't come from birth or special privilege but is one of talent and virtue, traits that are distributed generously throughout a population. Talent was defined much as we would today but "virtue" he defined as a commitment to place the needs of many ahead of the needs of one or a few. For me, a core underpinning to our great American enterprise. Two ideas Trump can never understand, or be able to see in those immigrant shelters along the border. For they surely reside there.
7
I don't think Trump is racist or xenophobic. These labels and what they stand for are largely irrelevant to him. He neither hates nor loves America. The only thing Trump loves is Trump. Tens of years ago he started developing a Trump brand. He determined that getting his name on the front page of the NY Times and/or on the lead in to the evening news was the foundation of building the Trump brand. Being rich and outrageous was the strategy. He never gave much thought to whether Obama was or was not born in America. Leading the "birther" movement gave him a ton of PR so he doubled down. Everything he does and says is designed to outrage. It is a coincidence that he found an audience. Once he found it he plays to that audience. He is too shallow to have beliefs beyond believing in himself. He is simply talking and acting in ways that pander to his audience, that outrage their enemies and that generate maximum response from the media.
23
I believe everything you say about Trump is true, AND I believe he is a bigot and a racist. The two are not mutually exclusive.
@William Stensred
Nope — he’s definitely racist and xenophobic — his words and actions over decades attest to that fact. But you are right the occupant sees “fact” “truth” as true only to the degree it flatters him. Anything that does not is “fake news.”
"The task before us is to create the most diverse mass democracy in the history of the planet." The question is HOW, with Trump.
Let me suggest the "Democracy" song of Leonard Cohen (1992).
Leonard Cohen sang, "Democracy is coming to the USA".
Perhaps it the NY Times would write about this prophetic song,
the words would start to resonate with the nation, before 2020.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My fear is that Democrats lack focus on a new democracy wave.
So they are just feeding into Trump's drama of media domination.
Please David Brooks and Times, take note of "Democracy".
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
------------------------------------------
3
@Harry Pearle
"It's coming' to America first, cradle of the best
and of the worst. It's there they got the range,
and the machinery for change, it's there they
got the spiritual thirst. It's there the family's
broken and it's there the lonely say. That the
heart has got to open in a fundamental way.
Democracy is coming' to the USA".
(The above is verse 4, followed by the chorus :)
"Sail on, sail on, thou mighty Ship of State
to the Shores of Need, past the Reefs of Greed
through the Squalls of Hate . . . Sail on, Sail on,
Sail on, Sail on."
Such a prescient work. I have memorized it and
sing it to myself often, especially the chorus.
2
The writers cited were of their era; Sherwood Anderson had a gimlet eye towards America as it entered the industrial age.
1
The GOP is a backward looking party and Brooks, though he now appears to be distancing himself from his past, promoted this stance. Xenophobia, nostalgia, racism--these are the hallmarks of Conservatism. Trump is openly expressing what the right has been advocating (in coded language) for decades.
11
Bravo. I prefer David Brooks' vision to President Trump's.
4
Why the glaring omission to Native Americans? Otherwise, this is pretty well stated.
5
Thanks for this column, David Brooks. It's not usual for you to take a stand against Trump and/or Republicans (who , sadly, are all like him now).
You need to do more, though, because Trump and your Republicans are putting the republic in danger. I'm pretty sure you know that, so you need to join the fight. As they say, the pen is mightier than the sword.
3
Mr Brooks, When you write "The mission was always the same: to leap into the future, to give life meaning and shape by extending opportunity and dignity to all races and nations." I need to ask: have you looked at this country closely?
This country started out destroying the indigenous people of this country and enslaving an entire race. And today, being a Native in this country means to be invisible, being black having a target on your back.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center there are 1020 active hate groups in this country today. They are not targeting white men. They target African Americans, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, and all the people who are not like them. And it is not just uneducated laborers who hold these opinions. Our leaders - Trump, Steve King, Matt Gaetz, Clay Higgins, Kevin Cramer, Marsha Blackbur, Josh Hawley, Greg Gianforte, Ted Cruz and Mark Harris - all would deny dignity to individuals.
This country has helped topple democratically elected leaders because they are not "pro-American" enough - remember Allende? or tried to assasinate leaders we don't like - such as Castro. We have supported governments - the Shah's Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia - that deny dignity and basic rights to its citizens because they have oil that we want. We threaten countries to get what we want and punish them with sanctions if they do not do our bidding. This does not extend dignity nor opportunity to any nation.
We are words and grand ideas. Our actions fall short.
15
Mr Brooks hews to the aspirational but sadly the reality born out by the history of this country falls far short. President Trump is a mirror to what has always presided in the psyche of our country - opportunity and future for “me and my kind” not “the other.” Each subsequent immigrant group has experienced the wrath of the prior and then sat on the hands and hearts of the next. Yes, the aspirational resides in our hearts but our truer nature manifests and frequently prevails in our dark hours of fear and greed.
What can explain the blithe acceptance of Trump’s hate filled rhetoric? Surely the aspirational has retreated to its room.
8
America was always an idea unfulfilled. Our ideals were always greater the the reality of it. I thought the closing of your piece with Langston Hughes was particularly poignant. And he would have known, as many African Americans always have, and unfortunately, will still know the power and fury of American racism. And yet, he still held on to that ideal image of what America could be. We have to survive and grow well beyond this dark moment in our civic life, reaching for that ideal of America. It's going to be a long time coming, as another poet/singer said.
5
Well-written and thought-provoking essay.
I must demur from Mr. Brooks full-throated defense of American Exceptionalism.
Surely, when we speak of settling the West, we can observe the author's vast exaggeration, at best, when he states, "The mission was always the same: to leap into the future, to give life meaning and shape by extending opportunity and dignity to all races and nations."
6
"The task before us is to create the most diverse mass democracy in the history of the planet — a true universal nation." The odds are against us but we must do it.
7
Remember, folks, we need to keep doing this every day: reversing the pronouns of Trump's invective and calling out his projection. Even when he thinks he's looking out the window, he's still seeing a mirror. Every day, let a few more people see that his bitterest denunciations of others are really confessions of his own offenses.
10
These are great words ideals and the realization of them do lie in the future not the past as has been stated. This is a great experiment and undertaking, this nation, and greatness of nation requires unity.
8
Trump never really wanted to be president; he just didn't want anyone else to get the job. He's a media creation that feeds off media coverage, whether good or bad. For all his criticism of mainstream media, his greatest fear is to be overlooked or ignored by the very outlets he derides on a daily basis.
Will Trumpism survive Trump? It's doubtful... but the divisions, resentments and animosities he has clumsily cultured will likely be with us for a long time to come.
13
@Andre Wasp
Or, perhaps, @Andre Wasp, a great, collective sigh of relief will be heard 'round the planet that DJT, with all his miserable might, has been unable to tear asunder.
Oh, come on, David Brooks. To talk about abstractions with Donald Trump is to miss his whole nature. The man is a pragmatist who lives in the real world rather than the world of ideas. He wants peace and prosperity and he's trying to get as much of both as he can by whatever means are available to him.
Donald Trump's a rare bird in politics. What other politician abandons the safe nest of plans and policies and just wings it? Who else is not afraid to take action and then see what happens? [That's Donald Trump's signature phrase -- "We'll see what happens."] Who else is not afraid to offend people if that's what it takes to get things done?
Thank goodness we don't have people like David Brooks in charge, who think that somehow character and ideals are what matter in government. That's living in an abstract world. We need people who can get real things done in the real world. That's what Donald Trump does.
4
@John Smithson It's really a shame you're not more knowledgeable about Donald Trump.
"We'll see what happens" led to multiple bankruptcies while operating casinos. "We'll see what happens" led to multi-million dollar lawsuits for fraud and actions by multiple state attorneys to shut down Trump's unlicensed "university" that defrauded hundreds of victims.
The last thing we need is a fraud artist running our country, thanks. It defies belief that someone can be so delusional about a con artist like Donald Trump.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time..."
1
@John Smithson == "..a pragmatist who lives in the real world..."
Ha! The man hasn't carried anything heavier than a putter in 40 years.. not sure what 'real world' you're referring to; but unfortunately, we can't just declare our nation bankrupt like a run-down Atlantic City casino.
1
I'd say he's an obstructionist.. exactly what has he done to better our lives.. n o t h i n g !!
1
Being an American is a unique challenge. Our founders set up a Democracy in which conflict and crisis would be the norm as we strive for an unreachable goal, forming a more perfect union.
That's the American challenge and conflict of ideas and moral crisis as Trump presents are the battlefield of every American. We have to have the courage to strive for a more perfect union every day as is the task our founders gave to us to enjoy a chance at freedom and embracing all women and men are created equally.
Fighting for these ideals is being an American, following blindly or avoiding the conflict is not American as defined by our Founders..
1
Trump has contempt for everyone else, including the laws that govern everyone else's life. He ignores any law he thinks he can get away avoiding without significant penalty, including all civil liability laws. The United States has referred to itself as a country that goes by the rule of law, not the rule of men/women. Trump has contempt for that principle. And the country for which it stands.
16
"The real American idea is not xenophobic, nostalgic or racist; it is pluralistic, future-oriented and universal. America is exceptional precisely because it is the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past. America is exceptional because from the first its citizens saw themselves in a project that would have implications for all humankind. America is exceptional because it was launched with a dream to take the diverse many and make them one — e pluribus unum."
On reading this entire article, I admit to feeling a sense of pride and hopefulness because I think that David articulates ideals that at least many of us embrace. I think that the freedoms we enjoy and the achievements the country can lay claim to inspire many people to strive for their particular dream of a good life. Those same freedoms and the examples of what America has achieved also inspire immigrants seeking a better life, and many have found it here.
Upon reflection though, I realized that even from the start, this vision has mostly been one limited to specific groups of people while clearly excluding others. From the start, we planned to round up the native Americans, move them, and take their lands. From the beginning, we valued black people only as property to be enslaved. Nothing much changed for those groups, the Civil War notwithstanding, for more than 150 years, and bigotry has remained a constant among large swaths of Americans.
I still believe in the vision though.
9
A thought provoking column, but insufficient.
Sacvan Bercovitch is not correct. America never had a continental philosophy. No American delineated a philosophy for a transcendent ideal. And if they did, Dean Martin's parents who immigrated to the steel town of Steubenville did not read him or her.
America is only 250 years old. Yes, it was our mission "to settle the West, to industrialize."
But that was when immigrants were needed to settle a virgin continent rich with natural resources in an extraction economy. Then came the Industrial Revolution in which legions were needed in urban factories. To quote stevedore philosopher Eric Hoffer, "America has always been the cult of the practical."
Now we desperately need a philosopher to define the system, and lay the ground rules for production that is fair, efficient, and environmentally friendly.
That should be our single transcendent ideal. As of yet, all we have is crude, unsophisticated ethos of throwing resources and people into the maw of production and the market.
And those who are left behind? They are deemed fungible chattels, mostly the products of a poor education who are then adjured to start their own business.
There's no spiritual selfhood here. It's all rational calculation laid out on spreadsheets by MBA overlords in guarded towers of glass and walnut.
At least serfs and vassals had a vision of their oppressors.
7
You're correct, David, to cast America as a nation becoming, and not yet achieving our high goals of unity in diversity. Trump was not elected by the popular vote, but by an archaic electoral college institutionalized by the founding fathers who feared a direct election by the people. That lack of trust in the wisdom of the American electorate has now shown us that personal wealth is not a reliable indicator of humane leadership, nor that a bombastic contrarian will best serve collective interests.
But we may take solace in the democratic process that reveals the untoward negativity of a person such as Trump as an outlier on our path to human unity nationally and globally. If Trump survives to run for re-election, those who hold faith in America's high ideals must bury him in a landslide of votes.
6
Bravo, David for an inspiring piece. Let's not lose site of how to get the Hater in Chief out of office. In the 2016 election, Clinton received 65,844,610 votes, or 48.2% of the total vote. Trump received 62,979,636 votes, or 46.1% of the total vote. We need to target the states with electoral college votes who tilted the election to Trump.
To everyone in the red-voting states: GET OUT THE VOTE for 2020.
This is the only way we can restore the greatest ideals of the USA.
9
Dr. King asked America to "live up to the true meaning of its creed, that all men are created equal." Trump does not believe that or want to guide this country forward in creating such a society. Unfortunately, a lot of white Americans agree with him and can't stand up for it either. They cannot see how they would be blessed and enriched by such a future, despite the overwhelming historical evident in that direction. We all need to understand that the issue is the wealth of that creative energy is falling into the hands of too few people at the top. If it were shared more this could be a much more wonderful country.
2
I would add a fourth proposition to Trump's version of "American" and that is absolute allegiance to his presidency. Questioning his statements, opinions, or actions is unpatriotic in his view, and sadly, in the opinion of much of his base.
9
We should be clear on what the GOP has become. A cult, which can be described as "a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing." There is no other way to describe how the GOP. The President (I cannot even utter his name) has badly tarnished what the country stands for, and yet somehow slowly brought with him an entire political party along for the ride. I don't know how our political system can possibly return to an equilibrium where discussion of ideas are valued over flippancy and anger, especially when Fox News and social media are hopelessly manipulative.
As another NYT columnist recently wrote (sorry David), if you think it's bad now, just imagine if President Voldemort is reelected.
5
"America" was always a myth. A very fragile ideal to try to live up to. One that takes a better people than we are. We are not a people inherently capable of doing so, if, indeed, we ever were. We're really just a country with an unjustifiably high opinion of ourselves and the ability to turn a blind eye to the many ways in which we fail to live up to the ideal. And we always have been that country. We've made some progress, I'll grant you that, but our better angles have long ago decamped.
6
• This sense of mission [in the spirit of Manifest Destiny] has often made Americans arrogant, and somewhat dangerous to be around.
The one undeniable truth in this essay, Mr. Brooks!
