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by
David Frum
Read between
February 17 - February 22, 2018
Trump has not kept faith with those voters. But they have kept faith with him. For fear of them, Trump’s party stays bolted to him.
For the remainder of the Trump presidency, military and intelligence leaders will work around a president who makes impulsive decisions, issues reckless statements, and cannot keep secrets.
What set them apart from other Republicans was their economic insecurity and their cultural anxiety. Sixty-three percent of Trump’s supporters wished to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants born on US soil.18 More than other Republicans, Trump’s supporters distrusted Barack Obama as alien and dangerous: Only 21 percent acknowledged that Obama was born in the United States; 66 percent of Trump voters believed that Obama was a Muslim.19
short animated video was directed via Facebook to infrequent black voters—not to win them for Trump, but to discourage them from going to the polls at all.
The Kennedys’ many faults were joined to an undeniable grace and generosity of spirit, to authentic public service and a large vision of America. Not so for the Trump family. They came to loot. If rules stood in their way, the rules could go smash.
What we are seeing is a grant of permission from millions of people to the president of the United States to diminish, discredit, corrode, and ultimately subvert what the authors of the US Bill of Rights listed among the very first freedoms necessary to their great experiment in self-government.
Between 2010 and 2016, some twenty states rewrote their laws in ways that made voting more difficult, often with blatantly partisan effect.
it certainly looks as if the Trump campaign coordinated its strategy and messaging with Russian-sponsored hacking and disinformation efforts.
“The truth is, these aren’t very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”
The right of all adult citizens to vote is no longer seriously debated by Americans, but the universal ability to vote seems to encounter new obstacles with every passing year.
In many Americans’ minds, the right to carry arms is now the master right of American law, to which all other rights must yield.
Foreign leaders quickly perceived that Trump could easily be manipulated, but never reasoned with.
A president caught in surveillance because he had accepted pro bono campaign services from the same operative who had previously served Putin’s many in Kyiv?
In order to stop him from betraying his office and the country, the professionals around him have also effectively prevented him from fulfilling his office and serving his country, supposing he were ever minded to do that.
We’ve got two powers: the power of inspiration—and you’ll get the inspiration back—and the power of intimidation, and that’s you.”
“You knew I was a snake when you took me in”—and
Working-class America has not seemed dangerous for a long time. But back when it did seem dangerous, that danger persuaded the privileged—or enough of them—that concessions must be made.
It was in very large part fear of communism that induced businesses to provide pensions and health care benefits to employees . . . that inspired the federal government to invest in great public universities . . . and that compelled the United States to uproot racial segregation.
the rediscovery of the preciousness of truth.
is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity. He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen.15
The Republican Party had dead-ended itself in the Obama years, which is precisely why it lay vulnerable to a manifest charlatan like Donald Trump.
Trump demonstrated that the independents are not moderates, and that the center is not always so sensible.
It is as if millions of people awoke the next morning to the realization, “I must become a better citizen.”
About one-third of Americans in the top three income deciles said it would be “good” or “very good” to be governed by a “strong leader” who “doesn’t have to bother with elections.”
“They go low, we go high,” a wise woman said.
the way that liberty must be defended is not with amateur firearms, but with an unwearying insistence on the honesty, integrity, and professionalism of American institutions and those who lead them.
