44 The Walrus

profile Fights the Right

Canada’s most controversial conservative export on the future of the Republican Party and his fears for the US election

by curtis gillespie illustrations by clay rodery

n the evening of entrance. There were some minor skir­ up on the giant screen behind the par­ November 2, 2018, mishes, multiple arrests. Inside, some­ ticipants. There was an audible gasp. a Munk Debate took one unveiled a banner that read, “No At the beginning of the debate, 72 per­ place at ’s hate. No bigotry. No place for Bannon’s cent of attendees­ had disagreed with Roy Thomson Hall white supremacy.” Bannon grinned at the proposition that populism would arguing the propos­ the spectacle. Frum sat, patient and be­ soon supplant liberalism. After they Oition that the future of Western politics mused. Once underway, the moderator heard both sides, that figure dropped is populist, not liberal. As the beginning began to explain the scoring method. to 57 percent — Frum, defender of liberal drew near, protests erupted in front of the The crowd would vote now and again democracy, had somehow managed to venue because the organizers had chosen at the end of the evening with provided lose much of the room. Audience mem­ — architect of the Trump clickers. The debate could finally begin. bers were open mouthed. Frum seemed campaign, former leader of the alt-right As the evening progressed, Bannon stunned. Bannon, quite graciously, said, Breitbart empire, Svengali to apprenti­ found various ways to say that populism “If we don’t convert people of the stat­ cing authoritarians, and the world’s fore­ was about the people, not about authori­ ure of David Frum into our movement most proponent of the slept-in ­blazer — to tarianism; Frum found various ways to as the public intellectuals, we’re not go­ argue on behalf of populism. But com­ say that liberal democracy was respon­ ing to have a movement.” Frum con­ mentators were also aghast at the per­ sible for most of society’s major advan­ gratulated Bannon:­ “As in 2016, the rural son tasked with defending the values ces of the last three centuries. There vote came in.” of classical liberalism: David Frum. Yes, was some engagement and the occa­ It wasn’t until later that night, long that David Frum: the neocon sional direct rebuttal, but it was mostly ­after the results had rippled through who served in the George W. Bush White a mild ­affair: two men expressing differ­ ­social media, that the Munk team posted­ House, boisterously supported the ent world views. There was no animosity, a mea culpa online. Due to a tech­nical War, and authored a handful of books ad­ little tension, and in fact, Bannon con­ glitch, they had gotten the numbers vocating hardline conservative policies. sistently expressed his admiration for wrong: 72 percent of the crowd had still Not, in other words, the kind of CV that Frum’s insight, compliments that were not supported the proposition. Either way, shouts out “defender of liberal ­values.” off-putting in their own right. Having it remained a win for Bannon — his alt- “When it’s left to David Frum to hold the Steve Bannon praise your intellect is like right acolytes simply claimed another line against Steve Bannon . . . ” Naomi having Dracula admire your shirt collar. example of the left rewriting history to Klein tweeted, “these Munk ­Debates After about eighty minutes of speeches, suit its own ends. are a disgrace.” the debate was over. It was up to the audi­ There were many possible conclu­ The event was held up for over half an ence now. After a few minutes of tabu­ sions to be drawn from the Munk affair:­ hour due to the commotion outside the lating the results, the numbers popped that, after all the effort, no minds were david frum fights the right 45 46 The Walrus

changed; that the organizers had lost program , which she started thing. Barbara had many sayings that we the data and tried to fudge it; that the ­doing in 1971, she moved to television in still quote, and one of them was, ‘There whole thing had been a charade any­ 1982 and hosted The Journal, which, fol­ are those who know and those who don’t way since Frum made the mistake of lowing The National­ each night, offered know,’ and what she meant by that was taking the debate seriously whereas Ban­ more in-depth reporting and narrative, the knowledge of the potential for tra­ non seemed to treat it like a lark. But lost a kind of daily . It was during gedy in human life, of loss, and just how amid the debacle was maybe the most this period that she became a household near the surface loss and suffering are. important takeaway of all: the event re­ figure in Canada, famous for her fear­ That statement, which I didn’t appreci­ vealed the nearly complete evolution of less reporting and professional manner ate enough