"If the Forces of Science and Health Are to Stage a Comeback, It's Important to Understand Why Those Forces Have Gone into Eclipse"

"We live in an impersonal universe, indifferent to our hopes and wishes, subject to extreme randomness. We don't like this at all. We crave satisfying explanations. We want to believe that somebody is in control, even if it's somebody we don't like. At least that way, we can blame bad events on bad people. This is the eternal appeal of conspiracy theories. How did this happen? Somebody must have done it—but who? And why?"

David Frum at The Atlantic explains "Why the Covid Deniers Won."

And he adds that "[t]o rename the Gulf of Mexico the 'Gulf of America' is to reconceptualize the United States not as a sending point, but as a receiving point; no longer a country that stamps itself upon history, but a country upon which history is stamped."

"A Post-Constitutional Moment"

"Instead, the special counsel's report delivers a confession of the helplessness of the U.S. government. Smith asserts that there was sufficient evidence to convict Trump of serious crimes—and then declares the constitutional system powerless to act: The criminal is now the president-elect; therefore, his crime cannot be punished."

David Frum at The Atlantic reacts to the release of "Special Counsel Jack Smith on his investigation of Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election."

Götterdämmerung

"I know Trump voters told pollsters that it was all about the economy, and maybe it was. Eggs and milk are higher. I'm not disputing that, but people like me thought our fellow Americans recognized that the cause of that inflation, and which the Trump administration initiated and the Biden administration continued, kept the economy afloat, and that President Biden steered the nation towards the soft recovery every economist believed was impossible. People like me were wrong."

Michael Ian Black at The Daily Beast reacts to Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election.

As do David Frum and Spencer Kornhaber at The Atlantic.

As do John F. Harris, Steven Waldman, and other writers at Politico.

As do Mona Charen and Scott Conway at The Bulwark.

As do Robert Kuttner and David Dayen at The American Prospect.

As do Ed Kilgore and Jonathan Chait at New York.

As do Timothy Noah, Kate Aronoff, Greg Sargent, Jonathan Zimmerman, Eric Schmeltzer, and Michael Tomasky at The New Republic.

As does Sophie Clark at Newsweek.

As does Sam Wolfson (in an interview with Richard Reeves), Ben Davis, and John Harris at The Guardian.

As does Ashleigh Fields (in an interview with Sen. John Fetterman) at The Hill.

As do Paul Rosenberg and Jim Sleeper at Salon.

As do John West and Kara Dapena at The Wall Street Journal.

As do Jeet Heer and Joan Walsh at The Nation.

As does David Brooks of The New York Times.

As do John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira at The Liberal Patriot (who earlier argued that "the progressive moment is well and truly over").

And in subsequent week, reactions continue from:

James K. Galbraith, Jeet Heer, and Neil Kraus and Jon Shelton at The Nation.

Chauncey DeVega at Salon.

Jesse Ferguson and Austin Sarat at The Hill.

Jared Abbott, Dustin Guastella, and Sean Mason at Jacobin.

Conor Friedersdorf, Jon Favreau, Annie Lowrey, Ed Kilgore, and Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic.

Andrew Prokop at Vox.

Walter Russell Mead at Tablet.

Bharat Ramamurti at The Bully Pulpit blog.

And Michael Bahraeen, Juan David Rojas, Justin Vassallo, and Ruy Teixeira at The Liberal Patriot.

"How Did Trump Get Away With It When Nixon Didn't?"

"Trump also bent administration rules to obtain a top security clearance for his son-in-law, who served as his unofficial secretary of state and went on to negotiate for himself a highly unusual $2 billion investment deal with Saudi state funds just months after the administration ended. Any one of these incidents would have been an administration-shaking event in the 1970s or '80s, even in the '90s or early 2000s. The old rules were sloughed off in the 2010s, and by the 2020s were barely remembered."

David Frum at The Atlantic marks the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation.

"Biden's July 24 rebuked Trump's January 6"

"Biden's act of renunciation gives power to his words of denunciation. By demonstrating that he cared about something higher than personal ambition, the president became more credible when he accused his chief opponent of caring for nothing other than personal ambition. By surrendering the power that he'd once hoped to keep, Biden condemned by contrast the predecessor who clung to the power he'd lost."

David Frum at The Atlantic compares Joe Biden to Cinncinatus and Donald Trump to Catiline.

