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You're listening to Everything We

0:26

Once Beloved It. has

0:28

replaced conservatism's core values

0:31

with just one, the raw

0:33

pursuit of power. Written by David

0:35

Brooks, published in the

0:37

May 2025 issue of The Atlantic,

0:39

read by Ollie Man, produced

0:42

by Hark Audio, a podcast

0:44

curation app. You can find

0:46

this and other narrated

0:48

Atlantic articles, along

0:50

with curated podcast moments,

0:53

on the Hark audio app.

0:55

Charles De Gaul. began his

0:57

war memoirs with this sentence.

0:59

All my life I've had a certain

1:01

idea about France. Well, all my

1:03

life I have had a certain

1:05

idea about America. I've thought

1:07

of America as a deeply flawed

1:09

nation that is nonetheless a

1:12

force for tremendous good in

1:14

the world. From Abraham Lincoln

1:16

to Franklin D. Roosevelt

1:18

to Ronald Reagan and beyond,

1:21

Americans fought for freedom

1:23

and human dignity. and against

1:26

tyranny. We promoted democracy,

1:29

funded the Marshall Plan,

1:31

and saved millions of

1:33

people across Africa from

1:35

HIV and AIDS. When we caused

1:38

harm, Vietnam, Iraq, it

1:40

was because of our

1:42

overconfidence and naivety, not

1:45

evil intentions. Until January

1:47

20, 2025, I didn't realize

1:49

how much of my very

1:51

identity. was built on this

1:54

faith in my country's goodness,

1:56

on the idea that we

1:58

Americans are partners in... and

2:00

heroic enterprise, that our daily

2:02

lives are ennobled by service

2:04

to that cause. Since January

2:07

20, as I've watched America

2:09

behave violently toward our

2:12

friends in Canada and

2:14

Mexico, toward our friends

2:16

in Europe, towards the

2:18

heroes in Ukraine, and

2:21

President Vladimir Zelenski in

2:23

the Oval Office. I've had

2:25

trouble describing the anguish

2:27

I've experienced. Shock?

2:30

Like I'm living through some sort

2:32

of hallucination? Maybe the

2:34

best description for

2:37

what I'm feeling is moral

2:39

shame to watch the loss of

2:41

your nation's honour is embarrassing

2:43

and painful. George Orwell

2:45

is a useful guide to what

2:47

we're witnessing. He understood that

2:50

it is possible for people

2:52

to seek power without having

2:54

any vision of the good.

2:57

The party seeks power entirely

2:59

for its own sake, an

3:01

apparatchik says, in 1984. We

3:03

are not interested in the

3:06

good of others, we are

3:08

interested solely in power, not

3:10

wealth or luxury or long

3:13

life or happiness. Only power,

3:15

pure power. How is power demonstrated?

3:18

By making others suffer.

3:20

Allwell's character continues.

3:23

Obedience is not enough.

3:25

How can you be sure that he

3:28

is obeying your will and not his

3:30

own? Power is in

3:32

inflicting pain and humiliation.

3:34

Russell vote, Donald Trump's

3:36

budget director, sounds like

3:38

he walks straight out of 1984.

3:41

When they wake up in the morning,

3:43

we want them to not want to

3:45

go to work because they are

3:47

increasingly viewed as the villains.

3:50

He said, of federal workers,

3:52

speaking at an event in

3:54

2023. we want to put them

3:56

in trauma. Since coming back

3:58

to the White House... Trump has

4:00

caused suffering among Ukrainians, suffering

4:02

among immigrants who have lived

4:05

here for decades, suffering among

4:07

some of the best people

4:09

I know. Many of my

4:11

friends in Washington are evangelical

4:13

Christians who found their vocation

4:15

in public service, fighting sex

4:17

trafficking, serving the world's poor,

4:19

protecting America from foreign threats,

4:21

doing biomedical research to cure

4:23

disease. They are trying to

4:25

live lives consistent with the

4:27

gospel. of mercy and love.

4:29

Trump has devastated their work.