when I was young, becomes David Frum. The man who played as that occasionally allowed for a grin or more powerful as you go through life. You prominent a role in American politics as a chuckle. wanted to be one of those who knew, not any Canadian likely ever has — and as a But only occasionally. Her persona as one of those who didn’t know.” ­Republican, no less — had returned home a tough interviewer was so entrenched There were other things Frum felt he to cement the growing understanding that the Maritime comedy show Codco­ came to know. It was in his mid-teens that that he is no longer a reactionary war­ ran a segment, called “The Jugular,” in he had his political “road to Damascus” monger (admittedly my own read for which , impersonating Bar­ moment. In the summer of 1975, he got many years) but is in fact a thinker of bara, interrogated hapless guests so as to a job working on the election campaign centrist and even certain left-leaning draw out their pain and bitterness. She for a Toronto ndp candidate. It was also­ positions: a convert to war skepticism, a was such a good sport about the joke that the summer that his mother gave him a proclaimed internationalist, a sup­porter she and Malone, in drag as Barbara, pre­ copy of ’s The of universal health care, a believer in sented together at the Gulag­ Archipelago. As he trundled back same-sex marriage, an upholder of the one year. Canada’s Sesame Street even and forth on transit — home to work, work role of government, and most promin­ created a Muppet based on her, known to home — he read the book’s devastat­ ently, one of the few leading Republicans as Barbara Plum. She was, in the days ing indictment of the Soviet Union and who was willing to pay the price to say, when there were few television chan­ its vast prison system. Frum was over­ loudly and often, that is nels and no widespread internet, not just taken by a sense that the westernized left, a craven, amoral, criminal, empty, nar­ omnipresent but universally respected in which he saw as sympathizing with rad­ cissistic, inept liar. Which, as the 2020 a way that seems impossible in today’s ical movements, had the world wrong. election season moves into the almost- takedown culture. It felt appropriate that “It had this overpowering effect on me,” can’t-bear-to-watch phase, makes Frum her memorial­ was broadcast on cbc TV, Frum told The Nation in 2012. He finished the most consistent and insightful con­ as if it were a state affair. his placement, but reading Solzhenit­ servative interpreting what’s happening. may have been an icon, syn’s book instigated a reaction against In fact, other than the immigration file, but she was also a mother and a wife. It the ideologies of the left, nascent and un­ on which Frum remains something of a was a strangely splintered upbringing formed as his belief still was then. restrictionist, it may seem fair to con­ for young David in that he had a famous After high school, Frum went to Yale, clude he’s now an out-and-out liberal. (and imposing) mother and a wealthy where he pursued a simultaneous BA and Which really leaves only one question: (and genial) real estate developer ­father, MA in history. To most, it would seem a How the hell did that happen? yet death and mortality hung over the peak experience, but Frum doesn’t quite house every day. Frum’s father, Murray,­ remember it that way. “I was clever in he children of famous parents was born in 1931, the year after his family the sense of ­being pretty well-informed evolve in various ways. Some re­ came to Canada from . The ex­ and verbally deft but also­ missing large T treat entirely, forging private lives. tended family remained behind, and dimensions of human ­wisdom. I was Some struggle to find themselves. Others almost every single member, on both a very serious-­minded young person. become minor replicas of their famous sides, was murdered in the Holocaust. But I lacked things. There are so many progenitors. Then there are those like And, though hardly anyone knew it at things that I should have understood Frum and his senator sister, Linda, who the time, Barbara was first diagnosed that I didn’t.” become parent adjacent, putting down with cancer and told she had one or two Such as? career roots on a different street in the years to live in 1974, when she was thirty-­ He paused, seemed to prepare an an­ same neighbourhood. Frum’s mother, seven and her son fourteen. swer, but drew back. “Oh, I don’t know. Barbara, died in 1992, at the age of fifty- “We had a happy household in so many But I was a hard worker. I really wanted four, from chronic leukemia. It is prob­ ways,” Frum told me by phone from his to learn. And one of the things that we ably difficult for a younger audience to home in Washington, DC. “But that were all always told, as