David Frum

Saturday

David Frum

I was joking about Meghan and Harry becoming king and queen of Canada

From our UK edition

Washington, D.C. On 8 January, I tweeted about the Sussex-Markles: ‘Obviously the plan is to return to Canada, lead a revolt against British rule, and establish an independent Canadian monarchy.’ Two days later, the New York Times opened a story about the Canada-bound Duke and Duchess of Sussex: ‘Some have suggested they could become king and queen of Canada.’ IT WAS A JOKE! Otherwise, I’m going to have Canadian security surveilling my cottage in Ontario as a node of Sussexite sedition. Yet maybe I had glimpsed something. A poll has suggested that 60 per cent of Canadians would support the appointment of Prince Harry as governor general.

Thursday

David Frum

The Trump exodus could cost the Republicans dearly

From our UK edition

The Trump presidency has been a disorienting moment in American political life. Imagine a time traveller starting in the year 1990. He steps forward 25 years to 2015. Who are the leading candidates for president? Bush and Clinton — again! What are the top issues? Iraq and healthcare — again! Now step backwards 25 years from 1965. The most powerful men in Washington are the head of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 55 unions across the US, and J. Edgar Hoover. There’s a draft and a telephone monopoly and urban riots and liberal Republicans. It’s a different world. I sometimes feel that what Trump has done is restore motion to a political system that froze in place when the baby-boomers reached middle age. What’s coming next? Something radically different.

David Frum

America Notebook

From our UK edition

I am writing on the morning that President Obama is to deliver his last State of the Union address. You, reader, therefore know what he has said. I can only guess. ‘We have come so far… yet there remains so much to do.’ Did I get it right? Yet ‘much to do’ only mildly describes the staggering array of crises that President Obama will bequeath his successor. Abroad: a crisis in the Chinese economy that is plunging into depression commodity exporters from Brazil to Brunei… a third war in Iraq, this time fought in undeclared association with Russia and Iran… a wave of refugees into Europe that threatens to smash apart the world’s largest economic union.

Saturday

David Frum

Why does Donald Trump hate dogs?

Here’s an aspect of Donald Trump’s personality that I’ve never got past: his hatred of dogs. When Trump tweeted on 5 January that his former aide Steve Bannon had been ‘dumped like a dog’, he recycled an insult he has hurled more than a dozen times since declaring for president, according to the indispensable TrumpTwitterArchive.com. After the 2016 election, a wealthy Trump supporter offered the new First Family a gift of an especially adorable Goldendoodle. On a visit to Mar-a-Lago, the supporter showed a photo of the dog to Trump. The President-elect asked her to show the photo to his then ten-year-old son, Barron. ‘Barron will fall in love with him,’ Trump said. ‘Barron will want him.’ That’s just what happened.

Thursday

David Frum

Diary – 11 January 2018

From our UK edition

Like every journalist in Washington, I’m enthralled by the new Michael Wolff book, Fire and Fury, which depicts Donald Trump as a president in steep mental decline, derided and despised by his entire entourage, family included. I read with perhaps special attention because I have a book of my own about the Trump phenomenon being released on 16 January, just over a week after Wolff’s. The experience is a little like being the next presenter at the Golden Globes immediately after Oprah Winfrey’s speech. Wolff is interested in personalities, not politics. But while Trump may be stupid or crazy, the people enabling him are neither of those things.

Sunday

David Frum

The enigma of the Trump-Putin story

From our UK edition

Donald Trump’s Washington is a city of many secrets, but no mysteries. So much about the Trump-Putin story remains unknown, and possibly will never be known. But the fundamentals have never been concealed. In order to help elect Trump as US president, Russian operatives engaged in a huge and risky espionage and dirty tricks operation. Trump and his team publicly welcomed and gratefully accepted help from WikiLeaks, widely regarded as a front for Russian intelligence. Trump surrounded himself with associates and aides, including a campaign chairman and a national security adviser, who had in the past received pay from Russian state TV and pro-Putin oligarchs.

Saturday

David Frum

Why are only a lonely few Republicans staying aloof from the Trump crowd?

From our UK edition

The Trump administration is having abnormal effects on Washington social life too, especially among Republicans. During the campaign Trump was almost unanimously opposed by the conservative elites in Congress, media, and think tanks. But since his nomination and — especially — election, most have made one form or another of individual peace with the new regime. Some reserve some kind of private interior space for dissent from this or that corruption or abuse. Others not only drink the Kool-Aid, but positively bathe in it. For those few who remain utterly unreconciled, it is painful to watch formerly independent-minded friends submit one by one. Some of this can be explained cynically: people’s livelihoods here depend not just on access, but on the perception of access.

Thursday

David Frum

Diary – 6 April 2017

From our UK edition

Donald Trump’s Washington is a city of many secrets, but no mysteries. So much about the Trump-Putin story remains unknown, and possibly will never be known. But the fundamentals have never been concealed. In order to help elect Trump as US president, Russian operatives engaged in a huge and risky espionage and dirty tricks operation. Trump and his team publicly welcomed and gratefully accepted help from WikiLeaks, widely regarded as a front for Russian intelligence. Trump surrounded himself with associates and aides, including a campaign chairman and a national security adviser, who had in the past received pay from Russian state TV and pro-Putin oligarchs.

Thursday

David Frum

David Frum’s diary: When Hamas shoots at Israel, they’re shooting at my kid

From our UK edition

 Wellington, Ontario A British visitor to this village might be disoriented by the flags. They look almost exactly like the Union Jack, but not quite. These banners omit the Cross of St Patrick, which was bundled into the flag of the United Kingdom only in 1801: this is the earlier version, carried north to Canada by the losers of the American revolution. My wife and I and our three children have been spending summers in Wellington since the late 1980s, when her parents bought a disused tomato farm with a vast view of Lake Ontario. Back then, this part of Ontario was bypassed by modern development.

Wednesday

David Frum

Listen up, Dave: to care is not to do

From our UK edition

David Frum on the lessons the Tories can learn from the original conservative moderniser: George W. Bush, whose progressive policies often just didn’t add up Political parties typically undergo a four-stage cycle after a major defeat. It goes something like this: 1. We didn’t really lose. (The other guys just happened to luck into an appealing candidate — but the people still really prefer us.) 2. OK, we lost — but only because the voters are idiots. 3. OK, we lost and maybe the voters are not idiots — but there is nothing we can do without betraying our sacred principles. 4. Hey, maybe there is something we can do. The British Conservative party has reached Stage 4. The US Republican party is stuck in Stage 1.