How America Recovers from All This | Yale Conversations with David Brooks | Yale University
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What does it take to rebuild a society fractured by distrust, populism, and eroding civic bonds? In his third Yale Conversations lecture, "How America Recovers from All This: A Hopeful Vision for our Common Future," author and columnist David Brooks traces the shifting cultural paradigms of the past 70 years to diagnose how America arrived at its current crisis. Drawing on philosophers from Aristotle to Max Scheler, Brooks examines how successive waves of cultural change have given way to widespread disillusionment — with institutions, with leadership, and with one another — and how that disillusionment hardens into resentment. The antidote, he argues, is not political but cultural: a renewed commitment to humanistic values, earnest admiration, and what he calls defiant humanism. The lecture took place on April 7, 2026, at Yale University. A Q&A follows.
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Brooks argues that America is transitioning from a decade of resentment and nihilism toward a humanistic cultural renaissance rooted in admiration for excellence and higher virtues, enabled by ordinary people recognizing that cynicism is not wisdom.
- Resentment thrives when systems promise equality but deliver inequality, causing people to devalue what they cannot access and contract their value systems
- Humanism—uplifting human dignity and connecting people to highest ideals—is the antidote to nihilism and the mechanism of cultural paradigm shift
- History shows cultures change through rupture-and-repair cycles when people collectively reject failed paradigms; America has done this before and retains the capacity
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In democratic capitalist societies, people feel resentment more acutely than in caste societies because democratic ideals promise equality and human dignity, but actual institutions produce inequality; when systems advertise equality but deliver hierarchy, people experience this gap as a form of injustice that generates resentment.
“And so democratic capitalism, it turns out, according to a German philosopher of the early 20th century, Max Scheler, is the perfect breeding ground for resentment. People in caste societies don't feel resentment cuz they don't think they deserve to be at the top. In democratic societies, we all feel we deserve equal dignity. And when you produce a society that advocates for equality but produces inequality, you get resentment because people have not been given the equal dignity that the system and our culture says they deserve.”
Cultural patterns established 400 years ago in settler populations persist to the present day: New England settlers from Southern England valued education and civic participation, while Appalachian settlers from the Scots-Irish border valued military service and honor; these differences correlate with modern outcomes in education, crime, and military service.
“There's a great book called Albion's Seed by a guy named David Hackett Fischer, a historian, who said that New England was settled by people from Southern England who always had a priority. They valued education, emotional restraint, and being active in civic life. West Virginia, 300 years ago, was settled by the Scots-Irish who came from the northern border of England and Scotland. And they say they uh valued military service, honor, and shame.”
The educated class lost credibility not only because of mistakes (Iraq War, financial crisis) but because they created and benefited from systems of meritocracy that widened the social chasm: by age 3, affluent parents send kids to preschool at twice the rate as less affluent families; by age 6, affluent children are 4 grade levels ahead; by age 18, a child in the top 20% of earners has a 1-in-5 chance of scoring over 1400 on the SAT while a child in the bottom 20% has a 1-in-50 chance.
“That we they lost faith not only in each other, they lost faith in us, in the leaders of society. And partly because they'd seen what happened in the 2000, they said, are you guys running this country? And [clears throat] secondly, they saw the social chasm that had opened up caused by systems of the meritocracy. That by age three, affluent parents are are twice as likely to send kids to preschool than less affluent. By sixth grade, they're four grades levels ahead. Uh by uh by 18, a kid in the top 20% of earners has one in five chance of scoring over 1400 on the SAT, a kid in the bottom of earners has a one in 50 chance.”
Resentment operates through a consistent psychological mechanism: resentful people devalue the things they feel they lack, develop a 'sour grapes' response, and experience a 'spiritual contraction'—they cut off access to higher values like wisdom, justice, and holiness, declaring them worthless in order to reduce the pain of deprivation.