undergraduates, properly­ contextualize the influence and sense of things just off to stage left and was that so many of your most valuable reach she possessed in the later decades stage right, of doom and danger around experiences here will happen outside of her life. After hosting the cbc Radio the corner, that was really a formative of the library. And yet, for me, the most david frum fights the right 47 valuable experiences I had at college said it was “as slender as a stiletto and president’s speech-writing team. It was mostly happened inside the library.” as cutting.” , writing for the a heady time for a Canadian who’d just Following his graduation, he returned New York Times, called it “the smartest had his fortieth birthday and who had to Toronto, where, he said, he spent book written from the inside about the moved to Washington from Toronto­ only­ 1982 to 1984 “floundering.” He fellinto ­ American conservative movement.” in 1996. Frum was not Bush’s primary a young-man-without-a-plan malaise The book marked Frum as an import­ — that role fell to Michael that his mother finally addressed when ant new voice, especially for his willing­ Gerson — but he was drafted to offer text she told him that, if he couldn’t decide ness to say things other conservatives on economic issues. It seemed the most on his future, she’d create one for him. didn’t particularly want to hear, which enviable of times for a young conserva­ Her vision started with law school, which became a pattern. During the remainder tive writer and thinker. Frum was not keen on. Barbara implored of the Clinton years, Frum continued to Except for one thing: it was the sum­ him to take the lsat. He bought a sam­ promote a politics focused on policy over mer of 2001. ple test and scored seven out of twenty- ideology, but his was a that two, which he used as evidence rum’s youngest daugh­ that law school was not in his ter, Beatrice, was born in genes. Dismissing his argument, F December 2001, three Barbara took the same test and months after 9/11. He wrote in scored a perfect twenty-two. , over a decade later, “She had such a precise mind, that his wife had nursed their and I guess I interpreted her newborn as F-16s screamed over­ score as a dare or a challenge, so head. It was a perilous time for I took the book back and worked everyone, but especially for some­ on the sample tests until I could one working in the , get twenty-two out of twenty-two, where staff briefings outlined at which point, of course, she said plans for dealing with bio­logical I therefore had no excuse not to attacks, car bombings, targeted take the actual test. And then, assassinations, and poisonous once you write the actual test, it’s gas releases. It was in this fraught an escalator you can’t jump off.” atmosphere that president Bush He attended Harvard Law started laying the groundwork School, where he also became for launching the invasion of Iraq, more active politically, serving a course of action now widely as president of the Federalist So­ viewed as strategically flawed ciety chapter, a conservative and and, worse, morally disastrous libertarian law students’ group. in that it was based on a lie. Upon graduating, he met bud­ It’s been seventeen years ding Danielle Crit­ since the war began, leading to tenden (in 1987, at a party hosted the deaths of hundreds of thou­ by his mother in their Toronto sands of people (if not more). In home). The two got married, and Frum lost momentum as Newt Gingrich be­ the intervening years, Frum has many soon joined the editorial page of the Wall came the dominant Republican on Cap­ times admitted it was a bad decision, Street Journal and began vigorously in­ itol Hill. Gingrich led a nasty and highly that he would do things differently if he serting himself and his ideas into­ Amer­ partisan rearguard culture war, a good knew then what he knows now. (He does ican politics. part of which was focused on the morals, not, ­however, like to use the word regret.) Frum released his first book, 1994’s or lack thereof, of a Clinton gripped by ­During our conversations, he didn’t try Dead Right, halfway into Bill Clinton’s a sex scandal. (It would later emerge to evade culpability by pointing out that first term. It was billed as a young con­ that Gingrich himself was having an af­ his influence in the White House was servative’s plan to rejuvenate the Grand fair with a young aide during the same negligible, that he was a speechwriter, Old Party by breaking free from its mis­ ­period.) However, when George W. Bush not an adviser. Still, whether he was an guided post-Reagan preoccupations won the 2000 election, he did so after adviser or a hired pen, whether his role with culture-war targets (race, nation­ campaigning on a “compassionate con­ was lead or minor, his part in shaping the ality, sex) and instead focusing on its servatism” that distanced itself from Gin­ narrative has defined him ever ­traditional goals (business, small gov­ grich’s bellicose ways. Shortly thereafter, since, for one reason primarily. ernment, ­lower taxes). George Will, the Frum, seemingly vindicated, was ­invited One day in late 2001, Frum was at éminence grise of the American right, to join the White House as part of the work in the White House when Gerson 48 The Walrus

