David Brooks: 'My core conclusion is that attacking Trump personally doesn’t work.'
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., on Sept. 3, 2022. "His prominence is astounding because over the past seven years the American establishment has spent enormous amounts of energy trying to discredit him," the New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks writes.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.
Many strategies were deployed in order to discredit Trump. There was the immorality strategy: Thousands of articles were written detailing his lies and peccadilloes. There was the impeachment strategy: Investigations were launched into his various scandals and outrages. There was the exposure strategy: Scores of books were written exposing how shambolic and ineffective the Trump White House really was.
A couple weeks ago, Biden gave a speech in Philadelphia, declaring the MAGA movement a threat to democracy. The speech said a lot of true things about that movement, but there was an implied confession: We have no strategy. Denouncing Trump and discrediting Trump are two different tasks. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned, denunciation may be morally necessary, but it doesn’t achieve the goal the denouncers think it does.
If those questions were asked, the straightforward conclusion would be that most of what we are doing is not working. The next conclusion might be that there’s a lot of self-indulgence here. We’re doing things that help those of us in the anti-Trump world bond with one another and that help people in the Trump world bond with one another. We’re locking in the political structures that benefit Trump.
A Democratic candidate who steps outside the culture/identity war narrative is going to have access to the voters who need to be moved. Public voices who don’t seem locked in the insular educated elite worldview are going to be able to reach the people who need to be reached.
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