You can’t oppose Marjorie Taylor Greene and then think what Al Green did was totally fine.

David Brooks on Trump’s speech to the nation on Tuesday night and the current plight of the Democratic Party:

There were a lot of dramatic moments for people to think: Wow, that’s a good guy. The moment with that cute kid, DJ, who wants to become a cop and who is suffering from brain cancer. Widows were recognized.

And I thought the Democrats should have just sat there. When Marjorie Taylor Greene behaved shamefully, a lot of progressive commentators were rightly offended. Then last night you had the screaming and Al Green’s removal. You have to have some intellectual consistency. You can’t oppose Marjorie Taylor Greene and then think what Al Green did was totally fine.

I thought the Democrats were losing their way until the response. I thought Elissa Slotkin’s response was excellent. She spoke in a way that appeals to swing voters. She didn’t talk like she was coming out of Washington, D.C., or some faculty club. She talked about the big issues in a big way, in a way that appeals to people who are undecided. That was the kind of message the Democratic Party can build on.

And this:

I would advise Democrats to take some time off. They’re not in control. They don’t have power. But mostly a lot of the categories Democrats have used to understand reality don’t describe actual reality.

I don’t think Democrats have coped with the fact that they’re more the party of the elites now than the party of the working class. I don’t think they expected so many Black and brown voters to go for Donald Trump, and it just takes an intellectual revolution to adjust.

And they have to make some fundamental decisions. Do they want to work really hard to once again become the party of the working class? Is that even possible? Joe Biden tried with good economic policies — a large percentage of his policies helped working-class voters. It did him no political good because you can’t solve with economics a problem that’s fundamentally about culture and respect.

Or, maybe they should accept the fact that they’re the party of the college educated and urban classes, and that’s who they are, and they’re going to represent those people and hopefully build some majorities around those people.

Going back to the 19th century, Andrew Jackson — who’s the closest politician we’ve ever had to Donald Trump. He was a narcissist, he was power hungry, and didn’t fundamentally know what he was doing to screw up. And lo and behold, Andrew Jackson made a terrible decision to close the Second Bank of the United States and the end result was, basically, a decadelong depression.

So Democrats right now have to wait for Donald Trump to screw up. I think the tariffs may be that screw-up. The policy toward Ukraine may be that screw-up. I’m assuming that a guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing will make some major errors and then the Democrats will see some opportunities.

And this:

And I would say if you’re a Democrat with progressive values, there are some ways you’ve won the country over: on gay marriage, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights. But the high school sports thing is probably a step too far right now, and it may, frankly, forever be a step too far.

And so my advice is to focus on the values that really help win elections. If you’re running in a political campaign, be true to your values in ways that win elections.

And this:

“…in my view, the highly educated people have created a caste system in America over the last 70 years. People with high school degrees die eight years sooner than people with college degrees. People with high school degrees, their children fall four grade levels behind kids from other families by sixth grade. They’re four grade levels lower. And Trump says: “I’m with you guys, the working class.”

And Democrats have gotten on the wrong side of both those gigantic issues. And those are epochal issues. And he builds on that in a lot of different ways. And he did so Tuesday night just by celebrating the kid who wants to become a cop. He’s not celebrating the kid who wants to become a neuroscientist.

And this:

There’s a Bruce Springsteen song from 2012 called “We Take Care of Our Own.” That song has a brilliant double message which is, “We love our people and we take care of our own.” But it’s also, “We only take care of our own.” And Trump does this. It’s all about the in group and the out group. “We take care of our own, but those people in the out group, they’re the enemy.”

And I travel a lot. In my travels, most people are just incredibly generous, in red and blue states, and so I find on a local level people go out of their way for each other. But it’s at the national level, and when you’re dealing with strangers, and especially when you’re dealing with the world through the prism of the media, then the nastiness becomes so easy. Trump plays on an abstracted negativity or an abstracted hatred that I don’t think shows up all that often — it does obviously sometimes, but in day-to-day life.

Read the entire interview here.