... a dreadful title for a serious book ... Frum’s intellectual journey is what makes this book so fascinating. He can look at our current condition with fresh eyes, earned through humiliating experience. It is a humility to which the rest of us should aspire ... divided into two parts. The first is a brutal takedown of Donald Trump, occasionally to a fault...Frum’s best observations are more subtle ... Frum is on shakier ground when he places Trump internationally, as part of a 'fascoid' movement — an awkward coinage he uses to indicate a diluted form of fascism — that is based not in nationalism, but in white racial identity 'with a capital in Moscow.' Well, maybe ... Happily, Frum remains a small-c conservative, not a radical. The solutions he proposes in the second half of Trumpocalypse are bold and provocative, but not wild-eyed ... [Frum] has done something crucial: He has recognized that a new national conversation is coming, and, with Trumpocalypse, he has provided a thoughtful way to start it.
Trumpocalypse voices irreconcilable grievance. Still, Frum’s dismay is not directed at the president’s supporters, at least he tries not to. Frum understands that even if the incumbent loses re-election, the great American divide is not disappearing anytime soon ... Frum observes that in theology, the apocalypse was not 'the end' but the harbinger of a 'new and better order'. We’ll see. But Trumpocalypse is an apt title for these blighted times.
Frum brings a degree of nuance to his observations of the president ... It’s hard to imagine anyone in 2020 still needs to be told that Trump is incompetent, malevolent, or dangerous ... So who is this book for, then? Leftists aren’t going to read it, and neither are the president’s die-hard supporters ... This is the context in which Trumpocalypse makes most sense: as a manifesto of the Never Trump movement. As such, it is most interesting when it turns its attention away from the president and toward actual prescriptions, some of which any liberal—or even leftist—might endorse, and some of which are considerably more troubling. On the positive side of the ledger, Frum deserves credit for advancing a suite of reforms that would break the GOP’s undemocratic stranglehold on the federal government and reduce corruption ... Never Trumpers...are comfortable suburban white people across the country who have migrated to the Democrats out of personal distaste for Trump, and they hold—and moreover, deserve to hold—the balance of political power nationally. Trumpocalypse is a book for them, meant to express their worldview and flatter their very specific notions of right and wrong.
[Frum] doesn’t hold back...a damning denouncement of the Trump presidency, the broken promises he made to the electorate and the damage his term in office has done to Republicanism in the United States ... Frum’s punchy, in-your-face style isn’t for everyone. His pages are packed with aphorisms and off-the-cuff judgments ... This is definitely a man who could go head-to-head with Donald Trump in a tv studio debate – and win ... offers a welcome recap of some of the most egregious actions of the Trump years ... Frum is particularly strong on the psychology of the president ... He also comes close to explaining the question that has most confounded Trump’s critics: why his core support base has stuck with him ... notably absent is any meaningful discussion of how senior members of the Republican Party have rowed in behind Trump. Though he cleverly analyses how Trump tapped in to the increasing anxiety of a party aware of its minority status as America’s demographics change, he is silent on the complicity of senior party figures in Congress like Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell who have enabled Trump ... Arguably the strongest passages of Trumpocalypse are where Frum strays from his evisceration of Trump and turns his analytical skills to the broader problems in the US and the overall political landscape. His overview of America’s healthcare problems is concise and on the money ... Those of a liberal persuasion attracted by Frum’s denunciation of Donald Trump in Trumpocalypse, may be disappointed.
... brisk and carefully reasoned ... Frum’s caustic treatment of 'Woke messaging' will grate on committed leftists, but he presents a cogent argument for taking the middle path to electoral and legislative victory. Democrats debating how best to beat Trump should consider this well-informed directive.
... a thoughtful analysis of current troubles and future opportunities, but it will interest only those who aren’t sated by the constant analysis offered by newspapers and cable TV. While Frum is more eloquent than many, he covers much of the same ground, and his suggested policy points, though interesting, are a relatively small part of the book ... A must-read for political junkies but not compelling enough for the large, but exhausted, population of never-Trumpers.