“It’s called the ‘American dream’ but you have to be asleep to believe it.” ~ GEORGE CARLIN
In 1826, a mere fifty years after its founding, 3 years after the establishment of the hegemonistic Monroe 'Doctrine' (edict) imposing U.S. sovereignty over the entire Western Hemisphere, South American Liberator, founder and first president of the Gran Colombia (present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, parts of northern Peru, western Guyana and northwestern Brazil), presciently warned that the United States, later self-proclaimed 'Policeman to the World, was "omnipotent and terrible and with tales of freedom will plague us all with misery."
The rest?
“If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.”
~ ALBERT EINSTEIN
You stick to your myths.
"Humans see what they want to see." ~ RICK RIORDAN
I'll follow History.
7
• This sense of mission has often made Americans arrogant, and somewhat dangerous to be around.
In the novel The Ugly American by EUGENE BURDICK and WILLIAM LEDERER, a Burmese journalist says "For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They are loud and ostentatious."
Trump, however, can't even be civil at home.
4
David,
I hate to tell you this, but lots and lots of countries are doing more to meet Sacvan Bercovitch's ideals than America. Every time we read stirring prose about American greatness, it comes from the 18th century, not the 21st. Unfortunately, the days of Lincolns and Jeffersons are over and we are in the ear of Trumps and Wallaces.
7
Sacvan Bercovitch’s “The American Jeremiad” (1978) remains a seminal study of antebellum American writing focusing on the legacy of the Puritan sermon in American culture.
Bercovitch was a Canadian Jew, by the way, born in Montreal.
Bercovitch’s given name is derived from Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italian American anarchists executed in 1927 after being convicted of two alleged murders during an armed robbery.
David, you still have an annoying habit of fitting ideas into little boxes, as in “the real American idea is not xenophobic, nostalgic or racist; it is pluralistic, future-oriented and universal.” America is all of these, as evidenced in slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation (1863), the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), the Johnson-Reed Act (1924), the Civil Rights Act (1964), the Voting Rights Act (1965), the Immigration and Naturalization Act (Hart-Celler 1965).
You go on to observe that “America is exceptional precisely because it is the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past.”
Without a past, a nation ceases to exist.
America is an ongoing idea working through competing narratives, both optimistic, generous, charitable and also, at times, pessimistic, greedy, selfish.
That is what makes the American experiment so engaging.
I would recommend Richard Rodriguez’s “Days of Obligation.” He is right up your alley. The book is an elegantly conservative meditation on the relationship between the US and Mexico.
8
It is important to note the sense of time proffered here; we are not stuck in the past or the present, time can not bind us here, but can be used to free us. But this is precisely what both left and right can not get. The right wants that past to be repeated, and the left wants the past to serve to show us how our 'sins' of exclusion have operated. White man bad and racist and sexist claims the left; now is the time to show this. The right believes all was right and good until these 'other' came to rob us of our hard earned money. Both is utter nonsense left to itself. The real question is: "What will you do NOW?" Here is what both also believe. That by excluding certain people, ideas will be preserved, and some ideas will disappear. But ideas are not the kind of thing you can kill. So all of the efforts of both left and right to manage the narrative will go nowhere. You can not kill the idea this country was built on, and was not and is not based on exclusion, but inclusion of all in fundamental rights. It matters how we have yet to attain all this promises, but that is not an argument to stop trying, by tearing things down. It is an argument to continue to try. But We the People must do now what we have yet to do. Come together, decide what we want, and then tell politicians what the deal is, not them telling us. This can start small, neighborhood meeting by meeting. It can grow from there to higher and bigger circles until we once again have a national narrative we love.
2
Asserted in the NYT article of July 1st--Please Stop Telling Me That America is Great--our country has a ways to go. We've fallen short of the ideal since the beginning; the famous phrase should have been written "all white men are created equal". So let us treasure leaders who remind us that our union remains imperfect but can be better, and abandon the one who yearns for the good old days. For many of our fellow citizens, past and present, the old days were not all that good.
7
When Miles Standish gave diseased blankets to the REAL native Americans is where the US began its long trek of bigotry.
6
@kilika
That is a myth that never happened
Nicely said, Mr. Books. What you propose here is at least the modern vision of what America is and what it should be. It is an idea, a pluralistic idea, that anyone can embrace, and it is worth fighting for. It is also pragmatic, because there is no superior race, and confining opportunity leads only to wasted talent.
6
David and many other Americans do not understand how offensive the concept of American exceptionalism is to the rest of the world, particularly western liberal democracies who meet the same standards of democracy as the US and in some areas surpass the US for the quality of life for their citizens.
The shining city on the hill of Reagan's imagery is not recognizable now. America is riven by tribalism, split into camps by politics, more specifically Trump. The GOP accuses the Dems of identity politics but in reality has been playing that card for decades: Nixon's southern strategy, Bush's Willie Horton ad, Bush II's slander of McCain having an illegitimate black child.
The GOP has gone far beyond dog whistle politics. It now blatantly appeals to racism, sexism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism (remember the fine people marching with torches shouting "Jews will not replace us"?) So, Trump is the ultimate culmination its hateful politics, pandering to the ultra religious right, and revving up the antagonism of whites to change, not just changing demographics, but also their inability to adapt to the 21st century economy. So, women, minorities, immigrants and others are the focus of their animus. Anyone who they perceive as "other" is dehumanized and devalued.
Americans have to vote this crew out of office, not just Trump, but all of the GOP.: McConnell, McCarthy, Cheney, Graham, and all of Trump's craven supporters.
American exceptionalism indeed. It is shameful.
1462
@Judy
True, Canada was built as the country imagined by Tories and immigrants who did not want a revolution even though they had a nearly identical ethnic & cultural background as those left in the United States. Australia & New Zealand started from about the same place in history & all have formed free societies full of non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants without the "help" of Trump and his predecessors. I certainly hope that the Trumpenfuhrer is a short blot in out history but am not optimistic.
104
@Judy
I am an American, and I do endorse this message. We are still a work in progress and our exceptionalism lies in our diversity and constitution alone which are now being respectively maligned and hijacked.
49
@Judy
Nicely written. Many of us know what we must do, I just hope we can all figure out what the game plan is when it is time.
54
Is the hate and conflict worse now than during the counter-cultural revolution? As an old hippy, I have had lots of people call me a "communist." I am now a retired doctor and I have always believed in free enterprise, but I am still called a "communist" because I believe in the American ideal of equality of rights. We did win the counter-cultural revolution of equal rights for non-white people, women, gays and lesbians, and people of all faiths. It was a cultural change that lots of people are still struggling to come to terms with and trump supporters long for "the good old days" when any white man could get a good job bossing around women and minorities.
3
I very much appreciate Brooks countering the awful xenophobia and racism of Republicans. Nonetheless, his version of American exceptionalism is rose -tinted at best and non-affirming of humanity at worst. Timothy Egan's column today on Ireland is a good counterbalance to Brooks' notion that America is special. It's not America; it's people all across the world who believe in and fight for democratic values and human rights. Some of them are Americans, some are Chinese, some are African; we are everywhere. It's not American exceptionalism on trial, it is human exceptionalism on trial. Will we embrace the vision of Martin Luther King Jr. that the moral arc of the universe is long but bends toward justice? Will we become global citizens of a democratic world that includes America, Ireland, and every other country as equal partners? That is the exceptionalism Brooks and all of us need to embrace.
8
Trump is a master at preying upon the economic and social insecurities of Americans who have not benefited from the current mix of opportunities and growth. I saw this happen in Central Europe not long ago, where leaders gained power through divisiveness and false nostalgic visions that never existed. Insecurity can breed a desire for a powerful hero and a sense of purpose, which can take the form of identification with an authoritarian populist like Trump. Of course, those who fall for such a scheme are the first to lose and are really noting more than chattel in the eyes of the ruthless leader who needs them but doesn't care the least for them. The problem, however, is that the Democratic candidates are doing nothing to reach out to these disenchanted Americans. The Democrats continue to speak only to their own base, which is a long distance from the ambivalent voters in the middle, who dislike Trump but fear the policies of The Squad which can seem to give hard-earned quality-of-life to anyone who wants it for free. Simply opposing Trump is not going to be enough. The Democrats need to address anxiety and disappointment in Americans who are not among the elite, and while Trump is a scourge, the Democrats don't seem able to rise the occasion and offer an antidote.
4
Very rich people can subvert democracy. They can buy their way into the White House. By funding their own election campaign. By arousing the rabble with hate. That's what Trump did. That's a sad state of affairs. Maybe extreme wealth is a threat to democracy. And therefore to freedom.
3
America's history is complicated and often runs counter to what our nation's stated ideals are. With that, I agree with Mr. Brooks that Trump's vision of America is distinctly un-American to its core.
But Mr. Trump would not have much success proliferating his hateful and dangerous demagoguery without his willing foot soldiers, the Republicans in Congress. That is the real story here and unless we continually shine the light there, we give this small man too much credit and avoid placing the blame for our national disgrace accurately.
3
High falutin words Mr. Brooks. But we know that most Americans are rather anti-intellectuals, including many with college degrees. There is much to be said to the effect that anti-intellectualism produces...Enough is to say that it really comes to a few basic set of cohabitation rules that made Americans a better country until Trump arrived: acceptance of the newcomers, integration, shared economic opportunity. With Trump probity has turned into bullying and comity dissolved; America is now becoming a pariah state, Western Alliances are wrecked while dictators are revered by our Diktator. His hordes of uncouth and utterly ignorant supporters who claim to be patriots chant "send them back"!
2
I always find myself nodding in agreement to Brooks' thesis, but then as he transforms to his conclusion, he loses me. He always delves into conservative talking points in his conclusion--classic bait and switch. He seems to finally have come to the conclusion that Trump is rotten and corrupt to the core, but rather than go for the jugular with a knife, he chooses an electric razor. I feel that with Trump's eventual demise, David will lapse back into his old habits, perhaps longing for the "good old days" when Donny was king.
2
This is as much a lament as a call to arms for people to rededicate themselves to the founding principles of America. Thank you David Brooks for reminding us that there are Republicans out there who are not racists even though the party itself has now firmly positioned itself with Trump’s ideology. Even as Trump excels in identity politics hope others with access to media will keep reminding people that most of us are immigrants or have immigrant roots!
This is the best response I have seen to Trump's most recent Twitter outrage. It conveys a reason why Americans should be outraged by those tweets and most importantly does so without creating grist for those who are uneasy about Trump, but who see him as the lesser evil compared with the Squad.
Mr. Brooks, Langston ALSO said (and lived):
"I am the American heartbreak-- the rock on which Freedom stumped its toe."
At this juncture in 'living in America,' I believe these words seem appropriate to be heard, considering we've run out of toes to stump... and people still don't get it; that we're still 'benefitting' from the initial building block of lies told that were not built on the (terra firma) of (another word) 'truth.'
Words, yes, of course, but experience is still the best teacher, as we all now are experiencing the impending darkness of the world.
i think this American exceptional stuff is more trouble then it's worth. I think we'd be much better off, if we tried to solve the endless problems we face and always will, as members of the human race.
8
That should be our liberal battle cry!
2
What Trump has amply demonstrated is that we are quite a distance from the ideals Brooks has posited here. As we can see from the rallies put on by Trump, there remains a substantial core of racism in much of America. At these events hate and derision are served up on heaping plates of lies and half truths. The Trump crowd loves it. Unseen is the change that is sweeping through the globe that requires all humanity to bridge differences to sustain life and prevent wars. Trump and his supporters have chosen the darkest of paths. But in a changing world it will only lead to a dead end. They will find that there is no light at the end of that hate filled tunnel.
2
Just finished reading "Island at the Center of the World" by Russell Shorto. This is where America really was founded, not by the Puritans. The mess that was New Amsterdam, and later New York was the template for the new world, the template for America. The Puritans were a bunch of angry scolds chased from Europe.
1
There are flaws in this column even though the intent of Mr. Brooks is a worthy one: to show that Trump hates what this country stands for. Two of my ancestors came over on The Mayflower. Let me tell you, they were not pluralistic! They were puritans who had little toleration for those who were otherwise including the people who were already here. Mr. Brooks conveniently said little about the horror of slavery, about how badly the period of so-called Reconstruction was when plantation owners should have turned most of their land over to the former slaves who, at best, got forty (of the worse) acres and a mule (nearly dead probably). But he is right about this: we once welcomed people, at least in principle as evidenced by Emma Lazarus's poem on the Statute of Liberty. Trump is a demon. A total disaster. And Mr. Brooks is right that the vision Trump has for this country is similar to what Putin and other dictators have for theirs.
1
Brooks states "White Protestants created this country," as if he's contradicting it, but he presents his argument about the "idea" and "ideal" of America as if White Protestants were the only peoples responsible for America's creation. This is a delusion that is equally dangerous to trump's. As long as white American's wallow in that delusion--denying the reality that 300 years of slavery was the institutional economic foundation of the country, not a "mistake"--trump's ideal will fester.
Brooks' "conservative" vision is superficially "better" than trump's. After slavery came immigration of other people of color who helped build this country. "Settlement" of the West and the South included "resettling" its natives into camps, exterminating them, and "settling" the Mexican inhabitants of the Southwest. Yet Brooks' narrative, and that of "conservatives" is that all of this history of tens of millions of Americans, from the country's inception foward, is so peripheral to the American ideal that it merits at best a token, de-contextualized reference to MLK or Langston Hughes.
What Brooks is doing is using the reality of white supremacy to argue against trump's white supremacy: "We really are the best and only ones. You're welcome."
2
Develop a compassionate, sane healthcare system, and lower our obscene deficit - and then let's talk about American exceptionalism.
2
My own view is that Trump doesn't hate America, he just loves a vision of it that harkens back to an earlier, more racist, narrow-minded and xenophobic past. He loves a nation that existed c. 1930 or 1950 but certainly not in 2019. Most of the USA has moved on, grown up, learned from the egregious mistakes and hatreds of the past, or at least is TRYING to do that. I suppose it's all semantics, if Trump hates where this nation has moved or where it is going perhaps saying we have elected a President who 'hates America' is true. How tragic for us all.
