David Frum: A Constitutional Crisis Greater Than Watergate
December 1, 2024
This piece is by WWSG exclusive thought leader, David Frum. For more than four decades before Donald Trump assumed the presidency, the FBI director was a…
WWSG Exclusive
High-Profile Political Analyst; Writer, The Atlantic; NYT Best-Selling Author; Former Special Assistant and Speech Writer for President George W. Bush
David Frum is one of North America’s leading voices of dispassionate, analytic, and independent conservatism. His articles in The Atlantic have been hailed as the most prophetic and insightful studies of U.S. global leadership, open international trade, and democratic institutions with a message that is pro-enterprise and post-partisan.
Frum’s wit, historical insight, and deep understanding of politics, economics, and governance are familiar to viewers on CNN, MSNBC, to television viewers across the English-speaking world, as well as in Europe and India – and of course to his more than 1 million Twitter followers. Whether speaking to a concert hall of 3,000 people or an informal seminar of 12, whether joined in friendly or high-tension debate, Frum is always an entertaining and enriching speaker, at his best when faced with the most unexpected questions.
The Biden administration is continuing the former administration’s trade-skeptical attitude and many of the same trade policies. In this talk, David details the trade policies of the Biden administration–including the risks they present to world economic growth–and the continuing case for free and open trade subject to multilateral rules.
China is a serious violator of human rights, an intellectual-property predator, and in many ways, a challenge to U.S. strategic interests. Still, China remains the distinct “Number Two” to the U.S. in both economic and military terms, and will continue as such for a long period to come. Exaggerated fears of Chinese capabilities risk pushing the U.S. to self-harming policies, beginning with inflated defense budgets and the excess costs of “buy American” government procurement. In this talk, David presents the case for confidence about U.S. strength.
The Biden administration wants to drive the U.S. to a greener future. Many in the business world see this push as a threat, but it is an opportunity–especially for the real estate industry to remake urban and suburban space so people can spend less time commuting, freeing more time to live, work, and play. Higher energy taxes that replace other sources of government revenue can liberate American creativity and accelerate, not weaken, free-market economic growth.
The great museums of the Western world have accumulated treasures from non-Western cultures like China, Japan, India, Africa, and Oceania. Demands are raising heard for the surrender of these artworks. Drawing on his essays for The Atlantic and his own family background as art collectors and donors, David defends the Western museums against its detractors in this fascinating discussion.
David Frum is a writer at The Atlantic and the author of the 2018 New York Times bestseller, TRUMPOCRACY: The Corruption of the American Republic, which was his ninth book. In 2001 and 2002, he served as special assistant and speechwriter to President George W. Bush during and after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Frum is a recognized intellectual leader of the American conservative movement.
His first book, DEAD RIGHT, was praised by William F. Buckley in 1994 as “the most refreshing ideological experience in a generation” and by Frank Rich in The New York Times as “the smartest book written from the inside about the American conservative moment.” His memoir of his service in the Bush White House, THE RIGHT MAN, was a New York Times bestseller in 2003.
Frum has served as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, as a trustee of the Republican Jewish Coalition, and as chairman of the board of trustees of Policy Exchange, the leading center-right think tank in the United Kingdom. A native of Canada, he was a driving force in the “Winds of Change” movement that reunited that country’s splintered Conservative party in the early 2000s. From 2009-2012, Frum created and edited the FrumForum group website devoted to the modernization of the Republican party. More than a dozen young writers who started their careers on Frum’s site have gone on to success in politics and journalism.
Frum was one of the first and foremost conservative Republicans to sound the alarm about the challenge posed by the Trump presidency to US global leadership, open international trade, and democratic institutions. His prophetic 2017 cover story in the Atlantic, “How to Build an Autocracy,” has been one of the most cited articles on Trump to date.
Frum appears frequently on CNN, MSNBC, and the Australian, British, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporations. A profile in Esquire in December 2017 described Frum as “first among equals” in the conservative anti-Trump movement.
Frum earned a BA and MA in history at Yale, then a JD at Harvard, where he served as president of the Harvard chapter of the Federalist society. He taught history Yale from 1986-1987.
David was truly outstanding. Brilliant, candid and a real gentleman. Some of his fans joined us and a few who came wanting to dislike David. They failed. Ultimately, he won them over.