David Frum Profile picture
Dec 12, 2021 11 tweets 3 min read Read on X
The great British PM, the Marquess of Salisbury, warned: "If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe." At some point, it's the job of politicians to decide: we're safe enough
To follow @HotlineJosh point:

Unless the US moves to vastly stricter vaccine mandates - which I would favor, but which is plainly not going to happen - the US will stall at present vaccination levels. 1/x
@HotlineJosh So the practical political choice is: keep schools and businesses on the present hobbled footing indefinitely - or return fully to normally as boosters become available to all, accepting the inherent risks of "normal" in a 30% unvaxxed society? 2/x
@HotlineJosh You want to fulminate against the dumb-ass malignity of the anti-vaxxers and their (quietly personally vaxxed) media and political enablers? Go ahead, I do it myself almost every day right here in this space. 3/x
@HotlineJosh But the malignant minority is not yielding to reason any time soon. And even such seemingly basic mandates as "no jab, no fly" seem beyond the enforcement capability of the US federal government. So what now? 4/x
@HotlineJosh Seems the best option is

1) Keep encouraging vaccines and boosters;

2) Impose vaccine mandates where it can be done;

3) Otherwise return to normal as fully as we can, especially the schools; and

4) Let hospitals quietly triage emergency care to serve the unvaccinated last
Reading the reactions to this tweet, I am impressed by the immense self-pity of the anti-vaxxers - who see themselves as bottomless victims, even as their own bad choices deny hospital care to so many others in desperate need.
If, at this point, you are still unvaccinated, you are not a victim. You are a cause of the victimization of vulnerable others
"Knowledge in the abstract ... is not enough. ... [I]nstitutions and culture shape the application of scientific knowledge. Improvements in life expectancy are generated not by ideas alone but by ideas that are put into action ...
... especially by capable governments that care about the health of their citizens, and by cultures that translate scientific advances into behavioral adaptations." - Plagues Upon the Earth, p. 384
"The control of infectious disease, by its very nature, requires collective and coordinated action. ... Societies that were good at solving collective action problems were thus most effective in controlling infectious disease." - Plagues Upon the Earth, p. 385

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More from @davidfrum

Jul 2
In a few minutes, @theAtlantic will release video of the episode of David Frum show featuring ex ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink. Audio is already posted on your favorite platform. (thread)
The interview with Ambassador Brink and the opening monologue were recorded before today's news of Trump cut-off of essential weapons of self-defense to Ukraine. But both were recorded in ominous awareness that Trump abandonment of Ukraine was imminent. 2/x
A point I make in opening: while Trump's Putin-subservient abandonment of Ukraine deserves as much anger and scorn as the non-Putin side of the political spectrum can muster ... a word also has to be said about Biden administration's lack of urgency to aid Ukraine in time. 3/x
Read 10 tweets
Jun 20
The Benin artifacts previously delivered to Nigeria from UK and Germany have disappeared from public view. They are not on display in any museum. Some or all may have been sold into private markets. (Links in next tweet)
See here theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… and here theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Western museum curators know perfectly well what happens to art works delivered to Nigeria but are intimidated into silence.
The late PJ O'Rourke had a great line: "Just as some things are too strange for fiction, other things are too true for journalism." The fate of artworks delivered to Nigeria is one of those subjects too true for journalism. Fiction and fantasy are reported as moral imperative.
Read 4 tweets
Jun 11
In 2018, protesters against gasoline tax demonstrated in Paris. A radical few set fires near the Arc de Triomphe, creating scenes of chaos for social media platforms - like the iconic image below. (THREAD) Image
To the consumer of social media, it must have looked as if France hovered on the brink of revolution in 2018. Paris engulfed in flames! (2/x) Image
Here's how things looked to Parisians, though. Some agitator poured gasoline on a bike at a distance from the Arc, set it on fire, and then photographed the monument through the black smoke created by burning tires. (3/x) Image
Read 9 tweets
May 28
Here's the decision just won by @IlyaSomin and allies striking down Trump's tariffs as an abuse of presidential emergency authority. It's blinking inspiring. (thread) cit.uscourts.gov/sites/cit/file…
The Trump administration argued that US federal courts must accept presidential claims of "emergency" at face value, no matter how manifestly nonsensical and in bad faith those claims in fact are. The US Court of International Trade said, in effect, "not so fast."
Courteously but forcefully, the Court demonstrated that Trump's actions are only tenuously related to the pretextual emergency Trump proclaimed. Trade is a congressional domain, and Trump abused the constitutionally limited power Congress delegated him.
Read 5 tweets
May 28
President Trump and his family are extorting billions of dollars from US companies and foreign nations. In new piece for @TheAtlantic I examine past US corruption - and conclude Trump can't be compared to anything American, only Russia or Africa. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Today's @TheAtlantic piece linked above is supplement to monologue on the David Frum Show today. Trump's analogues are not Nixon, Harding, or Grant. They are Putin, Mobutu Sese Soko, and the Duvaliers in Haiti.
@TheAtlantic I once owned a dog who avidly chased squirrels, but looked away when he met a deer. My wife explained: "Some things are too big to see." I recall that saying when journalists get excited over "Biden was addled" and ignore "Trump is a Putin- or Mobutu-scale crook."
Read 4 tweets
Apr 26
Donald Trump's approval rating in his first term moved in a narrow band: never above 50%, but also seldom below 40%, and then not much below. 1/x
Even during COVID, Trump's supporters stayed true. Unhappy as they were during COVID, Trump supporters agreed to shift blame for their unhappiness to somebody else: blue-state governors, Dr Fauci, etc. 2/x
But what if the US is struck by a disaster that is undeniably Trump's doing? Financial markets *predict* the disaster, but are not themselves the disaster. Few Americans have yet lost jobs, prices are only beginning to rise, shops are still full of goods to buy. 3/x
Read 6 tweets

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