Thanks, Mr. Brooks, for pointing out so poignantly what the Trump supporters fail to see. Indeed, I do believe Trump hates virtually everyone but himself and perhaps his daughter, Ivanka, though even she appears to have been used for his personal gain, to wit, to help him get elected.
All this nonsense about "make America great, again," is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated on the Trump-loving-public.
Trump has done virtually everything in his power to destroy America: he has pulled out of the Paris Accord and is doing whatever he can to weaken anti-pollution standards, he has all but destroyed our credibility with our allies, he has increased the deficit beyond redemption, and worst of all, he has courted and kowtowed to our enemies and so called "strong men" wherever he could find them.
Trump has done more damage to our democracy than any president we have ever had, and continues to do so on a daily basis. His xenophobia and mean spiritedness is virulently anti-American, and worse than that, he panders to a base which he is leading by the nose to help him destroy the democratic values we used to cherish, just as tolerance and charity.
If we survive him, he will most certainly go down in infamy, as will those members of Congress and of the public who fail to speak out against this freakish charade of a presidency.
3
So, according to Mr. Brooks, basically our Ameri-porn needs to be bolder (and equally dismissive of our many misdeeds) than Trump's.
Their refusal to do this is precisely why The Squad is under fire.
Reinvigorating our own mythology seems an oversimplified, neocon solution to a set of complex, systemic problems.
3
An individual addicted to alcohol or drugs, or any other destructive behavior, cannot begin to heal until they admit the problem. The same is true of racism in America. Brooks and other conservatives seem to look back through rose colored glasses, while a lot of progressives look forward through similar tinted specs.
1
"America is exceptional precisely because it is the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past." The ONLY nation on earth? Oh, brother! Surely Mr. Brooks was a fire and brimstone preacher in a former life.
In this life, he's a comfortably upper income earning white male of infinite privilege who glazes over the blood-soaked history and continuing injustices baked into the institutions of this nation while breathing life into the corpse of manifest destiny.
Trump and the GOP are one and the same. Trump didn't hijack the GOP any more than GOP hijacked Trump.
5
I agree that Trump hates America, but I’m not on board with Mr. Brooks’ complicated, historical and spiritual reasoning. I think it’s much simpler. Trump hates: (1) a government of checks and balances, (2) an independent judiciary, (3) a free press, and (4) democracy. Ergo, Trump hates America.
2
Thanks for the counterpoint to all the calls of racism, the expressions of racism, and denials of racism in recent days. The only good thing Trump has done is expose our dark side honestly for all to see, but it's like an overdue argument with a spouse, it can be so destructive.
Trump and white supremacists have gotten too much attention and, although I agree with a lot of what the "squad" stands for, they're also too much in the spotlight. The best thing we can do for "flyover America" is to provide better healthcare and education (they need it), and solve the horrible opioid crisis. Let's choose a strong and positive Dem candidate (hope and change!), throw the bum out, and move forward, all of us.
For Brooks, America starts with the Puritans. However there were peoples here when the Puritans arrived. Natives. And the Spanish too. So Brooks America is Anglo America a very myopic look, much like Trump's.
3
I agree that Donald Trump "hates America." I would only add that he also hates himself. He reveals this truth time and again in needing to bask the deluded mania of his Base to boost his ego and sense of self-esteem. His endless boasting only shows his self-doubt. If he wasn't President, and wasn't therefore so dangerous to the peace and well-being of all of us, I'd feel sorry for him. For some reason, I keep thinking of T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men," and Mr. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's THE HEART OF DARKNESS before that.
3
Who would love anything that believes that profit literally is more important than life?
I wonder how Trump can know so little American history. What did they teach at New York Military Academy and at Fordham?
Agree that he hates America and more than half its citizens. He is determined to destroy our country, and he is succeeding.
2
@Pecan, he probably had attention deficit so he never really paid attention in his class. He got by because of his wealthy father..
Articulate as David's piece is, neatly deconstructing Trump's appeals to xenophobia and racism, it misses the historical roles that these forces have played in America going back centuries. No 'alien' strategems here, just plain politics. Sadly, it turns out that his resort to these ugly, brutish arts that once worked mainly in bigoted backwaters has succeeded on a grand scale. Thank social media, perhaps or apathy or some combination of Democratic incompetence and the lure o celebrity. The remedy is a simple one, America: vote your conscience in 2020.
Sadly, the situation goes far deeper than xenophobia or racism. It’s intolerance of others’ views. I am white, ancestors go back to the Mayflower and Jamestown, father was an career Army officer. If I make a comment that a Trump supporter doesn’t like, they tell me to leave. Often they suggest Venezuela.
1
Aspiration, mythic, but let's not be too harsh in our criticism. Brooks makes the key point that "values voters" should not be the xenophobes that often take that label, incorrectly to say the least. I share Brook's values on this one, which clearly defines what I would like American to be, not the scary dangerous racist America the current President advocates.
The reality is Trump is a Putin stooge. What rational, patriotic, and humanitarian in the White House would ever allow the subjugation of their country to a foreign power? None. Trump is another matter altogether. He is doing exactly that just to be in cahoots with the Russian dictator so that Trump can expand his so-called business empire to Moscow.
I think the headline got it right that “Donald Trump hates America…” (or rather he hates the America David tries to portray), as inevitably “pluralistic,” where all people can share a “common future,” where they are “bonded by the vision of creating a pluralistic home in which everybody can belong and be seen,” a place that “gives life meaning and shape by extending opportunity and dignity to all races and nations.”
This is all very idealistic but I am concerned it isn't true.
David ignores the problem that our country has grown because masses of individuals and families came to the American continent to create livelihoods that developed to the detriment of the native people, and even to the African-American's enslaved for profit.
And it is the blind pursuit of profit that has rendered our future into one we cannot with any certainty say will be available to the youngest living generation.
America has been Promethean, forward looking and using the most powerful new technologies made available; but in hindsight, we have done so without any real consideration or concern for the impact of the technology on the environment, and by extension, its impact on the human and other living populations.
Let's think up and act on a "common future" that includes the natural world and not just the human one.
Trump is his father's son.
Between 1933 - 1941, there were isolationists in our country who would chant "America First!" at their rallies. The same prey were available, as well. People who had been through a depression and poorly educated. (Trump LOVES the poorly educated, he has claimed.) At those rallies, there was isolationism, antisemitism, and enthusiastic hatred of immigrants.
And in addition to their hatred of immigrants, they did not want our country to "interfere" with what was going on in Europe at the time.
Those immigrants seeking asylum at the time were fleeing from a monster.
Those people who attended the "America First" rallies were dehumanizing them and referring to them as an "infestation" claiming they weren't true Americans.
Sound familiar?
It ought to. As I stated already - Trump is his father's son. He's probably been a racist since he began to walk.
1
Nice quotes of the American mythology from our past is not enough. Our current reality is that evil people, ignorant people, people detached from reality, want to exercise power over the world by brut force - the idea that might makes right, that a minority can force it’s will on an overwhelming diverse world population. The math alone should tell us it is impossible and it is immoral to think one “race” is entitled. The world’s reaction to George Bush’s aggression and Trump’s evil stupidity and dishonesty tells us we are headed down a path where the whole world will reject our arrogance and unite against us. We have a Republican Party that openly, and proudly, puts party ahead of county. If we cannot live up to our professed ideals, and we are led by a man who ignores them and spreads hate, not peace and civility, we are destined to fail. Trump and his followers and “allowers” pose a bigger threat to our survival as a free nation than Osama Bin Ladin ever did. The issue is how do we get rid of them without another revolution or civil war. Clever words won’t win the battle and we are running out of time, or is it already too late? Action is needed! How many million would have to rattle their keys and for how long to get rid of Trump, Pence, McConnell and Barr; to convince them their ability to rule (they don’t govern) has ended?
1
Bravo.
It s now clear that the goal of Trump's increasingly Fascistic movement is to purge us of the progress we have made toward fulfilling out national ideals.
In the view of Trump and his increasingly vicious followers, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are for White Christians only.
We've been here before - the Know-Nothings. Apparently racism has now been sublimated into general Nativism - a Nativism that refuses to regard anyone of color as really American.
In any event, if anyone does not belong here, it is Trump and his more vicious followers.
1
America's defining principles and values are freedom, individual initiative and equality of opportunity (not outcome). They have nothing to do with fearing foreigners, nostalgia or race. ALL people who live here, citizens or otherwise, should at least ASSIMILATE to these values, if not aspiring to them.
1
Check the time date and place. This just in. David Brooks took a real step out on a limb here. The earnestness of his efforts alone need to be applauded. It's equal parts sort of fun, sad, and tiresome having to observe these old white guys try to recalibrate their narratives with that glacial speed they're known for. Here's another newsflash--a plurality of the policy and personalities he has supported during his long run at this privileged platform are the very things than gave to a president like Trump. But again, he's nothing if not and/but earnest. I suspect this is the quality he too admires most in others and clearly himself.
1
Donald Trump hates everyone who isn't Donald Trump, but David Brooks ought to read more history. This country has grand ideals and has done some great things, morally and politically. Yet we suffered slavery far longer than Europe; we committed genocide against the Native people; we have been institutionally racist for most of our history; and we too often believe the myth of our "exceptionalism," which leads us into propping up dictators for big biz or regime change against those we don't like. If we didn't buy into myths so easily, maybe we wouldn't have elected a demagogue which Fascist leanings.
I was wondering why the author claims "America is exceptional precisely because it is the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past. "
The only nation?
why even many of American liberals still think they are the best or greatest nation on earth? isn't it finally the time to accept that other nations or people on earth might be equally or even more progressive? isn't it the time to stop yhinking you are the best and different nations start learning from one another?
1
No truer words were ever recorded than; no man can serve two masters. If you're looking for America to be the master you serve, you have not set your sights high enough.
To understand America, you really need to understand, and have lived somewhere other than either New York, or Los Angeles. Luckily , I have that covered, having been born in Minneapolis, spent my early life in Montana, but worked, and lived in both New York city, and the LA area. Those on the coast really believe they are smarter than the rest of the people in fly over country, and should be the ones making all the decisions about how this country operates. How did the decision to go to war in Vietnam, the mortgage, and Wall Street meltdown, and the last almost 20 years in the middle east reflect on any degree of intelligence, and they were all micro managed by the supposedly best and brightest who came out of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc. Bill Clinton was actually not one of them, a Georgetown graduate, and yes, Yale Law, he had the best Presidency, when it comes to war, economy, debt, etc., yet he wasn't one of the so called coastal elites. The fact that the population elected George W. Bush, Barack Obama, DT, should tell you everything you need to know about how ignorant the average voter is, and was. They are basically flailing all over the place, and it was the electoral college that failed to give us Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton, but instead, gave us George W. Bush, and DT.
1
The GOP hates America. Or, more specifically, the GOP hates small-d democracy. Donald Trump is just its most recent and most vocal standard-bearer.
"In fact, Trump’s national story is much closer to the Russian national story than it is toward our own."
Wow! Russia has spent centuries trying to be one thing - European, which is now supplanted with "American." everyone wants to be something else beside what they are, someone else who they think is better, or somewhere else where is seems richer. everyone is "alien" to the place they sit. everyone in the U.S. came from someplace other than here as is the entire planet. the history of the Earth is one of emigration, traceable almost universally to the African continent as their beginning. everyone has searched for the "better" life. everyone thinks they are the better of everyone else. so sad...
Criticizing Trump and quoting Langston Hughes to show his repentance at being a sad Republican is not near enough.
He needs to use his power to shame and chastise every member of Congress who is allowing Trump and Mitch to derail efforts to take care of business, which is:
Education
Environment
Health Care
Infrastructure
Alternative Energy
Net Neutrality
And finally as Max Brooks recently said on Bill Maher, "Pave the roads, fix the schools, end the wars, and get the lead out of the go*dam water."
2
Donald Trump hates America and all his Republican followers who sit complicit as well. Are there no Republicans with integrity and morals left in Congress who will speak out against hate?
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. You are speaking for me, and I really appreciate it.
Let's not forget that the first European settlers didn't settle in Nebraska or South Dakota. America began on the East Coast. So enough with the "heartland" being the real America. They're an afterthought.
If you voted for Nixon/Roger Ailes; Reagan/Lee Atwater, Manafort, Stone; Bush Sr/Atwater; Bush Jr/Karl Rove, you have contributed to the Apex of Trump/Manafort, Stone, Bannon, Gorka, Miller. Those behind the scenes cast of characters and those who employed their services are responsible for the present state of the nation. Which brings us to the word exceptional in the sense the Republican Party members made a concerted effort to win elections on any format: callousness, cruelty, intolerance, lies, theft, campaign finance abuse. The most recent Presidential election has proven to be actively aided and won with the help of Russian interference which was twisted into a Witch Hunt. Yes Mr. Brooks, your party is incredibly exceptional the rest of us are Americans despite religion or race
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If there is anyone who doesn’t like America, who is always complaining about it, it’s Trump.
He doesn’t believe in the rule of law, which is the foundation of America.
He idolizes dictatorships and dictators, which is un-American.
He wants to be a dictator, which is un-American.
He and Bill Barr believe that the president is above the law, which also is un-American.
His description of the people he despises are mere projection of Trump himself.
Maybe if he doesn’t like America, he should take his own advice and leave rather than trying to destroy America.
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David should be a speech writer for the candidate nominated to face Trump. Excellent piece.
Canada, anyone? The USA is an amazing country with truly divine inspirations and purpose. If you look beyond the edges of your own borders you will find many, many countries which are also models of democratic vision, experimentation and experience. From a distance the USA appears to be going off the rails from its foundational principles. Yes, keep your eye on the future but perhaps it is also time to confront and heal from your past (racism, sexism and the influence of money in politics.)
1
I agree, but what irks me about so much of the national conversation we’re currently having is that the experience of our First Nations people is continually bulldozed over, minimized and ignored. They don’t have as loud of a voice as other groups because most of them were liquidated (i.e., genocide) to make way for American settlers. I am not pointing this out because I hate America—I’m not going back anywhere—but I think we need to be more inclusive and honest when we're discussing our origins. Unless we’re First Nations, we could all be told to “go back” somewhere – we are all immigrants.