“Resentful people feel uh they devalue the things they feel they lack. The things they can't get access to, whether it's education, fame, success, virtue, they say, oh, those things aren't worth worth getting anyway. They develop a classic sour grapes response. And so what Scheler says is resentment creates a spiritual contraction. People begin to think those things, the loftier registers of human life, the things they can't feel they have access to, they begin to just cut those off.”
Humiliation—the feeling of not being granted equal standing one deserves, being denied human dignity, or being denied a homeland one believes is one's right—is a powerful driver of world events historically, and domestically today many groups feel humiliated: less educated people, rural people, religiously orthodox people, oppressed minorities, and struggling young people.
“Humiliation is felt when people feel they are not granted equal standing they think they deserve. Humiliation is when people feel they've denied been denied human dignity. Humiliation is when they've been denied something like a homeland they think is their right. And so in the crisis of faith of the 2000, it was magnified. And so we get to a point today where a lot of people feel humiliated.”
In an age of resentment, politicians find it easy to motivate people by appealing to dark passions—anger, hatred, fear, the search for scapegoats, and the urge to dominate (what St. Augustine called 'libido dominandi')—rather than to desires for belonging, respect, virtue, or wisdom.
“When you're in the middle of a decade of resentment, politicians find it easy to motivate people by appealing to their dark passions. It's not the desire for belonging, it's not the desire for respect, it's not the desire for virtue, it's not the desire for wisdom. It's anger. Who am I angry at? It's hatred. I can be angry at you and still love you. But if I hate you, that's a comprehensive rejection of who you are. It's fear. Fear is fine if you understand what you're afraid of, but when it becomes a generalized fear of everything, it becomes incredibly destructive. It leads to the search for scapegoats. And finally, politicians find it easy in an epic like ours in this period of resentment to advertise their their urge to dominate, to appeal to the urge to dominate.”
Asian and American cultures have fundamentally different cognitive styles rooted in 2,500-year-old philosophical traditions: Asian cultures (influenced by Confucius) emphasize harmony and context, while American cultures (influenced by Aristotle) emphasize individual agency, and these differences are visible even in eye movement patterns when viewing art.
“There's a guy at the University of Michigan named Richard Nisbett who did these experiments where he asked people from America and people from Asia to describe a fish tank he put in front of them. And the Asian people tended, not all obviously, but tended to describe the vegetation of the fish tank, the nature of the water, the whole context. The Americans just described the biggest fish.”
Electoral maps from 1896 and 2024 show nearly identical geographic distributions of populist support, with William Jennings Bryan winning the South, Texas, Appalachia, and the West in 1896, and Donald Trump winning essentially the same regions in 2016 and 2024, despite switching political parties, demonstrating that populist cultures in those places remained stable for over 100 years.
“If you look at the electoral map of 1896 and the electoral map of 2024, it's pretty much the same map. The populist, William Jennings Bryan in 1896, won the South, Texas, Appalachia, the West. The American populist of 2016 and 2024, Donald Trump, won these mostly these exact same states. They switched political parties, but the populist cultures of those places stayed exactly the same over 100 years.”
Plato's ladder of loves shows that education works by making beauty attractive—beautiful faces lead people to see higher beauties (beautiful persons, truth, wisdom, justice) and ultimately to transcendent beauty of the universe, a process of ascending desires.
“Plato took advantage of this. He said, the way you educate the young is you show them a beautiful face. Uh and when they see that beauty, they'll realize there's a higher beauty, which is a beautiful person. And when they see that they'll see there's an even higher beauty which is the pursuit of truth and wisdom. And when they see that beauty they'll see an even higher beauty which is the pursuit of justice. And they'll realize there's even higher beauty which is the transcendent beauty of the universe from which nothing can be taken and nothing can be added.”
Cultures change in a pattern analogous to scientific paradigm shifts: a dominant paradigm becomes unstable when it stops working for people, and a new paradigm emerges to address the failures of the old one.
“Now cultures can be very stable. They can also change really rapidly. And they change the way science changes. There's a dominant paradigm and then that paradigm shifts when it stops working for people.”
