Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks is in the unique position of declaring war against a Republican president.

 Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks is in the unique position of declaring war against a Republican president.

“[His] is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men,” Brooks writes, “so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed. Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice.”

A “single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order” requires a concerted response to beat it back, says Brooks, and one that is yet to be fully underway. So far, each sector Trump has assaulted, be it law firms, universities or whole groups of people, has responded independently, and therefore ineffectively.

“Harvard eventually drew a line in the sand, but Columbia cut a deal. This is a disastrous strategy that ensures that Trump will trample on one victim after another. He divides and conquers,” Brooks said, pointing out that only a few law firms are fighting against his executive orders targeting them while many more have crawled to the president’s doorstep to work out a deal. Even the "Big Ten" colleges uniting to defend academic freedom from Trump’s attack amount to only a handful out of “roughly 4,000 degree-granting American colleges and universities.”