1
I have been thinking, for a few days, that if the Democrats don't run a "Donald Trump hates you" campaign they aren't even trying.
He doesn't hate people due only to racism or xenophobia (and since opportunism is his one true belief, I don't even know how deeply racist and xenophobic he truly is privately), he hates people because he has learned to hate himself in the culture in which he grew up. There is truly little else to be said for someone who is a repeat philanderer and a con artist, who in his speech is anti-woman, and who has used the most powerful position in the world to takedown civilians (Dr Ford being an example). He views his children and successes or failures based on their material success. He fights outwardly reflexively because he cannot defeat his raging inner demons. These are the marks of a man at war with himself, who hates what he sees in the mirror upon waking
Canada, anyone? The USA is an amazing country with truly divine inspirations and purpose. If you look beyond the edges of your own borders you will find many, many countries which are also models of democratic vision, experimentation and experience. From a distance the USA appears to be going off the rails from its foundational principles. Yes, keep your eye on the future but perhaps it is also time to confront and heal from your past (racism, sexism and the influence of money in politics.)
Bravo! The real enemy of the people is the one who serves only some of the people and only after serving himself first.
How much money 45th took from Putin to get USA out of NATO and its eventual dissolve. That is what is going to happen if he is re-elected in 2020. By 2024 when 45th leaves there will NOT be a NATO.
David Brooks is out of touch with America to have written the first sentence of the second paragraph. Even after two and one-half years of Trump as POTUS he still thinks that Trump is the new paradigm of middle America, rather than the temporary attention getter elected too send people who think as David Brooks does from his coastal enclaves.
"The real American idea is not xenophobic, nostalgic or racist; it is pluralistic, future-oriented and universal."
No, the ideal American idea is this. The real America has never met this ideal, however real Americans still strive for it.
Trump and his supporters have always been the winners of the game called America. They are for the most part not minorities, recent immigrants or the downtrodden. They were born of, for and by white privilege. But that white privilege is being threatened and little-by-little revoked. They see Trump as their last, best hope to stem the tide of diversity that is crashing over a life they will soon not recognize.
Some commentators have emphasized the flaws in America , past and present.But they overlook that in the long run the path has been upward. We strive, we fail. We continue to strive and the country does improve. I was born during the Great Depression to a second generation minority family but it is clear to me that the country is a better place than it used to be. Trump is a terrible person and president. Yet, at best, he gets 40% of the vote. 60 is still higher than 40 and he will be gone.
I get David Brooks' attempt to craft an America replete with niceties about our place in the course of human events. But we have a history of bigotry and xenophobia as far back as when the whole of it was colonial and then confederated and then united then torn asunder in civil war and then put back together again (and the last 154 years ain't so splendid either). Rather than yearning for an America that never was (with a few well-placed quotes from the dead and the disenfranchised), Brooks misses the most salient point of our civic culture -- that we must always strive to be more perfect. Donald J. Trump isn't helping us in our collective effort toward perfectibility, but Brooks' yearning for things past as a critique of Trump is no different. Both are myopic.
I really, really want to like this. Why did you have to poison it with religion? The founders of this nation, the ones who brought forth "a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal," were deists, not Puritans. Trump is an anti-American because he doesn't believe in human equality -- "racist" is too mild and limited a word for it. That idea did not arise from the self-identified "Chosen People" as the Christians considered themselves. It arose from reason and experience in the Enlightenment. Dedication to that proposition, not to the "manifest destiny" that excused oppressing Natives and Mexicans the first time, defines America. Make the issue equality, and Trump is revealed for the tyrant he wants to be.
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@Gene. You are correct. Many of framers did not practice the Christian faith. They believed in one God, and believed in religious freedoms.
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@Gene
While some were Deists, the majority were Christians. I notice that your erroneous claim is made a lot today, but, no matter your motive nor your belief, it isn't true.
@Gene
Exactly the Right is against the Enlightenment. They were loyalists to the King, and against the Revolution. They poisoned the Constitution with slavery, which had to be abolished. When democracy wouldn't let them expand slavery into the New Territories, the Southern Right wrote a new Constitution and attacked Our Union. After they lost the war, they attacked the 14th Amendment by disenfranchising black people, terrorizing them with the KKK, and then using Jim Crow laws to terrorize them with state power, violating the Constitution by not treating everyone as equal under the law. To this day the Right still demands racial profiling which is against the 14th Amendment, and abuses the 14th Amendment to make corporations into citizens. They have always called the Bill of Rights "technicalities," because it protects the rights of those they accuse. They don't believe in "the Right of the People to be secure in in their persons," but want to force ultrasounds.
The Right still erects and protects statues and monuments to those that attacked our Union.
I grew up believing that we are all "reasonable people who disagree." But after fifty years of watching Republicans call my government their "enemy," and attack the Constitution, culminating in Trump committing High Crimes with the support of 90% of the GOP, believing that the Party of Trump is reasonable or cares about America feels more like suicide than patriotism.
True patriotism is following the Constitution. Period.
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The title of Mr. Brooks article is correct but what has the resident of the White House done for Americans? Kill then with poisons, lack of medical care and in stupid wars. The body of the article touts the Pilgrims who as some commenters have note established a theocracy in Mass. and eliminated the dissenters. Read "The Island at the Center of the World" to trace the real origins of America to the Dutch Republic. And follow the money - NY has always been where the money was thus the real America, far more tolerant, diverse and open minded than most of the rest of the country.
It is quite possible that trump does, now, hate America. Why? Because, as a whole, America has refused to acknowledge him as the greatest man of all time. He believes it and he wants ALL of America to believe it too. He only has a small crowd of Americans that see him as a god so it is imperative for his ego that he cultivate that crowd. He needs to make every pronouncement achieve mythical status thus he will ramp up the volume as each rally passes. it is going to be a very strange ride over the next year.
1
Mr. Brooks,
Thank you for the much needed refresher course in American ideals.
Coming of age in the ‘60’s, I was too young to be a liberal or conservative; being young and naive had its advantages though as there was less of a lens through which to view things, you could however sense what was right and wrong.
So when Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley presented the news of the day about people being blasted with fire hoses and clubbed in the street for wanting to sit where they wanted on a bus or at a lunch counter, it was easy to make the call...the people being beaten were as American as anyone else, and deserves the respect, support and protection from abuse every citizen deserved.
I sincerely hope Trump fails at trying to turn the clock back 50 years.
2
The Squad missed a huge opportunity in their response to Trump. They used the same playbook Democrats have been using for Trump since 2015 when announced his candidacy: Trumps says something outrageous, Dems are enraged (or "clap back" as the squad calls it) , Trumps based is fired up, and no meaningful change happens. For the past four years, this has been the formula. It's not working to win swing voters.
We have to accept that nothing is going to change the hearts of Trump's loyal base. But there are millions of Americans who can swing either way, and will have an outsized influence on how 2020 shapes up.
The Dems can win them. What if each member of the squad spoke about what it means to be American to them? Why America provided them with opportunities that few countries could rival? And more importantly, which Trump's remarks telling them to go back to their countries was painful to each of them?
With the eyes of the nation on the Squad, I can't imagine the average American not being sympathetic to why the President's statement was hurtful. Furthermore, that the Squad ran for public office because of their love, not hate, for the United States.
Michelle Obama said it best, "When they go low, we go high." The Squad missed an opportunity to speak to the hearts of American, and to remind the nation that being patriotic is not exclusive to being Republican.
3
I once climbed a mountain, and I tried to bring home a rock for a souvenir, but there was not one rock, not one pebble to be found, because the mountain was an amalgam, the whole mountain was one big rock. That's like America, an amalgam of people, joined together from all over the world, in a gigantic proof of evolution's survival of the fittest. Whatever the future holds it will be nothing like the past.
1
While I disagree with many of the details, I agree with the overall intent of this piece. But rather than having it in the NY Times where David is largely preaching to the choir, I'd love to see David Brooks go on Fox News and other right wing talk radio and both take, and DEFEND, these arguments.
7
I don't believe Trump hates America, he's just indifferent to America. It's not about an ideal or a true understanding what we are as Americans (no matter where you came from) for Trump, He doesn't think that way. Everything must channel itself through him and for him. He has nothing to give to others, not in his makeup. So loving a country such as America is foreign to him.
2
I must respectfully disagree with the erudite Mr. Brooks. He comes off as an apologist for American virtues while ignoring the dark side.
The founders borrowed heavily from the Enlightenment philosophers who gave us the ideas of Natural Law and the social contract. But those concepts were meant to apply to white male European Protestants.
Jefferson and the other founders knew quite well that “all men are created equal” did not apply to all men, much less women, blacks, Native Americans, Asians and members of religions other than Protestant. That disparity continues through today. Indeed, the progress Brooks cites is mostly attributable to those of European descent. It wasn’t until the 1950s and 60s that civil rights were formally recognized. And there are segments of the population that are still struggling for equal treatment under the law, such as the LGBTQ community.
No doubt all of us would prefer an egalitarian state to the quasi-dystopia that has been emerging in the last few years. There are very few problems that can’t be fixed if there is the political will to do so. After all, we put a man on the moon against all odds and in record time.
5
The issue is not just the definition of what it means to be an American. The deeper problem is that the "vision" of one rather astonishingly ill-informed and pretty clearly poorly educated man is serving as a blueprint for the entire country. How any thoughtful person cannot see this and be repelled, I cannot understand. Forget the goal of using Trump to get long-desired "conservative" wishes. The pathology is much deeper.
6
Once again, my favorite conservative columnist provides a thoughtful discourse, this time about what it means to be an American. I’m not particularly fond of the headline because, while intended to attract attention, it might close the minds of those who like Trump for reasons other than his hate and demagoguery and could blind them to Brooks’ more important and positive message about what is truly great about America.
3
Mr. Brooks sincerely believes in an ideal of implementing the golden rule in everyday life, but having read his writing for many years, I see a continual blind spot in his view of history. I call it "Leave It To Beaverism".
Brooks in his way is as nostalgic as Trump, always preaching about the good old days of church, respect for authority and tradition. We will never fulfill the finest ideals our ancestors aspired to by hiding the full story. All countries must be judged morally on a curve, as mankind is flawed.
The US has always had a tug of war between the old ways of cruelty, selfishness, extreme greed, and domination by an elite group as as operating principle on one hand and progress in human behavior on the other hand, always from the left.
We are still affected by Puritanism, legal slavery, misogyny, a belief that white skin makes a being superior, paranoid fears of non existent threats, and massive denial of factual reality.
A large part of the South has never admitted their antebellum ideas were wrong.
Brooks writes here about Trump attacking the "dream". Trumpism is not new, it is what happens when uninformed people who do no self reflection blame external things and people for problems in their own life, and instead of fixing their lives through effort and education, give in to rage and hate as the "meaning" in their lives, and join a cult, tribe, group, etc to chant mindless slogans. Their "dream" is to hurt others, to fell "above".
7
Most of the early immigrants who fled religious persecution wanted religious freedom for themselves, but not for others.
10
I am an immigrant. I am white, but my skin is not exactly white porcelain.
I have never felt marginalized or disrespected here. Though I don't have a foreign accent, I don't make it a secret that I am not from here. It seems to bother no one. No one has ever told me to go away. Of course, I have never disrespected America, being open about my belief that it's the greatest place on Earth. But I am openly critical of many things, including the left wing.
I know more about US history and politics than most native Americans. I understand the Constitution better than most native Americans, and I am a student of it and of the Constitutional system.
I don't believe Trump's vision is one iota anti-American. He has said that he wants to make and keep America great for all Americans and legal residents (just not for illegal immigrants). His actions confirm that, and never mind the words.
Coming from a formerly communist country ruled by a hegemonic totalitarian regime, I have a keen sense of Marxist agendas and errors, but more importantly of fascist ideas and motives. This puts me at odds with the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party as well as with its incipient fascist cabal exemplified by AOC and her cohort. It's not so much that I despise their corrupt and corrupting ideas, but I reject their view that they have the right to impose them on others and will likely stop at nothing to do that.
In that sense, Mr. Brooks' article is off key and without value.
4
The census question was intended to be the coup de grace of the Republican party's drive for almost complete control of the government of the United States. There was the SC ruling on the Voting Rights Act, then its ruling on gerrymandering. The citizenship question was assumed to be an easy given what with the other two rulings. Mitch didn't deny Obama his SC pick on a whimsy. However, it is my personal opinion that without the files of Thomas Hofeller being made public, that question would be on the census today. Once that information came to light it was not possible, even though they tried, for the Supreme Court to ignore it. trumps comment about needing the question for 'districting' purposes was just the last nail in the coffin. One could almost see the deflated and shocked look on Mitch McConnell's face when he found out. The pinnacle of his life's work was not to be realized.
3
@Chris, excellent post. The GOP knows it cannot cleanly win most elections, in most places. The diversity of the nation, the growth of urban/sophisticated areas, and the hard fact that freedom moves forward-- denies the possibility of GOP honest dominance. Thus they need three sneaky items: 1) corporate person-hood to insure dark money goes to their "guys." CHECK. b) gerry-mandering through any means possible, including the census as you state. THEY WILL KEEP WORKING ON THAT. and c) wedge issues to get their boiling, though diminishing supporters out to vote--pro guns, anti gay, anti women's reproductive freedom, pro establishment of a state religion. ALMOST THERE.
Since our Constitution is no longer realistically amendable as it was designed to be-- we are stuck with the EC and 2 senators per state. BUT-- we are not stuck with only 435 members of the House. The next time the dems get the trifecta, this needs to be goal # 1: increase the size of the house so that it's proportionate to today's population, and require increases every other census, if needed. That way no matter what--at least one branch of the 3 would answer to We the People. Game changing. Why is nobody talking about this?
