Today’s Tom Woods Letter, which all the influential people receive every weekday. Be one of them.

Phrases like “an ambitious governing agenda” make me want to commit an atrocity. Especially when uttered by a so-called conservative.

David Brooks is what the New York Times serves up to America as a conservative. He plays his duly appointed role well: he challenges no p.c. platitude, has no especially edgy (or even particularly interesting) ideas, and in general is vastly more at home with the New York Timeseditorial board than he is with middle America.

And David Brooks is super excited about where Conservatism, Inc., is headed.

Of course, Conservatism, Inc., has been completely routed over the past 18 months, totally unable to prevent the rise of Donald Trump despite its unprecedented denunciations.

But things are bright, says Brooks. (Warning: here comes “an ambitious governing agenda.”)

I’m insanely optimistic about a conservative rebound. That’s because of an observation the writer Yuval Levin once made: That while most of the crazy progressives are young, most of the crazy conservatives are old. Conservatism is now being led astray by its seniors, but its young people are pretty great…. Conservatism’s best ideas are coming from youngish reformicons who have crafted an ambitious governing agenda (completely ignored by Trump).

“Youngish reformicons” with “an ambitious governing agenda.”

No wonder the Times keeps this guy around.

Because that’s just what the world needs: another “ambitious governing agenda.”

No normal conservative, or just a normal person for that matter, speaks this way. We need someone who’s “ready to govern,” say the lizard aliens who share their opinions on television. Do you know any Earthlings who talk like that?

By “ready to govern,” of course, they mean: ready to treat everyone and everything as being at the disposal of government, whose political science graduates will decide what portion of society’s resources are to be drained away to the political class in pursuit of their goals.

“Ready to govern” never means “ready to humbly execute the laws.” It always involves systematically overriding people’s preferences. Not that that matters to David Brooks, the New York Times‘ house conservative, who is ready to tell you that constructing his vision of the “social good” is more important than your stupid preferences.

This is classic leftism, which was always bored by the prosaic pursuit of bourgeois life. It always needed to be pursuing some grand scheme of social reconstruction. Leaving people to their lives and property: where’s the fun in that? We need an ambitious governing agenda!

And that’s why David Brooks, and not Tom Woods Show guest Paul Gottfried, is the New York Times‘ house conservative.