Yes, Frum did indeed coin "the axis of evil", which is why I believed for many years that I would not be interested in his other views (and I was also influenced, later, by the fact that China and Russia seemed often to be included). But the emergence of Trump, and the abject surrender of most of the GOP, made me re-evaluate. The existence of the Never Trumpers has made me interested in the beliefs of what one might call "principled" conservatives, and I think that is worthwhile.
Regarding the appalling cost to the US of the Iraq war, I have to say I don't even think that is the worst consequence. Frum was wrong in his opinion, and he admits he was wrong. I don't think that renders his opinions worthless. In fact, when people are capable of admitting they were wrong it makes me take them more seriously.
3 weeks ago
russell, I think Frum was identifying both of THEM as resistance liberals. And though he/they might not have stood toe to toe with cops, they both spoke very highly of the people of Minneapolis who had done so. As I've said before, I would never have believed this in the "axis of evil" days, but I find myself wishing these were the kinds of people we were opposing nowadays.
I know what you mean about who are these leftists, though. I don't know enough about all the people he or you mention to understand it, but he does seem to have it in for Mamdani. However, he said he would (reluctantly) vote for AOC over Trump, and I thought in US terms she counts as something of a leftist?
3 weeks ago
Ha, nous, I was hoping you'd be our informant on the cool leftist kids! I considered directly asking you. Hugely reducing (or eliminating) the existence of the precariat and the policies which produced them is necessary, and fairly fast. "Making ICE do more training" is nothing near what is necessary.
Also, cleek and I cross posted. You're not all in it together, cleek. The billionaires aren't in it with you. They're building their compounds in order to be self-sufficient in New Zealand while the world burns. Reversing the policies which have made them richer and richer while making working people's salaries stagnant does not have to threaten the life savings of the lower X%. (X% because obviously the calculation will be difficult - 80%? 90%?)
3 weeks ago
Sorry guys, very soon after that I got a notification from the Atlantic about the transcript of David Frum's interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark, which includes this question from Frum:
Now, I wanted to ask you about something that—and I don’t know how real this is, but people who keep up with this more than I do tell me that there is a mood among the young that there’s something lame about the project that you’re engaged in, and I guess I’m engaged in, too, of standing up for what they would call “resistance liberalism.” And this is somehow unfashionable, uncool. And I wonder, is this a perception of something that actually exists, or is this just chat? And if, to the extent it exists, let me ask you about two different strains that I can see for what’s motivating it.
One is—and there’s just nothing to be done about this—is real leftists who say, "Look, you’re standing up here for the Constitution, the rule of law, for international free trade, for—you don’t wanna say open borders; you just wanna say orderly police procedures without abuses and without violence. So you’re not a real leftist. You’re not smashing the system. You’re not overturning the hierarchy. You’re not socializing the means of production. You’re not globalizing the intifada. It’s just lame". So, okay, real leftists, I get why they would have a beef.
But the other thing that seems to be going on, to the extent that this is a real phenomenon I’m describing, is a feeling that simply having beliefs is, in itself, a sign of lameness and that the cool thing is not to have any. Am I talking about anything real? You’re at the center of this business. Do you see this? Am I describing something you recognize?
Plus, there was also a lot of interesting stuff about Minneapolis.
So I reckoned there was a chance that some of you might be interested in reading about this. Apologies for monopolising the thread, I'll go away now.....
And, as part of my continuing mission to bring various diverse but interesting voices to ObWi, including those of Never Trump Republicans, this is David Frum on last night's SOTU (which I actually watched, for my sins). It was a) embarrassing, and b) the ultimate illustration of what it looks like to be in a completely post-truth world:
I have not yet watched the Dem rebuttal, that treat awaits.
3 weeks ago
This is Alastair Campbell's diary from Ukraine, in The New World:
My weekly diary I’m in Ukraine, a nation let down by AmericaAfter all the warnings to bring thick coats and thermals, Kyiv was reasonably dry, and the temperature a bearable one degree Celsius as we stepped off the train at 5am on Monday. The sleeper train was something of a misnomer. Well, it was a train for sure, albeit an old and clunky one, which reminded me of those black and white movies when goodies were chasing baddies from carriage to carriage, and almost falling through the cracks. But as for the sleeper bit, during a twelve hour stop-start journey through the night from the border with Poland, I reckon I slept for about three of them, max. In general, I think being tall is an advantage in life. Sleeper trains are very much an exception to this rule.
The trip coincided with the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and I was invited to accompany the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, a Slovenian diplomat and former champion swimmer, who surely has one of the trickiest jobs in global politics right now.
Ukraine is one of several countries currently in the queue to join the EU, and while she wants to see the day when they all join – Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, Serbia and more – she also has to make sure the necessary political and economic conditions are met. There are times when bureaucracy and rules can get in the way of political will, however much of it there may be, and she has plenty.
Ukraine’s president Vlodymyr Zelensky is clear that he wants to join the EU by January 1 2027. Commissioner Kos has the unenviable task of telling him that is impossible, while keeping alive the hope that one day it will happen.
