'Logic of bullies': Conservative details 'underlying philosophy driving Trump'

07 April

David Brooks at the LBJ Presidential Library on April 4, 2022 (Jay Godwin/Flickr)

Over the years, conservative journalist David Brooks hasn't been shy about criticizing liberal and progressive ideas — including those he regards as "cultural Marxism." But Brooks is also an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, which he believes has been terrible for conservatism.

In an article published by The Atlantic on April 7, Brooks describes two competing trends on the right: conservatives focused on ideas, and "reactionaries" whose top priority is offending the left. And he laments that thanks to Trumpism, the latter is prevailing on the right.

"The pathetic thing is that I didn’t see this coming even though I’ve been living around these people my whole adult life," Brooks explains. "I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, when I worked in turn at National Review, The Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. There were two kinds of people in our movement back then: the conservatives and the reactionaries. We conservatives earnestly read Milton Friedman, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers, and Edmund Burke. The reactionaries just wanted to shock the left."

Brooks continues, "We conservatives oriented our lives around writing for intellectual magazines; the reactionaries were attracted to TV and radio. We were on the political right but had many liberal friends; they had contempt for anyone not on the anti-establishment right. They were not pro-conservative — they were anti-left. I have come to appreciate that this is an important difference."

"Faux populists" in the MAGA movement, Brooks argues, "lust for worldly power" — even if they "ostentatiously identify as Christians."

"Trumpian nihilism has eviscerated conservatism," Brooks laments. "The people in this administration are not conservatives. They are the opposite of conservatives. Conservatives once believed in steady but incremental reform; Elon Musk believes in rash and instantaneous disruption. Conservatives once believed that moral norms restrain and civilize us, habituating us to virtue; Trumpism trashes moral norms in every direction, riding forward on a tide of adultery, abuse, cruelty, immaturity, grift, and corruption."

Brooks adds, "Conservatives once believed in constitutional government and the Madisonian separation of powers; Trump bulldozes checks and balances, declaiming on social media, 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.'"

According to Brooks, the writing of author George Orwell is "a useful guide to what we’re witnessing" during Trump's second term.

Brooks writes, "(Orwell) understood that it is possible for people to seek power without having any vision of the good…. If there is an underlying philosophy driving Trump, it is this: Morality is for suckers. The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. This is the logic of bullies everywhere."

David Brooks' full article for The Atlantic is available at this link.

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