4:31

He isn't just declaring war

4:33

on wokeness. He's declaring war

4:36

on Christian service, on any

4:38

kind of service, really. If

4:40

there's an underlying philosophy driving

4:42

Trump, it is this. Morality

4:44

is for suckers. The strong

4:46

do what they want, and

4:48

the weak suffer what they

4:50

must. This is the logic

4:52

of bullies everywhere. And if

4:54

there is a consistent strategy,

4:56

it is this. Day after

4:58

day, the administration works to

5:00

create a world where ruthless

5:02

people can thrive. That means

5:04

destroying any institution or arrangement

5:07

that might check the strong

5:09

man's power. The rule of

5:11

law, domestic or international, restrains

5:13

power, so it must be

5:15

eviscerated. Inspectors General, judge advocate

5:17

general offices, oversight mechanisms, and

5:19

watchdog agencies are a potential

5:21

restraint on power. So they

5:23

must be fired. or neutered.

5:25

The truth itself is a

5:27

restraint on power, so it

5:29

must be abandoned. Lying becomes

5:31

the language of the state.

5:33

Trump's first term was a

5:35

precondition for his second. His

5:38

first term gradually eroded norms

5:40

and acclimatized America to a

5:42

new sort of regime. This

5:44

laid the groundwork for his

5:46

second term, in which he's

5:48

making the globe a playground

5:50

for gangsters. We used to

5:52

live in a world where

5:54

ideologies clashed, but ideologies don't

5:56

seem to matter any... The

5:58

strong man understanding of power

6:00

is on the march. Power

6:02

is like money, the more

6:04

the better. Trump, Russian President

6:06

Vladimir Putin, and the rest

6:08

of the world's authoritarians are

6:11

forming an axis of ruthlessness

6:13

before our eyes. Trumpism has

6:15

become a form of nihilism

6:17

that is devouring everything in

6:19

its path. The pathetic thing

6:21

is that I didn't see

6:23

this coming. even though I've

6:25

been living around these people

6:27

my whole adult life. I

6:29

joined the Conservative movement in

6:31

the 1980s, when I worked

6:33

in turn at National Review,

6:35

the Washington Times, and the

6:37

Wall Street Journal editorial page.

6:39

There were two kinds of

6:42

people in our movement back

6:44

then, the Conservatives and the

6:46

reactionaries. We Conservatives earnestly read

6:48

Milton Friedman, James Burnham, Whitaker

6:50

Chambers and Edmund Burke. The

6:52

reactionaries just wanted to shock

6:54

the left. We conservatives oriented

6:56

our lives around writing for

6:58

intellectual magazines. The reactionaries were

7:00

attracted to TV and radio.

7:02

We were on the political

7:04

right but had many liberal

7:06

friends. They had contempt for

7:08

anyone, not on the anti-establishment

7:10

right. They were not pro-conservative.

7:13

They were anti-left. I've come

7:15

to appreciate that this is

7:17

an important difference. I should

7:19

have understood this much sooner

7:21

because the reactionaries had revealed

7:23

their true character as far

7:25

back as January 1986. A

7:27

group of progressive students at

7:29

Dartmouth had erected a shanty

7:31

town on campus to protest

7:33

apartheid. One night, a group

7:35

of 12 students, most of

7:37

them associated with the right-wing

7:39

Dartmouth review, descended on the

7:41

shanties with sledgehammers and smashed

7:44

them down. Even then, I

7:46

was appalled. Apartite was evil

7:48

and worth opposing. A nighttime

7:50

raid with sledgehammers seemed more

7:52

Gestapo than Burkean, but conservative

7:54

intellectuals didn't take this. seriously

7:56

enough. In large part, I

7:58

think this was because we

8:00

looked down on the Dartmouth

8:02

Review Mafia, whose members had

8:04

included Laura Ingram and Denesha

8:06

Sousa. Their intellectual standards were

8:08

so obviously third-rate. I don't

8:10

know how to put this

8:12

politely, but they just seemed

8:15

creepy. Nakedly ambitious, in a

8:17

way that I thought would

8:19

destroy them in the end.

8:21

Instead, history has smiled on

8:23

them. A prominent publisher of

8:25

right-wing authors once told me

8:27

that the way to sell

8:29

conservative books... is not to

8:31

write a good book, it's

8:33

to write a book that

8:35

will offend the left, thereby

8:37

causing the reactionaries to rally

8:39

to your side and buy

8:41

it. That led to books

8:43

with titles such as The

8:46

Big Lie, Exposing the Nazi

8:48

Roots of the American Left,

8:50

and to Anne Coulter's entire

8:52

career, owning the Libs, became

8:54

a lucrative strategy. Of course,

8:56

the left made it easy

8:58

for them. The left really

9:00

did purge conservatives from universities

9:02

and other cultural power centres.

