David Brooks Quotes - Page 7

It’s easy to see why politicians would be drawn to the populist pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the populist narrative, you can just blame Goldman Sachs.

When you talk about the problem of illegal immigration, people are angry and polarized. When you talk about the answers, the debate gets a little different.

Barack Obama won such a big electoral mandate because a lot of people thought he was - transcended partisan and ideological barriers and was going to put aside the old debates. So, he was able to get a lot of moderates and a lot of independents.

[Mitch Daniels] was not a bad governor. He could be playful, but - or communicator.I'm just saying it will - I think will be - every candidate comes into the White House, assuming if [Hillary Clinton] wins, or if she does win, with strengths and weaknesses. This will be a weakness, because this was such an easy moment to show some heart.

I think Mitch Daniels, the former governor of Indiana was a case of that, who was an outstanding administrator.

The idea that when you correct a fact, you erase that fact from people's memories is the reverse of the truth. When you correct a fact, what you do is you further lodge that fact into people's minds, and they remember the error.

Those cultural wars, Sexual Revolution issues are fading from the scene, and the coming generation has basically settled them.

Hillary Clinton continues to say Donald Trump's unacceptable, he doesn't have the character to be president. He is saying - continues saying she needs to be in prison.

Everyone is dividing based on demographic categories.

Basically, less educated or high school-educated whites are going to Donald Trump. It doesn't matter what the guy does. And college-educated going to Hillary Clinton.

It's very hard to find an evangelical person under 45, let alone on some of the Christian college campuses, who has any tolerance for Donald Trump.

I certainly hear a lot of people say that Donald Trump not only incited some bad things. He also exposed some things. He exposed pain in America that a lot of us didn't have the full extent of, some of the divisions and chasms in the country.

Our system is not only based on rules, but a series of self-restraints that we won't be as barbaric as we could be in competing for power because we know if we're all barbaric as we could be, the whole country and the whole society falls apart.

Parties that are majority parties are incoherent parties.

The party cannot be competitive nationally unless it's competitive in California, Oregon, Washington, New England, Pennsylvania, along the coasts. And the problem for the party is, you can't get there from here. You can't start out where the current Republicans are and win back those places. To me, what you have to do is create a different Republican Party that can win in those places.

Hillary Clinton is still - she's such a private person.

I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of judges overruling presidents on national security matters.

Republicans are living in a hermetically sealed Republican universe, just as Democrats are. And so they're responding to their own universe, even if it leads to electoral downfall.

Russian hackers interfered in our elections, and we like penalized a few of them. Whatever they're doing underground, we don't know. No, this is going to be a big issue. And I have to say the Barack Obama - the Donald Trump position is, A, mystifying, but, B, doomed. He has a nice little Vladimir Putin romance going on right now. I think we're going to get out the hankies, because this is going to turn into an ugly relationship within a year or two.

The things that make them similar - their machismo, their expansionary braggadocio - is going to turn them I think into bitter and dangerous enemies. We will look back on this moment where we thought Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were sort of close as a moment of bitter irony, when they get into a schoolyard display against each other, amping up each other's worst tendencies and putting the two countries in some sort of scary position.

Of course I don't know what's going on in that meeting on in the mind of Donald Trump. But I do know one of the things President Barack Obama was struck by was how much time he spent on cyber-security as president. And one of the things he said was that, in the years ahead, the next president will be spending even more time. And cyber-security isn't a thing that goes away after this election. It's a constant flow.

The fact that there could be an ISIS West Bank, the fact that the Palestinian government in Gaza doesn't even acknowledge Israel's right to exist, the fact of constant terror, delegitimization campaigns in the Palestinian schools, these are all much bigger facts. And for the Barack Obama administration to focus on this one fact, almost, not to the expense, but to diminish some of the others which are much more important, is to cast all the blame on Israel and to take the U.N. policy toward Israel, which has been longstanding, and sort of surrender to it.

Bibi Netanyahu, froze the settlements and offered to go toward a two-state solution. The Palestinians didn't take him up on it. Historically, we have had a series of these offers. And the settlements themselves are not the keystone here. It seems to me myopic and bizarre that at the last moment, the Barack Obama administration would surrender the whole balanced array of policies that are obstacles to peace and focus on the one that is most detrimental to Israel.

If you withdraw from the game, you're out of the game. And we have withdrawn from the game. And we said Bashar Assad has to go. He's going to stay. So we're out of the game.

I would like to see an animating passion. Tim Kaine actually had a good line. What animated you before you got into politics? And she actually does have a story there to tell about children. And so drawing that animating passion will do good.