4 days ago
Perspective: Here's what got David Brooks angry last week
The day I encountered David Brooks in person, I was first struck, as we listened next to each other at a conference, at how short this larger-than-life columnist was. Later, at another gathering he organized, I saw for myself why he calls himself 'normally a mild guy' as he navigated with grace the loud protests from one angry attendee.
But this week, something set Brooks off. Like other Americans, the journalist has been concerned about changes taking place in the country. He wrote with particular concern about the consequences of tariffs and illiberal impulses now emerging on the right.
Yet I've never seen this mild-mannered journalist, followed by millions of Americans, so frustrated as he was in last week's column, which referenced the growing societal impact of a sentiment voiced by J.D. Vance in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention: 'People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.'
Brooks noted the similarity of Vance's remarks to an earlier Memorial Day essay from Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen, who he called a 'popularizer of the closest thing the Trump administration has to a guiding philosophy.' Deneen wrote in 2009 that soldiers 'die not for abstractions — ideas, ideals, natural right, the American way of life, rights, or even their fellow citizens — so much as they are willing to brave all for the men and women of their unit.'
Brooks pointed out that research by historian James M. McPherson rebuts this historical argument, with the majority of thousands of Civil War letters showing 'patriotic motivations' as one reason they went into combat. That includes a Union soldier writing his wife who had begged him to stop fighting and come home: 'Remember that thousands went forth and poured out their life's blood in the Revolution to establish this government; and 'twould be a disgrace to the whole American people if she had not noble sons enough who had the spirit of '76 in their hearts.'
This historical debate isn't what got Brooks angry, though. It's how he believes this minimizing of 'abstractions' and 'ideals' appears to be shaping what this administration is currently doing.
'The Bible is built on abstractions,' the columnist notes. 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Sermon on the Mount contains a bunch of abstractions: blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the merciful. Believe it or not, down through the centuries, billions of people have dedicated their lives to these abstractions.'
Of course, there are many great Americans who appreciate what President Trump is doing — and see Republican actions as realigning the country with its founding ideals. Brooks himself notes in his essay, 'I have no trouble simultaneously opposing Trump policies and maintaining friendship and love for friends and family who are Trump supporters. In my experience, a vast majority of people who support Trump do so for legitimate or at least defensible reasons.'
Many of them rightly see a country that has strayed from Judeo-Christian morality. And they appreciate ways the Trump administration is trying to move the nation in a better direction. Along with pulling the country away from DEI mandates and biological men in women's sports, they cheer the cost-cutting attempts by DOGE as past due and the security of the American border that most people (on both the left and right) saw as problematic.
As someone who has studied pharmaceutical companies in the past, I'm also among those who believe we're overdue in asking fundamental questions about incentives for our health care system — including the funding that shapes basic medical research we depend on to guide our treatment decisions. Heaven knows we can use more encouragement to improve our health as Americans, which is another focus of this administration.
All this feels encouraging to many, and I can sincerely understand why. I wonder, do Trump supporters also understand the reasons others may be concerned?
In our hyper-partisan discourse, it's become too easy to make knee-jerk references to 'far left radicals' and attribute any concern to 'Trump derangement syndrome.'
Like in a fraying marriage, any hope of deeper reconciliation among Americans depends on at the very least understanding where different people are coming from. So, just like I've invited liberals for years to more deeply hear conservative concerns, I believe this latest column offers a window for Trump-supporters to understand more fully the sincerely-held concerns of his critics.
Far from being a 'progressive,' this man is one of the most widely known conservative commentators in the world. I'll recap Brooks' concerns in simple form — centered around three differences in perspective the columnist proposes as fundamental:
1. Two forms of nationalism. On one hand, Brooks describes 'aspirational nationalism' reflected in people like Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan who saw America not only as a homeland, but also as 'founded to embody and spread the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address.'
On the other hand, he describes a nationalism centered on ancestors and homeland, traditionally more common in Europe — reflecting 'the belief that America is just another collection of people whose job is to take care of our own.'
2. Two conceptions of society. Compared with a more 'universalist' conception of society centered on love of family and neighbor as foundational to larger love towards a nation or humankind, Brooks describes an 'identity politics conception of society' that shows up on both sides of the political spectrum now — namely, 'that life is a zero-sum struggle between racial, national, partisan and ethnic groups.'
3. Two kinds of morality. Compared with a morality based on universal ideals, Brooks also references an openly 'tribal morality.' In this, he references the President's own Memorial Day message on social media, which opened with this line: 'Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country.'
Laying aside wearisome debates over the President's use of language, Brooks often presses readers to ask what language like this is doing inside us — shaping how we see and relate to others around us.
Brooks goes on to argue here that the philosophies behind this administration (often called 'Trumpism') are gradually nudging our nation as a whole towards a morality, a society and a nationalism based less on universal ideals — and reflecting more of a zero-sum, tribal motivation that centers primarily on taking care of our own.
This can be seen, Brooks says, as 'giant effort to narrow the circle of concern to people just like us.' He raises concern that the ultimate effect on our country is to 'amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies.'
On this basis, he says, increasing numbers of Americans have been persuaded to turn away from Ukraine, from the recipients of aid programs in Africa, and to turn against immigrants as a whole.
Yet 'if America is an idea,' Brooks appeals, 'then Black and brown people from all over the world can become Americans by coming here and believing that idea. If America is an idea, then Americans have a responsibility to promote democracy. We can't betray democratic Ukraine.'
Brooks acknowledges that Vance himself referred to America as partly a set of ideas in his Republican National Convention acceptance speech, but notes the Vice President emphasized mostly the idea of a homeland where his ancestors were buried for generations.
I agree with Brooks that our gaze must go deeper than policy level details to the moral and spiritual realm if we want to understand what's taking place in America right now. But I disagree with him that Trump and Vance are somehow intentionally causing harm — 'trying to degrade America's moral character to a level more closely resembling their own.'
Yet there's something important in what Brooks is saying that's worth considering, especially his contention that we're continuing to separate ourselves as a country from some of the higher ideals that motivated our founders.
Once again, many see President Trump as helping return America to these foundations. But in Brooks' view, the effort to advance a more isolationist, internally-focused America ethos 'stain(s) the memory' of those who gave their lives in the early revolution and who fought to preserve the Union — including 'the men who froze at Valley Forge' and 'who stormed the beaches at Normandy and Guadalcanal,' motivated by something far loftier than survival, conquest, or power alone.