9:04

The left really did valourise

9:06

a meritocratic car system that

9:08

privileged the children of the

9:10

affluent and screwed the working

9:12

class. The left really did

9:14

pontificate to their unenlightened moral

9:17

inferiors on everything from gender

9:19

to the environment. The left

9:21

really did create a stifling

9:23

orthodoxie that stamped out dissent.

9:25

If you tell half the

9:27

country... that their voices don't

9:29

matter, then the voiceless are

9:31

going to flip over the

9:33

table. But, although Trump may

9:35

have campaigned as a magga

9:37

populist, leveraging this working-class resentment

9:39

to gain power, he governs

9:41

as a Palm Beach elitist.

9:43

Trump and Elon Musk are

9:45

billionaires who went to the

9:48

University of Pennsylvania. JD Vance

9:50

went to Yale Law School.

9:52

Pete Hexith went to Princeton

9:54

and Harvard. Vivek Ramoswami went

9:56

to Yale and Harvard. Stephen

9:58

Miller went to Duke. Ted

10:00

Cruz went to Princeton and

10:02

Harvard. Many of Musk's doge

10:04

workers, according to the news...

10:06

York Times come from elite

10:08

institutions, Harvard, Princeton, Morgan Stanley,

10:10

McKinsey, Wharton. These are the

10:12

vineyard vines nihilists, the spiritual

10:14

descendants of the elite bad

10:16

boys at the Dartmouth Review.

10:19

This political moment isn't populists

10:21

versus elitists. It is, as

10:23

I've written before, like a

10:25

civil war in a prep

10:27

school where the sleazy rich

10:29

kids are taking on the

10:31

pretentious rich kids. The magga

10:33

elite rode to power on

10:35

working class votes. But trust

10:37

me, I know some of

10:39

them, they don't care about

10:41

the working class. Trump and

10:43

his crew could have taken

10:45

office with actual plans to

10:47

make life better for working

10:50

class Americans. An administration that

10:52

cared about the working class

10:54

would seek to address its

10:56

problems, such as the fact

10:58

that the poorest Americans die

11:00

an average of 10 to

11:02

15 years younger than their

11:04

higher income counterparts, or that

11:06

by sixth grade, many of

11:08

the children in the poorest

11:10

school districts... have fallen four

11:12

grade levels behind those in

11:14

the richest. An administration that

11:16

cared about these people would

11:18

have offered a bipartisan industrial

11:21

policy to create working-class jobs.

11:23

These faux populists have no

11:25

interest in that. Instead of

11:27

helping workers, they focus on

11:29

civil war with their left-wing

11:31

fellow elites. During Trump's first

11:33

months in office, one of

11:35

their highest priorities has been

11:37

to destroy the places where

11:39

they think liberal elites work.

11:41

the scientific community, the foreign

11:43

aid community, the Kennedy Center,

11:45

the Department of Education, universities.

11:47

It turns out that when

11:49

you mix narcissism and nihilism,

11:51

you create an acid that

11:54

corrodes every belief system it

11:56

touches. This Trumpian cocktail has

11:58

eaten away at Christianity, a

12:00

faith oriented around the marginalized.

12:02

Blessed are the meek, blessed

12:04

are the poor in spirit.

12:06

The poor are closer to

12:08

God than the rich. Again...

12:10

and again Jesus explicitly renounced

12:12

worldly power. But if Trumpism

12:14

has a central tenet, it

12:16

is untrammeled lust for worldlyly

12:18

power. In Trumpian circles, many

12:20

people ostentatiously identify as Christians,

12:22

but don't talk about Jesus

12:25

very much. They have crosses

12:27

on their chest, but Nietzsche

12:29

in their heart. Or to

12:31

be more precise, a high

12:33

school sophomores version of Nietzsche.

