Brooks and Capehart on what’s ahead for the country after Trump’s win

New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join Geoff Bennett to discuss the week in politics, including how Donald Trump’s return to the White House will reshape the country, the factors that led to his election win and how Democrats are reacting to the loss.
Geoff Bennett:
For more on Donald Trump’s reelection, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Jonathan. That’s New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.
Welcome back.
Jonathan Capehart:
Hey, Geoff.
David Brooks:
Good to be here.
Geoff Bennett:
So we have had a few days to assess the implications of Donald Trump’s sweeping victory, winning the Electoral College and the popular vote, the first time a Republican has done that in some two decades.
David, what does his really decisive victory reveal to you about this country?
David Brooks:
Yes.
I think since 2016, we have entered a new political era. And the period between 1980 and 2016 was the information age. And we decided that America was moving to a postindustrial economy led by college grads. So, so many of our policies were oriented to favor college grads. Education policy, let’s get everybody near four-year colleges.
Immigration policy, let’s provide college grads with cheap labor, even though less skilled people are going to face some labor competition. Trade policy, we allowed manufacturing jobs to go overseas while service jobs were not threatened in that way.
Geographic policy, we had a laissez-faire attitude where talent congregated in Austin and Dallas and Washington and Boston. And we didn’t really worry about all those places left behind. And so, to me, we had a policy that favored college grads and disfavored everybody else. And basically in 2016 and emphatically last Tuesday, a lot of people said, I have had enough, we need to change.
Geoff Bennett:
Jonathan, do you see that same kind of realignment, that the new fault line in our politics is education level?
Jonathan Capehart:
It’s one of them.
I mean, I don’t disagree with anything that David just said in terms of his analysis, but we cannot ignore what was being discussed in the last segment there with Errin Haines and Professor Dittmar. The role of racism and sexism, misogyny, grievance, white nationalism, that was very much a part of Donald Trump’s campaign.
And I think we need to acknowledge it. We need to talk about it. And then I think, as a country, we need to confront it. We have never done it in our history. We probably won’t do it now.
But I think we need to acknowledge the fact that the incoming president of the United States openly ran on racist messages about fellow citizens, noncitizens, people who have always come to this country seeking a better life long before “Build the wall.”
So, yes, we could talk about education realignment. We can talk about political realignment. But until we talk about the grievances that Donald Trump exploited, as Professor Dittmar said, we’re going to be in this mess for a while.
Geoff Bennett:
What about that, David, that that wasn’t disqualifying?
David Brooks:
Yes, a million things have shocked me that have not been disqualifying about Donald Trump.
I personally think Donald Trump is clearly a misogynist. I think he’s clearly a racist. I think that’s been in his family for generations, frankly. But to make that argument, somehow, you also have to explain why the gender gap went down, why Kamala Harris did worse among women than Joe Biden did.
Somehow, you have to explain why Trump got more Black voters than any Republicans since Richard Nixon. Somehow, you have to explain how he massively improved Republicans standing among Hispanic voters. And so he created this broad network.
And the way I would explain those phenomenon is race and sexism were clearly major facts in American life. But I think in our politics, class is rising in salience and race and gender are falling in salience. And when you say people had to choose between their race or their gender for — about white women, you’re ignoring that they have brains and that they have economic views, they have social views, they have a million other views.
And so those views are part of how people make their decisions, not just an ethnic identity.
Jonathan Capehart:
It’s all part of the stew. And all I’m arguing is don’t ignore the potatoes and the carrots while also focusing on the meat.
David Brooks:
OK, I’m all for eating. I’m on a protein diet right now, so I’m…
(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:
One thing about this election stood out to me, and it’s this. In state after state, you had voters that backed both Donald Trump and ballot initiatives that advanced progressive goals.
So you had these laws protecting abortion rights that were backed by the majority of voters in most states. You had voters in two red states, Alaska and Missouri, they approved measures to raise the minimum wage, to ensure paid sick leave.
And yet those states also voted for Donald Trump. So voters clearly had in their minds a different picture of what the presidency meant.
