The Atlantic podcaster and end-of-democracy doomsday prophet David Brooks had the temerity to claim on Friday’s PBS News Hour that he and people like him represent the “forces of humanization” in America while people like President Trump fight a “constant battle of forcing dehumanization.”
Brooks lamented, “Well, Donald Trump has never had an honest disagreement with somebody and where you say, 'Oh, I disagree with you' and without him going ad hominem and that is just his nature.”
David Brooks, noted "democracy is dying" doomsday prophet, laments, "We meet people trying to heal America, trying to build conversations. And it's just frustrating that all these people are doing this work around the country at the same time, day by day, there's a shredding from… pic.twitter.com/SwqPAG5tEY
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) February 21, 2026
He also claimed, “It is the nature of somebody with a narcissistic personality disorder to think, I am the center, and everything that's an assault on me cannot be anything but a shameful attack on all that is right and good.”
Presumably referring to liberal co-panelist MS NOW host Jonathan Capehart, Brooks went on, “And so it's very hard. We travel around the country. We meet people trying to heal America, trying to build conversations. And it's just frustrating that all these people are doing this work around the country at the same time, day by day, there's a shredding from the top. And so there's these forces of humanization that are trying to have a decent country, and then the shredding from the top is just a constant battle of forcing dehumanization.”
David Brooks may speak in a calm, quiet tone of voice, but the actual content of his words can be just as radical as Capehart’s. He has warned that Trump’s policies equate to death, similarly compared DOGE to several mass-murdering communist dictators, and has several times decried various Trump actions as grave threats to democracy. None of that is new for Brooks. Ten years ago he claimed Sen. Ted Cruz spoke in “dark and satanic tones.” Back when Trump was just a simple NBC reality show host, Brooks had his own ad hominem, “It doesn’t help that he [Cruz] has a face that looks a little like Joe McCarthy actually.”
But, at least PBS’s resident conservative appreciated Barack Obama’s pants.
Here is a transcript for the February 20 show:
PBS News Hour
2/20/2026
7:45 PM ET
DAVID BROOKS: Well, Donald Trump has never had an honest disagreement with somebody and where you say, “Oh, I disagree with you” and without him going ad hominem and that is just his nature.
It is the nature of somebody with a narcissistic personality disorder to think, I am the center, and everything that's an assault on me cannot be anything but a shameful attack on all that is right and good.
And so it's very hard. We travel around the country. We meet people trying to heal America, trying to build conversations. And it's just frustrating that all these people are doing this work around the country at the same time, day by day, there's a shredding from the top.
And so there's these forces of humanization that are trying to have a decent country, and then the shredding from the top is just a constant battle of forcing dehumanization.
