David Brooks says Trump buried virtue. He’s ignoring the real killer

New York Times columnist David Brooks’ recent essay in the Atlantic mourned the corrosion of America’s moral fabric. Naturally, Donald Trump is to blame.

Trump’s “narcissistic nihilism,” Brooks argues, is driven by a single philosophy: “Morality is for suckers.” Christian virtues are for the weak. Nietzschean pagan values of power, courage, and glory are for winners. And although many in Trump’s administration “have crosses on their chest,” they harbor “Nietzsche in their heart.” This “deadly cocktail” has transformed America into an entity unrecognizable from the “force for tremendous good” that, according to Brooks, was laid in its coffin on January 20, 2025.

Trump’s appeal to many wasn’t that he embodied virtue. Rather, it was that he promised to protect what remained of the institutions that made virtue possible.

Brooks isn’t the first to hurl such accusations against the president, though, admittedly, he does so in a manner that tickles my philosophical fancy. America’s moral decline has been an issue of concern long before Trump took office.

But is Trump — or any single political leader — really to blame?

Politics follows culture

Like many veterans of the political class, Brooks puts too much faith in institutions. Both parties cling to the comforting illusion that culture flows downstream from politics. Spend enough time inside the D.C. bubble, and even sincere conservatives start to believe that electing the “right” people or passing the “right” laws can do more than govern — that politics can redeem souls from moral collapse.

But pretending policy carries no moral weight is equally foolish. Ask anyone who’s lived under a truly corrupt regime. Still, culture shapes politics more than Washington bureaucrats care to admit.

Diagnosing America’s cultural decline requires more than scolding a single president or passing a bill. It means examining the social landscape that produced such politics in the first place. To understand Washington, we must first look to the soul of the voters who send their leaders there.

Yes, speaking of a national “soul” risks painting in broad strokes at the expense of nuance. Even Brooks would likely concede this much. Americans are desperately reaching for moral touchstones that the culture once upheld. Those touchstones — faith, family, tradition — have been torn down by the very ideologues Trump was elected to oppose.

Up from disillusionment

Brooks concedes a sliver of the truth, admitting that the left has built “a stifling orthodoxy that stamped out dissent.” But his diagnosis barely touches the depth of America’s moral confusion.

More than 40 years ago, Alasdair MacIntyre warned in “After Virtue” that modern society had gutted the moral framework needed to make moral language coherent. Today, we still invoke that language — justice, dignity, meaning — but with no shared foundation beneath it. Efforts to rebuild those foundations now face open hostility.

When public figures like Jordan Peterson face censure for reviving moral guidance once common in homes, churches, and civic life, it reveals something darker. Americans have lost access to the moral raw materials required to build a meaningful life.

Trump’s appeal never rested on personal virtue. It rested on his willingness to defend the institutions that make virtue possible. For millions of voters, he stood as a bulwark against moral collapse — not a saint but a protector of sacred ground. That’s what won him the loyalty of Americans disillusioned by the left’s assault on the moral structures they once relied upon.

The government’s job isn’t to redeem souls. It’s to safeguard the conditions under which people can pursue goodness, truth, and a flourishing life. That means defending the cultural space where moral frameworks can take root — and keeping vandals from tearing it apart.

Brooks calls this “narcissistic nihilism.” In reality, it’s something far rarer: hope — the hope that virtue can still grow in the soil that remains.