David Brooks, "If Not Trump, What?": Meet the Neighbors? Be Real!

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"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Informing us in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "If Not Trump, What?" that Donald "looks set to be the Republican presidential nominee," David Brooks would have us know that this phenomenon "has reminded us how much pain there is in this country." Observing that Trump is not the "right response" to this pain, Brooks concludes his opinion piece by suggesting:

"Trump will have his gruesome moment. The time is best spent elsewhere, meeting the neighbors who have become strangers, and listening to what they have to say."

Listen to what my neighbor has to say? The one who built the outhouse for his foreign laborers opposite my front door? I don't think so.

More to the point, Trump and Hillary comprise only a small portion of my pain, which is not limited to American politics. There's also the anti-Semitism emerging from the closet of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. And let's not forget Obama's appeasement of Iran, which continues with its apocalyptic ballistic missile program, in open collaboration with North Korea, without opposition from the High Priest of Hope and Change.

Indeed, what does one do with this despair? In my case, I just returned from a chamber music concert given by young musicians at a nearby museum. There's also the spring promise of my vegetable garden; my dogs who know no pessimism; a screenplay in the works which keeps me distracted; and the three companies with which I work, all striving to revolutionize the fields of medicine and medical devices.

Yes, there is still "good" in this world, but forgive me if I retreat inward and attempt to recoup my faith in humanity.