David Frum thinks the GOP is too ‘extreme’

David Frum begins a recent article of his by asking: “When did the GOP lose touch with reality”? A leading Neoconservative journalist and editor David Frum was known for his great purge when taking over the National Review, slamming the men he gave the boot as ‘Unpatriotic Conservatives’ and people who hate their country. Why did he do that? Well they came out against the Iraq War and the policies of the newly consolidated Neoconservative movement. Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak, Sam Francis, Jude Wanniski, Joe Sobran, and many others were condemned by him and expelled from the Conservative movement.

These Conservatives were unafraid to condemn the Neocons and openly called them insane. For this, they were expelled. Now the man who led the charge to expel them from the movement is coming under fire. Since he has begun criticizing the Conservative movement and Republican establishment he has lost his job at the American Enterprise Institute and his speaking slots on television and radio were cancelled after he stopped following the established line. Just what he did to the Paleoconservatives is now happening to him.

Frum lashed out at the Republican Presidential nominees for what he considers their insane positions on the issues. Newt Gingrich has come out in favor of eliminating child labor laws, Herman Cain worried about China acquiring nuclear weapons, and Rick Perry self-destructing on live television:



He also criticizes the GOP for abandoning the poor, like how the WSJ refers to those who are so poor they do not pay taxes as “Lucky Duckies”. The GOP formerly supported such things as tax cuts for the poor over the rich and the Fed keeping interest rates low, now said to be almost “treasonous”. Also he concludes that because the Republicans failed to properly confront Obama on his healthcare that regardless of who wins office in 2012 the program will stay, permanently.

Frum targeted the candidates for nomination, criticizing them saying: “these tea-party champions provide a ghoulish type of news entertainment each time they reveal that they know nothing about public affairs and have never attempted to learn.”

To him there are three reasons why the insanity is not leaving the Republican Party and the Conservative movement as a whole:

• Wealthy, elderly, rural, and veterans benefit from big government even as they argue against it.
• “White America has been plunged into a mood of pessimism and anger since 2008”, in part because “in post-recession America, employers seem to show a distinct preference for foreign-born workers.”
• “Conservatism has evolved from a political philosophy into a market segment.” An entire “alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, [and] its own laws of economics” is now at work.

While I personally cannot help but agree with David Frum (shocking) the fact remains this is in large part his own fault. The entire fight against the Paleoconservatives as mentioned before was just a façade for his real reason of having them dismissed; in his eyes they were racists and Anti-Semites. Murray Rothbard was even claimed to be among this group (he was a Jew!) and Lew Rockwell. These people had to leave the movement because they were too reactionary as they were unafraid to voice their heart-felt opposition to multiculturalism and diversity.

The man David Frum and associates most wanted to take down was that annoying populist conservative, Pat Buchanan. He was their enemy because he did not pay lip service to the free-market but instead championed the opposition to mass immigration, profligate spending, the abandonment of the culture war, and the rise of globalization. Pat rallied what Sam Francis called the “Middle Class Radicals” to his side by attacking free-trade, cultural liberalism, secularization, and the dictates of the free-market. Basically these were the deeply Culturally Conservative and Economically Liberal Americans, the ones who rallied to Richard Nixon.

Next to be destroyed by the rising Neocons was Samuel Francis; he was fired from the Washington Times because Dinesh D’Souza used him as a tool to gain exposure for his book ‘The End of Racism’. Peter Brimelow and John O’Sullivan were fired from the National Review after criticizing the immigration policies of our government under George H.W. Bush. And Kevin Lamb was fired from ‘Human Events’ for his conservative positions which the Neocons did not like.

Why did Frum attack his fellow Conservatives so savagely and chase them out of the movement? Well there was no better way for Neoconservatives to consolidate their control than to enter the media and since the 1990s media was owned entirely by those of a Liberal persuasion what better way to get your name out then to go after the Right-wing? He developed a reputation as a respectable Conservative who those in the media could actually have a debate with (because they agreed on the pesky issues such as immigration and multiculturalism). This is the same with William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and the other ‘Conservatives’ who appear regularly on Faux (Fox) News Channel.

