In his Friday column for the New York Times, David Brooks decided that the time to bite his tongue on the rise of Donald Trump had ended, and unleashed a torrent of invective against the Republican front-runner.
He was, however, careful to note that "some respect is in order" for those who support Trump, because they belong to "a coalition of the dispossessed. They have suffered lost jobs, lost wages, lost dreams. The American system is not working for them, so naturally they are looking for something else."
Moreover, he continued, "many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation." However, respecting their reasons for turning to Trump in no way entails respecting the candidate himself, and Brooks clearly doesn't:
Donald Trump is epically unprepared to be president. He has no realistic policies, no advisers, no capacity to learn. His vast narcissism makes him a closed fortress. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he’s uninterested in finding out. He insults the office Abraham Lincoln once occupied by running for it with less preparation than most of us would undertake to buy a sofa.
Trump is perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes. All politicians stretch the truth, but Trump has a steady obliviousness to accuracy...
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