Christian Conservative David Brooks Comments on PBS Newshour

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There are people on both sides of the political fence who recognize this personality quality in Trump.

 

Amna Nawaz:

Let me ask you about something else.

The president did, obviously, make a visit to those affected communities. And his team put out what's basically a highly produced edited video of his visit on the ground in El Paso. You're watching a clip of it right there.

There was a contrast there between some of the reports we heard on the ground from journalists and then another video. It was cell phone video that emerged after the visit. It showed the president on the ground in El Paso talking about his crowd size at a rally back in February and comparing it to Beto O'Rourke's.

Take a quick listen to what he said.

Donald Trump:

That was some crowd.

Woman:

Thank you.

Donald Trump:

And we had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot. They said his crowd was wonderful.

 

Amna Nawaz:

Jonathan, there is kind of a tale of two narratives there. In the moment, you don't really know which one to pay attention to.

 

Jonathan Capehart:

Well, the narrative here is consistent.

President Trump is at the center of that narrative, whether it's that highly produced campaign-style-like video of his visits to El Paso Dayton, or it's that cell phone video where he's talking about one of the things that is part of his greatest hits, crowd size.

He has talked about crowd size since the day of his inauguration. And, for him, that is a marker of popularity.

But, in that moment, what I would expect the people of El Paso and Dayton, the people in Ohio, the American people who are grieving — and also Texas — people who are grieving, what they want to see from a president is comfort. They want to see someone consoling them.

I was in New York on 9/11. And President George W. Bush was president of the United States, and I had lots of disagreements with the policies of President George W. Bush. But when he stood on that rubble at ground zero and talked to those workers, and talked to the city, and talked to the nation, that's exactly what we needed to hear then.

When President Obama went to Charleston and impromptu sang "Amazing Grace" at the eulogy for Clementa Pinckney, a state senator who was murdered with eight other people in Mother Emanuel Church, in that moment, he channeled the grief of a church, of a city, of a community, and of a nation.

We didn't get that with President Trump.

 

Amna Nawaz:

David, how do you look at this, really? He's such a divisive figure anyway. There is the standard of the consoler in chief. He hasn't done it yet. It's not who he is. Right?

 

David Brooks:

Yes.

Well, there's a photo, a still from that visit where he's with the orphan baby and two family members, with his wife. And Melania is holding the child. And he's got this grin and the thumb up.

And when I looked at that photo, I thought, the Democrats are having a debate: Is he a racist? Is he a white supremacist?

And I look at that photo, I think, well, he's a sociopath. He's incapable of experiencing or showing empathy.

And, politically, it's helpful for him to target that lack of empathy and fellow feeling toward people of color. But how much have we seen him show empathy for anybody?

And so I look at that as someone who is unloved and made himself unlovable and whose subject is himself, is his own competitive greatness. And so he doesn't do the consoler in chief just because he doesn't do that emotional range.

And that's a burden and a cost for any of us.

 

See the video at:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/david-brooks-and-jonathan-capehart-on-trumps-mass-shooting-response

[AU64 10,122]

first mistake is " David Brooks....Christian Conservative"...he might be the former by NY standards....but not sure about the latter.  Considering his willingness to judge an individual on the basis on a photograph ...I gotta wonder about his Christian beliefs...certainly not in the "judge not lest you be judged" school of Christianity".   Until this piece I've never see a reference to where he has publicly expressed his Christian views...mostly ambiguous about whatever religious belief he holds and has generally been considered as Jewish.   

Sounds like someone is trying to give him some undeserved creds in hopes of affecting DT's Christian supporters....and to back up his well know dislike for DT. 

[homersapien 11,812]

1 hour ago, AU64 said:

first mistake is " David Brooks....Christian Conservative"...he might be the former by NY standards....but not sure about the latter.  Considering his willingness to judge an individual on the basis on a photograph ...I gotta wonder about his Christian beliefs...certainly not in the "judge not lest you be judged" school of Christianity".   Until this piece I've never see a reference to where he has publicly expressed his Christian views...mostly ambiguous about whatever religious belief he holds and has generally been considered as Jewish.   

Sounds like someone is trying to give him some undeserved creds in hopes of affecting DT's Christian supporters....and to back up his well know dislike for DT. 

Yeah, I expected someone to attack the messenger.  Do you have anything to say about Trump's capacity for empathy?

And if Brooks isn't conservative or Christian enough for you, I suggest reading Peter Wehner's  "The Death of Politics" (Chapter 4 addresses Christianity and Trump).

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062820792/the-death-of-politics/

 

 

Here's a sampling of Wehner's essays if you don't want to take on a book:

https://eppc.org/author/peter_wehner/

 

[homersapien 11,812]

And it wasn't just the photograph.  Listen to the interview.

[triangletiger 1,599]

Whether Brooks is Christian or Conservative, I think he's dead-on in his assessment of Trump (and I'm a Christian and lean toward conservative in my political views).