It's an interesting image — an idea of party and national constants, even axioms, any one of which should have stood in the way of Donald Trump getting to a few percentage points and a few days away from the White House — all of which have failed. Some are broken across the American electorate in both major parties. Some have been systematically weakened or dismantled on the GOP side in order to increase or secure power. Others have fallen to changed circumstances (or a perception thereof) in the nation.
The unspoken problem here is, even if Trump loses, those guardrails, those safety interlocks, those ideological constants that have kept American politics from veering off the road and over a cliff, will still be broken. Will there be a will to fix any of them? If not, with what will they be replaced?
Perilous times. Slow down for the curves ahead …
Donald Trump and the Seven Broken Guardrails of Democracy – The Atlantic
The American republic was long safeguarded by settled norms, now shattered by the rise of Donald Trump.
Amusing, mostly because the GOP has been busily destroying Frum's seven guard rails for the past 48 years ever since Nixon came up with the Southern Strategy and courted the Religious Right. This piece is even more amusing since Frum has been a willing participant and benefited greatly in helping destroy several of them.
Bonus points to referencing St Ronnie of the Raygun.
+Stan Pedzick And for a particular weirdity, when I was reading the article through Pocket (as I do most stuff during the office), it shows a byline of James Fallows.
And, yes, as I noted, some of those guard rails have been weakened or removed by the GOP itself over past decades, so there's certainly some irony there.