'You don't love your country': Conservative exposes 'moral rot at the core of Trumpism'

One prominent conservative writer is now directly calling out both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance for attacking one of the most distinctive parts of the American identity — the reason servicemen and women fight and die for their country.

In his Thursday column, New York Times columnist David Brooks — a protege of conservative icon William F. Buckley — began by saying that while his mentor often encouraged him to write about "whatever made me angriest this week," he wasn't an angry person and usually didn't use anger as a source of inspiration. However, he said that comments made by Vance and conservative political scientist Patrick Deneen of the University of Notre Dame forced him to heed Buckley's advice: Brooks told readers he was angry in particular that both Deneen and Vance insisted that American military members primarily fight and die not for their country, but for their comrades.

"Of course warriors fight for their comrades. And of course there are some wars like Vietnam, and Iraq, where Vance served, where the moral causes are unclear or discredited," Brooks wrote. "But when the moral stakes are made clear, most soldiers are absolutely motivated in part by ideals — even in the heat of combat."

READ MORE: 'Extremely challenging circumstances': Chief Justice Roberts faces a 'serious test'

The conservative Times columnist went on to cite examples of Civil War soldiers who often wrote letters to family members back home speaking of the importance of preserving the union, and who referenced soldiers who gave their lives in the Revolutionary War for there to even be a union to defend. He argued that Deneen and Vance "stain the memory of the men who fought in that war" by reducing the causes they fought for to simply protecting their brothers in arms.

However, Brooks took a deeper route and posited that if America is truly a land of universal ideals that apply to everyone like freedom, democracy and human rights, then the vision of America that MAGA conservatives like Trump and Vance are promoting is fundamentally at odds with it. He further observed that the version of "morality" they're pushing is a "tribal" kind that pits Americans against each other in a "zero-sum" game. And he added that Trump referring to his political opponents as "scum" in his Memorial Day post to Truth Social showed the darkest side of his ideology.

"[T]hese little statements point to the moral rot at the core of Trumpism, which every day disgraces our country, which we are proud of and love," Brooks wrote. "Trumpism can be seen as a giant attempt to amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies."

"The use of the word 'scum' in that context is called dehumanization. It is a short step from dehumanization to all sorts of horrors," he continued. "Somebody should remind Trump that you don’t love your country if you hate half its members."

READ MORE: Mike Johnson sent Musk a 'long text message' begging him to reconsider criticism of bill

Click here to read Brooks' column in full (subscription required).