David Brooks has done it again; castigated the left for the sins of the right. In his NYT op-ed on 8/22/2025, The Rise of Right-Wing Nihilism, he says “conservatives … feel drenched by a constant downpour of progressive sermonizing.” And feeling oppressed by “educated elites” drives the more extreme of them to want to tear down the system.
What a strange diagnosis. It’s not news that far-right people have been persuaded by social media echo chambers, talk shows, and conservative news sites to believe liberalism is the root of all evil, but apparently now the prime culprits are the so-called educated elites.
Brooks fails to note that there was a time — up until about 15 years ago — when that wasn’t the case, as this chart from Pew Research demonstrates for American voters with or without a college degree. Not only that, but up until around 2004, those with a college degree or higher favored Republicans. That margin (54% red vs. 44% blue) has more than reversed to become 55% blue v. 42% red, most sharply around the 2016 election.
(The Democrats’ current margin expands from 13 to 24 for those with postgraduate degrees. I guess I should stop referring to myself as Doctor Dutton if I don’t want trouble.)
So, what changed? Did educated elites suddenly start smothering society around the time that Obama took office? Brooks doesn’t mention the 44th president, whom Trump and the right have been demonizing. Could some of the switches in sentiment be laid to stirred-up racism? Brooks doesn’t bother to inquire.
Browsing the top 2685 comments on the op-ed, I saw only one that praised it. So at least there’s that.
To bolster his ahistorical argument, Brooks summarizes a study by Psychologists Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman at Northwestern University based on 1,452 confidential interviews with undergrads at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan:
They found that an astounding 88 percent of the students said they pretended to be more progressive than they are in order to succeed academically or socially. More than 80 percent of the students said they submitted class work that misrepresented their real views in order to conform to the progressive views of the professor. Many censored their own views on cultural issues — on gender and family issues, for example.
Wokism at work, right? Wrong. Students would similarly curry favor no matter what their professors’ political stripe. It’s called competition for grades. Long ago I had a few conservative professors (even at Columbia!) and not once did I feel I had to knuckle under to their beliefs. But this is a different era. Trapped in electronic echo chambers, people’s beliefs harden even before they are exposed to higher learning. I thought education was supposed to open minds, but nowadays many show up at college locked shut.
Brooks goes on to assert that progressive attitudes drive right-leaning people to nihilism:
But there’s another, even more radical reaction to progressive cultural dominance: nihilism. You start with the premise that progressive ideas are false and then conclude that all ideas are false. In the dialogue, [Curtis] Yarvin played the role of nihilist. He ridiculed [Christopher] Rufo for accomplishing very little and for aiming at very little with his efforts to purge this university president or that one.
“You are just pruning the forest,” Yarvin said dismissively. He countered that everything must be destroyed: In general, Yarvin is a monarchist, but in this dialogue he played a pure nihilist. One version of nihilism holds that the structures of civilization must be destroyed, even if we don’t have anything to replace them with. He argued that all of America has been a sham, that democracy and everything that has come with it is based on lies.
Well, there are more than enough lies in circulation about how our country works. Some come from “liberal elites” in seats of power (the Times’ editors being one of them) who fear that progressives will threaten their cushy situations. Look at how the Democratic establishment deep-sixed Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2016, and are now intent on nixing Zorhan Mamdani‘s excellent chance of becoming Mayor of NYC, lining up to shower praise and largess on a corrupt mayor and a corrupt ex-governor.
(Both of Mamdani’s opponents say they are open to working with Trump. Is this really what the Democrats want?)
Then there is the infinity of lies, disinformation and rancor spewed forth by right wing talk radio, media, social media, Christian nationalist preachers, and our President and his proxy proselytizers. Is not nihilism fed by such toxic rejection of institutions, science and education that right-wing elites have deliberately fomented? Is the dissolution of America really the result of progressives oppressing the masses?
Come on. It is common to hear Democratic politicians denounced as communists, which is about as far from reality as you can get in practically every case. And for the most part, they’re not even progressive. Public opinion about progressives has been poisoned right, left, and center. The powerless are blamed for the sins of the powerful, and cultural critiques by the likes of David Brooks simply are a smokescreen obscuring how power manipulates the populace.
No wonder Trump and his allies are trying to gut educational institutions and close minds.
Near the end, Brooks says, “Smothering progressivism produced a populist reaction that eventually descended into a nihilist surge. Nihilism is a cultural river that leads nowhere good.”
I agree with the second statement but reject the first. The cause, Mr. Brooks, is liberal dissembling and conservative falsehoods taken at face value, both by people who should know better and people who don’t want to know they’re being had. And you should know that. Didn’t you go to college?
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