David Brooks

So in the 1920s and 30s, we had vicious anti-immigration movements.

We had the America Firsters, and we had Father Coughlin, who was sort of a radio priest who had semi-fascist and anti-Semitic tendencies.

And suddenly along came Franklin Roosevelt, along came the Depression, along came World War II, and they were just discredited.

and they were discredited from 1941 to probably 2006 at least.

And they were discredited not by elites, they were discredited by the whole country.

You did not want to say the phrase America first, because that would discredit you.

And along comes Donald Trump.

And when he first started saying the word America first, I was like, what is he doing?

Everyone knows what America first is.

A, I'm not convinced he knew what the original America first was.

B, people had either no historical memory or they didn't care.

And so ideas that were discredited came back.

And that is the nature of politics.

It's never over.

No argument is ever settled.

They come back.

But to me, it's not what a certain set of prosecutors do.

It's whether the mass of America decides that was despicable, that's discredited.

We don't want any piece of that.

And you can learn that lesson.