David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

If you grew up, as I did, with a Hubert Humphrey poster on your wall and a tradition of Democratic Party activism in your family, you recognize the Democratic DNA in the content...]]> Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500 Human beings, the philosophers tell us, are social animals. We emerge into the world ready to connect with mom and dad. We go through life jibbering and jabbering with each other, grouping and regrouping. When you get a crowd of people in a room, the problem is not getting them to talk to each other; the problem is getting them to shut up.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

To help us in this social world, God, nature and culture have equipped us with a spirit of sympathy. We instinctively feel a tinge of pain when we observe another in pain (at least most of us do). We instinctively mimic, even to a...]]> Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Who is Barack Obama?

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

If you ask a conservative Republican, you are likely to hear that Obama is a skilled politician who campaigned as a centrist but is governing as a big-government liberal. He plays by ruthless, Chicago politics rules. He is arrogant toward foes, condescending toward allies and runs a partisan political machine.

If you ask a liberal Democrat, you are likely to hear that Obama is an inspiring but overly intellectual leader who has trouble making up his mind and fighting for his positions. He has not defined a clear mission. He has allowed the...]]> Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0600 We all have our emotional hot and cold spots. If you asked me about the New York Mets, you'd see a glow in my eyes. If you asked me about banking reform, words might come out of my mouth, but you'd notice me nodding off midsentence.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

For the Democrats, expanding health care coverage is an emotional hot spot. Over the past year, Democrats have fought passionately for universal coverage. They have fought for it even while the country is more concerned about the economy, and in the face of serial political defeats. They have fought for it even though it has crowded out...]]> Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0600 By 2008, Americans were disgusted with their government. They were sick of partisan gridlock and general incompetence. Along came Barack Obama offering to usher in a new era. It was time, he said, to put away childish things.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

There were actually two elements to the Obama campaign. First, he promised a less partisan government. Second, he promised a more activist government. His postpartisan style was accompanied by conventional Democratic policy substance. It was clear voters wanted the first element, but it was never clear how many wanted the second.

Obama was...]]> Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Politics, some believe, is the organization of hatreds. The people who try to divide society on the basis of ethnicity we call racists. The people who try to divide it on the basis of religion we call sectarians. The people who try to divide it on the basis of social class we call either populists or elitists.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

These two attitudes "” populism and elitism "” seem different, but they're really mirror images of one another. They both assume a country fundamentally divided. They both describe politics as a class struggle between the enlightened and the...]]> Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 In November 2008, William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck wrote a report called “Change You Can Believe In Needs a Government You Can Trust.” Galston and Kamarck, who served in senior positions in the Clinton administration, threw up some warning flags for the incoming Obama administration.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

Despite the Democratic triumph that month, they noted, public distrust of government remains intensely high. Historically, it has been nearly impossible to pass major domestic reforms in the face of that kind of distrust. Therefore, they counseled, the new...]]> Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 When I was in college, I was assigned "Leviathan,"� by Thomas Hobbes. On the cover was an image from the first edition of the book, published in 1651. It shows the British nation as a large man. The people make up the muscles and flesh. Then at the top, there is the king, who is the head and the mind.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

When the Pilgrims left Britain to come to America, they left behind that metaphor as well. For these settlers, and the immigrants who have come since, the American nation is not a body with the government as the brain. Instead, America has been defined by its...]]> Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 The United States opens this decade in a sour mood. First, Americans are anxious about the future. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe the country is in decline, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey. Only 27 percent feel confident that their children's generation will be better off than they are.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

Second, Americans have lost faith in their institutions. During the great moments of social reform, at least 60 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing most of the time. Now, only a quarter have that kind of trust.

The...]]> Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 The first reason to support the Senate health care bill is that it would provide insurance to 30 million more Americans.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

The second reason to support the bill is that its authors took the deficit issue seriously. Compared with, say, the prescription drug benefit from a few years ago, this bill is a model of fiscal rectitude. It spends a lot of money to cover the uninsured, but to help pay for it, it also includes serious Medicare cuts and whopping tax increases "” the tax on high-cost insurance plans alone will raise $1.3 trillion in the second decade.

...]]> Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 The economy seems to be stabilizing, and this has prompted a shift in the public mood. Raw fear has given way to anxiety that the recovery will be feeble and drab. Companies are hoarding cash. Banks aren’t lending to small businesses. Private research spending is drifting downward.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

People are asking anxious questions about America’s future. Will it take years before the animal spirits revive? Can the economy rebalance so that it relies less on consumption and debt and more on innovation and export? Have we entered a period of relative decline?

The...]]> Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Some days the Republican Party seems to be going crazy. Its public image is often shaped by people who appear to have gone into government because they saw it as a steppingstone to talk radio.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

But deep in the bowels of the G.O.P., there are serious people having quiet conversations. The people holding these conversations created and admired Bob McDonnell’s perfectly executed Virginia gubernatorial campaign. And now as they look to the future of their party, and who might lead it in 2012, the name John Thune keeps popping up.

As you may or may not know,...]]> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 We're all born late. We're born into history that is well under way. We're born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn't choose. On top of that, we're born with certain brain chemicals and genetic predispositions that we can't control. We're thrust into social conditions that we detest. Often, we react in ways we regret even while we're doing them.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

But unlike the other animals, people do have a drive to seek coherence and meaning. We have a need to tell ourselves stories that explain it all. We use these stories to supply the metaphysics, without which life...]]> Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Liberals and conservatives each have their own intellectual food chains. They have their own think tanks to provide arguments, politicians and pundits to amplify them, and news media outlets to deliver streams of prejudice-affirming stories.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

Independents, who are the largest group in the electorate, don't have any of this. They don't have institutional affiliations. They don't look to certain activist lobbies for guidance. There aren't many commentators who come from an independent perspective.

Independents are herds of cats who find out what they think through...]]>