David Brooks Quotes

The Brexit vote, the presidential elections in the U.S., a number of the other regional political movements - that's not a flash in the pan.

The surge in right-wing populism and the phenomenon of Trump are related. You can think of them together as the same problem.

The silver lining of Brexit and Trump is that it has undermined the perception that globalization is an unstoppable force, whether or not we think it is a good thing or a bad thing. There have always been losers and as well as winners in this process, and cultural minorities have been among the most vulnerable losers. Now that sizable numbers of people in the most advanced economies have made their grievances felt in a fashion that is hard to ignore.

You might have some people that disagree with populism and anti-globalism and so forth, but Donald Trump has no desire to undermine America.

I think I knew how frightened people were [when Donald Trump was elected], and I think I knew that people were worried about their future. I don't think I realized that they would be willing to risk kind of a 1920s Germany in order to blow it all up, not realizing that we've accomplished a lot as Americans, and we want to keep the good things and revolutionize the new things.

I think it's a message of economic nationalism. It's obviously one that has bubbled up before in certain pockets, but it's never been the sort of powerful phenomenon that it is today.

The good thing about England - like, if I were in France, all people would be doing is rubbing my nose in Donald Trump. As if I voted for him. Just rubbing my nose in him. And in England, they'd be rubbing my nose in it too, except for Brexit. So that means they can't rub my nose in anything!

When you see a Donald Trump and a Bernie Sanders, very unconventional candidates, have considerable success, then obviously there's something there that's being tapped into; a suspicion on globalization, a desire to reign in it's excesses, a suspicion of elites and governing institutions that people feel may not be responsive to their immediate needs. And that sometimes gets wrapped up in issues of ethnic identify or religious identity or cultural identity, and that can be a volatile mix.

I feel like everyone's starting to isolate, and that proves itself in a big context like Brexit, and Donald Trump potentially, and putting walls up and stopping people coming in.

The reactionary percentage of the electorate in these United States has been relatively constant since McCarthy's day; I'd estimate it as hovering around 30 percent. A minority, but one never all that enamored of the niceties of democracy - they see themselves as fighting for the survival of civilization, after all.

In essence, populism is an illiberal democratic response to decades to decades of undemocratic liberal policies.

This is the core claim of populism. Only some of the people are really the people.

Everything Republicans once claimed to advocate - entitlement reform, free trade, standing up to dictators, encouraging the march of freedom around the world - turns out to be negotiable and reversible, depending on Donald Trump's whims and the furies of his base.

Trump's pronounced anti-immigrant stance is reminiscent of both Le Pen in France and Orban in Hungary, although he is far from alone in taking such positions in much of today's Republican Party.

Britain's withdrawal from the E.U., like Donald Trump's proposal to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, is based on a false belief in self-reliance.

The arguments in the Brexit vote and in the American presidential campaign are about the same. In a friendly way, may I also give some advice to the American people to make the right choice when the moment comes.

The lack of trust in supranational entities and cosmopolitan elite creates a fertile ground for tribalist belongings and reactionary politics.

I think the Brexit vote in Great Britain informing this populist movement of nationalism is kind of a global thing, and I think it's no particular political party's fault. People have been left behind, and in America, we're used to going forward. It's always like we're going to be better; the next generation's going to be better.

2016 was the year the Anglo-Saxon world woke up.

I think democracy is on the decline in the West. Ruling parties are the same: neo-liberalism at home and wars abroad.

Brexit has really broken a taboo. The Brits have shown us that you can leave the European Union, and you can come out better.

The Brexit and Trump phenomena are informed by similar forces and social and economic movements. I think it's been really stressful; it's been really scary.

The issue for me is not just Brexit. It is beyond Brexit - how you conduct politics and the veering towards populism and English nationalism.

Brexit is not only not just about left and right. Brexit is about expertise.

You see it with Brexit, you see it in Donald Trump's election, you see it with the fact that neither of the main parties ended up in the final round of the French presidential election, you see it with the Italian referendum being defeated, you see it in a lot of ways - the political revolution.