The Donald loves one America. So does his base. And they hate the other America. So which is the "real" America? Are there indeed two Americas? I think we have been two separate countries since before the Civil War. Currently it doesn't divide at the Mason-Dixon line, but at a cultural line, an ideological line. My belief is that we are not so much in a political struggle, but a cultural one.
4
"So apparently Donald Trump wants to make this an election about what it means to be American. He’s got his vision of what it means to be American, and he’s challenging the rest of us to come up with a better one."
I run into a wall with Mr. Brooks' opening statement above. I do not believe Trump has such a "vision", or that he's even considered the matter of what being American means. Indeed, in reflecting hypothetically on how Trump would respond if, say, Russia took over the US, I suspect he'd immediately try for personal advantage, not pine for a freer clime. I can't imagine him being the least concerned with the demise of our liberal democracy. Now, being an oligarch, for example, is a different matter.
Am I being too cynical? Unfair?
4
"We talk about the American Dream, and want to tell the world about the American Dream, but what is that Dream, in most cases, but the dream of material things? I sometimes think that the United States for this reason is the greatest failure the world has ever seen."
"We need above all to learn again to believe in the possibility of nobility of spirit in ourselves."
Eugene O'Neill
2
@Robyn You say material things, or he does, but it ignores some of the most basic liberties that America has, which other countries do not. Name a country in the world that gives you the liberties of America? You literally get jailed for making the wrong joke in other countries, and not just developing ones.
For that alone, America is the greatest country on the planet. Knowing that you don't have to constantly police what you say, in fear that the government will arrest you for having a dissenting opinion.
I confess that it is this type of rhetoric, blowing the horn of American exceptionalism, that makes those of us living in other western democracies where opportunity, welcome and support are offered to all roll our eyes somewhat. Maybe what the USA needs is a little humility, a little awareness that other countries are also of some worth, that we all grapple with the challenges of the early 21st century and respond in our own unique ways. Many nations have decided that the acquisition of personal wealth is not the mark of greatness but rather taking care of everyone. Maybe it is time for the USA to look outwards and see what might be learned from other approaches. At any rate, I wish you luck in 2020.
12
I AirBnB an old building from 1758 on my farm.
For the week of July 4th, a family from Guatemala rented the place. They invited more than two dozen friends for the 4th, some driving from as far as NYC. Spanish was every visitor's first language.
(Not to make any points one way or the other about immigration, it appeared everyone was here legally, but none were citizens.)
While I was needling around in the garden I was surprised by singing in English. God Bless America, America (My country tis of thee), America the Beautiful, and finally The Star-Spangled Banner.
I don't think I have ever heard those songs rendered so fervently and passionately. When they got to the last phrase of the last song they drew out the words 'free' and 'brave'.
I wondered why they sang so intensely about a country, not their own. Then I realized that America is an ideal more than anything else. It can be a light on a hill. A beacon of hope for everyone everywhere.
True, we have failed to live up to our better lights many times and will continue to fail in the future. But as Brooks reminds us, we can seek what is good and we can find common ground to further the future of the land that we love.
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@A Faerber
It gave me chills to read about the singing. I wish you had gotten it on video. It would be a powerful ad for celebrating America’s diversity. Thank you for sharing.
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Thanks for this. Good one indeed.
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@A Faerber
I don't know if I will ever forget the image you have painted in my mind. Thank you.
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Our many grave mistakes and imperfections do not wipe out the progress that our ideals of equality and opportunity and the just and humane treatment of all have made.
But Trump and the GOP are doing a very good job of stomping on and weakening the ideals and the laws themselves. Trump mocks compassion and equality. He and Stephen Miller would love to send back Statue of Liberty - if they could.
If I were a political cartoonist, I would draw just that:
Trump and a crowd of his supporters taking down the Statue of Liberty and screaming: Send her back!
Now Trump and the GOP are even getting ready to re-define human rights, with Pompeo as the ringmaster.
6
@SCZ: Trumpism is old hat to many. Do you recall "Freedom Fries"?
From an outsiders perspective, I'd suggest that the idea of American exceptionalism was always rooted in a deeply entrenched understanding of innovation, applied universally to your political system, economic, and sociocultural norms. It's an aspect of American society I've always deeply admired.
Yet this seems to be what is under attack right now. Bringing back coal as a viable energy option, denying climate change, restricting immigration, implementing protective trade policies, are all examples of failed "solutions" offered up from the past. They didn't work before, and won't work now or in the long term.
There is nothing that can restrict innovation like fear, and your culture of fear has crushed your innovative spirit.
7
David- Well written, thank you!
2
I never felt more American than when the Los Angeles Dodgers won the championship and seeing Latinos, African-Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Arabs, Armenians, Jewish and so many more nationalities celebrating in the streets of Los Angeles.
3
When I arrived in America in 1983 I adored everything about it. I became a citizen in 1989.
I adored America’s outsized landscapes and skyscrapers, its generous portions at the food counters and its generous people in the streets always welcoming and curious of where I was from and how lovely my accent was.
Then September 11 happened and I was kicked out of a cab for saying that « the French were right not to go to Irak », I was called a « surrender monkey and i was told many times to « go home if I do t like it here ».
I could go home. My native land is France. I love France.
But I will stay here in America.
We need all the votes we can to get this deranged man who is destroying the America I loved out of the White House.
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@Pascale Luse, I think of 9/11 as the "day the Music Died" for our nation. The Bush team responses were just awful: Creating the ill-named Dept of Homeland Security; invading Afghanistan and then Iraq; the passage of the Patriot Act. But they could not have done it without Democratic acquiescence, and that is the saddest thing of all. It is hard for me to name much good that has happened to or in the USA since.
1
@Pascale Luse
And I thought that ARABS (of all religions) and MUSLIMS (Arab and otherwise, especially the former) had been having it bad since September 11th!
I agree with you: we DO need all the votes we can in order for President Trump to lose even the PRIMARIES next year. That and/or he needs to be impeached-and as far as the latter is concerned, the sooner the better.
Thanks for staying, Pascale. At a time like this, we need as many patriots like you as we can get!
Love your thoughts, Mr. Brooks. Thank you very much
1
This was so refreshing to read. Please send one copy to the White House and several thousand to Greenville, NC.
5
@Elinor
I just recommended your comment. Send not only one copy to the White House, but also a copy each to the Senate--to every Senator, but especially to the Republican Senators (who currently make up the vast majority of Senate, anyway.) Better still, send one copy to the White House and a copy each to the Congress, period!
Why do progressives here swoon over Mr Brooks when he seems on the verge of rejecting his beloved, yet failed and morally bankrupt, conservative politics? He does this dance twice a month - why do we fall for it every time? The time to condemn Trump and the GOP was 2015, when it could have done some good. Brooks, like every "intellectual conservative", has always put party above country, policy above America. Why wax poetic about an America he and his conservative pals have pillaged for 50 years?
8
@wcdevins
No offense, but I am not certain you are paying attention to him since 2016. You may be witnessing a conversion of sorts no matter how arduous it may be.
1
Very well put Mr Brooks. Your column summarizes the essence of why no truly patriotic and freedom loving American should cast a vote for Trump. No matter how much you may agree with some of Trump's specific policies, Trump the man is anathema to the American way.
1
First time I’ve agreed with you. Thank you for a clear eyed analysis of America’s and trump’s values. Perhaps there is hope for conservatives.
2
I'm a fan of David Brooks, but I think it's time to give American exceptionalism a rest. America doesn't have any divine mission to save the rest of the world. We are in no sense morally superior to, say, the countries of Europe, or to the nations in NATO. To believe otherwise is arrogant, hubristic. All this "city on a hill" stuff had only gotten America into trouble, led us to meddle in other country's affairs, plunged us into senseless words that devastated blood and trouble. It's time for a more modest and realistic sense of ourselves, which is in no way incompatible with patriotism and a recognition of all that's admirable in our democratic system.
12
A bit over wrought. The difference is that today many Americans, including some immigrants, demand to be patted on the back, to be applauded, to be “justified”, somehow. Whereas, prior generations, including immigrants, simply wanted an opportunity to make a life.
3
Couldn’t say it better!
..... but he loves the Confederacy.
Trump 2019
Make 1861 Great Again
8
@Socrates
Trump's mantra is practically (")turn this country back to NINETEEN sixty-one, never mind *18*61(")!
@Socrates
Great for some...
As an enrolled member of an Indian tribe, your essay today is painful to read. I am sure you understand why.
26
In other words, the so-called MAGA President hates everything that made America great.
5
@Victor James
@David Brooks
I couldn't have said it better myself!
Trump followers are largely WASPERs (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Evangelical, Republicans).
7
Yes! Thank you!
From my 5th to 50th year I have dreamed to live and work in America. When I was 50 it was possible to come . So I have asked a lot of people, who knew America what to do and all told me to go. Except one, and he was right. Maybe is America the right place for a young person, which still doesn’t have huge world view, if older, is to late.
Mr. Brooks & Co tell us only the positive sides of American life and this is not correct. And so we become not the right view.
3
If Donald Trump hates America, how come he gets most of his money from small donors ?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/us/politics/trump-campaign-donations.html
Whereas of the 5 leading Democrats, only one, Sanders, is the top 5 is that category ?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/16/us/politics/democratic-fundraising-2020.html
1
Donald Trump gets money from small donors through manipulation and lies. I’m on his mailing list because he bought the mailing lists from the Tea Party, which I supported, and I cannot get removed from it. He sends inflammatory lies and then begs me for money to Stop Socialism or Build The Wall. When I called and asked how my donation would be used to build the wall, the young man taking my call hung up on me.
It is the conflation of unrelated topics that muddies conversations. The GOP donor class has embraced trump heart and soul. That the MAGA hoards have been conned into forking over their tuppence signifies nothing.
2
@John: Because Donald Trump's followers hate America in the same way Donald Trump does.
hear! hear!
2
Brooks's gloss on America as a shiny penny will come as another kick in the teeth to Native- and African-Americans.
The U.S. was stolen. It's founding wealth was built on the back of slavery.
11
Nailed it.
Thanks for the title anyway.
1
Exceptionalism is dead and its the Donald what killed it..
4
Welcome back David, looks like that was the last straw for you.
1
Bravo, David Brooks!
2
I disagree with this article
Excellent column.
2
We are all mutts.
3
And who is the party that supports him, encourages him, and looks the other way when he racists. It’s not that hard, David. Why not just say it:
The Republican Party is morally bankrupt.
20
Mr. Brooks, can you explain why this is a new realization for you?
4
We are NOT this:
socialism noun
so·cial·ism | \ ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm \
Definition of socialism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
2
But nobody is advocating this. Americans want and need Medicare for All and free community college education or vocational training. In other words we need to invest our tax dollars in our health care and in our children’s education—like every other first world nation on earth. Our nation would gain far greater than what we get from throwing more trillions at our bloated military industrial complex.
12
@Zejee . Yes, I agree with you. Nobody is advocating this, yet trump and his mob keep calling us socialists. We are not.
The definitions were posted to show what we are NOT advocating.
2
@Nancie OK, point made. But do you HONESTLY believe that the democratic Party stands for these things? This is trumpian (and pretty consistently Republican in recent years): pretend that Democrats are advocating things they are not and proclaim that this makes them enemies of everything that made this country what it is. Obviously, real discussions are impossible when this is the tactic.
To "settle the West"? Gee, I wonder if any Native Americans are reading this?
8
Thank you, David.
Bravo! Well said, David Brooks!
David Brooks for President!
1
Concur, Brooks exhibits greater insight, intelligence, judgment than any of the candidates on either side
Donald Trump Fears America.
2
Yes! Every time I have worried about China "overtaking" the U.S.--whatever "overtaking" may even mean--I remember that the U.S. has the built-in advantage of its diverse and dynamic population. We are not a monolith. We are malleable. Within our ranks are people from every corner of the world. We inevitably end up adopting and absorbing bits and pieces of their cultures of origin which then becomes a part of the whole. And thus we are never quite the total strangers around the world that we might otherwise be. And what we all share is what brought us or our ancestors here: a fair chance for a new beginning protected by laws and by a people who respect those laws.
We are not alone in what I have described above and we should remember as much. This can also be said of our beloved neighbors to the north and increasingly also of the Australians and New Zealanders. And, interestingly, some of our friends in Europe are learning the merit of this as well. But we are the largest and have labored at it for the longest time.
1
@Flaminia. To continue, as our absorption of bits and pieces of other cultures makes us a little more familiar in other lands more of those other lands aspire to emulate us. While they still struggle with their own victories and setbacks, our neighbors to the south of us all the way down to Patagonia also largely strive to emulate us.
People may be suffering from change fatigue right now, and may be impressed by the rapid gains of a rigid, controlled China which is, after all, only catching up after a long period of isolation. But I believe people will be inevitably reminded once again of the lasting merit of a flexible, inclusive, future-facing ethos.
The stated ideal is the most important first step towards fixing a problem. People need to define what they want - and define it in the most essential terms, as honestly as they can. It's a beginning that sets a standard for all the meandering efforts to implement that ideal.
Thank you for digging into this, Mr. Brooks.
2
@atutu, great post. I feel the whiners today are missing David's point. He is saying that we must settle on the MISSION of achieving our promise, and acknowledge tragic mistakes (Native americans land theft and isolation; Black people slavery and Jim Crow and renewed disenfranchisement in the 21st. Japanese concentration camps.) We must honor and improve those things which help us achieve e pluribus unem: public education, great public spaces, public libraries. How about the dems embrace the preamble to the Constitution as our mission statement ?
Time for the GOP to turn their backs on racism...waiting...waiting...waiting...waiting...
5
This is all just guff. America put Americans in camps while their sons fought. Black men fought and came home and couldn’t vote. I killed Vietnamese people for nothing. We are a small wretched country.
10
Mr Brooks, thank you for this column!
Now, go beyond words and join those of us who are working to end the presidency of this so un-American person. Your task now will be to use your position to persuade those in your party who still have a conscience to vote against tyranny.