"He Showed the Way to the Modern World"

"Wilson championed—and came to symbolize—progressive reform at home and liberal internationalism abroad. So long as those causes commanded wide support, Wilson's name resonated with the greats of American history. In our time, however, the American left has subordinated the causes of reform and internationalism to the politics of identity, while the American right has rejected reform and internationalism altogether. Wilson's standing has been crushed in between."

David Frum at The Atlantic calls to "Uncancel Woodrow Wilson."

Impeach, Remove, Indict, Incarcerate

"Schedule an impeachment vote for this very night. Stay 'til dawn. Do whatever is necessary. Avert any potential for martial law. Deny Trump command of the military; withdraw the nuclear codes. Don't wait until the next crossed red line, until the next smashed barrier, until the next putsch attempt. Install Mike Pence right away as the 46th president and work with him to manage the transition on January 20 to Joe Biden as the 47th. Bar Trump from ever again holding office—and get ready to prosecute him for his crimes on January 21."

David Frum at The Atlantic calls for the immediate removal of Donald Trump from office.

And Michael Lind at Tablet writes that the "mob assault on the Capitol is simply another entry in the catalog of American decline."

"And Now, As So Often Happens, Trump Has Yanked Away the Protective Deception to Reveal the Truth"

"The sensible American majority surely wants an end to Trump controversies after Inauguration Day, a return to normal governance and the crucial work ahead: overcoming the pandemic, restoring the economy, and renewing U.S. leadership of the world. But Trump gets a say too, as he got a say in the impeachment crisis. Trump is abusing the power of the presidency until his last hour in office. And his nonstop abuse seems likely to force a reckoning even by those most eager to move on. Trump will not be ignored; he will not let the chapter quietly close. Show him a red line, and he will cross it. And if the country's red lines are to be reestablished, Trump will have to face the law he violated and violated and violated again." 

David Frum at The Atlantic writes that "a president desperate enough to try to steal an election on a recorded line is desperate enough to try a self-pardon."

"Yet Hope Always Remains"

"The city on a hill does not seem very shiny in the year 2020. Pandemic, economic crisis, and an incumbent president attempting to overthrow the democratic election he undoubtedly lost by a large margin: If the eyes of all people are upon America now, they are not witnessing an edifying spectacle." 

David Frum at The Atlantic discusses Abram Van Engen's City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism.

"What if He Wins?"

"Ronald Reagan liked to call the United States a 'shining city on a hill.' He was borrowing from the biblical Book of Matthew: 'A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.' In the Bible, that verse was not a boast. It was a warning. A city that is set on a hill cannot conceal its faults. Everybody can see. So it is with the United States. Their affairs matter to everyone. If their system succeeds, all free people everywhere are freer and safer. If their system fails, all free people everywhere suffer alongside them." 

David Frum at Maclean's offers a dark warning if Donald Trump is reelected.

"Many Secrets. No Mysteries"

"Although crucial details remain concealed, the core narrative has been visible from the start. An American private citizen worked with foreign spies to damage one presidential candidate and help the other. That president accepted the help. When caught, the private citizen lied. When the private citizen was punished, the president commuted his sentence."

David Frum at The Atlantic calls Donald Trump's commutation of Roger Stone's prison sentence "One of the Greatest Scandals in American History."

And William Kristol at The Bulwark writes that "Trump has gone further than Nixon ever did."

"A Hand-Forcing Move"

"Yoni Appelbaum argued in an important cover story for The Atlantic in favor of opening an impeachment inquiry into the president. I worried some weeks later on this site about the political and institutional risks of proceeding down that path. But Trump himself gets a vote; Trump himself forces the hands even of those who might wish to restrain the hands. He is such an institution-wrecker—his instincts are so lawless—that he may simply refuse to allow Congress not to impeach him."

David Frum at The Atlantic reacts to Donald Trump's "willingness to collaborate with foreign spies against his domestic political opponents."

"The Rest, Congress, Is Up to You"

"A foreign power interfered in the U.S. election to help the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign welcomed the help and repeatedly lied about it. The lying successfully obscured some questions the investigation sought to answer; in the end, it found insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. President Trump, in public and in private, worked to stop the investigation.
"Those are the facts. What are the remedies? Mueller underscored at his press statement: He did not exonerate the president."

David Frum at The Atlantic responds to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's speech.