The primary motivation of human beings is not status or money but purpose and meaning; people in concentration camps who survived had projects or commitments (a book, a spouse, a cause) they would have devoted their life to, and this sense of purpose and meaning is what kept them alive.
“The second thing is the people who survived the camps had something outside the camp they would have devoted their life to. A book project, a spouse, some sort of commitment. And so they had a sense of purpose and meaning. And so he says the primary motivation of human beings is not for status, it's not for money, it's for purpose and meaning.”
If we don't agree on what we ought to do, we can't trust each other, because trust requires faith that others will do what they ought to do based on shared moral understanding.
“If I'm going to have trust in you, I have to have faith that you will do what you ought to do. And that faith is based on the idea that we agree on what we ought to do. And if we don't agree on what we ought to do, I can't trust you.”
Populism is a belief system for people who feel betrayed, and when interpersonal trust collapses, surges of populism emerge because people no longer trust elites or their peers to act in their interest.
“And so I mentioned in the 1970s what they call institutional trust plummets. In the 2000s, interpersonal trust plummets. Uh before that, if you ask people, do you trust your neighbor, 60% said yes. Today, it's 30% and 19% of millennial. So there's been a loss of common faith, a loss of common trust. And when you get that loss of trust, you get surges of populism. Populism is a belief system for people who feel betrayed.”
The 1960s reversed the 1950s paradigm: critics of 1950s culture argued it was too suspicious of human nature, too conformist, and closed to opportunity for women and minorities; the 1960s liberation paradigm rejected restraint and conformity in favor of authenticity and creativity, with the motto 'be true to yourself.'
“In the 1950s, there were a lot of people who looked at the culture and said it's got some virtues, but it's got something wrong. First, it's too suspicious about human nature. There was a guy named Carl Rogers and Dr. Benjamin Spock who decided we should uh humans are not sinful, humans are basically good. We should liberate them so they can exercise their goodness.”
The 1980s represented a bourgeois backlash against the chaos of the 1970s: a reassertion of character, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and institutional authority (exemplified by Reagan and Thatcher), which partially reversed the libertarian values of the 1960s but did not eliminate the individualism that had taken root.
“Out of that chaos comes the next cultural moment in the 1980s, which was, if the 1960s was bohemian liberation, arts, creativity, the 1980s was what you might call a bourgeois backlash. People who looked at Woodstock and didn't like what they saw decided we need to reimpose bourgeois values. And bourgeois values are things like being self-disciplined, showing up on time, dressing neatly, wearing a suit, being entrepreneurial, and believing in institutions.”
People with high school degrees die 10 years sooner than people with college degrees; are five times more likely to have children out of wedlock; six times more likely to die of opioid addiction; and 2.4 times more likely to say they have no friends, demonstrating the compounding life outcomes of the meritocratic divide.
“People with high school degrees die 10 years sooner than people with college degrees, five times more likely to have children out of wedlock, six times more likely to die of opioid addictions, 2.4 times more likely to say they have no friends.”
Loss of faith in future is widespread: 45% of high school students report being persistently hopeless and despondent, 59% of Americans say America is in decline, only 13% of young people say America is headed in the right direction, and 69% of Americans no longer believe in the American dream—this last statistic is an 'Exocet missile' at American common life because the nation is held together by faith in the American dream.
“45% of high school students now say they're persistently hopeless and despondent. And then a loss of faith in the future. A loss of faith in our future. Ipsos asked Americans, do you think America's in decline? 59% of Americans say in America's in decline. They asked young people, do you think America's headed in the wrong direction? Only 13% of young people say America's headed in the right direction.”
Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs (financial security must precede spiritual growth) is wrong; the concentration camps and Brooks' observations in poor places around the world show that poor people are just as curious and interested in their spiritual growth as wealthy people, probably more so.
“Frankl was a psychiatrist who was sent in a Nazi concentration camp like a bunch of them. And he had a few propositions, a few things he learned there. One, that when you take everything away from people what is remaining and he says what we talked about in the camps was food and spirituality. So Abraham Maslow was wrong. Maslow says we need to have a some financial security before we can worry about spiritual security. That is wrong. It was wrong in the camps.”
