Brooks: Institutions Are ‘Faltering’ But Not Fundamentally Corrupt, ‘a Lot’ of People in Government Just Wish to Do Their Jobs

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that while institutions aren’t fundamentally corrupt, “our institutions are frail and faltering,” but they are “worthy of respect. And a lot of the people who are prosecutors in the Department of Justice or serving in the Department of Education or whatever, they just want to do their jobs.”

Brooks said, “Trumpism stands for a couple of ideas: One is that people are basically selfish and we should grab what you can while you can, two, that all of our institutions are just fundamentally corrupt, it’s political and it’s corrupt all the way down. Now, I personally don’t agree with that. I’ve covered this town, we all have. And I would say our institutions are frail and faltering, but worthy of respect. And a lot of the people who are prosecutors in the Department of Justice or serving in the Department of Education or whatever, they just want to do their jobs. And the idea that it’s corruption all the way down is just fundamentally not true. But I’ve found it’s very hard to persuade a lot of people in this country of that fact.”

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