A review of the implied politics of Patriots, as discerned by the Political Omnivore blog:
What's missing in Patriots is Mitt Romney. The incoming Constitutionalist president is General George Pulaski. He's a bonafide war hero. He brings to the white house a military staff so thoroughly stocked that insiders joke that the East Wing (where the military guys hang out) has become the West Wing (where the president hangs out)--it's an inside joke by an insider (clever). The president's people are plain-spoken, loyal, and courageous.
We don't see a lot of Pulaski but we do see him:
- Start by working with Nationalist (reaching across the aisle) which instantly turns his base against him
- We see him try to get out of Mexico and decide to end the deadly narco war and balance the budget by proposing to legalize marijuana (which turns the base against him)
- We see him stand up for immigrants when he refuses to declare everyone of Mexican descent a potential traitor (which turns the base against him).
- We notably don't see him back down ... until it's clear he can't fight a war, fix the economy,and fight his base. In other words: he seems to be a man of principal and character.
We also do not see any Nationalist heroes. Their party is in a strong minority so maybe that's an excuse--but the other heroic politicians we see are in-the-twilight-of-their-careers Constitutionalists.
With Romney missing and no role-model Nationalists (except maybe the main character's girlfriend might be one) I think we have a negative image of our answer: I'm going to suspect that Frum (a) really wishes there were conservative men of character running for office and (b) that he's not real thrilled with what the Democrats have served up (at least for the most part) and (c) doesn't believe Romney is likely to be much of a moral role model or a uniter.
This is easy: I follow his twitter feed so I'd be surprised if I'm totally wrong--but nevertheless: the politics of Patriots is all about the Republican decline. It doesn't waste any time kicking the Democrats.