You can derive purpose and meaning from the way you respond to suffering: if you respond to hardship in a dignified way, that is itself a source of meaning, even in the most extreme circumstances.
“The third thing he attests to is the idea that you can derive purpose and meaning from the way you respond to suffering. If you respond in a dignified way, that's a source of meaning.”
Beyond external crises, the 2000s saw a collapse of moral order: successive generations of young people were told to 'find your own truth' and develop their own morality, but without the philosophical training of an Aristotle this leaves them 'morally naked and alone,' lacking a shared sense of what they ought to do.
“For the last 30 or 40 years, we have told successive generations of young people, find your own truth, come up with your own morality. And if your name is not Aristotle, you can't do that. And so we left successive generations morally naked and alone without an unformed sense of what's my moral philosophy. Uh and we left no shared moral order.”
Culture, not technology or economics alone, is the primary driver of history and politics, because how we think and react shapes the way we see the world.
“Some people are technological determinists. They think technology shapes history. Some people are uh economic determinists. They think economics does. Some people are political. Uh I think minds shape history. That culture shapes history. It's how we think, how we react.”
The 1940s and 1950s in America were characterized by a culture of moral realism and self-effacement: people trusted institutions (military, government, corporations, unions, church), valued emotional restraint and local community, and believed individuals should be subordinate to communal authority and norms.
“I was really struck by that tone of humility. So I go inside from the radio show, I turn on a football game, I watch a quarterback throw a pass, the wide receiver gets tackled after a 2-yard gain, and the defensive player does what all defensive players do. He does a victory dance in honor of himself. It occurred to me I watched a bigger victory dance after a 2-yard gain in football than after winning World War II. And that suggests a different culture back then. It was a culture of moral realism.”
Gen Z and millennial generations report extremely high distrust: 72% of people in these generations agree that 'most people are selfish and out to get you,' which represents a profound loss of faith in the basic goodness or trustworthiness of other people.
“Pew Research Center asked Gen Z and and millennial, do you think most people are selfish and out to get you? And 72% of people in these generations agreed with that statement. That is the definition of high distrust.”
Nihilism—the belief that whatever is lower (selfishness, lust for power) is more real than higher goods (altruism, generosity, honor)—provides an intellectual framework for cynical people to justify embracing brutality and electing leaders who embody domination and amorality.
“And what you see, on the right, but I think also on the left, is a form of nihilism that believes that whatever is lower is more real. Selfishness, egoism, lust for power, those things are real. Altruism, generosity, honor, integrity, and hospitality, those things are mirages. Ideals are shams that the selfish used to max mask their greed. People who are disillusioned by life, who are resentful, who are cynical, they give themselves permission to embrace brutality, saying, "We won't get fooled again. It's doggy dog. If we're going to survive, we need to let bullies in high places. We need to elect bastards."”
The 1970s consolidated the cultural shift of the 1960s, producing a harvest of creative achievements (Stairway to Heaven, The Godfather, Star Wars) but also substantial social chaos: divorce rates more than doubled, out-of-wedlock births tripled, violent crime tripled, and drug use exploded between 1960 and 1980.
“And we harvested a lot of creativity in the 1970s. So some of the classic rock songs were written then, Stairway to Heaven, Free Bird, Born to Run, Bohemian Rhapsody. Some of the great movies were created in the 1970s, The Godfather, Chinatown, Star Wars, Annie Hall, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now. That was a benefit.”
Collapse of institutional trust in the 1970s resulted from multiple converging failures: the My Lai Massacre, Vietnam defeat, Watergate, decimation of American manufacturing, New York bankruptcy, and the Iranian hostage crisis—each event demonstrated that American institutions were not basically functioning as promised.
“There's the My Lai Massacre, there's defeat in Vietnam, there's Watergate, there's the decimation of American manufacturing, there's bankruptcy in New York, there's hostage taking in in Tehran. People lose faith in the idea that our institutions are basically functioning.”
