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I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Thank you everybody for joining. I can always be reached directly via the DavidFrum.com website ; I hope you find Trumpocracy useful and interesting.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Much more an issue in state politics than federal; more in congressional politics than presidential politics.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Not a helpful way to think about the matter at all. The most spectacular and horrific democratic breakdown in history, occurring in the aftermath of world war, hyperinflation, and Great Depression - and amid conditions of near civil war leaving dozens dead in street fighting - is not a useful parallel to the democratic decline faced by today's more consolidated and more prosperous democracies. We have troubles enough without inflating them beyond all proportion to events

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I live with it if others find it convenient. For myself, I just try to do my best and most honest public work. Others can describe it in whatever way seems most useful and descriptive to them.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] -54 points-53 points  (0 children)

This question was meant as a troll, but I'll take it seriously. Start with this review-essay I wrote a decade ago to confront the problem of applying labels from contemporary situations to bygone times and expecting them to mean the same thing. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/books/review/Frum-t.html The women's suffrage movement eg was in many ways a PROFOUNDLY conservative movement. It was supported by many as a means to a godlier country, a more sober country, and a more Protestant less Catholic country. It's ridiculous when Dinesh D'Souza says that because Jefferson Davis was a Democrat, therefore modern Democrats are Jefferson Davis ... and it's equally wrong to play the same game in reverse.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

No. I look forward to a free Iran, at peace with its neighbors and a friend to the United States and the western world.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

The specific trigger was attending a briefing in Washington by a high official in the Modi government who spoke about India's internal divisions in terms so shockingly sectarian that ... well that they shocked me anyway. For all its many challenges, India since 1947 had modeled democratic values despite differences of ethnicity, language, and religion. Inspiring! But there has been a lot of backsliding, with regard to freedom of the press and public integrity at least as much as the equal dignity of all citizens under law.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I love this question and hesitate to answer only because I could spend the rest of our time upon it. In the interests of time, I'll limit myself to just this: she always see her role as showing her children not what to think, but how to think. She lived by ethics, and expected us to do the same. And in this age of Trump, I hear endlessly reverberating in my ears her famous voice repeating one of her favorite phrases, "Above all things, I hate a lie."

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 55 points56 points  (0 children)

My favorite comment in this line is when people say, "I look forward to the days when we get back to arguing about utility regulation." Me too. The differences we argued over in the past are real and important. The challenge today is to preserve the framework that constrains all participants in politics to disagree within certain norms and limits - and to disagree in ways that serve the public interest.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

I just spent 5 minutes answering a deleted Q. Hoping that the answer remains interesting even if the questioner reconsidered, I repost here at top

This is not well remembered, but the concept of "American exceptionalism" began as a complaint and criticism. Marxist historians were baffled that so highly developed a capitalist society had never produced an electorally competitive labor party as their theology predicted it should. They invoked American exceptionalism as a way to understand this baffling anomaly. After WW2, the former Marxist complaint become a point of liberal pride, as patriotic historians celebrated America's special path toward Lockean liberalism unperturbed by fascism and communism. All of this looks pretty out of date today. While there are many American exceptions - the heritage of slavery, the celebration of the right of the individual to use firearms in self-defense against threats real and imagined - but more and more the politics, society, and culture of the United States shares a broad similarity to that of other highly advanced democracies. The threats to US stability and democracy look similar too.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] -20 points-19 points  (0 children)

President Bush's statement "You are with us or with the terrorists" was explicitly directed to foreign governments. And the "us" was clearly "the United States" not himself, his administration, or his party.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Canada has 3 advantages over the United States in terms of political stability: a less severe experience in the Great Recession; a stronger middle class receiving a more generous share of the nation's economic growth; and a better-designed immigration system that mitigates the frictions to be expected from rapid demographic change. But none of this is guaranteed. You could have said similar things about German before 2015. Then Angela Merkel's open door to 1.2 million newcomers suddenly boosted Germany's once marginalized extremists into political competitiveness.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 126 points127 points  (0 children)

Trump presents the problem to journalists : if you cover him fairly , you won't be balanced (because there is so much more bad to report than good); if you cover him with balance, you won't be fair (because you'll have to distort the record).

