David Frum: The United States faces a national-security emergency

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/19/david-frum-the-united-states.html

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David Frum, the conservative Republican senior

Inevitable response from the Know-Nothings: “he can’t be any of those things, he’s from soshalist Canada. Fake news!”

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It is a damnably bizarre world when I find myself agreeing with David Frum. Dang.

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Frum has been pretty angry and sharp since before the election. Actually said some of the first really hopeful things I’d heard after the election. I forgot what, honestly; I heard them on NPR a few minutes after getting out of “Rogue One,” in which all of the good guys die heroically.

What we DO about this is to get fucking INVOLVED and ORGANIZE.

Find an Indivisible group. Volunteer for your local Democratic (or DSA or whatever) party.

Volunteer, donate, inspire. Get out on the streets with friends.

One of the local Indivisible groups put together a #ConfrontCorruption march in downtown Portland (and another in a suburb) in a matter of days.

Donate to the ACLU and Human Rights Watch and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Cynicism is compliance.

P.S. Also, I wouldn’t mind at all if Trump got shoved down a set of stairs by a heroic staffer. Preferably crushing Stephen Miller in the process, as long as that racist weasel didn’t cushion the impact enough to prevent Trump from breaking his neck.

P.P.S. And is too much to hope for that Stephen Bannon and Sebastian Gorka get hit with a meteor?

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I think that the Trump GOP will eventually implode and destroy itself. And that’s a bad thing for the country. The country is best off with a strong 2 (or more) party system with both sides committed the the republic even if they disagree on policy. People like David Frum give me hope that there is a non-Trump remnant of the GOP that one day may rise again.

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I don’t agree with enough of his positions that I’d want him on my team, but I sure do wish there were more people like him on the other team.

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How about the GOP disappears up its own arsehole, and the Democratic party splits between the blue dogs and the justice wing?

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Agreed, except that at least part of what Frum is angry about is the discovery that it’s not really his team anymore. While he and George Will and the rest of the intellectual conservatives at The New Republic were polishing their small government, fiscally responsible talking points, a bunch of poorly educated, honest-to-goodness white supremacists snuck in behind them and walked off with the whole platform- lights, teleprompter, balloons and everything.

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…And made sure to shovel a few extra shiploads of the common wealth to the elite in order to secure their position.

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Maybe, just maybe, the head cheerleader for a war based on false intel that resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths and the increased destabalisation of the Middle East might consider shutting the fuck up regarding what is and isn’t a national security emergency.

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I actually thought Frumm had some anchoring in reality. Clearly he has been in the USA far to long.

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[Thoughts and prayers intensify]

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He was the same in Canada. He left because the country wasn’t moving to the right quickly enough for his taste.

He shares in the responsibility for the current state of affairs. Fuck David Frum and his opinions.

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Political parties like the GOP and DP ought to be illegal, and treated as the amoral conspiracies that they actually are.

Once a single party is allowed to exist, other conspiracies must form, because of the simple mathematics of many against one. But a two party system can be far worse than a single party one.

In a two party system, whenever one party is in power, the other will do everything they can to sabotage any effort of the government to improve the lot of the common man. They don’t want their opponents to get credit for doing good, so they will do their crooked best to find a way prevent it from happening.

All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.
 
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

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The alternative to political parties has, historically, been unofficial and unaccountable cliques forming around rich and/or charismatic people. (Which tend to turn into political parties if they last long enough.) Banning parties is not a solution.

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I know the feel. I have found myself in the very uncomfortable position to agree more than once with Angela Merkel. I somehow got nearly used to it.

But when I fullheartedly agreed with Wolfgang Schäuble some weeks ago, I had really trouble readjusting to reality.

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If the system contained enough parties that no single party could rule as the Republicans do now and the Democrats have done in the past, that would curb the worst abuses.

Nonetheless I must disagree with you on the historical inevitability of factionalism, though admittedly I may be allowing my hopes to override pragmatism. :frowning:

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Especially since his work with Bush The Lesser helped set us on a precursor path to what is happening now. His recent appearances on MSNBC have not redeemed his previous sins, IMHO.

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Oh, yes, proportional representation with multiple more focused parties would do good things for American politics. Completely agree with you there. :slight_smile:

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