NY Times’ David Brooks ‘Thrilled’ to See Political News Struggling After Election: ‘We’re Over-Politicized In This Country’

New York Times columnist David Brooks said on Friday night he was “thrilled” to see political news struggling to court an audience in the wake of a divisive election.

Brooks’s argument was that Americans needed something else to think about in a country he said had become “over-politicized.”

On PBS NewsHour, host Lisa Desjardins noted the program had found the word “exhaustion” was the political word of 2024. Desjardins asked Brooks and Jonathan Capehart what their political words for the year would be. Brooks replied:

I have to say, I’m thrilled by the decline in viewership for political news. We’re over-politicized in this country. People go to politics for a sense of belonging, for a sense of righteousness. You should go to your friends for those things. You’re asking more of politics than politics can bear.

My word for the year is chastened. For those of us who oppose Donald Trump, we should be chastened because of the plurality of the American people thought we were wrong. If you’re a worshiper of the European social welfare model, you should be chastened, because that’s falling apart. If you hated Bibi Netanyahu, you should be a little chastened, because he took down Hamas and Hezbollah and Assad. So there’s a lot of reason for humility at the end of this year.

A survey released Thursday by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that people were “exhausted” by the 2024 election and that a majority had tuned out of political news – including roughly 70 percent of Democrats.

The AP further noted ratings were down at CNN and MNBC by 45 and 54 percent, respectively.

Fox News saw an increase in viewership with ratings up 13 percent. As of mid-December, 72 percent of all evening cable news viewers were watching Fox.

Watch above via PBS NewsHour.