Free Republic

It's bizarre that anyone would think a president putting America first is 'not normal,' but we suppose the Democrats and Leftists we're dealing with in 2025 are anything but normal. And to call for a national civic uprising because we're securing borders, sending illegals home, and working to stop other countries from taking advantage of us seems really backwards. But this is Jessica Tarlov we're talking about. Watch this: https://x.com/JessicaTarlov/status/1915154567240835230? Normal. Alrighty then.

Yuppies of the world, unite! New York Times columnist David Brooks, calling for a “mass civic uprising” against Donald Trump: "We live in a country with catastrophically low levels of institutional trust. University presidents, big law firms, media organizations and corporate executives face a wall of skepticism and cynicism. If they are going to participate in a mass civic uprising against Trump, they have to show the rest of the country that they understand the establishment sins that gave rise to Trump in the first place… [that] this is not just defending the establishment; it’s moving somewhere new." You don’t...

PBS NEWSHOUR: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join William Brangham to discuss the week in politics, including President Trump's continued faceoff with the courts, if Republicans will begin pushing back against the president and Harvard rejecting Trump's demands. David Brooks, New York Times: What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal. "The core argument is that Trump is really about amassing power," Brooks said of his column. "And anything that might potentially restrain his power, he will destroy. And that includes the court systems and anything part...

The Heritage Foundation is proposing that the U.S. wind down military aid to Israel as part of a strategy to “re-orient its relationship” with the country over the next two decades, a notable stance for the prominent conservative think tank given the long and deep support for Israel among conservatives and Republicans. The Heritage report on moving the U.S.-Israel strategy, “From Special Relationship to Strategic Partnership,” was crafted by its defense experts and released on Wednesday. “Just as Israel once advanced from a financial assistance recipient to an economic partner of the United States, so, too, should it move from...

PBS News Hour host Amna Nawaz, Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart, and New York Times columnist David Brooks came together on Friday to mourn the first month of Donald Trump 2.0. Together, the trio would lament the supposed lack of “guardrails” that is allowing Trump to run “roughshod” over the government in pursuit of “Ivy League right-wing nihilism.”Nawaz began with Capehart, “Can I just get both of you to briefly weigh in on this? Because we're nearing one month into the Trump presidency. Is it clear to you where the guardrails are, Jonathan?”Capehart was naturally a doomer, “No. No....

Many supporters of Donald Trump will die sooner than the elites they hate, author David Brooks writes in his essay for The Atlantic — “How the Ivy League Broke America” — and it’s by design. “The diploma divide is driving American politics,” Brooks writes in a newsletter to promote his piece. “Donald Trump surged back into power with the support of millions of high-school-educated voters who are furious at the college-educated elite.” He adds: “High-school-educated people die eight years younger than college-educated people, on average.

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that while he’s not a huge fan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “over the last month, he’s gone against world opinion and American opinion on a whole range of issues, and he’s been absolutely right” in a way that has “served world peace” by weakening terrorist groups, and so those calling for him to declare victory in the wake of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar should accept they don’t have the same intelligence as Israel and Netanyahu has “been making some right calls over the last...

Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Pamela Paul about Tuesday’s debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz.Patrick Healy: Heading into tonight’s vice-presidential debate, what are you most curious about? What do you want to hear or see from the candidates?David Brooks: Policy! Here are some questions I’d love to see answered: Do you support Israel’s attack on Hezbollah? How can we best confront China? How can the government make parenting easier? Does industrial policy work?Ross Douthat: I’ll see David’s wonkery and raise it....

A restaurant fired back at New York Times columnist David Brooks after he complained Wednesday on social media about the cost of his meal, saying, "This is why Americans think the economy is terrible." "This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible," Brooks wrote with a picture of his dinner, which consisted of a cheeseburger, fries and what appears to be an alcoholic beverage. However, the restaurant 1911 Smoke House Barbeque pushed back on Brooks' post on Facebook Thursday. "Looks like someone was knocking back some serious drinks - Bar...

As the walls close in on the Biden Crime Family, Democrats are starting to resort to desperate tactics to save them. One prominent leftist operative going to the extreme and looking at hitting Republicans close to home. Tara Palmeri of Puck News reported last Friday that David Brock will be launching a personal investigation into family members of Republican lawmakers, looking for any instances where they may have benefited from that member’s position. “Gloves are off, Families are on,” Brock said to Palmeri. Brock is specifically looking at targeting the children of these Republican congressional members. We’ve been looking into...

