One of the most provocative and influential voices of his generation, Douthat joined The New York Times as the newspaper's youngest-ever op-ed columnist. He writes on Tuesdays and Sundays for the paper, covering American politics, religion, pop culture, and intellectual life, and he is the film critic for National Review. He released The Deep Places, a memoir of his experience with chronic illness and timely Covid-era exploration of the limits and blind spots of official medicine. Douthat is the co-author, with Reihan Salam, of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, a book widely credited with anticipating the rise of conservative populism in Western politics and even the presidency of Donald Trump. At the same time, as a conservative who writes for a primarily liberal readership, and a co-founder of the New York Times podcast The Argument, he is known for his careful, thoughtful style of debate and dialogue, and his ability to engage with audiences across the political spectrum. 

His other books include The Decadent Society, To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, and Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class. 

Douthat is a non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a media fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, and the writer-in-residence at the Elm Institute. He lives in New Haven with his wife and four children.