“I spent much of my adulthood in the conservative movement. It looks nothing like today’s GOP but that intellectual tradition still has a lot to teach us, including to progressives.”

Yale Conversations: a new public forum presented by the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs in collaboration with the Office of the President and led by Presidential Senior Fellow David Brooks, fostering respectful debate and intellectual exchange across differences. 

Author and columnist David Brooks was appointed as a Presidential Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs in February 2026. Brooks is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and a regular contributor to PBS NewsHour. He worked as an opinion columnist at The New York Times for 22 years and has written for The Wall Street Journal, in addition to authoring books on topics ranging from neuroscience to ethics.