The Opinions - When Authoritarianism Looms, Old Friends Reunite

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

The Opinion columnist David Brooks, the contributing Opinion writer E.J. Dionne Jr. and the former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” Robert Siegel convene to discuss the week’s news for The Conversation. They debate President Trump’s shows of strength and how voters and politicians — including members of Trump’s own party — are responding.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail] episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Derek Arthur. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. The rest of the show's production team includes Vishakha Darbha, Kristina Samulewski and Jillian Weinberger. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Original music by Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. This is Robert Siegel. I used to host All Things Considered on NPR, which included one of my favorite features, the Friday talk about politics with two first-class columnists, David Brooks of the New York Times and E.J. Dion of The Washington Post in those days. Now he's back as a contributing opinion writer at The Times. They were two and remain two very sharp political writers whose curiosity has taken them to exploring American society, religion, how our politics got the way they are. Seven and a half years after our last talk about politics, I was very happy to be invited to moderate a New York Times conversation with David Brooks and E.J. Dion about the state of America today. BJ, David, it's great to see you both together. Great to be with you, Robert.

It's a joy to be with you both. And as I was saying, as you were. back then. Let's start with the big question about Donald Trump's second administration, which is, are we or have we slipped into a state of authoritarianism in America? David, what's your answer? Yeah, I don't think there's a day we're going to wake up and we're in authoritarian land. I think it's a slow deterioration, and we've seen what's happening. The Justice Department and ICE, I don't need to recite all the examples of authoritarian behavior. But I guess the way I see it as a little broader, I think in 2010, a historical tide shifted. And we go through these moments periodically in world history when you get a tide. In the early part of the 20th century,

you had a totalitarian tide. You had the Russian Revolution. You had the Chinese revolution. You have the Nazis. People thought totalitarianism was the way to go. And then in the 1990s, you had a liberal tide, what some people call a neoliberal tide. You had Ronald Reagan. You had Margaret Thatcher. You had Bill Clinton. In their own ways, you had Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping. And since 2010, we've been in a tide of global populism. And that's not only Trump, but it's Viktor Orban. I would say it's also Putin and the way she plays on populist tides. And so to me, what we're looking at is not a momentary shift to authoritarianism, but a generational shift towards savagery. And so what I worry about is the complete deterioration

of the global order. And that includes the order at home and the way rule of law works here, but it also includes the global order all around the world. And so my worry is less how much of our rights are being restricted, which I don't think they are as too much right now, but to how much is the global atmosphere deteriorating, a civilization deteriorating, and there my answer would be a lot. A lot. I was much to pursue there,

but I wanted to hear first for me, Jay. What's your answer to the same question? Well, I think what's happening here in the United States is the issue we have to think about. And I was struck with what Ezra Klein wrote this week. This is not just how authoritarianism happens. This is authoritarianism happening. And again, as David said,

we can go through the whole list. And I think we also need to be mindful that there are different kinds of populism. And what's dangerous here is not populism, which is often can have a democratic face, can't push us to be more equal, more fair, more just. This is an authoritarian wave. But the very particular things that are happening here are what we have to grapple with. And I think we don't take seriously enough that what's happened in the Republican Party is quite troubling because we were accustomed to. divisions and disagreements within the Republican Party. And those still exist under the service, but even Republicans are now afraid to express opposition to the president. And you have

Senator Tillis, leaving Senator Ernst leaving. I think that tells you that they're worried that their party can't speak up. Members of their party feel constrained in speaking up. And I think that's contributing to this way. Does that amount to authoritarianism? Yes. I think that, again, the list, you know, masked ICE agents who don't even have warrants, arresting people, the interference with the election process the next time with the president telling state legislatures, you have to gerrymander. That is Orban-like. And I think it is, we have crossed the line, I think. Victor Orban of Hungary. David, those immigration crackdowns, which include crackdowns on workplaces, which remind us

why people actually come here and stay here, which is there are jobs for them. Does the behavior of ICE, does it scare you? I mean, does it frighten you about the prospect of a national police force of guys who wear masks? A bunch of uniform guys with masks, seizing people off the street? What's scary about that? You know, I do think it's scary, but it's also a reminder when they went to the Hyundai plant that this is our economy. Derek Thompson is on Substact these days, and he noted that 2020,