12:35

To Nietzsche, All of those

12:37

Christian priorities about justice, peace,

12:39

love and civility are constraints

12:41

that the weak erect to

12:43

emasculate the strong. In this

12:45

view, nichenism is a morality

12:47

for winners. It worships the

12:49

pagan virtues, power, courage, glory,

12:51

will, self-assertion. The nichen ubermention,

12:53

which Trump and Musk clearly

12:56

believe themselves to be, offer

12:58

the promise of domination over

13:00

those six sentimentalists. who practice

13:02

compassion. Two decades ago, Michael

13:04

Gerson, a graduate of Wheaton

13:06

College, a prominent evangelical institution,

13:08

helped George W. Bush start

13:10

the U.S. President's Emergency Plan

13:12

for Age Relief, which has

13:14

saved 25 million lives in

13:16

Africa and elsewhere. I traveled

13:18

with Gerson to Namibia, Mozambique

13:20

and South Africa, where dying

13:22

people had recovered and returned

13:24

to their families and were

13:27

leading active lives. It was

13:29

a proud moment. to be

13:31

an American. Vote, Trump's budget

13:33

director, who also graduated from

13:35

Wheaton, championed the evisceration of

13:37

PEPFAR, which has now been

13:39

set in motion by executive

13:41

order, effectively sentencing thousands to

13:43

death. Project 2025, of which

13:45

vote was a principal architect,

13:47

helped lay the groundwork for

13:49

the dismantling of USAID. Its

13:51

gutting, appears to have ended

13:53

a program to supply malaria

13:55

protection to 53 million people.

13:58

and cut emergency food packages.

14:00

for starving children. Twenty years

14:02

is a short time in

14:04

which to have travelled the

14:06

long moral distance from Gerson

14:08

to vote. Trumpian nihilism

14:10

has eviscerated conservatism. The

14:12

people in this administration

14:15

are not conservatives. They are

14:18

the opposite of conservatives.

14:20

Conservatives once believed in

14:22

steady but incremental reform.

14:25

Elon Musk believes in

14:27

rash and instantaneous disruption.

14:29

Conservatives once believed that

14:31

moral norms restrain and

14:33

civilise us, habituating us

14:35

to virtue. Trumpism trashes

14:38

moral norms in every direction,

14:40

riding forward on a

14:42

tide of adultery, abuse, cruelty,

14:45

immaturity, grief and corruption. Conservatives

14:47

once believed in constitutional

14:49

government and the Madisonian

14:51

separation of powers. Trump, bulldozes,

14:54

checks and balances, declaiming on

14:56

social media. He who saves

14:58

his country does not violate

15:01

any law, Reagan promoted democracy

15:03

abroad because he thought it

15:05

the political system most consistent

15:08

with human dignity, the Trump

15:10

administration, couldn't care less

15:12

about promoting democracy,

15:15

or about human dignity. How does

15:17

this end? Will anyone on the

15:19

right finally stand up to the

15:21

Trumpian onslaught? Will our

15:23

institutions withstand the nihilist

15:26

assault? Is America? on the verge

15:28

of ruin. In February, about a

15:30

month into Trump's second term, I

15:32

spoke at a gathering of Conservatives

15:34

in London called the Alliance

15:36

for Responsible Citizenship. Some

15:39

of the speakers were pure populist,

15:41

Vivek Ramaswami, Mike Johnson and

15:43

Nigel Farage. But others were

15:46

centre-right, or not neatly ideological.

15:48

Nile Ferguson, Bishop Robert Barron,

15:50

and my Atlantic colleague Arthur

15:52

C Brooks. In some ways, it was

15:54

like the conservative conferences I've been attending

15:57

for a decade. I listened to a

15:59

woman from Senegold. talking about trying

16:01

to make her country's culture

16:03

more entrepreneurial. I met the

16:05

head of a charter school

16:07

in the Bronx that focuses

16:09

on character formation, but in

16:11

other ways, this conference was

16:14

startlingly different. In my own

16:16

talk, I sympathized with the

16:18

populist critique of what has

16:20

gone wrong in Western societies,

16:22

but I shared with the

16:24

audience my dark view of

16:26

President Trump. Unsurprisingly, a large

16:29

segment of the audience booed

16:31

vigorously. One man screamed that

16:33

I was a traitor and

16:35

stormed out. But many other

16:37

people cheered. Even in conservative

16:39

precincts, infected by reactionary maggots,

16:41

some people are evidently tired

16:43

of Trumpian brutality. As the

16:46

conference went on, I noticed

16:48

a contest of metaphors. The

16:50

true conservatives used metaphors of

16:52

growth or spiritual recovery. Society

16:54

is an organism that needs

16:56

healing, or it is a

16:58

social fabric that needs to

17:00

be rewoven. A poet named

17:03

Joshua Luke Smith said we

17:05

needed to be the seeds

17:07

of regrowth to plant the

17:09

trees for future generations. His

17:11

incantation was beatitudinal. Remember the

17:13

poor. Remember the poor. But

17:15

others relied on military metaphors.

