David Brooks Steps in for Gail Collins as Bret Stephens Continues to Pontificate in American Newspapers... What Went Wrong Here?

Its the wars, gentlemen.

It's the unpaid unnecessary international wars that America continues to fund, cheerlead and champion, all the while ignoring the growing domestic problems at home.

What is wrong with America today? It's men in power like YOU.  Look in the mirror at the policies YOU pushed...

Stop conversing inside your echo chamber:  start listening to the American workers, voters and taxpayers... 

You've hurt our country enough.  Too many Jewish-American pundits in power, who don't put Americans first.  No diversity at the top.  No understanding of their own ignorance... just a war beat:  "America is an army with a social-services bureacracy... "

As a collective people, what these Jewish media thinkers don't understand, is that America is so much more than that.   Listen to us, don't fear Christianity because the Evangelicals and the Orthodox got in bed long ago and re-branded themselves as holy...

David: After many years of the G.O.P. decaying, the party’s institutional and moral collapse happened quickly, between 2013 and 2016. In the 2000 Republican primaries I enthusiastically supported John McCain. I believed in his approach to governance and I admired him enormously. But by 2008, when he got the nomination, the party had shifted and McCain had shifted along with it. I walked into the polling booth that November genuinely not knowing if I would vote for McCain or Barack Obama. Then an optical illusion flashed across my brain. McCain and Obama’s names appeared to be written on the ballot in 12-point type. But Sarah Palin’s name looked like it was written in red in 24-point type. I don’t think I’ve ever said this publicly before, but I voted for Obama.

Bret: I voted for McCain. If I were basing my presidential votes on the vice-presidential candidate, I’d have thought twice about voting for Biden.

On your point about populism: There have been previous Republican presidents who rode to office on waves of populist discontent, particularly Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But as presidents they channeled the discontent into serious programs and also turned their backs on the ugly fringes of the right. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and expanded the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Reagan established a working relationship with Democratic House leaders to pass tax reform and gave amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. What’s different this time is that populist feelings were never harnessed to pragmatic policies. As you say, it’s just populism in the service of nihilism.

David: So where does the G.O.P. go from here and where does the old core of the conservative movement go? Do they (we) become Democrats or a quiet left-wing fringe of what’s become Matt Gaetz’s clown show?

Bret: When people get on a bad path, whether it’s drinking or gambling or political or religious fanaticism, they tend to follow it all the way to the bottom, at which point they either die or have that proverbial moment of clarity. I’ve been waiting for Republicans to have a moment of clarity for a while now — after Joe Biden’s victory, or Jan. 6, the midterms, Trump’s dinner with Kanye West. I had a flicker of hope that the Kevin McCarthy debacle last week would open some eyes, but probably not. Part of the problem is that so many Republicans no longer get into politics to pass legislation. They do it to become celebrities. The more feverish they are, the better it sells.