“The story told here, like Charles Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, is a story not of things that will be but of things that may be.Other paths remain open. It is up to Americans to decide which one the country will follow”

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/513872/
@TheAtlantic @davidfrum

“If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it. It’s happening here instead, and so we are baffled.”

@TheAtlantic 2017 archives; from the prescient mind of @davidfrum

“His immediate priority seems likely to be to use the presidency to enrich himself..he will inevitably wish to inflict payback on his critics. Construction of an apparatus of..revenge will begin haphazardly and opportunistically. But it will accelerate. It will have to” @davidfrum

“Trump will try hard during his presidency to create an atmosphere..in which graft does not matter, because rules and institutions do not matter.He will..implicate other people in his corruption..the power of investigators serving at Trump’s pleasure will be diminished” @davidfrum

“Russian-born journalist Masha Gessen brilliantly noted a commonality between..Trump & Putin. ‘Lying is the message. It’s not just that both Putin and Trump lie, it is that they lie in the same way and for the same purpose: blatantly, to assert power over truth itself’” @davidfrum

“If the president uses his office to grab billions for himself and his family, his supporters will feel empowered to take millions. If he successfully exerts power to punish enemies, his successors will emulate his methods”- @davidfrum

“By all early indications, the Trump presidency will corrode public integrity and the rule of law—and also do untold damage to American global leadership..and democratic norms around the world. The damage has already begun, and it will not be soon or easily undone”- @davidfrum

“Yet exactly how much damage is allowed to be done is an open question—the most important..question in American politics. It is also an intensely personal one, for its answer will be determined by the answer to another question: What will you do? And you? And you?”- @davidfrum

“If you’re seeking to domineer and bully, you want your storm troopers to go online, where the more important traffic is. Demagogues need no longer stand erect for hours orating into a radio microphone. Tweet lies from a smartphone instead.”- @davidfrum

“Express your support and sympathy for journalists attacked by social-media trolls, especially women in journalism, so often the preferred targets.”- @davidfrum @TheAtlantic 1/30/2017