Is it any wonder now why the Conservative movement seems to have hit an intellectual brick wall? Any dissent has been squashed by the Neoconservatives, led by David Frum himself, leaving them with little room to move and few sane talking points left. Their entire agenda is to not ‘rock the boat’ so that one day they may have the ability to lead National Review, American Enterprise Institute, or become a regular at Fox News. So issues ranging from multiculturalism, opposition to mass immigration, and questioning the free-market economics are absolute no-no’s. This way the establishment pays Conservatives to repeat rather than think, i.e. keep repeating the same thing and do not question why.

What does this do to the intellectuals in the Conservative movement? It limits their abilities to actually think logically and question the established line, especially out of fear that the SPLC may mention them. By doing limiting the intellectual pursuits of the Right it allows the Left to then dominate the intellectual discourse; nothing is stopping them from thinking whatever they want to think. Sure the Left cannot roam too far away from home, but their leash is much longer than that of the Right.


Take FOX News for example, you cannot find a more intellectually dead news media than that. Instead of mentioning any truly Conservative issues, as they may not be politically correct, they instead focus on how dirty and anti-Semitic the Occupy movement is, that the black Founding Fathers were covered up by scary Progressives, that ObamaCare is leading America into Nazism, or how MLK was actually a true Conservative, that it was actually those evil Unions that destroyed Detroit (yet left Pittsburgh perfectly intact), and how American workers real problem is that we are overpaid.



Truth is the Tea Party was a real expression of White America’s (yes, White America’s) fears of the future. But instead of actually expressing this fear and tackling the issue the Conservative establishment has stripped it of its true intentions and repacked it as a politically correct conspiracy theory that screams at itself in a hollow room. Thus the end result is a movement which is extremist but politically correct, uses hard-line rhetoric and will result in the maintenance of the establishment.

Take these three examples:

1. Steve Sailer’s book ‘America’s Half Blood Prince’ describes race as central to Obama’s life, career, and politics. Instead of saying something like that the establishment came out and said that Obama’s politics stems from his ‘Kenyan Anti-Colonial worldview’, which is more politically correct but also more insane.

2. Oppose Muslims immigration because it will change the character of a community and cause endless cultural conflicts. Instead of saying something like that the establishment lashed out at the Manhattan Mosque claiming it would be an agent for Saudi Arabia to install Sharia Law in New York, this was more politically correct but also more insane.

3. Mass immigration will lead to hostility from different ethnic/linguistic groups that embrace their own identity and use it to get more government benefits. Instead of saying something like that the establishment says it is a conspiracy by progressive white racists to undermine the free-market over objections by patriotic Hispanics that want to low corporate taxes.

David Frum at least correctly observes that the recession and white displacement are leading to racialism (and racism) but it was also his fault, and his Neocon friends, because they threw out the only Conservatives who could relate this issue with the masses without violence or conflict, i.e. Pat Buchanan. Not only that but the establishment is so dumb they are now pursuing policies which will put them at ends with their core constituency base of white poor and working class voters. They seek to slash Medicare while at the same time cut taxes for the rich, something Frum also criticizes.

How does the Republican establishment hold itself together? They do so, on the basis of fear, paranoia, conspiracy theories, and extremism that dare not to leave the realm of political correctness.

Remember, Frum expelled the Paleoconservatives because they did not want to engage in the Iraq War and were undoubtedly politically incorrect. They were unpatriotic Americans after 9/11 and he claimed that the event would herald a new era of patriotism. If anything it further tore America apart.

Bad as the Republicans are they still remain better than the Democrats who are openly engaging in a battle against this country by suing states who stand up against illegals, have abandoned the white working class, and are set on a policy of importing millions of poor third world immigrants to establish a permanent underclass which depresses wages and brings them millions of more votes; this coming from the party which is supposed to represent the American worker in a fight against inequality. The Republicans are also actively throwing our country and workers into the trash bin by protecting the plutocrats over the American laborer while saying “who are you going to vote for, the Democrats?”

David Frum may not like it, the Neocons definitely would not, but in order to actually make the Right in this country sane again we must confront massive immigration (legal and illegal), the fiscal policies, establish a non-interventionist foreign policy, confront corporations and their corruption, and actually help our workers, our industry, and our poor. But that does not fit the agenda of the Republican establishment who would rather keep walking off the cliff, telling themselves everything will be okay, we just cannot sound like those reactionaries Pat Buchanan or Paul Gottfried.