could be the first year in American history where we lose population because more people will be going out than coming in and the domestic birth rates aren't that high. And that just has a tremendous economic cost. We saw last week a pretty mediocre jobs number. And that was caused by lack of immigration because they can't get people to fill these jobs. It's worth pointing out that even today we talk about the loss of manufacturing, there are 500,000 manufacturing jobs that are unfilled because we don't have the people with the skills. And so it's not only terrifying to have anybody you know with Hispanic ethnic heritage, whether they're documented or undocumented, everybody I know is afraid. So that's one thing. But the economic costs and the way that drags down the

economy is less serious but also noteworthy. I think it's very scary when you have the Supreme Court saying it's okay for ICE to arrest people if they look, Latinos speak Spanish and work in a working class job. And that has, at least for now, been ratified by the Supreme Court. When Trump made his promises, he promised to contain the southern border and to round up people who had committed crimes, something Barack Obama did. This extends way beyond that. And the Congress, adding all of these people to ICE at this moment, is very troubling because

this could become a completely different kind of federal law enforcement agency very much answerable to the president. And yes, David's right. there are also economic consequences that are going to affect a lot of people who are not immigrants. Lots of people in the country need a growing economy, and immigrants can help that if we had a sane immigration law. One question that I have as being retired, I'm not doing trips off to Southern Ohio to ask people what they think about America today. I follow events in the media. And I can't quite understand how many Americans truly feel alarmed by the prospect,

of masked police or a breakdown of the separation of powers, you know, the loss of the tariff authority from the Congress or the executive branch. I mean, are these things that lawyers and journalists and people who know their constitutional amendments by heart are very concerned about and the rest of the people just want to make a living? Or is there some deep commitment to the way our republic has been working is supposed to work? I think the striking thing about the polling in the early period of this Trump term is that, Trump is losing a lot of ground with people who were for him. NBC did a survey where the proportion of people saying they are furious, 21 percent, or angry or dissatisfied, far outweighs those who are

satisfied, happy or thrilled their other category, only 10 percent or thrilled with the president. I think all those kinds of numbers you're seeing out there suggest that people who voted for Trump the last time, a significant share of the swing voters who voted for Trump. looking at this and saying, this is not what we're voting for. So they may not analyze this entirely in terms of what does the Constitution say, what do I think of that? But they are very uneasy, I think, with the direction this has taken. I just wonder how transactional most Americans are. That is, if things are going well, prices are stable, and there are good jobs available, and you can afford school for your kids, college for your kids, and a house, you know, which branch does

what? That's a matter for somebody else to care about. Yeah, I mean, a significant chunk of my friendship group was Trump supporters. And I'd say over the last two weeks, I've had lunch or dinner or coffee with maybe five to seven of them. And I haven't noticed that a sense of walking away from Trump. The people I tend to know are not, would never go to a MAGA rally. If you're going to cover Trump or the Trump movement, do not go to MAGA rally. So that's not the representative sample. Most people I know who voted for Trump don't like him. They find him troubling in a zillion ways. they disagree with certain policies like the tariffs, but they basically buy his story.

They buy his story that the elites have betrayed us. And one of the ways the elites have betrayed us, they would say, and I sort of agree, is in the Biden years, immigration just massively exploded. I heard from a guy from Montana last week, and he said, talking to progressives, you guys had 40 years to police yourselves, and you didn't do it.

And therefore, now it's our turn. You had your shot. And I would say they would say that about immigration. They would say that about the universities. 82% of college students think they have to lie to professors and pretend they're more progressive than they are in order to get through school. And that's a form of soft authoritarianism, frankly. And if universities did not police themselves and get more diversity, then somebody was going to crack down. So I would say a lot of the people I know still think Trump is the right answer to a bunch of serious social problems, even if they have a zillion different reservations about the guy. Could I just say on that, the people I am talking about who are really showing real qualms about Trump

are those who voted for him to solve particular problems, like prices, like the situation at the border. They didn't bargain for this. And so I don't think we should underestimate how much that unease could translate into stronger opposition down the road. And in particular in turnout in the next election, I think those, strong disapprove, weak-approved numbers suggest real problems for Trump down the road. Well, I want to ask you both about the two parties, the two political parties, and what do you think they should be doing now? Let's start with the Democrats.