17:17

We are in the midst

17:20

of civilizational war. They... The

17:22

woksters, the radical Muslims, the

17:24

left, are destroying our culture.

17:26

There were allusions to the

17:28

final epochal battles in the

17:30

Lord of the Rings. The

17:32

implication was that Sauron is

17:35

leading his orchords to destroy

17:37

us. We are the heroic

17:39

remnant. We must crush or

17:41

be crushed. The warriors tend

17:43

to think people like me

17:45

are soft and naive. I

17:47

tend to think they are

17:49

catastrophizing narcissists. When I look

17:52

at Trump accolades, I see

17:54

a swarm of Neville Chamberlain.

17:56

who think they're Winston Churchill.

17:58

I understand the seductive power

18:00

of a demagogue who tells

18:02

you that the people who

18:04

look down on you are

18:06

evil. I understand the seductive

18:09

power of being told that

18:11

your civilization is on the

18:13

verge of total collapse and

18:15

that everything around you is

18:17

degeneracy and ruin. This message

18:19

gives you a kind of

18:21

terrifying thrill. The stakes are

18:23

apocalyptic. Your life has meaning

18:26

and urgency. Everything is broken.

18:28

Let's burn it all down.

18:30

I understand. why people who

18:32

feel alienated would want to

18:34

follow the leader who speaks

18:36

about domination and combat, not

18:38

the one who speaks about

18:41

healing and cooperation. It doesn't

18:43

matter how many times you've

18:45

read Edmund Burke or the

18:47

gospel of Matthew, it's still

18:49

tempting to throw away all

18:51

of your beliefs to support

18:53

the leader who promises to

18:55

be your retribution. America may

18:58

well enter a period of

19:00

democratic decay and international isolation.

19:02

It takes decades. to develop

19:04

strong alliances and to build

19:06

the structures and customs of

19:08

democracy, and only weeks to

19:10

decimate them, as we've now

19:12

seen. And yet, I find

19:15

myself confident that America will

19:17

survive this crisis. Many nations,

19:19

including our own, have gone

19:21

through worse and bloodier crises

19:23

and recovered. In upheaval, turning

19:25

points for nations in crisis,

19:27

the historian and scientist Jared

19:29

Diamond provides case studies. Japan

19:32

in the late 19th century,

19:34

Finland and Germany after World

19:36

War II. Indonesia after the

19:38

1960s, Chile and Australia during

19:40

and after the 70s, of

19:42

countries that came back stronger

19:44

after crisis collapse or defeat.

19:46

To these examples, I'd add

19:49

Britain in the 1830s and

19:51

40s and the 1980s, and

19:53

South Korea in the 1980s.

19:55

Some of these countries, such

19:57

as Japan, endured war, disappearances.

19:59

Still others, Britain and Australia.

20:01

endured social decay and national

20:04

decline. All of them eventually

20:06

healed and came back. America

20:08

itself has already been through

20:10

numerous periods of rupture and

20:12

repair. Some people think we're

20:14

living through a period of

20:16

unprecedented tumult, but the Civil

20:18

War and the Great Depression

20:21

were much worse. So were

20:23

the late 1960s, assassinations, riots,

20:25

a failed war, surging crime

20:27

rates, a society, a society

20:29

coming apart. From January 1969

20:31

until April 1970, there were

20:33

4,330 bombings in the US,

20:35

or about nine a day.

20:38

But by the 1980s and

20:40

90s, after getting through Watergate's

20:42

stagflation and the Carter-era malaise

20:44

of the 70s, we had

20:46

recovered. As brutal and disruptive

20:48

as the tumult of the

20:50

late 1960s was, it helped

20:52

the country shake off some

20:55

of its persistent racism and

20:57

sexism. and made possible a

20:59

freer and more individualistic ethos.