Kos points out that the methodology used to assess new entrants today is not that different to the process which led to Spain and Portugal coming in four decades ago. “That was peace time. This is war time. We have to find ways of speeding up the process,” she says. You sense she feels the current crisis is existential not just for Ukraine but, if they fail, for Europe.
So there may be a way of getting countries into the EU in some shape or form as part of the process rather than the conclusion of the process. There are various ways that might be done, currently the subject of intense debate. Some are calling it gradual integration, others reverse membership.
This all bodes very well for my grand vision for European enlargement – that Ukraine, the UK and Canada all sign up on the same day.
Now we’re talking. And before you dismiss that as impossible… so was Brexit, until it wasn’t. You might imagine hope is not an easy commodity to find in a place that has been on the receiving end of Putin’s war machine for four years, with over 100,000 Ukrainians dead and half a million injured. It may be a source of some pride that these are dwarfed by Russian losses, but they are horrific numbers nonetheless. Add in the fact that five million Ukrainians are living elsewhere in Europe right now, mainly women and children, with little likelihood they can come back soon, and millions more displaced internally, and you understand why there is such a sense of war fatigue.
There is also among some here a feeling of shock and isolation that the world seemed to care so little when Putin decided to turn winter into a weapon of war. It has been freezing in recent weeks and in one nearby bombing strike on an energy plant the Russians deprived 350,000 people of heat in an instant. As the EU ambassador, Katarina Mathernova, put it to me: “Kyiv is a frontline city now. But it was so hard to get anyone interested. Too much is happening elsewhere in the world.”
The consequences of war are visible – and deliberately so. The carcass of a train carriage has been moved from the scene of its bombing last month to a track at the main station. It is there to shock, and to underline that Putin’s pretence not to be targeting civilian life is exactly that. Indeed even he has given up pretending. But then, walk a couple of yards down the platform, and there is another carriage, this one turned into a viable intensive care unit, used whenever the hospitals are overwhelmed. The third carriage is a children’s recovery unit, with beds even smaller than the one I couldn’t sleep in.
We then went to a briefing with the head of Ukraine’s railways, who on the one hand explains that the rail infrastructure suffered more than a thousand Russian attacks last year, including more than fifty locomotives damaged or destroyed, but on the other hand shows me a film of Ukrainian children brought home for a week’s holiday from their current homes in the EU. Smiling kids. Singing kids. Dancing kids. Hope.
Open thread, so: this is cheering:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/opinion/elections-college-crisis-democracy-summer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.QlA.ymem.uzB0QrJw98CR&smid=url-share
Yes, Frum did indeed coin "the axis of evil", which is why I believed for many years that I would not be interested in his other views (and I was also influenced, later, by the fact that China and Russia seemed often to be included). But the emergence of Trump, and the abject surrender of most of the GOP, made me re-evaluate. The existence of the Never Trumpers has made me interested in the beliefs of what one might call "principled" conservatives, and I think that is worthwhile.
Regarding the appalling cost to the US of the Iraq war, I have to say I don't even think that is the worst consequence. Frum was wrong in his opinion, and he admits he was wrong. I don't think that renders his opinions worthless. In fact, when people are capable of admitting they were wrong it makes me take them more seriously.
russell, I think Frum was identifying both of THEM as resistance liberals. And though he/they might not have stood toe to toe with cops, they both spoke very highly of the people of Minneapolis who had done so. As I've said before, I would never have believed this in the "axis of evil" days, but I find myself wishing these were the kinds of people we were opposing nowadays.
I know what you mean about who are these leftists, though. I don't know enough about all the people he or you mention to understand it, but he does seem to have it in for Mamdani. However, he said he would (reluctantly) vote for AOC over Trump, and I thought in US terms she counts as something of a leftist?
Ha, nous, I was hoping you'd be our informant on the cool leftist kids! I considered directly asking you. Hugely reducing (or eliminating) the existence of the precariat and the policies which produced them is necessary, and fairly fast. "Making ICE do more training" is nothing near what is necessary.
Also, cleek and I cross posted. You're not all in it together, cleek. The billionaires aren't in it with you. They're building their compounds in order to be self-sufficient in New Zealand while the world burns. Reversing the policies which have made them richer and richer while making working people's salaries stagnant does not have to threaten the life savings of the lower X%. (X% because obviously the calculation will be difficult - 80%? 90%?)
Sorry guys, very soon after that I got a notification from the Atlantic about the transcript of David Frum's interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark, which includes this question from Frum:
Now, I wanted to ask you about something that—and I don’t know how real this is, but people who keep up with this more than I do tell me that there is a mood among the young that there’s something lame about the project that you’re engaged in, and I guess I’m engaged in, too, of standing up for what they would call “resistance liberalism.” And this is somehow unfashionable, uncool. And I wonder, is this a perception of something that actually exists, or is this just chat? And if, to the extent it exists, let me ask you about two different strains that I can see for what’s motivating it.