There's a big discussion about what the Democrats should be doing. What's the best up? E.J., you've already cited the essay by Ezra Klein that was in the Times. Should the Democrats, for example, not provide the votes needed to end debate and their by keep the government open? Or should they say, so long as this is what the administration is doing, we're for shutting down the government? Well, I think that they should not say we're for shutting down the government.

I was broadly sympathetic to what Ezra wrote. And I think there was a very good kind of friendly amendment, if you will, to Ezra's argument by Bill Shear in the Washington Monthly, where he said, the point is Democrats shouldn't say we want to shut down the government. Democrats should say we want an on-the-level good faith negotiation. And we can't have that if we know that whatever we negotiate, Trump is going to back off on and Republicans in Congress are going to go along with cuts that we would not have agreed to in a negotiation.

So I think their position should be Republicans, if you're not willing to make this a real negotiation, do it yourselves. You want to end the filibuster? Go ahead and end the filibuster. But we are not going to participate in what amounts to a sham process as long as you. as the president of the United States exercises power to not spend money that Congress approved of. David? Yeah, I think a larger philosophical question is when Trump goes low, should the Democrats go low?

And of course, Michelle Obama famously said many years ago, they go low, we go high. And I think the Democratic Party has pretty much dismissed that. I think that's a mistake. The dismissal is the mistake. The dismissal. I think Michelle Obama was right. So when the Republicans redistrict, Gavin Neuze, some redistricts. The Republicans are threatening to shut down the government, so the Democrats

pull in Newt Gengrich and threaten to shut down the government. E.J. said earlier, there are a lot of people who losing faith with Donald Trump. If that's true, then they are persuadable. And the way you persuade is by telling a moral story where the other side seems contemptible and your side seems kind of admirable. And that was basically the story of civil rights movement. And to me, the Democrats have an opportunity to do that. But if you're complaining about authoritarianism and lawlessness and the erosion of our cultural and moral norms, then you can't credibly represent that position if you're eroding our moral norms. And so I think the long-term play is for Democrats to show, no, this is how government is supposed to work. We're not going to do things that seem

nihilistic and destructive or erode norms. It's not nihilistic to just say straight up. This negotiation is not a real negotiation if the president is going to use arbitrary power to overturn the negotiation. And in the case of the, redistricting, the nuisance position is, look, we would way rather keep this commission, and indeed his bill in California, has the commission coming back to draw nonpartisan lines in 2030. But to say, we're going to ignore people rigging the rules one way and just sit there and not do anything that, for one thing, does not answer the concerns of all the people who support you. And for another thing, it's pretending that it's going low simply if you, you.

you respond in a practical way to what you're confronted with. And I think that's different from meanness. It's different from being authoritarian yourself. It's just saying this is what's happening. We're going to call it out. It all depends on what kind of fight we're in the middle of. Back when we were talking on the civilized days of NPR, it was normal. Like George W. Bush, you might like him, you might not, but, you know, Barack Obama,

you might not like him. We've crossed a revolutionary situation around the world, which Trump is just, as I say, part of the global peace. And what populism offers people is a culture, a morality, a way of being, a picture of masculinity and femininity, a sense of belonging. It is a full-service religion, as well as a political ideology. The Democrats don't have any of that. They have ideas for policies and tax policies. So they might have, you might do this on a day-to-day basis. But if you're the Democrats, you have to think we have to create a counter movement to what populism has. we need to create a culture, a sense of belonging, a sense of identity, a sense of right and

wrong, a sense of masculinity and femininity, all sorts of other issues. And to me, that's a generational project. Populism didn't just start yesterday. It goes all the way back to America first. It goes back to the No Nothing movement. It goes back to writers like Sam Francis and Christopher Lash. It took decades to create the culture MAGA is. It's going to take decades for the Democrats to come up with a counterculture. But positioning themselves on the realm of values and ideas and vision is the first task. And what happens in a legislative game, it's not important. We don't have decades to protect our constitutional democracy. Of course, liberalism, social democracy have to have a moral story to tell. I think they do have a moral story to tell about how fairness and justice can undermine

better lives for people, better family lives. But right now, we are, in a crisis. Either you believe we are right now in a crisis or you don't. I do believe we're in a crisis. And that requires that you act that way. And then we can in the meantime have these long-term discussions that you want to have. But I don't think you can just sit there and say, nothing's happening. We'll think for the long term. One little addendum. So, you know, back in April, I wrote a column saying, where the hell is everybody? We need a social movement. We need an uprising. And I was reading all these lefty sociologists. And I was like, Hell yeah, yeah.