came in and asked him to assist with the Frum’s time in the White House did were a terrible thing and they called for Iraq sections of the upcoming State of not last long, however. He told me there a response, but you couldn’t reorganize the Union speech. He posed the assign­ were many reasons for leaving. One par­ your whole politics around foreign terror­ ment as a “what if” — what might the ticular area of concern was his disagree­ ism. To some degree, I was part of that. president say about Iraq and the current ment with the president’s high steel But it was just wrong.” state of global affairs if he were to pur­ tarrifs. “I wanted to shift from speech­ The approach outlined in Comeback sue this or that course of action. Frum writing — and political communication offered the gop a set of ideas to rally told me that everything he wrote was generally — to domestic policy work,” he around, to which it said, Thanks, but no “in the conditional,” meaning that, as explained. (Others, including writers in thanks. Not only did the party reject the he was writing it, he believed he was and , kind of regeneration Frum was advocat­ spitballing. Frum originally wrote that speculated that Frum was pushed out of ing, but it also seemed to double down , Iraq, and comprised the White House for his wife’s email in­ on the same kind of unreconstructed hy­ an “axis of hatred.” Gerson and fellow discretion.) Whatever the reason, Frum perbole and hysteria that surrounded the speechwriter Matthew Scully ap­parently took his leave that February and joined Iraq War. The path the Republican Party liked the phrase and made a small ad­ the American Enterprise Institute (aei), followed led to the continued growth of justment. After Frum had delivered his a right-wing . Fox News, the creation of the Tea Party, notes and wordsmithing to Gerson, he Though out, Frum appeared to remain and, ultimately, the emergence of Don­ was effectively out of the loop, which was an insider. He quickly wrote a hawkish ald Trump. It also led to the excommuni­ why it came as a shock to him, as he and book, with Iraq War architect Richard cation of David Frum. his wife were watching the speech on TV Perle, which proclaimed the necessity later in January, when Bush started rail­ of American global hegemony. This was t would be an insult to true explor­ ing about the Axis of Evil. followed by The Right Man, an account­ of ers to describe a man with a cushy The phrase immediately became a the Bush presidency arguing that, what­ Ipost at a high-profile think tank as flashpoint among both allies and ene­ ever one thought of his record, the man wandering in the woods, but neverthe­ mies in the US and around the world. himself was admirable. If Frum har­ less, after Obama entered the White It was a succinct encapsulation of the boured hunger pangs, wanting to bite House, in early 2009, Frum’s profile was Republican state of mind post-9/11, the hand that fed him and expand on as low as it had ever been. Yes, he was a pithy string of code that reinforced his earlier project of examining the fault still publishing here and there, and he the long-simmering conflict as an ­ lines within the conservative movement, was no doubt engaged in some arcane urgent moral crusade. he hid them, at least for a few years. political activity at the aei, but he was Axisgate soon followed, wherein Toward the end of the Bush era, he pub­ standing on the edge of the dance floor. Crittenden sent an email to family and lished Comeback: Conservatism That Can This interstitial period gave him time friends — one that Slate intercepted and Win Again. It came on the heels of the Re­ to ponder where he was going with his published that February. “My husband is publicans losing Congress in 2006 but be­ ­writing and his career, reflections that responsible for the ‘Axis of Evil’ segment fore ’s rise. The book was inevitably led back to growing up in the of Tuesday’s address. significant for Frum because it recast him Frum household. The harsh truths of It’s not often a phrase one writes gains on an intellectual course rather­ than a mortality may have been ever-present national notice,” Crittenden wrote. “So policy one. Much like his Dead Right debut, as Frum was growing up, but so too was I’ll hope you’ll indulge my wifely pride Comeback argued that the right had lost its