*Please Note: Most of the wording is my own, I have also added some of my opinion into this work, but the original idea is not mine. I encourage you to read the full, original, article at the link below:

Memo To David Frum: The GOP Is “Extreme” Because You Helped Purge Its “Extremists”

Fantastic post Misoir, some really important concepts to take note of in this post. I've read your post and will read the source articles shortly, but I have a question about the very last statement:

"Memo To David Frum: The GOP Is “Extreme” Because You Helped Purge Its “Extremists” "

Shouldn't it read 'the GOP is "extreme"' because he helped purge it's moderates?

Or is that a wordplay on Frum's view of the moderates in his party as 'extremists'?

I also have a problem with how you depict Obama as 'anti-white' or 'pro-illegal immigrants'. Obama has actually done more for 'white' Americans than his predecessor ever did. Corporate profits have reached all time record highs, the Obama admin. has cracked down on and deported more illegals than Bush, and any claim Obama adhere's to 'Kenyan' economics is fear-based GOP mythology - as espoused by the very GOP 'extremists' this post seems to be about.

Look at two of the leading GOP candidates - Romney and Gingrich - both advocated health care reform, Romney implemented universal health care in Mass., and Gingrich invented the 'individual mandate' - yet both are now trying their best to cozy up to the extremists in the GOP by denying the sucess of Romneycare and the credit it owes to Gingrich's individual mandate. They are forced to do an about-face on their own creations in order to remain in favor of GOP 'extremists'. I use this as an example because several points in your topic seem to rely on GOP 'extrmemist' complaints about Dems. or Obama, yet this post is a complaint about these particular extremists - it's a bit like having your cake and eating it too.

Don't get me wrong, I really like this post and what you say, but it has (to a small degree) a mixed message.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
Shouldn't it read 'the GOP is "extreme"' because he helped purge it's moderates?

Or is that a wordplay on Frum's view of the moderates in his party as 'extremists'?

Well, Patrick Buchanan and the Paleoconservatives were the extremists at the time, not in the modern day interpretation of extremist as laissez-faire capitalism, etc… They were more the lower middle class populist conservatives, deeply religious, anti-PC, and only skeptical of the state when they believed it was hijacked by elitists. To the Neoconservatives, that was an extremist view. Try checking out some of their works, I consider myself a Paleoconservative and unfortunately there are not many of us left.

Patrick Buchanan Blog
Alternative Right (some Paleoconservative, mostly Radical Traditionalist)
Chronicles Magazine
Front Porch Republic (some Paleoconservative, mostly Traditionalist Conservative)
Taki's Magazine (Paleoconservative and Paleolibertarian)

I also have a problem with how you depict Obama as 'anti-white' or 'pro-illegal immigrants'. Obama has actually done more for 'white' Americans than his predecessor ever did. Corporate profits have reached all time record highs, the Obama admin. has cracked down on and deported more illegals than Bush, and any claim Obama adhere's to 'Kenyan' economics is fear-based GOP mythology - as espoused by the very GOP 'extremists' this post seems to be about.

Making the 1% richer does not make someone supportive of the White populace, only the plutocrats. The Obama re-election team has already announced they will not seek to win the majority of White working class voters; this is the real kick in the teeth. As for cracking down on more illegals, I will not dispute that but will direct your attention to not only Federal lawsuits but the allowing of foreign governments to sue US states which crack down on illegal immigrants.

Look at two of the leading GOP candidates - Romney and Gingrich - both advocated health care reform, Romney implemented universal health care in Mass., and Gingrich invented the 'individual mandate' - yet both are now trying their best to cozy up to the extremists in the GOP by denying the sucess of Romneycare and the credit it owes to Gingrich's individual mandate. They are forced to do an about-face on their own creations in order to remain in favor of GOP 'extremists'. I use this as an example because several points in your topic seem to rely on GOP 'extrmemist' complaints about Dems. or Obama, yet this post is a complaint about these particular extremists - it's a bit like having your cake and eating it too.

If we look at politics are linear than it is hard to understand the point being made. But politics are not linear. To make it simple, the Paleoconservatives whom the Neoconservatives kicked out for being too extreme were not economically extreme, they were arguably more left-wing than the modern day Democrats on many issues (trade, agriculture, labor unions). But on the Cultural side during the heydays of the Culture Wars they represented the extremist side which the Neocons wanted to purge the Right of. The Neocons, with their Libertarian cousins, are business and/or free-market based thinkers and is very radical in their views on that.