6
@Paul @David Brooks
In fact, Mr. Brooks, HOW can you NOT (as you yourself advised above, Paul) "go beyond words and join" the (I'm sure) growing number of Americans (Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats) "who are working to end the Presidency of this so un-American person and persuade those fellow Republicans with-dare I say it-half a brain, never mind a conscience, to-again, as you said, Paul-vote against tyranny. (And you hit the proverbial nail on the head: he IS a TYRANT.) (Mr. Brooks, you-and/or the Times-could have hardly picked a better title for your Op-ed piece: even a blind person can see that "Donald Trump (h)ates America."
Bravo, Mr. Brooks.
1
Amen, David.
But the right wing "hatetrix" doesn't believe this.
2
This may be David Brooks finest column. He perfectly distills the mission of America: to show the world that a diverse, pluralistic society can govern itself democratically, with equal rights and mutual respect, and with a shared commitment to build a better future for the world. We have sometimes fallen far short, but the sanctity and necessity of the mission remains.
3
I find it incredibly odd that in this day and age with far more accurate information available at our fingertips if we care to properly research that so many Americans, so many of our fellow citizens, continue to believe a completely white-washed history of America. We may be striving towards that more perfect Union but we have always been a long, long way from it.
9
Although we have not yet achieved that "more perfect union" to which we continually aspire, I believe the majority of Americans recognize that we of course we have not yet achieved this, and wish to continue on this journey. Mr. Trump and his supports, do not support the journey. At the core of Trumpism is fear - fear that the nation is changing, fear their place in the cultural hierarchy is changing, fear of the religions brought by newcomers, fear that those of us with European ancestry will be in the minority within 30 years. Trump feeds off fear and fear creates hate. We can disagree about heath care policy, about the deficit, about the benefits or drawbacks of capitalism. But what any real American must agree with is the fact citizenship is not based on on a certain ethnicity, race, or religious affiliation. It is based on a desire to continue to improve our nation, to support the ideals in the Constitution, and recognize everyone has a right to be heard. Mr. Trump doesn't appear to agree with this, and for that reason I agree with Mr. Brooks - Trump is Anti-American in a most fundamental way.
4
@dairyfarmersdaughter: Trump missed the biggest change-opportunity of his lifetime. By calling for a run-off election in 2016, he could have transformed the US presidential election to a genuine popular vote. Win or lose, Trump would have made an indelible positive mark in US history. Instead, he is a Gollum clutching a power ring.
@dairyfarmersdaughter
Your comment and Mr. Brooks' article both sum it up in a nutshell! Here we have a President who is unquestionably--and blatantly--anti-immigrant, and yet not only are we literally a nation of immigrants, but he's married to one (and was married to another a couple of decades earlier).
3
And his mother was an immigrant, as was his paternal grandfather. He’s even tone deaf about his own family.
2
I agree with your analysis of Trump; however, due to the antidemocratic EC, he can again lose the popular vote by millions of votes, yet still win enough states to eke out an electoral victory. The EC is antithetical to our representative form of government, but somehow still exists.
9
@alank The EC is not antidemocratic, it is federally democratic which means that the states, including the less populated and rural regions of the country, are involved in choosing the U.S. president. Should the needs and interests of voters who live across vast areas of the country be worth less than those voters who are concentrated in the urban areas?
@karmour
Voting for the president is the only election I have ever witnessed or heard of where the popular vote does not automatically ensure a win. Hundreds of millions of votes are distilled into 538 electors. If that isn't an affront to democracy, I don't know what is.
2
I understand the idea of American Exceptionalism, but I don’t think we are exceptional. In fact, I think we have a long way to go in order to just be good. And I would be happy with good.
18
The diversity of human beings so necessary to a vibrant, pulsating society, is found in the Northeast and West coast of our nation. The staid, stagnant South, mid and deep West, do nothing for social achievement, nor do they offer dynamic, innovating activity towards the future. The populace of those areas are mired in reactionary ethos, a rutted mentality restricted by mass tunneled vision and provincial preferences.
The lean and active will lead, while the planters and plodders follow.
7
@FJG
The Northeast and the West Coast both are where most of our major ports are located. This gave direct access, however long a distance, to the immigrants who migrated from especially Europe or Asia. Much more than a few immigrants from both and/or their descendants eventually migrated west to newer areas of the South as well as both what eventually became the modern U.S. West and what eventually became the Midwest. Even though there was immigration to Southern ports (Charleston, SC and New Orleans, LA, to name just two) and to the interior areas of the U.S. (in the Midwest, West, and to a lesser extent, even the South) by the same ethnicities that first populated the West Coast and especially Northeast during the heyday of European immigration in particular. The Northeastern and coastal Western states, as you are probably aware, are diverse in not only ethnicity, but also religion. (Due largely (as you are also probably aware) to the religious traditions that they brought from their native homelands--in Europe and elsewhere--where their religion often predominated within the population.) There was not as much immigration from most of those countries into parts of the Midwest and West nor into the inland and even (at least eastern Texas and southern Louisiana nothwithstanding) coastal South in the 18th, 19th and even early 20th centuries.)
Re: nostalgia, it's pretty clear - thanks to Trump, McConnell, and Co. - that our values were better during some golden past.
4
@Greg
Well, REMEMBER!: during "some (')golden(') past", "our values" also included racism, sexism, xenophobia, and many other phobias as well as -isms.
This starts off well, but then...
"America is exceptional precisely because it is the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past." (and so on, and on).
What is exceptional about America, and sadly an increasing number of Americans, is the idea that "America" is "exceptional" at all.
And NO, you are not "...the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past".
American "exceptionalism" is the same spirit that created your current presidential nightmare.
26
' Donald Trump wants to make this an election about what it means to be American". You mean your party, the REPUBLICAN PARTY, wants to make this election about what it means to be an American. Thanks a lot Mr Brooks for your party policies. As a successful immigrant of color my vision of America is becoming clear and Canada is looking better every day.
18
@Sipa111
We have lots of space and potential, as well s diversity, here .
Its not even about being American. He wants to define people by their most base instincts. He obliterates any goodness that may be in people's hearts, and goes straight to the primordial centers that govern action by rage, vengefulness and by hurting. That's what that part of the country has voted for, and that's what that part of the country will become.
12
As others in this forum have already pointed out, Mr. Brooks is painting an idealized picture, one that, while hardly devoid of truth, falls well short of the whole truth and its myriad internal tensions and contradictions.
I''m probably not the only one on here who's had the sense for a while that Brooks is struggling to redeem the conservatism he thought was his true ideological home. But we know that Trump is simply drawing into the open the ugliness that moved many to support Reagan At some point Brooks is going to have to come to terms with this. Kevin Philips did this with respect to his work with Nixon, and I hope Brooks ultimately follows a similar path. He is, for all intents and purposes at this point, a moderate liberal, closer ideologically to Biden than McConnell.
12
I understand how Trump differs from the aspiration U.S. My point is, that it does not feel like an honest representation to leave out out the fundamental contradictions to the aspirations set from the beginning and onward. If there is to be a juxtaposition, lets put some serious gray in there.
3
I agree with you David that Trump’s idea of being a true American is the things you describe, but I disagree that that vision is new. I think about how the settlers treated the Natives and how Blacks were and are treated. America has always been about excluding others who were not white and Protestant. Think about how the Irish or the Italians were treated....
Unfortunately I see a lot of “closet” racism in this society of ours or at best stereotypical attitudes towards people who came from other countries. The idea of the melting pot, while it may be a quaint narrative, is NOT A REALITY, and never has been.
13
@Manuela Bonnet-Buxton
Re-read David Brooks' article again and you will see that he said that President Trump's version of what it means to be American "is defined by three proposals," one of which is, "a true American is white ('read: white Protestant, especially White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, or WASP'). (Therefore [in-as Mr. Brooks said-"Trump's version of [*America* **AND** what it means to be American],) "White Protestants created this country; everybody else is here ON THEIR SUFFERANCE." (emphasis mine) As you yourself pointed out, that is nothing new; even white European immigrants/second generation-to-slightly-later European-Americans who were not Protestant were excluded throughout the history of this country. And what has been described from time immemorial as a "melting pot" can be more accurately described as a "salad" or even--as another individual commented in this space about the aforementioned article--a "stew."
I'm not sure exactly what the American dream is, but I know what it is not: the dystopian trumpist nightmare. I wish we all could wake up from it, and soon. Oh, how I miss President Obama. Of course he was not perfect, that role being already taken by a higher power, but he certainly sat closer to that higher power than Trump ever could in his wildest dreams. In fact, I question whether Trump even has a power greater than himself in his life, which is a serious part of his problem and ours.
14
We are living in one of America's lapses at being exceptional. We have been there many times before in our relatively brief history but let us hope that the vision of what America was and is supposed to be overcomes trumpism and the GOP.
7
While I agree with the premise Mr. Brooks presents, I also believe there is another objective. This president words toward the deconstruction of government as we know it. His objective is for big business to thrive; i.e. to be free of most any and all regulations that hinder their growth and profit.
While we argue about his xenophobic and divisive antics this administration has undone countless health, worker and environmental regulations that help protect the citizens of this country.
8
I am struck by David's thesis that America has always been about the future, as it contrasts with the Southern states' culture of memorialization of their Confederate past. Our current political degradation owes a lot to the influence of Southern heritage. It's not a coincidence that the backward-lookers are holding us all back. I would hope that the idea of America as a future-oriented country can bloom again.
14
Trumps power over people is his ability to stoke fear, uncertainty, doubt, and tribalism. In essence, he is a master at divisiveness and the emotions that fuel it into action.
All of these qualities have always simmered under the surface of American society since before the US was free and independent. In this regard, we have literally always been a troubled nation.. choosing different groups of people to fight against or about. Trump is simply very good at marketing them and giving them credibility such that those who harbor said qualities within them feel more free to express and prosecute them against other Americans.
Trumps motivation is very clear though... he wants the people divided, confused, and at each others throats... so that he can step up and pretend to be the "only guy that can fix it" when in fact.. he broke it to begin with and has absolutely no interest in fixing anything.. because he literally only cares about himself and his kids.
7
@Chuck
I doubt 45 even cares about his kids: witness his remarks about dating Ivanka if she weren't his daughter. They're trophies to him, nothing more.
7
@KMH
The same can be said about his wives--his current wife AND! his previous ones.
“America is exceptional precisely because it is the only nation on earth that defines itself by its future, not its past.” It’s no longer a going concern of course (although its memory ought to remind us of how an apparently stable society can disintegrate, historically speaking, in an eyeblink), but the USSR certainly defined itself in terms of a utopian future.
The comment describing this column as “hagiography” was too kind.
8
Probably one your best opinion pieces ever.
One line summarized what the Democrats and all of us in America should strive for our nation - “The task before us is to create the most diverse mass democracy in the history of the planet — a true universal nation”.
Thanks the piece, gave me some hope back and a vision for America.
3
Yes! We continue to strive to be 'a more perfect Union'. Hardly perfect, but with American ideals front and center, we must continue to strive.
1
I don't think Americans are "united in their vision of their common future" as David Brooks writes, also asserting they "always have been".
It's an inspired piece by Mr. Brooks but he got a bit carried away at the end.
1
So much recent opinionating has focused on Trump, and yes we are all sufficiently indignant at this point so it is refreshing to focus back on the squad and how they can do better. They should hire Mr. Brooks as a speechwriter.
Hearing the line "it is the only nation on earth ...." is galling. Take a look at other countries with similar histories of European settlements around the world. They don't have much of a past of European history, but of course a long history of often neglected indigenous history. America is "exceptional" - but now for all the wrong reasons.
8
David, I'm reminded of the song from the movie musical South Pacific. It goes "You have to be carefully taught..."
At this point in American history and politics, Donald Trump is playing the role of teacher. As President, he could be lecturing us on how to bring out the best in all of us as Americans. But his message is about fear, about the past rather than the future, and about the superiority of one race over all the other races.
This is am un-American tale. Furthermore, it divides us as a country, and diminishes America as a leader around the world.
It will takes years for us to recover from this set back.
11
Yes, beautiful. America the Beautiful. I buy it. But there are new circumstances that require new thinking. First, the pace of introduction of people who are quite different must not exceed the human capacity to absorb change. Second, the fact that so many poor and destitute people come to wealthy countries should make these last think hard about how to make those poor countries less poor, so that people can stay home and live well, and emigrate only because of some specific need like education, or medical care, or legitimate wanderlust. Not out of desperation. Third, the United States plunders brains from the entire world. Not nice. For the rest of us, I mean. Now in the case of my country, Colombia, with 5 million people abroad out of 45, I understand why they have escaped the stultified, stratified, static social and economic conditions imposed by extreme inequality. Colombia is the world's country with the greatest concentration of land ownership; and stupendously productive and beautiful land it is, too. So I understand that they should leave, but I would make it a national priority to entice them back. They are a stupendous human capital. So may I ask politely that we get beyond knee-jerk liberalism and consider the distribution of populations on the face of the Earth as a number one priority, accompanying the ecological and migration crises as issues of the first rank. And let us get some muscle back into the world system. Neo-liberalism has made us greedy and lazy.
8
The real American ideals offered of being pluralistic, future-oriented and universal seem to me to be what the progressives of the county have been striving for - essentially - the "liberal" platform.
There are many American's who have worked toward these ideals, the one that comes to mind in Martin Luther King, Jr.
Why the are liberal ideals shot down so quickly only to be replaced with something less than ideal? Universal health care, wages keeping pace with inflation, etc..?
1
I don't agree that Mr. Brooks erred by only presenting the positive side of America, the first American Dream. Like all humans and human institutions we have a dark side, and sometimes it is very dark, but we also need to be reminded that we have a bright side, as well. That doesn't mean we forget the missteps, the evil we have sometimes done. Those are real, and we forget them at our peril, but the vision of America and what it could be is what should motivate us to right the wrongs we see. Thank you, Mr.Brooks, for reminding us of "the better angels of our nature."
Beautifully compiled commentary, as usual, by David Brooks. My experience, from knowing many Americans, is that much of what he portrays is true. However people of every nation are not consistently noble. Americans and America have at times been xenophobic, racist and a lot of other things described in the article and the comments. There are plenty of Americans who think - at times, at least - just the way Trump talks.