intense political and intellectual engage­ in seeing this one repeated in headlines way and needed a major reset. Since Rea­ ment. Frum remembers his ­mother as a everywhere!!” The leak created a gossipy gan, conservative ideology had held that serious-minded person, and he describes stir in the Georgetown cocktail-party the only way to make small government her influence on him as “limitless.” circuit, but setting aside the unfortu­ better was to make it even smaller and I asked him what it was like to evolve nate obliviousness of the email and the that the only good tax was a lowered tax. as a thinker in his own right, ­moving to criticism it brought the family, the epi­ Frum contradicted both of these shibbo­ the right of the spectrum, knowing his sode gave Frum an air of celebrity and leths. He also proclaimed his support for mother was such a famous upholder of cemented the image that he was deep a carbon tax and, later, voiced his support liberal causes. inside the Republican machine. This for gay marriage.­ “The party needed­ to re­ “People say, ‘You and your mother had was an astonishing ascendancy. If you invent itself for the twenty-first century,” such different politics,’ and that’s not were a right-winger, Frum’s work may Frum told me. “The Cold War gave shape exactly right because my ­mother didn’t have seemed like the ascent of a ­thinker to Republican ideology for a generation. have politics the way people who have and writer to his rightful place. Those The party wandered until 9/11, when it politics have them. She was a pro­foundly to the left might have considered him seemed that Islamic terrorism would take nonideological person,” he said, adding not just a traitor to his country but to his the ideological place, as it were, of the that his mother was someone who took ­mother’s legacy. Cold War. Obviously, the ­terror ­attacks every issue, every ­conversation, every david frum fights the right 49 point of debate at face value, starting at said that he ­wanted president Obama aggressive and hyper-confident . . . now ­zero every time. She never approached to fail, wrote Frum, though “what he seems elegiac.” an idea with a preset ideological bent. omitted to say — but what is equally “I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that, Frum shared this anecdote almost wist­ true — is that he also wants Republic­ if you want a friend in Washington, get fully, as if part of him wished he had the ans to fail. If Republicans succeed — if a dog,” Frum told Goldberg. “I have capacity, or the opportunity, to do the they govern successfully in office and three dogs.” same. “One of the reasons I so desper­ negotiate attractive compromises out In 2012, Frum went on to publish ately miss the opportunity to talk to her of office — Rush’s listeners get less angry. a book about ’s defeat, and is, with most people I know, even the And if they are less angry, they listen to two years later, he found the home that most brilliant intellects, I might not be the radio less, and hear fewer ads for would effectively launch him on his cur­ able to guess all the insights they would Sleepnumber beds.” rent trajectory, that of senior editor at The bring to a question, but I would know ap­ The firestorm was immediate. . From that platform, he has con­ proximately what they would say. I know ­essay drew over a million views, crashing tinued his mission to goad the conserva­ approximately what Chris Hitchens his site. Frum was castigated by fellow tive movement to adopt a less ideological would say about Donald Trump. I can’t conservatives and, days later, fired and more centrist space. He has chron­ imagine the jokes he would make and the from the aei. Years afterward, writing icled his intellectual evolution: about sparkling witticisms and the particular same-sex marriage, the environmental insights and details — that’s why we miss movement, the value of effective gov­ him — but I know ap­proximately where ernment, universal health care, and the he’d be.” Barbara was different. “What Many on the nature of military conflict. He has never she taught us was not what to think but hard right loathe apologized for his prowar positions, but how to think. She was outside of all ideo­ he’s expressed some remorse, to varying logical categories, a profound ­analytical Frum, partly for degrees, about certain hawkish stances intelligence. And incredibly morally the content of he took in his Bush years. sensitive and morally de­manding, of If many were curious about the precise herself above all. I learned that from his criticism and nature of Frum’s working political phil­ her, how to do that.” partly because osophy toward the end of the Obama ad­ These values were sorely tested dur­ ministration, those questions would soon ing the Obama years. Although he was he broke