So I was turning it to Mr. Sololinsky. I like that column, actually. And I still believe that. But to me, the virtue of a social movement is that it's always on behalf of a vision. It's ground up. It's people embodying a certain way of being. And so to me, Chuck Schumer is not going to save you.

Hakeem Jeffries is not going to save you. It's not the politicians who come up with a new vision, a new movement. It's always got to be a much broader social movement. But isn't, I mean, is it that there is no democratic world view or religion, as you would say, or that there is, and it's all about diversity and its main source of moral authority is not citing Jefferson or Lincoln, it's citing Reverend Martin Luther

King, Jr. And that there is a set of beliefs that, Tadim Taylor, they're just losing beliefs at this particular moment. Yeah, I agree, but like all of us in this room, whether I used to be more conservative than I am, E.J. used to be more moderate than he is probably, and we're all liberals. And we all basically believe in pluralism and Martin Luther King's ideals, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I have just watched those ideals

on the back foot for a decade. And let's take look what happened in the UK recently. So the Labor Party managed to win an election. And Kirstarmer walks in office, crushed. His polls are terrible. His government is widely seen as a failure. Nigel Farage, the populist leader. His surging might form a government

if there's an election sometime in the future. And so when you're running against a historic, historical tide, even if you randomly win one election, you don't take the momentum. And that's true what just happened in the Japanese elections is happening all around the world. So I don't want to just won an election. I want to push back against the whole global tide. By the way, they have to say the Norwegian Labor Party just won an election last night, so the center left is not dead. But I think what the center left, broadly speaking, the liberal, progressive liberal side needs is to figure out how to link economics and culture again.

And I think that's their underlying vision. Read FDR speeches. And they're all about a society that allows people to live fulfilling lives by creating the economic circumstances for that. But the point of the economic circumstances is for fulfilling lives that include raising kids and loving culture

and having a sense of respect from the rest of society. Yes, we need that. message. But again, I go back, we've got to deal with a crisis right now. Well, you know, there's so much discussion of what the Democrats should do that I think we tend to neglect what choices face the Republicans. Donald Trump is term limited. We think he observes that constraint in the Constitution. But the hearings that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified at revealed split within the Republican Party between people who think that Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Prize. I'm not sure if it's

for medicine or for whatever. Physics, physics. Physics. For Operation Warp Speed, which was a remarkable record-breaking achievement of bringing a new vaccine to market within a year or whatever it was, 18, I forget how many months. I mean, a fraction of the time that people thought it would take. So give them a Nobel Prize is one position. The vaccine killed more people than it saved is the other position.

Which way do Republicans go? When do they start thinking about their future? So you want them, should they weigh evidence and, like, tell the truth about things? That's political ruinous. So I wouldn't have. Just a wacko of thought. You know, I think where the Republican Party should go is to serve the people who voted for it. And so, obviously, it was mostly working class voters who voted for Donald Trump.

And what does he do? He hires a bunch of Ivy League elite college types, of which the three of us are, too, I should say. And so what do they do? They're waging a little civil war within the circles of the elite. So they go after NIH. They go after the universities. They cut PBS and NPR. How does that help workers?

And so they're so focusing on revenge against the elites they hate. They do very little for the people who actually voted for them. And that's going to take a generational shift. And maybe a J.D. Vance will come along or a Josh Hawley or somebody we've never heard of yet will actually have an agenda for working class folks. One of the things, if I'm a Republican, I worry about is a poll that came out on the Wall Street Journal last week, which said, do you believe in the American dream anymore? And 70% said no.

And then they asked, do you see any prospect of your living standard rising? And only 25% say yes. That's just a tremendous loss of faith in our economy. That's a tremendous loss of faith in our country in the American dream. And Republicans were presumably elected to do something about that, and so far the net effect is Zill. I'm glad you sound like Bernie Sanders today on that subject. I mean, the Republican Party, to take it one step further, voted for this budget bill that actually substantially cuts benefits, particularly health benefits, to the very people who voted for them. There's a long list of issues where they have betrayed that part of their base. But the other thing is, a lot of these folks have had trouble being true to themselves.

