The Vanishing Compass: When No Faction Looks Like the Good Guys

In his final New York Times column (8/8/2026) , Ross Douthat — departing for CBS's 60 Minutes — offers a striking reversal from his usual posture as a confident conservative critic. For 17 years his target was clear: the Obama-era elite consensus, a fusion of social liberalism, technocratic optimism, and cosmopolitan meritocracy that he opposed on religious, political, and structural grounds,…