ranks. be erased. Not long after Donald Trump ­firmly seated at the aei, Frum was al­ walked down that escalator in June 2015 ready standing in uncertain relation­ and announced he was running for presi­ ship to the conservative movement. He in The Atlantic, he remembered how, dent of the United States, Frum initiated respected Obama but did not support ­because of that essay, “old friends grew his impassioned, comprehensive, and many of his more activist social policies, suspicious and drifted away” and that he nearly all-consuming exploration of his yet neither did Frum believe the gop heard second- and third-hand “echoes of contempt for the man who, he tweeted was positioning itself to appeal to most unpleasant explanations for my deviation two years later, was “the worst human Americans. In March 2010, as Obama from the ever-radicalizing main line of being ever to enter the presidency, and was signing the ­into Washington conservatism. Increasingly I include all the slaveholders.” legislation, Frum published on his web­ isolated and frustrated, I watched with The depth of his investigation into the site an essay titled “,” in which dismay as people I’d known for years amorality of not just Trump but Trump­ he stated that, far from Obama­care being and decades incited each other to jump ism has clarified and intensified his sense a Waterloo for the president, it would be together over the same cliff.” That essay, of what politics ought to be about. It has the undoing of the gop because the party he wrote, was effectively his “suicide note produced some of his best and most com­ failed to see that it was what Americans in the organized conservative world.” pelling writing. It also may have con­ wanted. He made the case that the right signed him to post-Trump irrelevance should stop politicizing something that uring the early years of the within the Republican Party. was good for the country and do its best first Obama term, it seemed like In a seminal essay in The Atlantic, pub­ to make the program better and more D both the left and the right were lished on May 31, 2016, titled “The Seven­ conservative-­friendly. Republicans, he wondering precisely what was happen­ Broken Guardrails of Democracy,” Frum wrote, “followed the most radical voices ing to David Frum. “As the Tea Party outlined his major oppositional stand to in the party and the movement, and they has come to dominate the gop, Frum Trump, who had then all but secured the led us to abject and irreversible defeat.” has been transformed in a remarkably Republican nomination. Read today,­ the He rebuked Fox and conservative com­ short period of time from right-wing roy­ essay is notable for its fury and predict­ mentators for lying about health care and alty to apostate,” wrote Michelle Gold­ ive accuracy. “Here’s the part of the 2016 stoking a culture war. Rush Limbaugh berg for Tablet in 2011. “His writing, once story that will be hardest to explain after 50 The Walrus

it’s all over,” Frum wrote. “Trump did not It was the start of what has become ­confront the rot. I think the rise and deceive anyone . . . all of them knew, by the overriding theme of Frum’s work, success of Donald Trump suggests that the time they made their decisions, that in articles and books, over the last four David was more right about the scale of Trump lied all the time, about everything. years and counting: to detail both the the rot than we were.” They knew that Trump was ­ignorant, and ways in which Donald Trump is indi­ Frum has written hundreds of thou­ coarse, and boastful, and cruel. They vidually corrupt and the ways in which sands of words since his “Guardrails” knew he habitually sympathized with dic­ has peeled back the dressing ­essay, but what unites them all is how tators and kleptocrats — and that his in­ to reveal the suppurating sore that is the deeply offended he is by Trump. There stinct when confronted with criticism of Republican Party. is a faint melancholy there, a wish for the himself was to attack, vilify, and suppress. Ross Douthat is a with the good old days when people could argue They knew his disrespect for women, New York Times and, in many ways, may about ideas and rail against the injustices the disabled, and ethnic and religious be his generation’s Frum — an idealist try­ of this or that policy as opposed to having minorities. They knew that he wished to ing to think his way toward a refreshed to continuously document the race to the unravel nato and other U.S.