Jonathan Capehart:
I mean, this is maybe the new form of ticket-splitting. Before, it would be you would vote for the president of one party and then vote for the governor or the senator of another party. Maybe it’s breaking down along issue lines. I don’t know.
But, clearly, maybe those folks don’t view the presidency as seriously because it feels so removed, whereas your vote, wait, my state’s going to raise the minimum wage, I get to have a say in that? Fine, I will vote for that. Or reproductive rights, fine, I will vote for that. Recreational marijuana, fine. I will vote for that.
Geoff Bennett:
How do you see it?
David Brooks:
Yes, well, I will come back to my class analysis. If you’re working class, you might like a Republican against on some things. But you also like rising the minimum wage. You also like eliminating the tax on tips.
And the whole country is shifting to left on abortion, left and right. And so these things are not inconsistent if you look at it, who’s a populist? And populists, they like — they want to funnel money to working-class people, who are the kind of people who are working at minimum wage jobs.
It’s also been interesting to watch the Californians vote left for president. But on the ballot initiatives, they — well, they threw out two progressive attorney generals and they — in Northern California, they adopted very aggressive criminal penalties against shoplifting and vagrancy.
And so they shifted right based on the issues they’re feeling at the moment. And that’s my basic view, which is why it’s so important to learn from the electorate. They are telling us something about their own lives. And it’s complicated.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, as Democrats second-guess what went wrong, the speaker emerita, Nancy Pelosi, told The New York Times in an interview, she said, “Had the president,” Joe Biden, “gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race. The anticipation was that if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward, but we don’t know that. That didn’t happen.”
Do you think that’s right, or that there were just more fundamental issues about how Democrats were perceived that ended up being too much of an obstacle?
Jonathan Capehart:
Oh, that’s for me?
(Laughter)
Jonathan Capehart:
Look, I — this is the thing that Democrats do that drives me nuts, the finger-pointing and the blame-gaming almost immediately.
Look, what happened, happened. And to go back and second-guess decisions that were made. I just don’t think are helpful. I think what would be helpful is to start thinking about, how does the party recover? How does the party go about doing what David is saying and sifting through the information that we got through the — from the voters and then plan accordingly?
Because I don’t — as despondent — not despondent. As sad as I am about how the election went and particularly how people voted, it is my hope that the Democratic Party can figure out a way to reach those voters, not just the ones who didn’t vote for them, but for the folks who didn’t show up at all, because the one thing that I noticed is that Donald Trump and Vice President Harris got fewer votes than their counterparts in the previous election.
There’s — we also should be talking about that. Why did so many people sit out?
Geoff Bennett:
Well, what are you watching for as Donald Trump puts together his team and then prepares to take office again with the experience of knowing how to use the levers of power and potentially having a Republican Senate — well, he will have a Republican Senate, but potentially a Republican House?
David Brooks:
Yes, I’m looking to see how organized he is.
In the first term, there was no policy process. And he passed some things, but it was all policy chaos. Is it going to be like that again? Will Republicans — I’m most interested in NATO and in Ukraine. Will he have, in my view, a sensible foreign policy team that — of course, they’re not going to want to spend as much as the Democrats were spending, but they still need to put pressure on Putin?
And, on tariffs, Donald Trump was vastly helped because there was an inflation. And if he imposes 20 percent tariffs, we will have a lot of inflation. And are the Republicans really going to walk into that eyes open? I just don’t know.
Geoff Bennett:
Same question, Jonathan.
Jonathan Capehart:
They might be. He might be more organized this time.
The one thing I’m watching for and worry about is whether the Republican majority, let’s just — assuming they also get the House — overreach. They are there — if anything, they are always guilty of overreaching. And it’s just a matter of at what point will the American people say, you know what, you have gone too far?
And maybe his comments, Trump’s comments today about beginning mass deportations immediately because we must do this, maybe that will be like the first sign of overreach.
Geoff Bennett:
OK.
David Brooks:
By July 1, he will overreach. I guarantee it.
(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:
David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, thanks to you both.
Jonathan Capehart:
Thanks, Geoff.
David Brooks:
Thank you.