21:01

But the most salient historical

21:03

parallel might be the America

21:05

of the 1830s. Andrew Jackson

21:07

is the American president who

21:10

most resembles Trump, power-hungry, rash,

21:12

narcissistic, driven by animosity. He

21:14

was known by his opponents

21:16

as King Andrew for his

21:18

expansions of executive power. The

21:20

man we have made our

21:22

president has made himself our

21:24

despot and the constitution now

21:27

lies a heap of ruins

21:29

at his feet, Senator Asher

21:31

Robbins of Rhode Island said,

21:33

when the way to his

21:35

object lies through the constitution,

21:37

the constitution has not the

21:39

strength of a cobweb to

21:41

restrain him from breaking through

21:44

it. Jackson brazenly defied the

21:46

Supreme Court on a ruling

21:48

about Cherokee Nation territory. A

21:50

defiance, it should be noted

21:52

that Vice President Vance. has

21:54

explicitly endorsed. Though we live

21:56

under the form of a

21:58

republic, Supreme Court Justice Joseph

22:01

Story wrote, we are in

22:03

fact under the absolute rule

22:05

of a single... man. But

22:07

Jackson made the classic mistake

22:09

of the populist. He overreached.

22:11

Fueled by personal hostility toward

22:13

elites, he destroyed the Second

22:16

Bank of the United States,

22:18

an early precursor to the

22:20

Federal Reserve System, and helped

22:22

spark an economic depression that

22:24

ruined the administration of his

22:26

chosen successor Martin Van Buren.

22:28

In response to Jackson, the

22:30

Whig Party arose in the

22:33

1830s to create a new

22:35

political and social order. devoutly

22:37

anti-authoritarian, the Whigs were a

22:39

cultural, civic and political force

22:41

all at once. They emphasised

22:43

both traditional morality and progressive

22:45

improvements. They agitated for prison

22:47

reform and for keeping the

22:50

Sabbath, for more women's participation

22:52

in politics, and for a

22:54

strong military, for government-funded public

22:56

schools, and for pro-business government

22:58

policies. They were opposed to

23:00

Jackson's monstrous Indian removal act

23:02

and to the Democratic Party's

23:04

reactionary white supremacist social vision.

23:07

Whereas Jacksonian Democrats emphasised negative

23:09

liberty, get your hands off

23:11

me, the Whigs, who would

23:13

turn into the early Republican

23:15

Party of Abraham Lincoln, emphasised

23:17

positive liberty, empowering Americans to

23:19

live bigger better lives. with

23:22

things such as expanded economic

23:24

credit, free public education, and

23:26

stronger legal protections, including due

23:28

process and property rights. Though

23:30

we've come to call the

23:32

early to mid-19th century the

23:34

age of Jackson, the historian

23:36

Daniel Walker Howe notes that

23:39

it was not Jackson, but

23:41

the Whigs, who created the

23:43

America we know today. as

23:45

economic modernizes, as supporters of

23:47

strong national government, and as

23:49

humanitarians more receptive than their

23:51

rivals to talent regardless of

23:53

race and gender. How rights?

23:56

The Whigs facilitated the transformation

23:58

of the United States from

24:00

a collection of... parochial agricultural

24:02

communities into a cosmopolitan

24:04

nation, integrated by commerce,

24:06

industry, information and

24:09

voluntary associations, as well

24:11

as by political ties. Looking

24:13

back, how concludes? We can see

24:15

that even though they were not the dominant

24:18

party of their time, the Whigs

24:20

were the party of America's future.

