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Oct 23, 2025

Headline: Trump Has a Religion. What Do Democrats Have?

Sub-headline: Mamdani might be working in Democrats’ favor. But what about “No Kings”?

Oct. 23, 2025, 5:05 a.m. ET

Editor: Here is the ‘meat’ of one of the Brooks segments of this stilted and carefully edited conversation between three NYT political hacks. In this portion of Brooks self-congatulation that meshes with the protestors as utterly like himself : in sum ‘center right’ ?

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Brooks: What I liked about No Kings rallies was just what E.J. mentioned: that people like me, who are kind of center right, would feel completely at home there.

If it starts looking like Occupy Wall Street, then I think: Good for you people, but it’s not for me. I’m hanging around Occupy and my hair starts falling out. But around No Kings, I just feel it’s pro-American. It’s basically in line with the cultural DNA of this country. So I’m very impressed by it.

I think a couple of reservations I have — not criticisms, but things that are not yet there — if you look back at social movements that have succeeded, they’re decentralized. They happen all over, but there are always central collaborating committees. You look at the civil rights movement and they had the N.A.A.C.P., all these acronyms of all these organizations who were leading.

Second, I do think you need leaders, and I think sometimes, like Occupy, people are averse to having one person at the top. But without that, you can’t control your message. You can’t really conduct a strategy.

The civil rights movement conducted a soap opera every day. They told the story every day about segregation, and through that repeated storytelling, you really built the movement. You gave the segregators an unwinnable proposition. When you control the streets, either they cede the streets to you or they crack down on you and look like monsters. And that’s a way to achieve civic power.

The final thing that I think No Kings is so far not making is a vision. Donald Trump has a vision. Trump is a culture. He has a core story: The elites have betrayed you. But he doesn’t only have that story. He has a culture of MAGA, a culture of what a man looks like, what a woman looks like. He has a religion, basically, if you looked at the Charlie Kirk memorial service. He gives you identity. He gives you belonging.

It takes a counterculture to best the culture that Donald Trump is leading. And so far, the Democrats don’t have that; they have a bunch of tax credits. And so far, the No Kings movement doesn’t have that.

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Editor : Reader note that in the above italicised quote Brooks plays a game of one-upmanship, with his intelletual inferiours! Reader recall Brooks of ‘The Collapse of the Dream Palaces’ ? Brooks inserts Charlie Kirk into his political chatter, as a kind of moral/politicasl arbitor. Yet Kirk’s disillusionment with his Zionism, is well reported by his friend and confidant Candace Owens!

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