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In the latest episode of The Lowdown, Nick Cohen talks to David Frum, the former George W. Bush speechwriter turned leading “Never Trump” conservative and Atlantic writer, for a wide-ranging discussion on Trump, the deteriorating UK-U.S. relationship, America’s place in the world, and the crisis facing the democratic right.
David Frum begins by challenging easy assumptions about the withdrawal of U.S. heavy bombers from RAF Fairford. Was it another sign of Donald Trump administration’s hostility to Europe and Britain under Labour? Or did it reflect something equally alarming: that drones have changed warfare so dramatically that American bases and aircraft are now far more vulnerable than planners admit? Drawing on the lessons of Ukraine and Iran, Frum argues that the US military may be struggling to adapt to a new age of cheap, effective drone warfare.
The conversation then turns to the future of the US-UK alliance. David Frum warns that Britain can no longer assume America will return to normal once Trump leaves office. After two Trump victories, and with figures such as JD Vance waiting in the wings, European governments must prepare for the possibility that the old Atlantic alliance is gone for good. His advice to Britain is stark: stop living on nostalgia and start building serious European security arrangements.
Cohen and Frum also discuss the coming American midterms, the limits of polling, and why even a Republican defeat may not break Trumpism’s hold over the right. Frum reflects on why conservatism has moved away from markets, fiscal discipline and internationalism towards nationalism, grievance and protectionism. Economic shocks, mass migration, ageing electorates and pension politics, he argues, have all helped destabilise the old Reagan-Thatcher settlement.
The interview ranges from Trump’s war with Iran to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, where authoritarianism works less by openly persecuting the innocent than by protecting the guilty. Frum sees echoes of that model in Trump’s America, but also signs that impunity may be starting to crack.
It is a sobering but gripping conversation with one of America’s sharpest conservative critics of Trumpism — and a warning that Britain and Europe must stop waiting for the past to return.
David Frum @davidfrum Writer, http://TheAtlantic.com; Host, The David Frum Show. Contact via https://davidfrum.com/page/contact or Producer@TheDavidFrumShow.com
Nick Cohen's @NickCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond. Read Nick's latest column, Can Europe resist Trump's gangsterism? Does it have the willpower to try?
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