The Founders compiled a constitution that can be said to define democracy; and at the same time this constitution, written by wealthy white male land- and slave-owners, was designed mainly to enable businessmen to do what they do best: make money, as Gore Vidal once said.
The history of America is much more complex than David describes. The land, and the party, that gave America Lincoln also promoted Trump and McConnell.
3
"America, love it or leave it" has been the refrain that conservatives have put forward for every generation that fought injustice: those who fought Jim Crow, fought for integration, fought against the Vietnam war. But freedom of speech, the ability to protest, and the notion that our country is not fixed in time but can adapt and change for the better are THE quintessential American ideals. It is what separates us from totalitarian countries.
9
Wish you had a spot on Fox News to say this.
4
Finally David brooks says something unequivocal about the hate mongerer in the Oval Office.
8
@phoebe
As I just replied to another individual in regards to David Brooks' article, said person's comment (and now yours) as well as the aforementioned column say it in a nutshell.
Brooks gives a series of generalizations about America that are every bit as wild as Trump's. He says, for example, "America is exceptional because from the first its citizens saw themselves in a project that would have implications for all humankind." But the same thing is true of the first French Republic, The Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, the Federal Republic of Germany, and many other states of the last few centuries. It would, in fact, have been more "exceptional" if Americans had seen themselves as anything else. And it hardly needs saying that racism and xenophobia have been very much a part of America from the start.
8
"Americans have always been divided on where they came from, but united in their vision of their common future..."
Actually, Americans, at various times throughout our history, have fought often bitterly over what our future should look like. Consensus often proved hard to obtain and sustain.
2
Are you still a Republican, David? If so, why?
13
@Tom
Ask the rest of President Trump's fellow Republicans who themselves don't like him (and with the way that he runs our nation, that number is probably growing) those same two questions!
Mr. Brooks, the language in this column is one your best. I would not say the same about the content. Your mind and eyes are closed to the ugly parts of American history.
3
David,
I will not thank you for writing this because you are a "political conservative." You tend to blow wherever the wind blows.
You can write an editorial that makes even liberals swoon, with all of your quotations. You think that by speaking with eloquence you will show your compassion and understanding, but really you are a balloon filled with nothing but hot air. You hope to show the reader how compassionate you are in your conservative thoughts.
Let me elucidate you: You equivocated after Trump was elected, but then you went full in. You have buyers remorse, probably based on your religion not agreeing with your political philosophy. When will the "conservative" individuals your self included, stop with the political and social equivalencies? When will you and others of your temperament swallow their pride and realize that who they elected is a horrible person? Not just one who "hates America", but essentially everyone? Women, check. No money, check. Does not agree with me, check. Different skin color, check. Different religion, check. Different point of view, check.
I recognize you are paid to write these columns. But please, just once, follow you're conscious, or the good book, or really the example of Jesus's life as written by mere mortals.
7
The only thing worse than Trump are the Republicans who support him, and the only thing worse than them are the many more Republicans who will tell you they don’t like Trump and yet agree with his Fascist policies. These policies only have support because people like David Brooks spent years weaponizing the GOP base to hate Democrats (Bobos, anyone?). Now Trump has full control of that weapon, and Brooks is just another Republican throwing his hand up and yelling that he had nothing to do with it. He’s just like the GOP congressmen who use “decorum” and “house rules” to shield Trump from being labeled the racist that he is.
11
David, that is the most accurate headline you’ve ever written.
3
“Trump’s vision is radically anti-American.” Agree!
Let us not ignore that this entire repub party has been moving in this racist direction since they absorbed the Deep South when the Dems would no longer tolerate their racism and hate. Trump is only a symptom of this hate and racism exhibited by this repub party of today.
Not only is trump AND this repub party anti-American, they’re racist and destructive to any humane values that exist today.
5
Who’s more American, Trump for speaking his mind or you for trying to shut him down?
Finally David, something I can agree with.
2
Let's assume all those middle of the night talks with Putin has gives him the idea that a white nation should be his goal. It's impossible to determine where the prejudiced, racist attitude originates and is equated with being American, but my bet is on a Manchurian candidate.
4
Great column. Thank you:
1
Wonderful.
So Brooks, unhappy with trump saying out loud what your beloved Republican Party believes, and says in code? Awwwww......
6
Another problem, of course, is that the Republican party hates America.
11
Thanks, David. I assume that you mean to say "vote for a Democrat". If not, this opinion piece is -- to use a nostalgic term -- malarkey.
4
Dear Mr Brooks,
You write: “'I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder,' John Adams declared..."
I'm sure the natives wantonly and savagely displaced by the white man must have shared his "reverence and wonder".
5
If the US is so evil and archaic and behind the movement of the rest of the World, why does the whole World want to reside in it?
2
Very Harvard 1950s American studies.
4
The plain fact is the two land masses we call 'the Americas' were well and truly inhabited from Arctic ice to Tierra del Fuego when the Puritans landed. Truth is, WE white folk are the interlopers here. If anybody ought to be 'sent back to where they came from' it is . . . US.
7
Democracy is the best system of government, imperfect though it is. The source of our current immigration is no longer Europe. That is the direct result of the defeat of fascism in Europe in WWII. Fascism is the fear of the other, minorities, jews, the disabled. The German economy was a shambles after WWI and the people were looking for a way to survive. Some cheered Hitler's racist rants, some tried their best to ignore it. Today we are faced with a lying racist in the White house. Trump is appealing to our basest fears. We need leaders who appeal to our best hopes. Mr. Brooks has written of a great vision that we were given by our founders, one of which was bi-racial, Hamilton. We have done better, we can do better, we will do better.
Blue wave 2020 !
2
Well, what do you know! A NY Times op-ed columnist who condemns Trump's racist attitude WITHOUT dragging in the MSM fake narrative that "both sides do it" because AOC referred to women of color being singled out or Omar was not sufficiently critical of terrorists.
2
Dear Mr Brooks,
Of course I agree with your depiction of Donald Trump’s definition of who is American. The problem I have with the rest of the article is the following.
As a country we started off pretty badly. We killed, maimed, infected the natives who owned the land. We made them into zombies and made their pastures into a national parks to be proud of. We called them native Americans and stuck them into reservations and allowed them to drink themselves to early deaths. We brought in slaves who were black. Racism was the law of the land under our wonderful constitution. We treated slaves like animals. We finally “liberated” them when their upkeep started costing a little too much. We treated the liberated slaves like second class citizens. They could not sit next to us while riding a public bus. They could not use our toilets. We treated Japanese Americans who served our country in wars terribly. We stuck them in camps! We imposed quota on Jews (now Asians) so they could get educated in our best schools. You get my drift? Please respond!
6
And now it appears that republicans who don't stand up for our nation's democratic values by standing with our racist hate-speak leader hate America, too. I believe they hate America, too.
1
Trump and his supporters DO NOT want to live in the America that is coming.
They are the hateful ones. The people who do not love America.
And they have vilely gerrymandered themselves into power - for now.
7
Trump has sold out our nation to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. He’s the last person who can accuse another of hating this country.
3
David, your hubris is akin to that of George Will....maybe you are his son and heir?
Whom do you imagine is impressed by "eschatological".
Truly out of touch just as you were in predicting Trump's demise in 2015 and 2016.
2
your first good column. about time
you've reigned in evil 45. please
don't stop as he must be replaced
by a decent president.
Thank you Mr. Brooks! You just woke up and spoke out!
The Big Tent party wants to keep it's old fashioned bigotry and racism as it was taught and preached by real Americans for centuries. The Grand ole Party has demanded we shut our country down to foreigners and to GO Back to a time when your identity was obvious. Remember that slavery (economics) was OK. Just a business decision. Not based on race. Just unfortunate that they were the economic drivers. Just like the past people will look the other way as long as their checkbook is goooood.
2
Donald Trump hates Americans more than he hates America.
3
Once again, thank you.
The United States was built on the genocide of the Red Indians. Whoops, I mean Native Americans. Another commentator recently wrote, yesterday I think, that racism is as American as apple pie.
1
This is your Republican Party, Mr. Brooks. Every GOP/Republican needs to own Trump. You helped unleash the monster and its deplorable supporters. Animals, all.
Thanks for nothing.
7
Terrific.
thanks for the optimism, david. in the present meltdown of civility that the corrupt, traitorous trump and his racist gop sycophantic followers / fox media bleaters/ Limbaugh / trump rally groupies gleefully instigate to divide us, we need to be reminded what we're about. vote trump / gop legislators out in 2020.
No words anymore.
1
I seldom agree with you, and I find your columns out of touch and even self indulgent. But — you got this one right.
You didn’t really need to add “America.” “Donald Trump Hates” would have sufficed.
6
What took you so long? His attitude, and that of your party (which you chose; you weren't born into it for Pete's sake), have been obvious for decades. I hope you don't treat the emergency this is climate change so cavalierly. You have children, don't you? How much do you care for them? Let's see some action. "Lazy time" for Republicans is OVER.
3
David Brooks, I think your three propositions present the case against him as clearly and simply as possible. But the last two sentences need to be put together, something that a Guardian article made clear a couple of days ago, something never made clear in the Times.
Your version: "Third, a true American is white. White Protestants created this country; everybody else is here on their sufferance."
My version: "Third, a true American is not only white in US Census Bureau terms, but is also a believer in one or another factions of American Christianity"
Why? The US Census Bureau classifies all Americans with lines of descent that go back to the Middle East and North Africa as members of its so-called "white race".
Neither the president nor any of his followers want to have anything to do with the group that the USCB temporarily created, called MENA, with the possible purpose of creating a new "race".
Many white nationalists/neo Nazis are having their genomes analyzed in the hope that the results will show them to be pure white. Early reports tell me that when they find the truth - none of us is pure anything - they dismiss the results as faulty science.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Trump's vision of America, is a country that pledges loyalty to him and only him. He thinks he IS America.
You are not allowed to criticize him, his policies or disagree with what he says. His way is the only way. If you object, you "hate America".
He also seems to think that Israel is part of America, because if you object to Israel's policies, you're anti-semitic.
Meanwhile, he trashes NATO, the EU and many of our other allies, but praises our enemies, like Kim and Putin.
That is Trump's vision of America. He claims it's "America First", when in actuality, it's "aMErica First".
3
Finally! David Brooks completely and totally disavows Donald Trump, and recognizes that the most UN-American in office in Washington, DC, IS Donald Trump!
George Will put what it means to be American far more succinctly: It means simply that you agree to and sign on to "The Contract" that binds us together. That is, our Constitution. Our oath of citizenship, and government service isn't to the White race, to Christianity, to "the land", or even to "the people". It's first and foremost to the Constitution, a document, an idea, a contract.
And it's a binding contract. Those of us "natural born" frequently don't realize that we were born under that contract, and that the only VALID "Love it or Leave It!" sentiment is to the Constitution, and nothing else. Even amending the Constitution means abiding by it, and loving it for allowing us to change it.
But people are people, and it's always very easy for a demagogue to whip up fear and rage, while asserting that the crowd is "special" and their "specialness" is being threatened by "The Other". We saw that the other night in Greenville, NC, where outsiders came to a fairly liberal (or at least it once was) college town and spewed some of the most vile racism since Charlottesville (another liberal college town).
Crazily, America has NEVER gotten over its original sin: Slavery, which led to the Civil War, to Jim Crow and the KKK with its 6000 lynchings, to the Civil Rights movement and the backlash the other night.
2
Trump is a hater of non white people and a dangerous lover of dictators and I often wonder what the Russians have on him that he doesn't want the American people to know about. We can't let him steal the election again. Please take a good look at his history if you are still planning to support him in the next election. He is not presidential material.
4
I love you, brother.
Donald Trump hates Americans. Donald Trump loves himself. Period.
6
David, at long last, when are you going to disavow the Republican Party? As long as you consider yourself in any way a member of the GOP, no matter how much you profess to abhor Trump and company, you do not deserve respect as any kind of insightful or accountable columnist.
4
As I was reading this two words came to mind: Barack Obama. How did we sink that low that fast?
5
"A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for." We've fallen very short of this ideal during our entire history, but we have to give ourselves credit--but not as much as David Brooks does-- for trying most of the time. I totally agree about Trump, though. Rather than Russia, though, I'd say Trump is emulating Germany in the 1930s.
8
I am not sure which is correct - Mr. Trump's dark vision that America is racist, xenophobic, nostalgic for our best days of the past [and naturally greedy, for that matter], which many dedicated liberals here seem to agree with. Or Mr. Brooks' brighter, but more romanticized, version of America - idealistic, altruistic, open to outsiders, and dedicated to the ideals of our Founders (even if we have always struggled to meet those ideals).
I think either could be correct, as there is evidence to support both. I think the real question is whether or not we will pursue the first or the second.
I myself fervently hope we pursue the second. For all our failures and shortcomings, it is worth the struggle.
1
This grand American system, with its electoral college, has allowed for and has given us Trump. It would be smart to start thinking about improving this system.
8
If what Mr. Brooks says were true, Donald Trump would not be President. I think of his view more as a forlorn lament of what he and the others want America to be with his repeated description of America as "exceptional", but Trump proves it is not.
12
@Gary Gerrard Excellent point. But I'm afraid no one is listening.
1
David draws an imaginary straight line through a very incomplete telling of history.
As Churchill said, America does the right thing eventually. But first we have to survive the current Republican party
I laud David's sentiment but reason and kindness take a long time to overcome fear and the fear based messaging of the Republicans. Democrats need to simplify their messaging, creating powerful phrases/themes that voters can emotionally attach to.
7
"Americans have always been divided on where they came from, but united in their vision of their common future." One effective way to unify us is to attend one of your local community band concerts. Predictably and if played as the composer intended, John Philip Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever" will reawaken one's belief in what it means to call yourself an American.
