In their anti-learning culture, conservatives have come to view everything that happens, however unwelcome, as proof simply that the most extreme people were the most correct.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic

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In our zeal, we refuse to understand past generations as they understood themselves. We expect them to have organized their mental categories the way we organize ours—and we are greatly disappointed when we discover that they did not.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic

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Rarely do good surprises occur between adversarial nations. Communicating more, rather than less, is far safer.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic

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Today, we tend to think of economic and racial egalitarianism as closely yoked causes. One hundred years ago, this was far from the case. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of those Americans most skeptical of corporate power were also the most hostile to racial equality, while those Americans who most adamantly rejected economic reform hoped to mobilize racial minorities as allies.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic

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Once upon a time, American households contained large numbers of people and a single TV set. At peak viewing times, the whole family would have to agree on a show. Dad might want an action drama, Mom might want an edgy comedy, one of the kids might want something creative, another might want something scary, but everybody liked nature shows. So that’s what the network aired on a Sunday night. Network executives described their task as inventing “the least objectionable program.” As a candidate for president, Biden may be the “least objectionable” since Dwight Eisenhower (who won reelection in 1956 despite a near-fatal heart attack the year before).
~ David Frum via The Atlantic

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For all its marvelous creativity, the human imagination often fails when turned to the future. It is blunted, perhaps, by a craving for the familiar. We all appreciate that the past includes many moments of severe instability, crisis, even radical revolutionary upheaval. We know that such things happened years or decades or centuries ago. We cannot believe they might happen tomorrow.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic

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