David Brooks

True, and sure enough, it did.

Yeah.

When people hear these days, neocon, they think of the Iraq war and they think of Republicans who supported the Iraq war.

But neoconservatism, actually, it has its roots in a dining hall, a college dining hall.

The City College of New York was a school or still is a school for mostly for immigrant kids in those days.

I think no tuition now, very low tuition.

So if you have if you've just come to America and you want to make it,

City College is a great place to go.

And in the 1930s, there were a group of young, mostly Jewish kids who were communists.

And they had names like Nathan Glazer and Seymour Martin Lipset and Irving Kristol.

And they were a certain kind of communist.

They were Trotskyites.

And the Trotskyites were the smart communists, basically.

And there were another kind called the Stalinists.

And they were sort of the dumb conformists, to be honest.

And in the dining hall, the Trotskyites, like Crystal and Nathan Glazer, ate in alcove one, a little part of the dining hall.

And the Stalinists ate in alcove two.

And the Trotskyites were so much better at beating the Stalinists in argument, the Stalinists, in true Stalinist fashion, forbade their members from debating with the Trotskyites.

And so they were communists in the 30s.

And then along comes the war.