New York Times columnist David Brooks, a frequent critic of the White House, said President Trump’s political opponents are growing less effective as the administration matures.
In an op-ed published Tuesday, Brooks said the anti-Trump movement is becoming desperate and unrealistic in its expectations.
“[T]he anti-Trump movement, of which I’m a proud member, seems to be getting dumber,” he wrote. “It seems to be settling into a smug, fairy tale version of reality that filters out discordant information. More anti-Trumpers seem to be telling themselves a ‘Madness of King George’ narrative: Trump is a semiliterate madman surrounded by sycophants who are morally, intellectually and psychologically inferior to people like us.”
“I’d like to think it’s possible to be fervently anti-Trump while also not reducing everything to a fairy tale,” he added.
Trump has had a tumultuous first year in office and his administration remains bogged down by special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. But the White House did manage to sign a sweeping tax bill into law, roll back several Obama-era regulations, and is pushing negotiations for immigration reforms.
Though Trump has lashed out about the new Michael Wolff book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, which portrays the president as mentally unstable, Brooks said it only served as “low-browism” for White House haters.
“Wolff doesn’t pretend to adhere to normal journalistic standards,” Brooks wrote. “He happily admits that he’s just tossing out rumors that are too good to check. … The ultimate test of the lowbrow is not whether it challenges you, teaches you or captures the contours of reality; it’s whether you feel an urge to share it on social media.”