Would somebody, including you David, PLEASE go read the text that gave us the "city on a hill" imagery. It was completely distorted by Ronald Reagan and, it seems, by everybody since! It was not a "shining city" but a city on a hill that could not hide behind anything, ON WHICH THE LIGHT OF HISTORY WOULD SHINE. It's the ultimate "transparency" to use the current buzzword. The Puritans, love 'em or not, knew they were responsible for what they were doing to God and as such to the whole world. The spotlight would be on their new endeavor and there would be no hiding their failures which as Puritans they would have assumed would be many. They were right on both counts. There have been many failures. And they have been plain for all, friend and foe alike, to see. Perhaps what makes us "exceptional" is that occasionally we learn from them, or at least try to. Donald Trump is just all our failures writ large. Everyone is watching. But he is just a sideshow. The spotlight of humanity and history are on US, the U.S., the American people, still trying to build a city worthy of being called the city of God, the New Jerusalem, America. That Puritan preacher on the Mayflower knew it would not be easy, he warned us, and he prayed for us to succeed.
10
I am coming towards my 7th decade as an American. I witnessed the first little girls integrating the public school in Alabama. They were children heckled and spat at. I remember for sale signs going up in my white middle class suburb, because there was a rumor of a black family moving in. I remember Martin Luther King being assassinated. The is myth of black men "wilding" was promoted by the press. Fear of the "other"has been a constant theme. I thought that our country coming in to the 21st century had learned something from the painful past.
I completely misjudged and misunderstood the mentality of so many other Americans. I thought that racism, and sexism and fear of was no longer a mainstream value.
As it turns out, fear and hate are the most powerful motivation of much of the electorate. Humans have a tribal mind. Capitalism thrives best when people only think of profits for themselves. We want our "own" to survive even at the expense of others. We don't want anyone to receive anything that we perceive "they" haven't earned, even as we ourselves benefit from Public Schools and infrastructure built by those before us.
Trump knows how to tap into the lowest common denominator of fear and hatred.
The real myth of America is exceptionalism. As it turns out we are as banal and ordinary as any other tribe.
18
THIS is what the Democratic candidates should focus their candidacy on! Make America American Again! America is about freedom, liberty, truth, diversity, respect, tolerance, striving, opportunity, openness........not divisiveness, lying, corruption, nastiness, hatred. Positive American values.
1
@Maria B
"America is about freedom, liberty, truth, diversity, respect, tolerance, striving, opportunity, openness........not divisiveness, lying, corruption, nastiness, hatred. Positive American values."
Neither of which President Trump espouses.
"The real American idea is not xenophobic, nostalgic or racist"
Well the "real" America exists mostly in David Brooks' fantasies in that case, since the actual real one was built on genocide and slavery as much as it was on nobler ideas and struggles.
There's nothing wrong with aspiring to higher standards but it really does no good to whitewash our history in order to pretend that Donald Trump is something totally out of the blue with no precedent or cause.
Trump has tapped into a racism that's been here since the start of the country, and feeds an oligarchy that's waxed and waned over the centuries, growing strong for example in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s. It was only through disgust with this society of inequality, of haves and have nots, and conscious and strenuous effort to dismantle it that we've ever had more broad-based affluence.
Thomas Piketty showed that capitalism leads inexorably to inequality, so it requires constant struggle to counter that. Letting propagandists like David Brooks fill columns with fluff that covers up the real problems is the opposite of that struggle.
15
remember when Spiro Agnew coined the term 'the silent majority'? Well we've come full circle to now and the new silent majority is the tens of millions of people who hate or are repulsed by this rotten human being. Could it be that this Silent Majority will be heard in untold numbers in 2020?
5
@Philip Levine
At least the bumper crop of Democratic Congressional candidates heard this "new (S)ilent (M)ajority" 8 1/2 months ago. It's a start.
Do you still support the congressional republicans who support trump or, just as bad, are silent. If so, you are as bad and unAmerican as they are. If not, say so and call for their ouster.
5
This wise, hopeful column brought tears to my years . It charts a way forward for us all. Although you have humorously likened your position at the New York Times to being the "head rabbi in Mecca," you are preaching to us all. Thank you.
1
It’s not just Trump that doesn’t follow your dream of and for America, Mr. Brooks. It is the chanting thousands of his followers at his rallies as well. And they represent the millions of Americans in his pocket. Trump is the horror, but it is the Americans who adore him who really worry me.
7
Trump, of German ancestry pretending to be Swedish, is part of a long line of rapacious plutocrats who have always worked to undermine equal opportunity for others.
Brooks will never, ever, admit that he has been an enthusiastic supporter of the party that whole-heartedly signing on to an agenda of rolling back the 20th Century.
David, your party gave us Trump. Every country has to deal with greedy and dishonest men. Your party elevates them, it does not repudiate them.
Save these trivial Pollyanna stories for children.
12
And the next column will be “Stop being so liberal, Democrats, or I’ll be forced to vote for Trump!”
There is really nothing left to Republicans but dismantling the federal government (aside from the Pentagon), tax cuts, oligarchy, and, seemingly, racism.
And yet the Democrats, who have been tripping over their own feet in their race to the right in the past generation, are considered too “liberal” to be serious.
I look forward to your upcoming apologia...
8
The vision of a pluralistic home is a nice turn of phrase. However, the first immigrants to American shores and succeeding generations made that home by committing genocide on Native Americans. From the very beginning, racism and violence have been an integral part of the American character. Our real history is conveniently ignored.
6
Mr. Brooks needs to be reminded that for years he played a big role in the Republican party and turned a blind eye to what many of us saw happening.
His Republican party elected Trump.
Mr. Brooks, I think you need to do better to convince some of your Republican cronies that Trump is toxic. You are preaching to the choir here.
9
Seems the real question--for Mr. Brooks and all of us--is that of greed. All the poetic filigree about dreams and aspirations tells only part of the story. American expansion also fed on greed, and this was always both its engine and its soft underbelly. How to achieve long-lasting "e pluribus unum" without sapping the energy or allowing greed (and its twin, envy) to destroy the place. These tensions have been defining and explain most of our ills over the generations. Trump is just a wart on the face of this history.
4
Racism and xenophobia have always been a part of the American DNA. Donald Trump has merely made these our main characteristics. We struggled so hard for so long to come so far, and then we're taken back in three short years. Today, Abraham Lincoln would stand on the White House steps with a tear in his eye. Make America great again is equivalent to make America racist again. Martin Luther King would be appalled at what he saw from the mountain top. This is indeed a dark period in our history.
Perhaps the radical shift will bring with it a self-correcting return to justice and equality for all. However, we may be looking at something more serious that requires a more serious response. Perhaps it is time for a paradigm shift in human thought - both in America and throughout the world.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
4
Maybe it is nothing more than a continual tug-of-war between democracy (Roe v Wade) and capitalism (Citizens United).
2
I am in favor of Roe v. Wade, but Supreme Court decisions are not "democratic." When legislative bodies change the law, that is democratic.
There is always a "tug of war," a tension between selfishness and generosity, anarchy and tyranny, self-righteousness and humility. The Greeks understood this 2500 years ago and this hasn't changed. So--all you naysayers. Stop nay-saying and start pulling hard.
3
If you "take the diverse many and make them one" you are in fact diluting diversity.
Which, of course, may not be such a bad thing for diversity has proved to be divisive.
And, which is the better world - one with borders and a wonderful diversity of nations, races, cultures, traditions and religions or a giant global melting pot which reduces us to a grey and drab McWorld.
To want to preserve a nations culture and traditions is not xenophobia but a love of country and global diversity.
Are countries such as Japan and China which don't do multiculturalism or the dilution of culture and tradition stupid or on the right track?
The Chinese and Russian presidents recognise the western worlds liberal immigration policy to be a cardinal weakness - are they wrong?
1
Yeah, they are.
And what precisely IS your country’s culture, exactly?
I’ve never, ever seen one of these arguments that could say, or had much to do with the country’s history. Well, not its actual history, anyway, because the only way you get to a notion of “national identity,” in a country like America is to tell a series of orchestrated lies about the past.
Trump’s America is not my America for sure. But one only has to watch a few excerpts from his rallies to realize that his America does exist. Fortunately, the majority of Americans are not like that (only the majority of voters in the Electoral College), but wake up, a large number of our fellow citizens are ... what’s the word? ... ah, yes, deplorable.
5
While Brooks is looking at America through rose colored glasses, I appreciate that for once, his column doesn’t involve what about those Democrats that are so very leftist.
But yes, the headline says it all. Trump hates what America strives to be. He wants it to be nothing but Plutocracy/Kleptocracy. He wants to exploit the average citizen all for his benefit. He hates humanity. I guess he assumes he is immortal.
2
Come on over to the other side, Mr. Brooks. You do realize your party has become a dystopian nightmare.
6
Don’t make simple things complicated. Liberals simply make the word ‘white’ unspeakable. It is becoming an evil color.
Why do you pursue any policy that makes majority of the country humiliated? Why do you threaten them that they should be replaced not respected? The squads are simply saying that the current America is full of evil and should be replaced wholly. Trump and some of his infuriated supporters just showed their anger against that unacceptable idea quite mildly. You are trying to paint them as evils. Many of silent majority sees what’s happening without a word. Their sentiment will be exposed only in the ballot. Never use the word ‘white supremacy’ right after the whites showed tolerance enough to have accepted a black president. It’s simply disgusting.
3
@Young
" whites showed tolerance enough " ? is that how you see it ? that was an election , no threats of a " rigged " race ...
notice how that talk vanished ?
only if DJT lost would it be called such
You have described Donald Trump and he sees a threat if things are not as he sees them.
1
Mr. Brooks is fond of quotations. Trouble is, his book of familiar quotations rarely gives the whole passage, which can sometimes be problematic. Take the passage he quotes from Melville’s "White-Jacket": “God has predestined, mankind expects, great things from our race . … We are the pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path.”
Here's some of what Mr. Brooks leaves out from that paragraph in
"White-Jacket" [note the word "white" in the title]: "God has given to us [Americans] . . the broad domains of the political pagans, that shall yet come and lie down under the shade of our ark . . .God has predestined . . . great things from our race . . The rest of the nations must soon be in our rear. We are the pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness . . . to break a new path in the New World that is ours."
Uh, oh. Turns out that the “race” Melville is talking about [in 1850] is the white race. He certainly does not mean, in 1850, that slaves and Indians are part of the American "race." No, he lays claims to the "New World" that is "ours" and shuns the "political pagan" (that is, all other peoples) that "must soon be in our rear." As a whole, the passage is nationalistic, jingoistic, and, yes, racist, at least by current standards, and thus conveys almost the opposite of what Mr. Brooks means to convey. Lesson: read the whole book.
5
Personally, I don't believe that the average American is inspired by the lofty aspirations listed here. If they are, they must be disappointed with their generally inept political leaders.
1
You lost me at “American exceptionalism”.
3
I remember when I was young and dreamed of the American dream. I’m white with a Uni degree but I will never even visit your sick country again.
3
Thank you... This should be read by every American
3
"Americans have always been divided on where they came from, but united in their vision of their common future."
Maybe during WWI and II, Americans were united, but we always have been a nation largely divided politically. In fact, now it's getting worse than ever.
That light David sees at the end of the tunnel is a train coming this way.
We are not already "self-fixed," and this is but a hiccup; on the contrary, to change the mindset and personality of millions of Americans is impossible. Education cannot get into where ethical and moral values are created, maintained, and held, which explains Nazi doctors -- highly educated "healers" who willingly performed macabre and ghastly experiments on children and others.
The permanent flaw in human nature just can't be repaired. As Homer said, we have instincts for building and destruction; neither can be removed. We need to acknowledge who we really are: animals with clothes on who require close scrutiny for better results.
We'll never pull ourselves up very far by our bootstraps. Which, of course, is very depressing. To avoid that despair, we can ignore the truth, but that's even more risky. Remember Nazi Germany, the most advanced Christian nation on Earth quickly reverted to bestialism. No nation is immune to such reverting to type, because it's a powerful part of human nature, coming and going when it sees the opportunity and forced out only by our better half, but never eradicated.
1
France should demand that we send the Statue of Liberty back. We no longer deserve it.
6
Elect a Democratic Senate.
6
Unfortunately, the Republican party doesn't care that Trump hates America. Their ability at the moment to ram through their greedy, fundamentalist, and destructive agenda and their dream of permanent Republican rule has binded them to human decency and actual morality, compassion, ethics, fairness - pretty much any positive quality one can name. And even more unfortunately, the way this is playing out, the permanent Republican rule will more likely be a permanent fascist rule, which they either don't see, are in denial about, or want.
4
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Beautifully said.
1
National identity is a form of slavery: you are owned by your
country. America is more an idea than a country. The Declaration, says so, in effect, where it provides for the dismantling of the government and starting over if the people require it. And, possessing unconditional freedom of speech, we know that we can talk about that eventuality any time we feel like it.
1
Yes, David, America is exceptional, agreed; if it weren't for all the yellow bricks everywhere, we could tell it from Oz.
Lest we forget, the great nation is ours was also the same place where our founders rigged the game to give the South a disproportionate weight in the national government, that assigned a fractional value to human beings who were enslaved, that saw the rise and spread of the KKK with the full acquiescence of law enforcement and were the judiciary held that separate but equal was the law of the land for decades, that stole the lands and slaughtered the inhabitants of the Great Plains, Florida and the West... in other words, it has always been a country built by and for a ruling elite which was white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant and rural. Donald Trump is simply the latest in a long and painful history of charlatans and snake oil salesmen who have co-opted the great principles and ideals for venal and completely self-serving objectives: the preservation of an America of the 1950s, of race-baiting, fear-mongering, McCarthyism, hubris ... the nation has evolved but could easily slip backwards under the endless assault of the President’s rhetoric and the feckless behavior of the GOP.
1
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. We needed this.
The first permanent English settlement in America was Jamestown, founded in 1607 as an economic venture. What were the reasons for English colonization in America? England wanted to establish an American colony to increase her wealth and power. THIS was our founding legacy... PROFIT...not religious "freedom". To continut to call us exceptional while ignoring or downplaying our roll in atrocities world wide is misleading.
3