The Seven Broken Guardrails of David Frum

David Frum has always been one of the most narrow-sighted of conservatives-in-name-only. His latest editorial at the Atlantic is an exercise in elitist Trump-bashing without an ounce of self-reflection. The elitists who created Donald Trump are now sitting back and pointing fingers at him as if he were some bull in a china shop, when the truth is the elitists had already broken most of the china.

Here are Frum's "seven broken guardrails of democracy":

1. Humility before America. Frum was ok until he got to Obama:

...when Barack Obama sought the office in 2007, he sounded the familiar refrain:  “I know you didn't come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be.”

No mention of him calming the seas? Obama can hardly get through a sentence without mentioning himself. Obama is one of the least humble presidents I can recall from either party.

In Obama's defense, even his ego pales in comparison to Trump. But Obama is just another example of our egotistical politicians, who say one thing publicly and then another in private. Obama started to let the mask slip. Trump ripped off what was left of this mask.

What good is this lie? Humility before America is only useful if it is true, if the politicians recognize the value of America. If their words are worth nothing more than the genuflexions of atheists, then what does this serve?

2. "the expectation of some measure of trustworthiness in politicians". Frum answers his own question of how this guardrail got knocked down:

Place the blame for that failure where you will, however, the results were glaring: radical Republican rejection of the trustworthiness of their leaders—all their leaders. What, then, was one liar more—especially if that liar were more exciting than the others, more willing to say at least some of the things that Republicans wanted said? Cynicism leads to acceptance of the previously unacceptable. 

I find it funny that he only mentions Republicans in this discussion of a failure of trustworthiness. Several months ago, there were reports of large numbers of people changing their voter registration from Democrat to Republican, and the stories hinted that much of it was people voting for Trump. This isn't just a "Republican thing". Trump is saying what a LOT of Americans want said. If he throws out a few lies along the way, then how is he different from ANY politician?

Frum tries to make it sound like Trump lies more than other politicians, and this may be true. But it's a leopard spot comparison: If one leopard has more spots than other leopards, does that make him a "worse" leopard?

The truth of the matter is there is nearly no expectation of trustworthiness in politicians, and hasn't been for quite some time. Even Will Rogers recognized this:

See they conducted experiments on convicts ... I don't know on what grounds they reason a man in jail is a bigger liar than one out of jail ... The chances are telling the truth is what got him there ... It would be a big aid to humanity, but it will never be, for already the politicians are up in arms against it ... It would wreck the very foundation on which our political government is run ... If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics … Even the ministers are denouncing it now … Humanity is not yet ready for either real truth or real harmony. 

3. "the expectation that a potential president should possess deep—or at least adequate—knowledge of public affairs". In my lifetime, government has been made so complex that no individual could possibly know enough to run it all. Hands-on managers need not apply. Even Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate because Obama's foreign policy credentials were almost non-existent.

This guardrail has been broken for a long time.

4. "One guardrail that Trump’s opponents all assumed would hold fast was the fourth: the guardrail of ideology".

Hardline conservatives would surely reject a candidate who barely understood what a principle was! Anti-compromise Republicans would certainly recoil from a candidate who advertised himself as a deal-maker! Wrong and wrong.

What ideology? The Republican Party hasn't held true to any ideology since Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house, and they booted him. See number 2 above? Republican politicians are like that old joke about the weather: They talk about ideology a lot, but they never do anything about it.

5. "The primacy of national security concerns". Oh no! Trump doesn't know anything about national security!

Unfortunately, neither did our last two administrations, which got us into quagmires in the Middle East and Asia, and are reluctant to pull us out. Tell me how "democracy in Afghanistan" is a national security concern for the United States?

I love this quote from Trump:

Trump has slighted NATO as “obsolete.” “If it breaks up NATO,” he has said of his plans to withdraw American protection from allies who don’t spend more, “it breaks up NATO.” 

Europe spends more on welfare than the rest of the world. They can afford to do this because the U.S. spends so much on defense. It is time for Europe to pick up their share of the defense check. Trump is right, and neoconservatives like Frum don't want to admit it.

6. Racism. So Trump is being "racist". I would counter that affirmative action is, at it's heart, a racist policy. Whenever you tilt the playing field in favor of one race over another, you are creating racist government policy. I won't call Trump "anti-racist", but he is what you get when your government promotes racist policies for too long.

By the way, if you see affirmative action as some kind of restitution for the sins of whites in the past, consider that most whites born in the 1960's and later have never been involved in those sins. "Sins of the fathers" policy only makes for angry sons.

I would include in those affirmative action policies a favoritism towards the "brown-skinned": Mexicans and Muslim immigrants. People are tired of being unable to find work, while illegals are working.

The worry about Trump is that he will push the pendulum too far in reverse. To be honest, considering how dishonest he has been so far, there is no telling how far he will reverse past policies, if at all.

7. Lesser of two evils. I have no clue what Frum was thinking here. Voters on both sides of the political aisle have been making "lesser of two evils" choices with their candidates for quite some time. Bush versus Gore? Bush versus Kerry? Obama versus McCain? Obama versus Romney?

I guess Frum either had a word count to meet for his editorial, or "seven broken guardrails" sounded better than "six broken guardrails".

Regardless, Trump didn't create this mess. He is simply taking advantage of what our government's elitists created. Just like Hitler didn't create the mess which the Treaty of Versailles made in Germany, but he did take advantage of it.