David Brooks:
If there is an underlying philosophy driving Trump, it is this: Morality is for suckers. To borrow from Thucydides, the strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must. This is the logic of bullies everywhere. And if there is a consistent strategy, it is this: Day after day, the administration works to create a world where ruthless people can thrive.
Time and time again, we hear from people who are somehow surprised by the nihilism of this administration—even though Trump’s moral failure has been on proud display since the very beginning. Brooks has always opposed Trump, but our current slow and steady decline into dysfunction should not shock: it is a desired and concerted outcome.
When Trump creates an unnecessary crisis, it’s unlikely to be a small one. The proverbial “adults in the room” who contained crises in Trump’s first term are gone. Whatever the second-term crisis—runaway inflation? a global trade war? a cratered economy and plummeting stock market? an out-of-control conflict in China? botched pandemic management? a true hijacking of the Constitution precipitated by defiance of the courts?—it is likely to crater his support and shift historical momentum.
I’m not sure I share Brooks’s certainty that “Trumpism” (an empty term if there ever was one) is doomed to fail. The ingredients for authoritarianism are available and ripening: a power-obsessed executive branch, an activist and enabling Supreme Court, an ineffectual and dithering Congress. Now is not the time to hide and await the promised renaissance. It must be earned by continually advocating for a return to governing on shared morals and decency.