-led allian­ classical conservatism. He told me by bottom. There are no high roads or low ces, and that he speculated aloud about phone earlier this summer that he’d roads. Every road leads to Trump, and all partial default on American financial been reading and learning from Frum are cratered, muddy, dangerous thorough­ obligations. None of that dissuaded or since Dead Right, though he did not al­ fares to a destination not worth getting to. deterred them.” ways agree with him. Right from the start, His first book devoted to the president, He went on to describe it as baffling Douthat said, Frum saw Trump as an ur­ 2018’s Trumpocracy, was essentially an an­ and sinister that any of his conservative gent threat and argued that working with alysis of how Trump happened. Trumpoca- friends were even considering voting for him, attempting the incrementalism of lypse, published this May, is a strategy for Trump, let alone publicly going over to reforming the man by degrees, was not erasing the stain. Frum seems to be feel­ the dark side, yet many did. “Whatever going to save the party. “I thought some ing the stress: he wrote wearily in Trum- the outcome in November,” he wrote, of his attacks on the gop were over the pocalypse that “we have to believe this “conservatives and Republicans will have top or counterproductive,” said Douthat. shameful episode will end soon . . . Over brought a catastrophe upon themselves, “He thought that the infrastructure of the past four years, I have thought and in violation of their own stated principles ­conservatism was rotten and you couldn’t spoken and written about Donald Trump and best judgment.” just renew it from within. You had to almost more than I can bear.” Inclusion

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Not everyone has been particularly , also of Fox, announced which he called for a new brand of Re­ sympathetic. William Voegeli, a senior on air: “The ­awfulness of David Frum publicanism. “In a democratic society,­ editor of the Claremont Review of Books may be the only thing the left and right ­conservatism and liberalism are not and noted conservative commentator, agree on in this country.” (He’s not wrong. ­really opposites. They are different facets told me that, “at some point, if you want From a review of Trumpocracy in social­ of the common democratic creed,” he followers, if you want somebody, some­ ist magazine Jacobin: “as an account of wrote. “What conservatives are conserv­ where, to be on your side, then you have how and why Trump came to be, let alone ing, after all, is a liberal order.” He ex­ to make clear what that side is. David what can be done to resist him, Trumpoc- panded upon those comments during has been better, more vigorous about racy fails in almost every respect . . . the one of our conversations. “In the North what he’s against than what he’s for. hypocrisy of its author proves impos­ American context,” he said, “it’s not like There are just so many ways that even sible to ignore.”) conservatives are conserving the Inqui­ a gifted­ writer­ can say Donald Trump is “I think he’s definitely a man without sition. They’re not conserving kingship. a bad president. I’ve found it harder and a home,” Douthat told me. “He’s more The conservatives are part of a liberal harder to figure out where David actually alienated from what conservatism is right tradition in North America.” stands, if indeed he still considers him­ now than I am and than a lot of people At one point near the end of our com­ self a conservative.” who opposed Trump in 2016 but who munications, I asked him whether, given That’s a polite way of saying what have stayed squarely on the right are. the overall tenor of his policy positions, others are saying less politely. Many on There’s definitely a form of liberalism it had ever occurred to him that he the hard right loathe Frum, partly for the that he would be totally comfortable in. might be a liberal stuck in the body of content of his criticism and partly be­ It’s just unclear whether it exists as a a conservative. cause he broke ranks. Fox News host Greg force within liberalism today. I think,” He did not respond. Gutfeld, in a June tweet, wrote, “Frum Douthat concluded, “that David is one of woke one day, a zero; a failed, bitter­ scold the more betwixt-and-between figures.” s we move toward November 3, whose desire to be loved thwarted by Around the same time that Frum Frum does not believe Trump has events. now, all he does is fume. thinkers squared off against Bannon at the 2018 Aa chance of winning, but that find him sad & discuss it ­openly. He’s the Munk Debate, he published an essay doesn’t mean he thinks the election old neighbor who shouts thru the walls in The Atlantic, titled “The Republican will be peaceful. “It’s going to be a very cuz his life, and yours, passed him by.” Party Needs to Embrace Liberalism,” in scary and unstable time,” he said. “And, Living Better It matters more than ever. Science, culture, politics, and how we live now. Four speakers, for five minutes each, plus an interactive Q&A you can join in. Don’t miss being part of Canada’s Conversation.