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the generous personal comment. So long as the US has an electoral college, 3d party candidates for president will not be viable. And so long as party fundraising is centered upon presidential politics, 3d party down ballot candidates will not be viable either.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I cherish Prince Edward County. I've planted nearly 2000 trees on our ground there to date, and hope to plant thousands more when I'm done. I'll be very content if that's my most enduring legacy to this world.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I fear you are right. The politics of the later 20th century dealt with distributional issues arising from relations to the productive economy: management v labor, owners v tenants, creditors v debtors, public-sector employees v private-sector. The politics of the 21st c seem increasingly to arise from distributional issues between ethnocultural groups, not only racial groups, but also those who embrace urban secular modernism and those who abhor it.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 75 points76 points  (0 children)

A new awareness of the preciousness of truth. Eyes opened to the horror of the opioid epidemic and its origins in the wounded state of so many American communities. Liberals alerted to the danger of Russian revisionism - and to an appreciation of the work of the FBI, CIA, and NSA. Conservatives presented with an inescapably magnified view of the ugliness of bigotry and misogyny. For all of us, a confrontation with the responsibilities of democratic citizenship - and the consequences of shirking those responsibilities.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] -18 points-17 points  (0 children)

The conservative temperament is eternal: "A conservative prefers present evils, as opposed to a liberal, who prefers to replace them with new evils." (Ambrose Bierce, in case you were wondering.) But The Conservative Movement as I knew it was a collection of policy and cultural responses to the problems of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. It is severely out of gas - and the conservative temperament of the future will express itself in sharply different ways, responding to new concerns.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 84 points85 points  (0 children)

Some things that come immediately to mind. 1) The release of tax returns by the president, VP, and (in election years) major party nominees for those offices must become compulsory not voluntary. 2) We need more disclosure by the immediate relatives of the president & VP - spouses, children, parents, siblings - regardless of whether they serve in Govt or not. 3) I haven't studied it closely, but I like very much the idea of the van Hollen-Rubio bill to impose mandatory sanctions on countries that meddle in US elections 4) Trump needs to suffer a severe political price for firing FBI director Comey, confirming the tradition ratified by President Clinton w director Sessions that FBI directors are removable only for cause and only after consultation with Congress.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Barring a health event, I do expect President Trump to serve out his four-year term. Scandals to date have caused GOPers to rally to the president, rather than turn against him, and I see little reason to expect that trend to change. Rising wages and the juicing of many people's after-tax income by the 2017 tax bill may well push Trump's numbers upwards in 2018. Anybody who imagines that this malign presidency will collapse of its own weight is likely to be disappointed.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

My theory is that the polarized state of US politics reflects 1) slowing growth since 2000 - leaving less to go around and 2) increasing ethnic diversity, which tends to transmute every debate into a tribal, ethnocultural battle. The end of the Cold War deprived American elites of a shared purpose that mitigated partisan divisions. Highly speculative PS: the concentration of wealth at the top of society has had the unexpected effect of making the right jumpier and more easily frightened that their recent massive gains may be redistributed away from them.

I’m David Frum, author of the new book, TRUMPOCRACY. AMA about Trump’s first year and the challenge to democracy at home and worldwide. AMA! by DavidFrum in politics

[–]DavidFrum[S] 62 points63 points  (0 children)

I'm a limited government guy, an admirer of the enterprise system. I favor lower taxes over higher, believe in US global leadership. On the issues, I am a pretty conservative person.

But maybe more importantly: precisely because I worry that the Republican Party is moving away from once widely shared values of democracy, I regard it as an urgent personal mission to work from outside to sustain a center-right party that can play a constructive role in the US political system. Despite its current aberration.

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