People instinctively recognize a hierarchy of values—sensual pleasures are good but not as valuable as career success; career success is good but not as valuable as friendship; friendship is good but not as valuable as wisdom; wisdom is not as valuable as justice; justice is not as valuable as holiness—and the best life is an 'ardent life' reaching upward toward higher things.
“We all sort of know that some we all want a lot of things. We all sort of have instinctive sense that some things are higher and nobler than other things. That sensual pleasures are good, but they're probably not as valuable as career success. Career success is good, but it's probably not as valuable as friendship and social virtues. Friendship is really good, but it's probably not as noble as wisdom and knowledge, which is probably not as valuable as justice, which is probably not as valuable as holiness.”
Michel Foucault said the essential struggle in life is against the fascist in each one of us, and the current age arouses that kind of fascism.
“I don't agree with Michel Foucault on much, but he did say that the essential struggle in life is against the fascist in each one of us. And this age arouses that kind of fascism.”
The job of universities is to give students things to love that are higher even than a nice job at a prestigious firm, so that their ambition becomes a spiritual ambition rooted in highest values rather than a material ambition.
“And I do think he's right. And that I think the job of this place is to give students things to love that are higher even than a nice job at McKinsey which is fine. Uh and I do think if you don't the the gleam, the ambition is not primarily a material ambition. That's cutting off the high value system. If you really are attached to the highest of values, your ambition is a sort of spiritual ambition which is what Frankl was talking about.”
Dorothy Day exemplifies the radical altruistic service and spiritual transformation that emerges from being 'broken open': she responded to personal crisis and the experience of childbirth (glimpsing transcendence) by committing her entire life to living with and serving the poor, not just working with them.
“Dorothy Day was a was a young woman who um uh she read books and she enacted the books she was reading. And unfortunately she read a lot of Dostoevsky. And so she did a lot of drinking and carousing and whoring around...But then when she had her first child she I'm going to mangle the quote. She wrote an essay of what it was like to have your to deliver birth...if I had composed the greatest symphony, sculpted the greatest sculpture, or written the greatest novel, I could not have felt a more exalted creator than I did when they placed my child in my arms. And with that came a need to worship and to adore.”
Democratic politicians often believe that if they show voters that the opposing party is doing a bad job, voters will swing to their party; but polling data contradicts this—when one party fails, voters don't swing left or right, they swing from 'crazy to crazier,' seeking more radical alternatives rather than moderates.
“One of the things Democrats think is if we can show that that George Bush or that Donald Trump is doing a bad job, then the voters will swing over to us. I would ask them to look at the polls. Voters are not swinging over to the Democrats. When Donald Trump does a bad job, it's not people swing from left to right or from right to left. People swing from crazy to crazier.”
America will shift toward a humanistic paradigm because people will recognize they have 'abandoned our humanistic core' and realize that religious devotion, theology, literature, history, and philosophy—all sources that nurture empathy and orient the soul toward justice, virtue, and goodness—are diminishing and need to be recovered.
“I think there will be a humanistic turn. Humanism is the perfect antidote to nihilism. The kind of humanism that gets taught at this university is anything that upholds the dignity of each person...Uh education does in a liberal arts institution like this one is prepare people to have the highest desire so they can control their lowest and egotistical desire.”
Resentment creates catastrophism on both left and right: the belief that 'the systems of society are fundamentally rotten and oppressive' and 'we are facing a catastrophe' appears in both social justice movements and MAGA populism, and provides an intellectual framework that allows cynicism to feel like wisdom.
“And in that class, the students went on to debate the Melian Dialogue from Thucydides. And in that dialogue, the Athenians say, "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must." And that is essentially the position of resentful people who have cut off human values at a middle level. And it creates a sense of catastrophism. That this And you see this on the social justice left as well as the MAGA right, the systems of society are fundamentally rotten and oppressive. We are facing a catastrophe. And the cynicism begins to peel like wisdom. Because I see through the sham of idealism. I see reality as it actually is.”
