Based on the headline of David Brooks' latest column ("Why Trump Soars"), it sure sounds like he wants a new lunch buddy.
His thesis:
Many people regard Trump as a joke and his popularity a disgrace. But he is actually riding a deep public fantasy: The hunger for the ultimate blowhard who can lead us through dark times.
He is riding something else: The strongest and most subversive ideology in America today. Donald Trump is the living, walking personification of the Gospel of Success.
Yeah, well, except that's bullshit. Brooks refers to a poll showing Trump within shouting distance of Obama, but that was a Newsweek poll conducted in February. Now, President Obama has a nearly 14 point lead over Trump based on four new polls. Contrast that with Mitt Romney who trails by less than 4 points.
To the extent that Trump is soaring at all, he's only soaring within the GOP. Two polls released this month put him atop the GOP field of candidates, with 26% and 19% of GOP primary voters. But those are hardly commanding leads, and in today's ABC/Washington Post poll, Trump was in second with 8%.
Indeed, the only place Trump is truly soaring to commanding heights is within the media, which is more than can be said about his potential GOP rivals, but hardly evidence of Trump mania sweeping the "national fantasy life."
Rather wasting paragraph after paragraph on a pseudo-analysis of the American psychology, if Brooks really wanted to understand why Trump is on the radar screen, he'd turn his focus to his colleagues in the media. But that's clearly not a story that Brooks has any interest in pursuing.