On Wednesday night, the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Bret Stephens as he unpacked the shifting political landscape during the first month of the second Trump administration.
He described his transition from writing for the Wall Street Journal, where he spent most of his early career, to the New York Times as “a culture shock,” shifting from a reader base that agreed with his conservative-leaning commentary to a less sympathetic audience at the Times.
Stephens expressed concern at the John Hazen White Sr. Lecture that conservatives are increasingly leaning away from the Times, arguing that it is important for the publication to reach centrist readers.
“I do worry that too many conservatives have given up on the New York Times, and I think that’s a real problem for the paper,” he said, “because it means that we don’t have one institution which offers a common set of facts for everyone.”
Wendy Schiller, the event’s moderator and the director of the center, asked about domestic politics and foreign policy under the second Trump administration. Stephens said that he believes the difference between President Trump’s two wins is that people saw his first election win as a “fluke.” Now, weeks after Trump’s second inauguration, Stephens believes the United States has entered a “Trumpian Era.”
Stephens argued that the 2024 election cycle reflected the country’s split into two separate economies: an economy of words and an economy of things — working against each other in the political arena. The economy of words, he explained, includes people in fields like law, journalism and bureaucracies, while an economy of things encompasses industries like service and manufacturing.
“The economy of things revolted against the economy of words,” Stephens said.
“I think those of us who are in the ‘economy of words’ have to spend a lot more time thinking and engaging and breaking bread with people who are in the ‘economy of things,’” he said. “Otherwise, we’re just never going to understand one another.”
Stephens argued that one of Democrats’ key mistakes this past election cycle was the party’s focus on race rather than class. He said it was “astonishing” that the Republican party, formerly a party of elites, is increasingly becoming a party for the working class.
“It’s been a complete reversal,” Stephens said, noting recent key shifts in the Democratic and Republican bases.
Republicans, he argued, now champion rights like the Second Amendment and freedom of religion. Democrats, once the party of free speech, have tempered their stance in favor of limits on misinformation, he said.
As the conversation turned to foreign policy, Schiller asked about the conflict in Israel and Gaza.
Stephens said he believes the resurgence of antisemitism is the biggest threat to emerge from the Israel-Hamas war.
“The great danger comes when people are convinced the case against the Jews or the case against the Jewish state is the most morally righteous cause,” Stephens said.
In an interview with The Herald prior to the event, he expressed concern for Brown students and peers nationwide who find themselves in ideological echo chambers.
“You’re never thinking well when you’re among a herd,” he said.
Stephens also addressed the clear shift in American politics that he believes began in 2015. Before Trump entered politics, even Republicans were “conservative liberals,” he said, pointing to former Vice President Dick Cheney as a prime example of a politician who held conservative values but still embodied key tenets of liberal democracy: accepting election results and respecting free speech.
“I want to model thoughtful conservatism,” Stephens said.
Stephens concluded with advice for the Democratic party to reach centrist Americans, which he said he tries to do through his column.
“I think columnists are stubborn beings and very reluctant to acknowledge an error in general, or at least in public,” he said. But after 22 years writing columns, he said he believes “you’re bound to get things wrong” and “it’s healthy to look back and think twice.”
Cannon Casper ’25, an avid reader of Stephens’s column, attended the event because of his interest in Stephens as a columnist and their shared alma mater, the Middlesex School.
“I’m pretty skeptical of people who boldly declare the same opinion over and over again, so it was interesting hearing him talk about how, in his own personal life, he considers a lot more nuance,” Casper said.
Amber Marcus-Blank is a senior staff writer covering undergraduate student life. She is a sophomore from outside of Boston studying Political Science and Public Health on the pre-law track. She is interested in working in politics and journalism in the future and enjoys playing soccer and making playlists in her free time.
