GOP outcast urges young anti-Trumpers to fight from inside Republican Party

David Brooks, a longtime conservative commentator who first grew queasy with the GOP during the Tea Party years and kicked up his criticism under former President Donald Trump, outlined in The Atlantic one of the core reasons he feels abandoned by the GOP — and left "politically homeless."

In essence, he wrote, he has long championed a value that was once held sacred by the Whigs, a proto-conservative political party in the early 19th century that famously fractured over the slavery question in the 1850s. That value, he wrote, is opportunity.

"Whigs put social mobility at the center of our politics," wrote Brooks. "If liberals prioritize equality and libertarians prioritize individual freedom, Whigs ask: Which party is doing the most to expand opportunity, to help young people rise and succeed in our society? Which party is doing the most to cultivate energy, ambition, creativity, and daring in the citizenry?"

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Once upon a time, the GOP carried on that tradition, he wrote, with former President Ronald Reagan talking about opportunity extensively. But that has faded away in recent years and completely vanished under Trump, leaving the party a "backward-looking and reactionary" force, he wrote.

Quitting the party of Trump was easy, Brooks wrote — but finding a home in the modern Democratic Party isn't so simple for him as it is for some other Never Trump conservatives.

"I’m still not fully comfortable as a Democrat," wrote Brooks — or at least, he wrote, he's not comfortable associating with wealthy far-left progressives who have a key presence in the party.

The problem, he said, is that, "The more they dominate the commanding heights of society, the more aggressively progressive aristocrats posture as marginalized victims of oppression. Much of what has come to be called 'wokeness' consists of highly educated white people who went to fantastically expensive colleges trying to show the world, and themselves, that they are victims, or at least allied with the victims.

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"Watching Ivy League students complain about how poorly society treats them is not good for my digestion."

Brooks sees all this as hypocritical, given that elites "use progressivism as a mechanism to exclude the less privileged" in a "self-fulfilling" loop, mastering the language and buzzwords, hobnobbing with fellow ultra-rich posturers, and ultimately settling down in bubble communities where they don't have to have their worldview challenged.

Brooks concluded his article with the following advice to fellow Republicans sick of Trumpism: "If you’re under 45, stay in the Republican Party and work to make it a healthy, multiracial working-class party. If you’re over 45, acknowledge that the GOP is not going to be saved in your lifetime and join me on the other side."

Despite his misgivings about progressive thought, he wrote, "Blue World is where the better angels of our nature seem lately to have migrated, and where the best hope for the future of the country now lies."

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