24:22

To begin its recovery from

24:25

Trumpism, America needs its

24:27

next wig moment. Yes,

24:29

we have reached a point of

24:32

traumatic rupture. A demagogue has

24:34

come to power and is ripping

24:36

everything down. But what's likely

24:39

to happen is that the

24:41

demagogue will start making mistakes

24:43

because incompetence is built into

24:46

the nihilistic project. Nihilists

24:48

can only destroy, not

24:50

build. Authoritarian nihilism

24:53

is inherently stupid. I don't

24:55

mean that Trumpists have low

24:57

IQs. I mean, they do things

24:59

that run directly against their

25:01

own interests. They are pathologically

25:04

self-destructive. When you create

25:06

an administration in which

25:08

one man has all the power,

25:10

and everybody else has to

25:13

flatter his voracious ego, stupidity

25:15

results, authoritarians are

25:17

also morally stupid,

25:19

humility, prudence and

25:21

honesty are not just nice

25:23

virtues to have, they are

25:25

practical tools. that produce good

25:27

outcomes. When you replace them with

25:30

greed, lust, hypocrisy and dishonesty,

25:32

terrible things happen. The Doge

25:35

children are doubtless brilliant in

25:37

certain ways, but they know as

25:39

much about government as I know about

25:41

rocketry. They announced an $8 billion

25:44

cut to an immigration and customs

25:46

enforcement contract, though if they had

25:49

read their own documents correctly, they

25:51

would have realised that the cut

25:53

was less than $8 million dollars.

25:56

They eliminated workers from the

25:58

national nuclear security. administration. Apparently

26:00

without realizing that this agency

26:03

controls nuclear security and had

26:05

to undo some of those

26:07

cuts shortly thereafter. Trump seems

26:09

to be trying to give

26:11

a bunch of Sam Bankman

26:14

freed's access to America's nuclear

26:16

arsenal and IRS records. What

26:18

could go wrong? When Trump

26:20

creates an unnecessary crisis it's

26:22

unlikely to be a small

26:25

one. The proverbial adults in

26:27

the room who contained crises

26:29

in Trump's first term are

26:31

gone. Whatever the second-term crisis,

26:33

runaway inflation, a global trade

26:36

war, a cratered economy and

26:38

plummeting stock market, an out-of-control

26:40

conflict in China, botched pandemic

26:42

management, a true hijacking of

26:44

the Constitution precipitated by defiance

26:47

of the courts, it is

26:49

likely to crater his support

26:51

and shift historical momentum. But

26:53

although Trumpism's collapse is a

26:55

necessary condition for national recovery,

26:58

it is not... A sufficient

27:00

one, its demise, must be

27:02

followed by the hard work

27:04

necessary to achieve true civic

27:06

and political renewal. Progress is

27:09

not always a smooth or

27:11

merry ride. For a few

27:13

decades, nations live according to

27:15

one paradigm. Then it stops

27:17

working and gets destroyed. When

27:20

the time comes to build

27:22

a new paradigm, progressives talk

27:24

about economic redistribution, conservatives talk

27:26

about cultural and civic repair.

27:28

History shows. that you need

27:31

both, recovery from national crisis,

27:33

demands comprehensive reinvention at all

27:35

levels of society. If you

27:37

look back across the centuries,

27:39

you find that this process

27:42

requires several interconnected efforts. First,

27:44

a national shift in values.

27:46

In the late 19th century,

27:48

for example, as the country

27:50

went through the wrenching process

27:53

of industrialization, America was traumatized

27:55

by severe recessions and mass

27:57

urban poverty. In response, Social

27:59

Darwinism gave way to the

28:01

social gospel movement. Social Darwinism,

28:04

associated with thinkers such as

28:06

Herbert Spencer, valorised survival of

28:08

the fittest, and claimed that

28:10

the poor are poor because

28:12

of inferior abilities. The social

28:15

gospel movement, associated with theologians

28:17

such as Walter Rauchenbush, emphasised

28:19

the systemic causes of poverty,

28:21

including the gilded ages concentration

28:23

of corporate power. By the

28:26

early 20th century... Most mainline

28:28

Protestant denominations had signed on

28:30

to the social creed of

28:32

the churches, which called for,

28:34

among other things, the abolition

28:37

of child labour and the

28:39

creation of disability insurance. Second,

28:41

nations that hang together through

28:43

crisis have a strong national

28:45

identity. They return to their

28:48

roots. They have a leader

28:50

who replaces the amoralism of

28:52

the nihilists, or say the

28:54

immorality of slavery. with a

28:57

strong redefinition of the nation's

28:59

moral mission. The way Lincoln

29:01

redefined America at Gettysburg. Third,

29:03

a civic renaissance. After the

29:05

Social Gospel took root, Americans

29:08

in the 1890s and early

29:10

1900s launched and participated in

29:12

a series of social movements

29:14

and civic organizations, United Way,

29:16

the NAACP, the Sierra Club,

29:19

the Settlement House movement, the

29:21

American Legion, a national reassessment.