Senator Cassidy is in this really difficult box because he voted to confirm Robert Kennedy. And I lost a bet with someone. I thought that there'd be enough Republicans to defeat at least some of the people you knew most Republicans thought shouldn't be there. Pete Hakeseth, Tulsi Gabbert, Robert Kennedy Jr. And now they're stuck with these people. They voted to confirm. And so I think you ask the question for the long run, watching the deterioration of the president's numbers here, they might start to think about how a little bit of independence beginning to show that opposition to Trump is possible in the Republican Party would be a good idea. Instead, you've got a strategy of flight.

Senator Tillis is leaving. Senator Ernst is leaving. I don't blame them for leaving. And yet that's a terrible commentary on what they think. think that they would be able to do as Republican senators. Isn't this all reflecting the fact, though, that if you asked people at random who the president is, they would all know Donald Trump, or nearly all would know Donald Trump. A great many could name the vice president.

But if you ask them who their senators are or who their members of Congress are, they have no idea. And the people whom we in Washington look to and say, why isn't this guy, why isn't he saying why isn't he doing something with his, with his objections, is someone who realizes that he's, he's a virtual unknown to his, to his elected. I had a, I heard a great story about this from a Republican congressman who actually ran ahead of Trump in his district. You know, he got 74 and Trump got 70, something like that. And a friend said, look, why don't you take on Trump? You're more popular than he is. And the Republicans said, oh, yeah, I could do that. And Trump would end up

with his 70% and I'd end up with my 4%. And that's the fear inside the Republican Party. That's why I keep harping on. It's a historical tide. People have a sense of where Trump wants to go and many of them are now further than Trump. Steve Bannon told me weeks ago ago now that the MAGA is more conservative than Trump is. And I think they're moving in that direction as they get more and more disillusion.

I don't know where that ends up. But it's very hard to push against that kind of tide and you have to leave. I mean, one of the reasons I emphasize the tide is like I watch. many people who shared my values like Ben Sass, the former Senator in Moreska, he had to go. They all go. Bill Frist. If John McCain were alive, I don't know what he'd do. He might be the last one to go down fighting.

He was so ordinary. But it's very hard to buck a tide. Very briefly, as we conclude here, I want to set politics aside for a moment. And I just wonder in these trying and often argumentative times if there's been some path to joy for either of you, any experience that you can relate that makes you feel good about life, despite all that goes on around us. All the political anxiety has caused me to care fanatically about sports. And so in the first two months of the spring, the New York Mets, the team I'm fanatically devoted

to, were fantastic. And I was joyous about that. In the last four months, they've sucked. And so that joy has been robbed from me. I tried to try to get in a better shape. I bought an aura ring, which I'm wearing for viewers. who are looking at this on YouTube. And I thought I'm going to be healthy.

It's going to tell me what a great sleeper I am. It turns out all the ordering is another form of judgment in your life that you didn't get enough REM sleep. You didn't have deep sleep. So that's another source of joy taking into my life. I can't enjoy sleeping anymore because of the pressure. So now I'm left with computer video solitaire on my phone. And that's all I've got, basically.

E.J., how are you doing? Well, two things. One, I can root in good conscience for the Red Sox again. they lost me when they lost Moogie Betts. But the big thing is our daughter Julia married Devonstein last month. Somebody she met 12 years ago on the first day of college. It was one of the most beautiful weddings ever. And her father actually managed to give a non-embarrassing dad speech.

And that was a miracle. I'll share with you, by the way, a joyful experience that I had. In this age of streaming, my wife and I seldom go out to see. a movie in a movie theater. Indeed, I fear for the existence of the movie there. But we went out to a movie theater to see The Naked Gun with Liam Neeson, now being a comic actor in the role. And about two dozen other strangers in the dark watched this movie. And as funny as the movie was, it was equally funny to listen to the belly laughs and people choking on their guffaws with this movie for a solid 90 minutes.

a nonstop laughter. And when the lights came on, I thought, boy, that is the, that is one of the most joyous things I've been part of in quite a while. And I recommend it highly. It's been wonderful seeing the two of you again after all these years together.

We look the same as we did 10 years ago. It's amazing. Real joy. David Brooks, columnist, DJ Dion, contributing opinion writer to the New York Times, both. It's a pleasure to see you both and thanks. Thank you. If you like this show,

follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Bishakadarba, Christina Samuelski, and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin and Alison Bruzik. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabro, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amon Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Lerge Lernerge, Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samuelski.

The director of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.