Conservative mocks Republicans in Congress as 'Trump bobblehead figures'
In an article for The New York Times published Thursday, conservative political commentator David Brooks argued that the Republican Party has surrendered its independence and moral authority by bending entirely to President Donald Trump.
Brooks writes that after decades of ceding power within Congress and to the executive branch, many Republican lawmakers have now effectively given up their own agency, becoming “Trump bobbleheads” more focused on appearing loyal than representing their constituents.
"Today if you are a Republican you have basically given away all your power to Trump. You are a duly elected representative of your constituents, yet you’ve turned yourself into a Trump bobblehead figure who gets to go on Fox News from time to time," Brooks wrote.
He argued that this submission to Trump reflects a broader cultural decay in American democracy: one in which the idea of persuasion has been replaced by the glorification of “fighting.”
Once a rhetorical flourish, the promise to “fight” has, Brooks observed, become a destructive mindset across the political spectrum. Republicans, in particular, have adopted Trump’s combative style, treating politics as warfare rather than deliberation.
The result, he warned, is a form of politics that unleashes “the little fascist in each one of us,” where opponents are to be crushed rather than convinced.
Brooks contrasted this with the democratic ideals of conversation and compromise enshrined in the Constitution, arguing that these values are now dismissed as weakness.
Trump’s rhetoric, he said, is not about persuasion but domination, and Republicans’ eagerness to echo it reveals their abandonment of democratic principles. And Brooks argued that rather than defending the institutions they were elected to uphold, many in the GOP have traded them for a performative loyalty to one man.