29:23

As Jared Diamond notes, nations

29:25

that turn around don't catastrophes.

29:27

Rather, they develop a clear-eyed

29:30

view of what's working and

29:32

not working, and they pursue

29:34

careful, selective change. According to

29:36

Diamond's research, the leaders of

29:38

successful reform movements also take

29:41

responsibility for their part in

29:43

the crisis. For instance, Germany's

29:45

leaders accepted responsibility for the

29:47

country's Nazi past. Finland's leaders

29:49

took responsibility for an unrealistic

29:52

foreign policy before World War

29:54

II when they had to

29:56

deal with with a looming

29:58

Soviet Union on their border,

30:00

and Australia's leaders took responsibility

30:03

in the 1970s for a

30:05

political culture and foreign policy

30:07

that had become overly dependent

30:09

on Britain. Fifth, a surge

30:11

of political reform. In 1830s

30:14

and 40s Britain, racked by

30:16

social chaos, bank failures, a

30:18

severe depression, riots and crushing

30:20

wealth inequality. Prime Minister Robert

30:22

Peel, a leader of great

30:25

moral rectitude, built the modern

30:27

police force. reduced tariffs, pushed

30:29

railway legislation that literally laid

30:31

the tracks for British industrialisation

30:33

and helped pass the Factory

30:36

Act of 1844, which regulated

30:38

workplaces. In early 20th century

30:40

America, progressives produced a comparable

30:42

flurry of effects of reforms

30:44

that pulled the country out

30:47

of its industrialisation crisis. Part

30:49

of political reform is an

30:51

expansion of the circle of

30:53

power. What that would require

30:55

in America today is among

30:58

other things. a broad effort

31:00

to include working class and

31:02

conservative voices in what have

31:04

traditionally been cultural bastions of

31:06

elite progressivism, universities, the non-profit

31:09

sector, the civil service, the

31:11

mainstream media. Finally, economic expansion.

31:13

Economic growth can solve many

31:15

wounds. Pursuing a so-called abundance

31:17

agenda, a series of policies

31:20

aimed at reducing government regulation

31:22

and increasing investment in innovation,

31:24

and expanding the supply of

31:26

housing energy and health care

31:28

is the most promising way

31:31

to achieve that expansion. In

31:33

the long term, Trumpism is

31:35

doomed. Power without prudence and

31:37

humility invariably fails. Nations, like

31:39

people, change not when times

31:42

are good, but in response

31:44

to pain. At a moment

31:46

when Trumpism seems to be

31:48

devouring everything, the temptation is

31:50

to believe that this time...

31:53

is different, but history doesn't

31:55

stop moving. Even now, as

31:57

I travel around the country,

31:59

I see the forces of

32:01

repair gathering in neighbourhoods

32:04

and communities. If you're

32:06

part of an organisation that

32:08

builds trust across class, you're

32:10

fighting Trumpism. If you're a

32:13

Democrat, jettisoning, insular,

32:16

faculty-lound progressivism, in

32:18

favour of a wig-like,

32:20

working-class, abundance agenda, you're

32:22

fighting Trumpism. If you are

32:24

standing up for a moral

32:26

code of tolerance and pluralism

32:28

that can hold America together,

32:31

you're fighting Trumpism. Over

32:33

time, changes in values lead

32:35

to changes in relationships, which

32:37

lead to changes in civic

32:39

life, which eventually lead to

32:41

changes in policy, and then

32:43

in the general trajectory of the

32:46

nation. It starts slow. But as the

32:48

Book of Job says, the sparks will

32:50

fly upward. To

32:54

preserve democracy, what has

32:56

to believe in it. To

32:58

believe in democracy, when

33:00

has to understand it.

33:02

Where it came from, how

33:05

it works, what's true, what's

33:07

not true, what others did

33:09

before you, how it could

33:11

be better, how to make

33:13

a difference. I'm David From,

33:15

a staff writer at the

33:17

Atlantic. I'm starting a new

33:19

show where each week I'll

33:21

dig deep into the big

33:23

questions people have about our

33:25

politics and our society. I'll

33:27

explain progress that the peoples

33:29

of the democratic world have

33:31

made together and remind you

33:33

that the American idea is

33:35

worth defending. Listen to or

33:37

watch the David From show,

33:39

wherever you get your podcasts.