One is—and there’s just nothing to be done about this—is real leftists who say, "Look, you’re standing up here for the Constitution, the rule of law, for international free trade, for—you don’t wanna say open borders; you just wanna say orderly police procedures without abuses and without violence. So you’re not a real leftist. You’re not smashing the system. You’re not overturning the hierarchy. You’re not socializing the means of production. You’re not globalizing the intifada. It’s just lame". So, okay, real leftists, I get why they would have a beef.
But the other thing that seems to be going on, to the extent that this is a real phenomenon I’m describing, is a feeling that simply having beliefs is, in itself, a sign of lameness and that the cool thing is not to have any. Am I talking about anything real? You’re at the center of this business. Do you see this? Am I describing something you recognize?
Plus, there was also a lot of interesting stuff about Minneapolis.
So I reckoned there was a chance that some of you might be interested in reading about this. Apologies for monopolising the thread, I'll go away now.....
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/02/david-frum-show-tim-miller-counterculture/686141/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCdeJRjbNQ3nJbg9K2eprfR0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
And, as part of my continuing mission to bring various diverse but interesting voices to ObWi, including those of Never Trump Republicans, this is David Frum on last night's SOTU (which I actually watched, for my sins). It was a) embarrassing, and b) the ultimate illustration of what it looks like to be in a completely post-truth world:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/trumps-childish-state-of-the-union/686133/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCatXRzFLbHu8MkuaA3ijO-A&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
I have not yet watched the Dem rebuttal, that treat awaits.
This is Alastair Campbell's diary from Ukraine, in The New World:
My weekly diary
I’m in Ukraine, a nation let down by AmericaAfter all the warnings to bring thick coats and thermals, Kyiv was reasonably dry, and the temperature a bearable one degree Celsius as we stepped off the train at 5am on Monday.
The sleeper train was something of a misnomer. Well, it was a train for sure, albeit an old and clunky one, which reminded me of those black and white movies when goodies were chasing baddies from carriage to carriage, and almost falling through the cracks. But as for the sleeper bit, during a twelve hour stop-start journey through the night from the border with Poland, I reckon I slept for about three of them, max. In general, I think being tall is an advantage in life. Sleeper trains are very much an exception to this rule.
The trip coincided with the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and I was invited to accompany the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, a Slovenian diplomat and former champion swimmer, who surely has one of the trickiest jobs in global politics right now.
Ukraine is one of several countries currently in the queue to join the EU, and while she wants to see the day when they all join – Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, Serbia and more – she also has to make sure the necessary political and economic conditions are met. There are times when bureaucracy and rules can get in the way of political will, however much of it there may be, and she has plenty.
Ukraine’s president Vlodymyr Zelensky is clear that he wants to join the EU by January 1 2027. Commissioner Kos has the unenviable task of telling him that is impossible, while keeping alive the hope that one day it will happen.
Kos points out that the methodology used to assess new entrants today is not that different to the process which led to Spain and Portugal coming in four decades ago. “That was peace time. This is war time. We have to find ways of speeding up the process,” she says. You sense she feels the current crisis is existential not just for Ukraine but, if they fail, for Europe.
So there may be a way of getting countries into the EU in some shape or form as part of the process rather than the conclusion of the process. There are various ways that might be done, currently the subject of intense debate. Some are calling it gradual integration, others reverse membership.
This all bodes very well for my grand vision for European enlargement – that Ukraine, the UK and Canada all sign up on the same day.
Now we’re talking. And before you dismiss that as impossible… so was Brexit, until it wasn’t.
You might imagine hope is not an easy commodity to find in a place that has been on the receiving end of Putin’s war machine for four years, with over 100,000 Ukrainians dead and half a million injured. It may be a source of some pride that these are dwarfed by Russian losses, but they are horrific numbers nonetheless.
Add in the fact that five million Ukrainians are living elsewhere in Europe right now, mainly women and children, with little likelihood they can come back soon, and millions more displaced internally, and you understand why there is such a sense of war fatigue.
There is also among some here a feeling of shock and isolation that the world seemed to care so little when Putin decided to turn winter into a weapon of war. It has been freezing in recent weeks and in one nearby bombing strike on an energy plant the Russians deprived 350,000 people of heat in an instant. As the EU ambassador, Katarina Mathernova, put it to me: “Kyiv is a frontline city now. But it was so hard to get anyone interested. Too much is happening elsewhere in the world.”
The consequences of war are visible – and deliberately so. The carcass of a train carriage has been moved from the scene of its bombing last month to a track at the main station. It is there to shock, and to underline that Putin’s pretence not to be targeting civilian life is exactly that. Indeed even he has given up pretending.
But then, walk a couple of yards down the platform, and there is another carriage, this one turned into a viable intensive care unit, used whenever the hospitals are overwhelmed. The third carriage is a children’s recovery unit, with beds even smaller than the one I couldn’t sleep in.
We then went to a briefing with the head of Ukraine’s railways, who on the one hand explains that the rail infrastructure suffered more than a thousand Russian attacks last year, including more than fifty locomotives damaged or destroyed, but on the other hand shows me a film of Ukrainian children brought home for a week’s holiday from their current homes in the EU. Smiling kids. Singing kids. Dancing kids. Hope.