Published

2 years ago

March 5, 2025

Alice Rush

Here’s what commentator David Brooks said after the White House’s mistreatment of the Ukrainian president on Friday:

I was nauseated, just nauseated. All my life, I have had a certain idea of about America, that we’re a flawed country, but we’re fundamentally a force for good in the world, that we defeated the Soviet Union, we defeated fascism, we did the Marshall Plan, we did PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) to help people living in Africa. And we make mistakes, Iraq, Vietnam, but they’re usually mistakes out of stupidity, naivete and arrogance.

They’re not because we’re ill-intentioned. What I have seen over the last six weeks is the United States behaving vilely, vilely to our friends in Canada and Mexico, vilely to our friends in Europe. And today was the bottom of the barrel, vilely to a man who is defending Western values, at great personal risk to him and his countrymen.

Donald Trump believes in one thing. He believes that might makes right. And, in that, he agrees with Vladimir Putin that they are birds of a feather. And he and Vladimir Putin together are trying to create a world that’s safe for gangsters, where ruthless people can thrive. And we saw the product of that effort today in the Oval Office.

And I have — I first started thinking, is it — am I feeling grief? Am I feeling shock, like I’m in a hallucination? But I just think shame, moral shame. It’s a moral injury to see the country you love behave in this way.

—

Since my boyhood 60 years ago, I’ve heard people argue back and forth whether or not the United States truly is a force for good in the world, or if it looks out for its own interests, and good things sometimes accidentally derive from that. In any case, let’s agree that there is (or was) something intrinsically good about our nation and the way it had traditionally functioned in the world.

At this point, of course, it’s impossible to argue against David Brooks’ position, that any American beneficence has gone the way of chrome hubcaps and bell-bottoms, replaced the president’s sociopathic need become just one more dictator on this sad planet.

David Brooks “Nauseated” on America’s Moral Implosion

Related Topics:commentator David Brooks White House

Up Next

Another Report on the International Reaction to Trump

Don't Miss

Solar-Powered Domino’s and 5 Other Encouraging Signs of Progress in the Southeast

Alice Rush

Renewable Energy

Trump Targets Revolution Wind, Nordex Q3 EBITDA Doubles

Published

8 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Trump Targets Revolution Wind, Nordex Q3 EBITDA Doubles

Allen covers the Trump administration’s bid to reopen Revolution Wind’s permit, a bipartisan Senate permitting deal, Nordex’s doubled third-quarter profit, and GE Vernova’s new wind chief.

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Trump Targets Revolution Wind, Nordex Q3 EBITDA Doubles

Renewable Energy

Dictators

Published

1 day ago

October 18, 2026

Alice Rush

Have you ever wondered why every dictator in human history follows the exact same playbook? Check this out.

Plato nailed this 2400 years ago, and it’s been on “rinse/repeat” ever since.

Dictators

Renewable Energy

Making Billions by Harming Others

Published

2 days ago

October 17, 2026

Alice Rush

On average, I meet perhaps 50 K-12 teachers each year, and I often ask them: What is the biggest challenge you face that impacts your ability to connect with and educate your students?

Here’s a rough tabulation:

Screen time, how it robs kids of their ability to pay attention, impedes social interaction, and makes parenting more difficult: 80%

Everything else combined: 20%

Maybe this is a cynical viewpoint, but it seems like that world of today revolves around the mega-corporations profiting by punishing their customers.

In this case, we have the tech giants ruining the lives of our children. Elsewhere, we have healthcare industry driving people into bankruptcy, Big Oil ruining our planet, the gun lobby murdering our kids, and, of course, an ultra-corrupt government looting our treasury to pay off billionaire donors.

Note that this wasn’t the case when we boomers were growing up 60 years ago. This is a distinctive shift from the 1960s when corporate America was focused on things like color TVs and the Ford Mustang.