"An Important If Not Urgent Question"

"It's fitting that Putin's campaign to reimpose official lying would culminate in a glorification of the catastrophic Afghanistan war. And clearly, that campaign has swayed the mind of the president of the United States."

David Frum at The Atlantic wonders why Donald Trump is spreading Russian propaganda.

"Money Laundering Is a Crime. Tax Evasion Is a Crime. Obstruction of Justice Is a Crime. Lying to Federal Investigators Is a Crime"

"Only this year, and only thanks to the Mueller investigation, have Americans begun to learn the full industrial scale of the Russian intrusion into the 2016 election. Only last month, and again only thanks to the Mueller investigation, was it confirmed that the hackers of the Democratic Party were indeed agents of the Russian state—a truth that Trump still will not unequivocally accept.
"How much still remains to learn?"

David Frum at The Atlantic calls Donald Trump "a threat to national security." 

"Trump Is Himself the Ultimate Expression of Putin's Anti-Factuality"

"Snyder sees Trump as very much a junior partner in a larger Russian project, less a cause, more an effect. He worries, too, that slowly before Trump—and rapidly after Trump—America is becoming like Russia: a country on a path to economic oligarchy and distorted information. Trump's attitude to truth again and again reminds Snyder of the Russian ruling elite: The Russian television network RT 'wished to convey that all media lied, but that only RT was honest by not pretending to be truthful.'"

David Frum at The Atlantic reviews Timothy Snyder's The Road to Unfreedom.

"We versus Them"

"'Believe in America!' 'A new American century!' What are they talking about? wondered voters battered and bruised by the previous American century. Donald Trump, the oldest candidate on the Republican stage, was also the first to discern that the political language of the 1980s had lost its power. The most common age for white Americans in 2015 was 55. These older white voters were more eager to protect what they had than to hustle for more. They wanted less change, not more. They cared about security, not opportunity. Protection of the status quo was what candidate Trump offered.
"Donald Trump created in effect a three-party system in the United States, by building a new Trump Party in between the Democratic and Republican Parties."

The Atlantic runs an excerpt from David Frum's Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic.

"This Open Secret"

"They know what is wrong with Donald Trump. They know why it's dangerous. They understand—or most of them do—the damage he can do to a system of governance that relies to a surprising degree on norms rather than rules, and whose vulnerability has been newly exposed. They know—or should—about the ways Trump's vanity and avarice are harming American interests relative to competitors like Russia and China, and partners and allies in North America, Europe, and the Pacific.
"They know. They could do something: hearings, investigations, demands for financial or health documents, subpoenas. Even the tool they used against the 42nd president, for failings one percent as grave as those of the 45th: impeachment.
"They know. They could act. And they don't.

James Fallows at The Atlantic laments congressional Republicans "failure of responsibility."

As does David Frum more generally.

"The Trump Administration's Authoritarian Moment Is on the Verge of Materializing"

"So Trump is likely to adopt a self-defense based on huge assertions of arbitrary power. 'A president cannot obstruct justice through the exercise of his constitutional and discretionary authority over executive-branch officials like Mr. Comey.' Those words appeared in a Wall Street Journal op-ed posted Sunday afternoon by two well-known Republican lawyers. They are about to become the official White House position—and when they do, you'll find yourself with little maneuvering room to prevent them from becoming your position as well. You will have to haul that position along with you into the 2018 elections, or (even more dangerously) the elections in 2020 or 2022, by which time even more of this scandal will have come to light.
"You need to wonder whether the avoidance of blowback from Fox News in November 2017 is worth the risks hurtling at you in the weeks ahead."

David Frum at The Atlantic gives warning to Republican senators.

"It's Not Necessary to Live Like This"

"On the other hand, every white man who played vigilante in Charlottesville this weekend went home unharmed to his family, having successfully overawed the police—and having sent a chilling message of warning to lawful protesters.
"No other democracy on Earth tolerates such antics. When libertarian-minded Americans lament the over-militarization of police, they might give some thought to what it takes to police a society where potential lawbreakers think it their right to accumulate force that would do credit to a Somali warlord. And not only accumulate it, but carry that force into public to brandish against fellow citizens who think differently from their local paramilitaries."

David Frum at The Atlantic criticizes the "carrying of firearms by random citizens into public places."

And Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern at Slate write that "[r]allies with guns cannot be treated, for First Amendment purposes, in the same fashion as rallies with no guns."