David Brooks: When the World Is Led by a Child

[brooklynite]

The New York Times:

At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.

But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.

At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif.

First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump’s answers in these interviews are not very long — 200 words at the high end — but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.

Subtle...

[elleng]

1. Ready for the 25th Amendment

(unless something else gets him first.)

[gratuitous]

2. Sorry Mr. Brooks

This is the natural and expected outcome of the political party and its principles that you have spent your career endorsing. I get that you want to run away from this stink bomb now and refashion yourself as some kind of centrist, reasonable guy.

But you know and we all know that as soon as President Trump is just a bad memory, you'll be right back in the sweet embrace of corporate conservatism and schoolmarm ethics . . . for everyone else.

[KelleyKramer]

6. I don't think Brooks has been that bad

I cut the chord years ago, but watch Brooks fairly regular on PBS, over the last year or so he has not been shy at all in criticizing Trump.

This is just IMHO but around the time it became clear Trump would get GOP nomination it seemed like Brooks had just about had it.

Wouldn't say I completely respect him, but he is one of the few GOP pundits I can stomach

[Johonny]

9. Yip, David Brooks will never admit Trump is a natural outcome of people like David Brooks

and their propaganda machine against common decent politicians, working class Americans, and his love of $$$. That David Brooks thinks he is A) moral, B) ethical, and C) somehow above Donald Trump is the big laugh here. Brooks is the same snake oil salesman Trump is only Trump was/is better at it than Brooks at the game and so he's jealous of Trump.

[Warpy]

3. Dawn breaks over Marblehead!

Let's hope the rest of them start to wake up.

[PsychoBabble]

4. Ahhh, Marblehead! I used to sit there.

Trump, however ... IS.

[Mme. Defarge]

5. Un enfant terrible.

Je veux, donc je suis.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

7. Insulting to children.

Most of the third to fifth grade students I've taught have been more mature, as well as far more articulate, than Donald Trump. And 99.9% of them were far more likable.

[dalton99a]

10. +1

[Girard442]

8. Isn't this proof positive that Trump's campaign was run from the outside?

How else could it be that Trump the Candidate ran a winning presidential campaign, but Trump the POTUS is barely capable of wiping his own ass?

[L. Coyote]

11. We can adapt, and people are making the necessary adjustments:

[wiggs]

13. !!! nt.

[wiggs]

12. And as usual, the reader comments on the NYT article are worth reading at least as

much as the article is. Great points and thoughtful perspectives. One is a reminder that the Trump biographers were interviewed pre-election and warned us that this guy is more than just childish or ignorant...he's a sociopath:

Tony Schwartz, Donald Trump's co-author of Art of the Deal, who had deep remorse regarding creating the myth of Donald Trump the deal maker. He is the man who said, in a New Yorker article that “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.” And while you think he is a child, Roberts, who spent many months with him, considers him a sociopath.

"He had to deal with his short attention span that left him with a has left him with “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance" and an inability to concentrate or focus. He could not imagine him absorbing information in the Situation Room. And clearly he can't or can't focus and understand on what he should do or say as President.

All very accurately and sadly predicted."

[Blue_Tires]

14. Holy damn...

David Freakin' Brooks(!) of all people just slathered Trump in napalm and tossed a match at his feet...