In an op-ed piece for the New York Times on Wednesday, David Brooks had the headline, “What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?” In it, Brooks struggles with the question of why Trump has a commanding lead over the other GOP hopefuls and why he seems essentially tied with Joe Biden on a national basis. All of this despite the fact that Trump continues to rack up indictments like a grandma on a winning bingo streak at The Villages.To his credit, Brooks does conduct a fairly exhaustive self-examination. In the piece, he enumerates the ways and provides examples of how...

New York Times NeverTrumper columnist David Brooks published a rare, self-reflective column this week asserting that he and our America’s political, corporate, and media elite may in fact actually be the “Bad Guys.”Brooks’s column is served up with his usual overbearing degree of pseudo-moralistic handwringing, lamenting the overlooked virtues of the American elite and the dangers of Donald Trump. But buried in its verbosity is a recognition that the U.S. elite have enriched themselves at the expense of Americans middle and working classes:Armed with all kinds of economic, cultural and political power, we support policies that help ourselves. Free trade...

David Brooks of the NYTimes , in a random act of journalism, seems to be asking a question that NOBODY on the left has ever asked. Actually worth reading. Does he think that the left has finally gone too far and has no way back.

Donald Trump seems to get indicted on a weekly basis. Yet he is utterly dominating his Republican rivals in the polls, and he is tied with Joe Biden in the general election surveys. Trump’s poll numbers are stronger against Biden now than at any time in 2020. What’s going on here? Why is this guy still politically viable, after all he’s done? We anti-Trumpers often tell a story to explain that. It was encapsulated in a quote the University of North Carolina political scientist Marc Hetherington gave to my colleague Thomas B. Edsall recently: “Republicans see a world changing around...

Anti-Trump New York Times columnist David Brooks shocked political commentators on Twitter when he admitted he and the so-called "elite" have used self-serving tactics to maintain power and a sense of moral superiority over the Trump supporters they detest. "I ask you to try on a vantage point in which we anti-Trumpers are not the eternal good guys. In fact, we’re the bad guys," Brooks wrote in a column Wednesday. "Over the last decades we’ve taken over whole professions and locked everybody else out," Brooks wrote of the liberal elite in America. The column detailed how the "educated class" imagine...

One of the stunning facts of the age is the continued prominence of Donald Trump. His candidates did well in the GOP primaries this year. He won more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. His favorability ratings within his party have been high and basically unchanged since late 2016. In a range of polls, some have actually shown Trump leading President Joe Biden in a race for reelection in 2024. His prominence is astounding because over the past seven years the American establishment has spent enormous amounts of energy trying to discredit him. Those of us in this...

Washington Post and MSNBC contributor Washington Post and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart compared Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and former President Trump to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader in "Star Wars" on Friday. Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks appeared on "PBS News Hour" with Judy Woodruff to discuss various topics, including Cheney's upcoming primary. Brooks called Cheney "a hero," but noted she is behind her Republican challenger by more than 22 percent and likely to lose her seat. That's when Capehart praised her as comparable to a beloved Jedi. "And, look, I keep thinking about the scene in...

I will never get over the fact that our society seems to produce a steady stream of young men who think it is heroic to murder innocent people. I read their histories. I look at the social science research. I’ve tried to understand the typical pathway they take to get to their evil behavior. The common thing to say about mass shooters is that they have mental health issues, but that’s often misleading. This has been studied in a variety of ways. A majority of mass shooters do not have diagnosed mental illness. It’s mostly the circumstances that drive them...

On Friday’s broadcast of “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that the 2022 midterm elections are ultimately going to be about the state of the economy and not abortion. Brooks stated that the lasting electoral impact of the court’s ruling and the subsequent debate on abortion will be “Limited. I mean, it’ll mobilize some voters clearly in some places.” He added, “My feel is, the election’s going to be about inflation, about the economy. 83% of the country thinks the economy’s in bad shape. That’s an unprecedented number. And so, that’s just, I think, going to be...

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that Democrats are facing poor poll numbers because “the whole zeitgeist of the country has deteriorated over the last year. And I would say it’s been a threat of disorder,” internationally, domestically on crime, and economically on inflation.