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of course, it doesn’t end in November. and then I ask myself what my father planes will appear, and we’ll be waiting We’re not safe until January. He will try would say, and then I try to talk myself for them.” Frum went on to describe a to cause as much chaos as he can on his into the more optimistic view.” Despite recent family dinner where his career way to losing, and then after he loses, everything, he actually feels quite good choices were a topic. “We were talking he will pardon criminal associates, he about the world these days, mostly be­ about some of our friends who have will try to pardon himself, he will move cause, he explained, the various up­ gone over to the Fox News side. And money to himself, and he will try to leave heavals have instigated “movements there’s a lot of money to be made over behind as poisoned an environment as of social and moral change, outside the there. I was being teased, ‘Are you quite possible.” political system, outside the party sys­ sure about all of this?’ Part of it is my November is But what if he wins? I asked. What if he tem, that I think are inspiring people to nature: I just don’t think it’s in me to have legally, legitimately wins? Then it’s full be better people.” done that.” crisis mode, Frum said, not just for Amer­ I asked him what he actually thought I asked him if he thought his mother Indigenous ica but for the world. “Scorched earth. he was achieving by criticizing his party would have respected him if he’d made My God, it’ll be gruesome. It’ll be a sign and calling out the hollowness of its that leap. that the American democratic system has leadership, not just in the Trump years “No, she would not,” he said immedi­ been truly corrupted because, if he wins, but eff ectively since the twilight of the ately. “Boy, would she not have.” Education he will win despite a big majority of the second Bush term. What’s the plan, the Maybe the long game, then, is the country being against him. So it will be point, the endgame? Surely the goal is only one left to play, the only one that a win either through massive voter sup­ not to seek alienation from every point might someday put Frum and his phil­ Month pression or a mas sively unfair outcome on the political compass, not to men­ osophy back at the heart of the mat­ in the electoral college. How do you even tion a chunk of his personal and profes­ ter. I asked him if he ever saw himself talk about this being a democratic sys­ sional peer group. He thought about that working in government again. “I don’t tem of government anymore?” for a minute. think about it,” he said. “Over the past I put it to Frum that, though he is con­ “Life is like a hike through a really over­ twenty years, I’ve come to use the word sidered a key conservative thinker, he grown trail, and you’re so busy not fall­ useful as a compliment more and more might actually be more on the outside ing off the cliff , so busy pushing aside often. I want to be useful. I think it’s than he’s ever been. The blunt reality the branches. But, every once in a while, also that I have a sense of other periods is that, as a former warmonger, he will there’s a break, and you get a wider vista. of my life when I did things that were never be embraced by the left, and he is I remember Bill Buckley gave an inter­ not useful.” He thought about it for a now loathed by the right as an apostate. view in 1970,” he said of the leading second longer. “And I’ve got a kind of There is no centre. thinker who often railed against the karmic debt to the universe that has to be “I think I’m a pessimist by temper­ anti­intellectual strain of the Repub­ paid back.” E ament and an optimist by opinion,” he lican Party, “in which somebody asked told me. “Or at least I try to be. And it is him, What do you think you’re doing?   has won seven probably true that my fi rst assessment And he said, I’m trying to maintain a National Magazine Awards and lives of any situation is the pessimistic one, landing strip in the jungle. Someday the in Edmonton.

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