New York Occasions columnist and PBS Information Hour speaking head David Brooks loves himself some Stalin and Mao analogies. Again in Could, he in contrast Elon Musk and DOGE to the murderous dictators. This Friday, he in contrast President Trump, the renaming of the Kennedy Heart to the Trump-Kennedy Heart, and “gigantic portraits” of Trump to the communist tyrants and claimed it reminded him of the “Stalin period.”
Throughout a dialogue on the Kennedy Heart rebrand, host Geoff Bennett questioned, “Are we seeing an evolution right here in how President Trump publicly asserts his energy?”
Brooks agreed, “Sure, that is properly put. It’s an assertion of energy. You suppose, who else has huge portraits of themselves throughout? Mao Zedong. Stalin. Authoritarian leaders know {that a} sure a part of the inhabitants likes it once they see the good chief idolized and commemorated.”
In keeping with Brooks, it’s not simply the Kennedy Heart, “I’ve a constructing proper by my home on Capitol Hill, and it is Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump, gigantic portraits. And it does remind you of going again to the Stalin period.”
It’s unclear what Brooks is referring to. On the finish of August, the Labor Division did put up two massive banners—one in all Trump and one in all Roosevelt—on the skin of their constructing, however they’ve since been taken down. There have been no related information tales since.
Nonetheless, Brooks concluded, “And so it’s a type of psychological amassing of energy to show your self right into a demigod. And I feel, as unhappy and pathetic as he makes it, I feel that is what he is attempting to do.”
Within the Stalin period, it was harmful to be the primary one to cease applauding the cult chief’s speech. Within the Trump period, New York Occasions columnists go on TV to complain.
Here’s a transcript for the December 19 present:
PBS Information Hour
12/19/2025
7:51 PM ET
GEOFF BENNETT: Are we seeing an evolution right here in how President Trump publicly asserts his energy?
DAVID BROOKS: Sure, that is properly put. It’s an assertion of energy. You suppose, who else has huge portraits of themselves throughout? Mao Zedong. Stalin. Authoritarian leaders know {that a} sure a part of the inhabitants likes it once they see the good chief idolized and commemorated.
I’ve a constructing proper by my home on Capitol Hill, and it is Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump, gigantic portraits. And it does remind you of going again to the Stalin period.
And so it’s a type of psychological amassing of energy to show your self right into a demigod. And I feel, as unhappy and pathetic as he makes it, I feel that is what he is attempting to do.