Personal transformation through rupture and repair—when one's life falls apart and is rebuilt better—is the universal pattern of what makes people who they are, not vacations or external goods; similarly, national transformation follows this pattern when people collectively recognize a paradigm is broken and rebuild it.
“When I ask people what made them who they are, nobody ever says, "You know, I went to vacation in Hawaii, and that made me the person I am today." Nobody ever says that. They always part to a hard time. They point to a moment of rupture and repair. When their life fell apart, and they built it back better.”
Moments of suffering that 'carve into the floor of the basement of your soul and reveal a cavity below' create the conditions for deeper self-understanding and change; when you're broken open (vulnerable) rather than broken (callous) in moments of greatest suffering, you become capable of change.
“Paul Tillich, who said that moments of suffering interrupt your life and remind you you're not the person you thought you were. They carve into the floor of the basement of your soul, and they reveal a cavity below. And they carve through that and reveal a cavity below. So, the moments of hardship, like the one we're in nationally, you see deeper into your own nation or your own self than you did before.”
The second-order effects of loss of faith are catastrophic: when people lose faith in a future, they lose the motivation to sacrifice for the next generation, leading to generational breakdown; when they lose faith in shared moral order, they lose the ability to cooperate or sustain democratic institutions.
“If I'm going to have trust in you, I have to have faith that you will do what you ought to do. And that faith is based on the idea that we agree on what we ought to do. And if we don't agree on what we ought to do, I can't trust you.”
America has experienced multiple paradigm shifts and cultural renewals throughout its history (1770s revolution, 1890s progressive era, 1960s), showing that the country has vitality for cultural change; the current trajectory is not necessarily toward permanent decline.
“And so, I've tried to describe the the the moral realism of the 1950s, the bohemian rebellion of the 1960s, the consolidation of that rebellion in the 1970s, the bourgeois backlash in the 1980s, the consolidation and the convergence of the 1990s, and then the loss of faith and the resentment of the 21st century culture. Where are we headed in the future? Well, could get worse...I don't think that's going to happen. Uh I think what's going to happen is that our people are going to do what they do in moments of cultural pivot”
The most effective antidote to resentment is not argument but earnest admiration for people whose lives are so impressive and inspiring that the admiration 'cracks through the feelings of resentment and distrust' and shows people that 'there really are things that are worth dying for' and 'lives that are noble.'
“And the most effective antidote to uh resentment is earnest admiration. Finding people whose lives are so impressive and so inspiring that it cracks through the feelings of resentment and distrust. You can't argue people out of them. You have to show them there really are things that are worth dying for. There really are lives that are noble.”
Both women nominated by the Democratic Party for president (Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris) had specific campaign flaws, not fundamental flaws due to their gender or race; Clinton was seen as establishment during a populist wave, Harris ran after a deeply unpopular party with limited time; this suggests that sexism/racism is not the primary barrier but rather campaign conditions and party brand.
“I think the two women who were nominated by Democratic Party had flaws in their campaigns. Uh uh Hillary Clinton won more voters of color than Kamala Harris did. Kamala Harris won more men than Hillary Clinton did. If the problem here is racism and sexism, it's not clear to me that that's the problem. I think both those candidates were flawed. Clinton at a moment of populist uprising was seen as the epitome of the establishment. Kamala Harris had 100 days to run her campaign ahead of a deeply unpopular party after a candidate was shown to be not ready to run again.”
Cultural shifts don't follow demographic patterns or candidate identity; they follow party positioning on issues like immigration and cultural values. A party far to the left of median American opinion will struggle electorally regardless of candidate characteristics.
“I think one of the flaws of the Democratic Party is they pay too much attention to demographics and not enough to positions. And if your party is way to the left of the American media and on immigration, on cultural values, doesn't matter who you are. It's going to be hard to get elected.”
Moral formation—the process of helping people become better versions of themselves on and off the field—should be the goal of education and institutions, not merely winning championships or maximizing profit; this is evident in how people respond to leaders and programs explicitly organized around this goal.
