David Brooks

Americans have traded their faith in the American dream for pretty much everybody else’s sour, populist mood.

Liberalism’s nice rules aren’t enough of a sales pitch.

Angry nostalgia is the mood of the electorate.

It starts with keeping our humanity and recognizing it in others.

The excesses of social protest movements can play into the hands of candidates who promise to restore order.

Don’t bet the house on a rosy future.

The reasons aren’t rocket science.

Dr. Hilary Cass’s thoughtful medical review is a model for how we should address difficult issues.

Amid a wider national atmosphere of division, distrust, bitterness and exhaustion, middle managers are the frontline workers trying to resolve tensions and keep communities working.

I want my technology to have many capacities, but free will is not among them.

Liberal democratic capitalism isn’t some set of abstract ideas. It’s a means to a richer, fuller and more dynamic life.

If the current Israeli military approach is inhumane, is there an alternative?

A message for President Biden.

Voters don’t care about moral affirmation; they want policies to improve their lives.

Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt offered the confidence in our country that we need right now.

Donald Trump didn’t remake the Republican Party. He merely restored the pessimistic, isolationist version from decades ago.

The divide between classes can’t be healed with economic remedies alone.

We have to get past the idea that political conflicts are fights between good and evil.

The defeat of the immigration-Ukraine-Israel package marks the end of the party of Eisenhower, Reagan and McCain.

Consuming culture gives us the emotional knowledge that can make us better people.

The swelling ranks of administrators in American life are stealing our time, our freedom and our vitality.

Who will be the best of the rest?

She’s seen as a descendant of the Republican establishment, but she’s actually the kind of bruiser who’s in line with the current G.O.P. vibe.

A presidential vision for a positive-sum world of innovation and peace.

Some of the best long-form essays of 2023.

Now that Sam Altman’s back, will he be able to maintain a balance between safety and the profit motive?

The ancient wisdom of Athens and Jerusalem can help us survive these cruel and challenging times.

Instead of being places where students learn other points of view, American universities have become ideological war zones.

Despite his bad poll numbers, I see a path to victory for Biden.

Ancient wisdom can help keep us from becoming calloused over.

The Israel-Gaza conflict has destroyed certain assumptions about the world order and pushed us closer to nihilism.

Become such a good listener, you’re “burning calories.”

Human beings long to have another person look at them with love and acceptance.

It’s hard not to wonder whether today’s suffering could have been avoided if in 2000 Palestinians had taken the offer of a path toward statehood.

As worried as many of us are about the president’s chances, he is our best shot at beating Trump.

The entrepreneur seems to see himself as a mythical hero.

You can’t negotiate with narcissism.

As China stumbles, Ohio rebounds.

People are driven by a lot more than self-interest.

Donors, this is the moment to give her a chance.

Yet parents sends the opposite message to the young.

How an epidemic of immaturity swept our land.

How the modern meritocracy made Trump inevitable.

Douglas Hofstadter is re-examining his stance on artificial intelligence.

We don’t watch sports for happiness; we watch for the human drama.

It’s the national psychology, not the economy.

David Brooks makes the case for class-based admissions.

The Los Angeles Dodgers succumb to pressures from the elite.

Times columnists chose the TV shows, movies, books and songs that capture the country as they see it.

How to stay sane during the coming presidential campaign.

The No Labels plan is just too risky.

If affirmative action goes, bigger changes are necessary.

He was a guide to a wonder-filled life.

How to survive in the age of acceleration.

Baby boomers postponed common milestones of adulthood. Gen Z-ers are doing that with a vengeance.

The contest between Biden and Trumpism is a contest between decency and its opposite.

Despite its detractors, it just keeps rolling on.

Pro-business policies are behind boom towns.

America is rebounding, but will cynicism stop the renewal?

Both sides are spending lots of money on technological elites.

The Post-Tucker conservatives have arrived.

The recent emotional storm did nobody any good.

Searching for beauty as the world turns ugly.

How to be a recovering globalist in a few easy lessons.

Covid disrupted education, and now the task is to build something new.

I learned hard lessons when my oldest friend, Pete, plunged into depression.

How to acquire the skills no machine can have.

The shape of his governing style is coming into focus.

Is the G.O.P. beyond hope for two conservatives?

David Brooks honors some of the year’s best essays.