David Frum: Why the Worst Get on Top

Tuesday, June 02, 2026

Trump's choice of Bill Pulte for acting director of national intelligence is both terrifying and predictable.

Posted by Doc_sarvis at 02:11 PM | 8 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

Pulte has no intelligence background; no national-security expertise. He's an ultra-partisan with a highly quarrelsome personality and great inherited wealth. Beyond that, there's not much to say about his record of public or personal achievement.

Yet Pulte does have a disgraceful record of putting the prosecutorial powers of government at President Trump's vindictive service.

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"To make sense of this otherwise bizarre appointment," writes Frum, "consider the words of Friedrich Hayek, who said it best in his 1944 book about totalitarian systems, The Road to Serfdom, in the chapter "Why the Worst Get on Top":

The totalitarian leader must collect around him a group which is prepared voluntarily to submit to that discipline they are to impose by force upon the rest of the people.

Advancement within a totalitarian group or party depends largely on a willingness to do immoral things.

To be a useful assistant in the running of a totalitarian state, therefore, a man must be prepared to break every moral rule he has ever known if this seems necessary to achieve the end set for him.

Public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken support of the regime.

"America under Donald Trump is not a totalitarian state. Free institutions are too strong here. Trump's methods are too chaotic and lazy. Trump's goals are more fundamentally larcenous and criminal than ideological and political. But Trump does aspire to cripple the rule of law"and the proper functioning of institutions"at every opportunity. In Bill Pulte, he has the perfect tool for any improper goal, an appointee who is plainly willing "to do immoral things." Friedrich Hayek had Pulte's number before either Pulte or Trump was even born."

#1 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2026-06-02 02:17 PM | Reply

Oligarchic rule is cementing itself firmly into every nook and cranny of the American body politic.

Nothing good for national security or the American people will come of this appointment.

Nada.

Too bad the feckless 2024 Democrats squandered their incumbency supporting the Gaza genocide, just like the 1968 Democrats who supported the brutal minority Catholic junta in Saigon, squandering their "Great Society" achievements in the US.

Now look where Amerikkka is at today.

One wonders if the 2024 Democrats are asking themselves: "What could we have done differently to win?" or will they blame Felon Musk for stealing the election, racism/misogyny, or "poor messaging" for losing 7,371,247 antiwar Samaritans on Tuesday 5 Nov 2024 when the answer is right in front of their noses?

#2 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2026-06-02 02:38 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

"But supposing the world has become 'filled up', so to speak, with liberal democracies, such as there exist no tyranny and oppression worthy of the name against which to struggle? Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy."

- Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

#3 | Posted by schifferbrains at 2026-06-02 02:40 PM | Reply

#2 Flag:

#4 | Posted by A_Friend at 2026-06-02 02:42 PM | Reply

And some people will claim to be shocked when DJT tries to stay in power.

Loyalty to Dear Leader over patriotism and even competence is a Hallmark of Authoritarian Dictators.

Which is why DJT loves them SO much.

#5 | Posted by Corky at 2026-06-02 02:50 PM | Reply

The writer of this piece, David Frum, once coined the "Axis of Evil" for his boss Bush. It takes me back over 20 years ago to the Iraq invasion days. The vile spew of the National Review in the run-up to war. Bill Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and Frum, et. al. All completely beholden to Israel. And the forever war they helped ignite is still burning.

One could argue that Frum's neoconservative propaganda over the last quarter century has done as much to harm America as Trump has. One could also argue that Frum directly helped strengthen and legitimize certain aspects of the current MAGA movement. That some people would continue to give him legitimacy just because he has pivoted to keeping his career afloat by being anti-Trump is quite concerning. Much of America's current media apparatus is regurgitated and recycled from yesteryear. I am thankful my memory is still strong enough to remember it all from the first go-round.

#6 | Posted by ExpectingReign at 2026-06-02 03:08 PM | Reply

"Americans will be less safe": alarm as Trump picks loyalist as intelligence chief
www.theguardian.com
"Donald Trump's decision to appoint Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence has set off alarm bells in Washington, as a staunch Trump loyalist with little government experience who has shown an eagerness to retaliate against the president's political rivals will now sit atop the US intelligence apparatus."

#7 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2026-06-02 03:12 PM | Reply

AI will Erase it All.

Paper records in old Closets and file Cabinets and a good memory are all that will survive.

The Past is Fungible if everything is Online, or in "The Cloud".

#8 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2026-06-02 03:13 PM | Reply