“He said, our goal is for this season is not to win a championship, it's help these young fellows become better versions of themselves on and off the field. That's a perfect definition of moral formation. People are hungering for that.”
Politicians cannot lead intellectual or cultural shifts; they are too busy with fundraising and election cycles to lead fundamental changes; cultural shifts must come from artists, writers, intellectuals, and institutions like museums before politicians can enact policies reflecting those shifts.
“Politicians are busy fundraising. They're busy about the the next election, the next news cycle. They are not going to lead an intellectual shift. And so when you look at big historical change, you get a cultural shift, you get a civic shift, and then politics follows on.”
The path to purpose is not to ask 'What do I want from life?' but to ask 'What is life asking of me? What problem is life asking of me?' and to go where the problems are, which is often difficult to do from comfortable office jobs.
“And so you got to go out to where the problems are. It's hard to find a sense of purpose and meaning in life at an office in McKinsey, frankly. No offense to McKinsey. Um Uh but so I gave that advice at Sewanee University a couple years ago and a woman called me a month a few months later and said, "Professor Brooks, I just want you to know I've quit my job. I'm walking around Washington D.C. looking for my problem."”
The choice facing America now is whether people will participate in the 'doom loop of resentment' or find people who exemplify higher virtues, breaking the cycle of nihilism; this is a decision each individual makes, and 'defiant humanism'—standing for higher ideals even in the cruelest times—is the response to resentment.
“It's a question of how we all act, whether we decide we're in a doom loop of resentment and we just say stop, stop. We're not going to participate. We're going to find people who exemplify the higher virtues.”
The No Kings demonstrations exemplify the cultural shift toward joyful, self-disciplined protest that puts regimes in an impossible position: they either allow the protests (in which case the movement owns the street) or crack down (in which case they demonstrate their own savagery); this strategy is effective because it appeals to higher virtues of dignity and freedom.
“I thought No Kings, especially the early Minnesota ones, were a perfect example. And I like them cuz I'm a center-right guy and I felt comfortable there. And if you're waving a flag, I feel comfortable.”
Personal change is real and possible at any age: Oprah observed that Brooks changed dramatically between 2013 and 2019 in terms of emotional availability and openness, demonstrating that humans have the capacity for transformation across the lifespan.
“And after the second interview, she says to me David, I've never seen anybody change so much before. You were so emotionally blocked before. And that was actually a good moment in my life. Because she's Oprah, right? She should know. Uh but it shows and the sign is you can change. It doesn't matter how old you are. Humans change through life's span. And we're older getting older as a country. But the country can change.”
Valentina Kosiyeva, a 93-year-old Russian woman Brooks interviewed during the 1991 attempted coup, had experienced every catastrophe of Soviet history (nearly executed under Stalin, husbands sent to Gulag, sons killed in WWII, internal exile) yet was defending democratic Russia at the moment of crisis, exemplifying resilience and commitment to ideals despite extreme suffering.
“I was in Moscow on the day when uh the Soviet Union, what was left of it, tried to stage a coup and oust the democratically elected president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. And tanks rolled to his office, Yeltsin's office. I followed them, I went there, and I met a woman who was handing out sandwiches to the democratic protesters to defend Russian democracy. She was 93 years old. Her name was Valentina Kosiyeva.”
Humanism is a worldview based on an accurate conception of human nature: humans are capable of both cruelty and great achievement, and education should prepare people to have high aspirations so they can control their egotistical desires, by making excellence attractive to the young through heroes, writers, scientists, and wise people who embody lives lived for ideals.
“Humanism is a worldview based on an accurate conception of who we are, that we're capable of cruelty, we're also greatness capable of great achievement and accomplishment. And hopefully what uh education does in a liberal arts institution like this one is prepare people to have the highest desire so they can control their lowest and egotistical desire. And they do this by making excellence attractive to the young.”
James Baldwin exemplifies 'defiant humanism': despite being treated shabbily by America due to his race, despite having every right to be calloused over and bitter, he maintained the humanistic stance that 'every person you see, you could be that person, that person could be you' and that people have responsibility to decide who they will be.
“And it was an interview probably done like in the early 60s with James Baldwin. And Baldwin is talking to an unseen interviewer and he says you know, there's not as much humanity in the world as one would like. But there's more than you would think. There's enough. And then he says, we have to remember when you walk down the street every person you see that person could be you. You could be that person.”
The counter-programming strategy for Democrats is not to copy Trump or become more left-wing, but to offer 'uplift'—a complete moral reset after 16 years of corruption and resentment—offering integrity and hope rather than more resentment.
“And it the counter programming smart move to me for a Democratic candidate is to offer uplift. And it wasn't the time for say Cory Booker or Pete Buttigieg in 2020. But it may be the time in 2028 for that kind of I'm different. You you you had enough corruption. You've had enough sin. You've had enough resentment. Let's try a little hope.”
Mondaire Jones exemplifies the beginning of a cultural shift: despite disagreements on policy, his demeanor (smiling, optimistic, uplifting) and his genuine care for his city make him magnetic and inspiring in a way that transcends ideology, suggesting that character and spirit matter more than policy positions.
“And yet watch that guy get interviewed. He smiles when he talks. He's having a good time. He's uplifting, he's happy, he's inspiring, he believes in the city, believes in the people of the city. I just think you compare him to a lot of the angry Democrats, frankly. And there's a reason why he I think ran as such a magnetic campaign. So as I say, it's not about policy. I don't agree with him on rent control, his tax policy. I don't agree on any of that stuff. But I love watching the guy talk.”
Donald Trump exemplifies resentment personified: he could not understand John McCain's self-sacrifice or the higher virtues that motivated it because Trump himself cannot see or access higher values—he sees only selfishness and power, which are the only things he believes to be real.
“I remember when um his first term, Donald Trump was in France going to the war cemeteries off the Normandy beaches. And you could see he just couldn't understand it. He couldn't understand why anybody would sacrifice their life for a country. He said, those people are suckers. And that's a man who cannot even see the higher virtues that would cause you to want to to sacrifice your life for a country. Love of country is higher than self-interest. Donald Trump could never understand John McCain. What drove McCain? Because he believed in those higher virtues. And Donald Trump, who was resentment resentfulness personified, just couldn't quite get that.”
The cultural shift happening now is visible in media and popular culture: Mr. Rogers, Ted Lasso, and Tracy Chapman/Luke Combs' performance of 'Fast Car' at the Grammys are examples of content that lifts up human dignity and uplifts spirits, and people are 'ecstatic and hungry' for this kind of content.
“Mr. Rogers. I realize he's dead, but his his when that movie came out a couple years ago, I don't know if you ever saw that movie. There was a documentary and a Tom Hanks feature. And I was just struck how people were they were crying. I was crying. People liked that image of goodness.”
The 1990s represented an age of cultural synthesis and convergence: the Berlin Wall fell, communism collapsed, European unification proceeded, the Oslo peace process promised Middle East peace, and domestically there was an attempt to reconcile bohemian values (authenticity, creativity, anti-conformity) with bourgeois values (education, career success, material security) through consumption patterns and the emergence of an educated upper-middle class.
“And basically the 1990s were an age of cultural synthesis. The primary move was convergence. Things in the 1990s that had divided people began to break down. The Berlin Wall fell, communism fell, the European unification came together, the Oslo peace process, we thought we were going to have peace in the Middle East.”
In 1996, Donald Trump could not have been elected because the country was not in a resentful mood; in 2016, he fit perfectly with the resentment paradigm; this shows that the electoral viability of candidates depends on matching the cultural moment, not on the candidates themselves.
“Donald Trump could not have got elected in 1996 cuz the country was not in a resentful mood in 1996. 2016, he fit right in. And so you got to wait for your cultural moment, and the culture has to shift before the politicians can produce that kind of shift.”