When a Paleocon rails against the Democrats it is usually for a cultural reason more than the Neocons economic reasons. This does not sound like anyone from the modern Conservative movement:

"Better the occasional sins of a government acting out of the spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference."

It, the Paleocon perspective, is best summed up by Samuel Francis:

"Only Buchanan managed to capture the strange synthesis of right and left that characterizes the political beliefs of MARs (Middle American Radicals) — their combination of culturally conservative moral and social beliefs with support for economically liberal policies such as Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits, and economic nationalism and protectionism."

To us, these people dedicated to tax cuts, free-trade, the dictates of the market, and simultaneously ignorant of the deep cultural division tearing our nation apart are the real radicals, them and their buddies in the Democratic Party.

Originally posted by Misoir

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
Shouldn't it read 'the GOP is "extreme"' because he helped purge it's moderates?

Or is that a wordplay on Frum's view of the moderates in his party as 'extremists'?

Well, Patrick Buchanan and the Paleoconservatives were the extremists at the time, not in the modern day interpretation of extremist as laissez-faire capitalism, etc… They were more the lower middle class populist conservatives, deeply religious, anti-PC, and only skeptical of the state when they believed it was hijacked by elitists. To the Neoconservatives, that was an extremist view. Try checking out some of their works, I consider myself a Paleoconservative and unfortunately there are not many of us left.

I see what your saying - the once-upon-a-time extremists (who were in for all intents, "moderates"), who were driven from the party by Frum led to the party swinging much more - I hate to use the word 'right' or 'conservative' - much more fundamentalist wingnut "neo-con" territory.

I suppose I was a lot like you - a 'paleo'conservative, born and raised in North Carolina, never voted for a Democrat in my life. Voted Reagan (600-ship Navy, f*** yea!), Bush (Sr.) and an almost straight slate of local GOP candidates, but it was under the first term of Bush Sr. the chinks began to show themselves, the abandonment of sound economic principles, reckless embracing of massive govt. growth and runaway military budget, the pandering to the religious right - The Newts, the Roves, the arch-neo-cons of Rumsfield and Wollfowitz et. al., and their Patriot Act and such that led me to never vow to vote GOP again. Not until they reverse that course and return to reason.

Well said indeed.
I enjoyed reading your well thought out thread.
I disagree that the republicans are still a better choice than the dems,
but of course I am a dem. Also you were so astute to point out
the rise of pessimism and anger for white Americans from 2008 to present,
but I feel it was less political awareness on their part and more
crazy a** rhetoric spewing from AM radios across the country that made their blood boil.
The money Karl Rove's American Crossroads and Dick Army's Freedom Works
( whose banner is at the top of the ATS page as I write this)
received from the Chinese, the Russians and India was astounding.
All this in an effort to keep jobs from Americans and move more and more overseas.
The Republican candidates supported by these 501c's really rabble rouse
and wear the flag any chance they get, which really gets my goat.
Anyway great thread for a Righty haha.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
I see what your saying - the once-upon-a-time extremists (who were in for all intents, "moderates"), who were driven from the party by Frum led to the party swinging much more - I hate to use the word 'right' or 'conservative' - much more fundamentalist wingnut "neo-con" territory.

The very odd thing about Neoconservatives is that you can trace their intellectual roots back to the New Deal Coalition. These were the Liberals from Roosevelt to Johnson, they supported the New Deal, New Frontier, and Great Society programs, the military adventures overseas, internationalism (i.e. globalization/free-trade), and were opposed to the extremism of the New Left (counterculture movement). They rallied behind Henry “Scoop” Jackson from Washington; he was bought by the military contractors and thus was the most prominent war hawk around.

After Jackson failed to win they abandoned the Democratic Party to turn towards the new war hawk Ronald Reagan. With him they embraced the Neoliberalism that arose in reaction to the 1970s inflationary recession, this same thing occurred in other Anglo-Saxon countries (i.e. Margaret Thatcher, Wet and Dries), and out of that arose the alliance of militarism, Neoliberal economics, globalization, and support for an enlarged bureaucracy. The war between the newcomer Neoconservatives and the traditional Conservatives (Paleocons) broke out during the Reagan administration and came to a head with the appointment for head of the National Endowment of the Arts.

Paleoconservatives wanted to appoint a man who hated Abraham Lincoln, the Neoconservatives were disgusted by that idea, so they launched an assault calling the Paleocons “reactionary”, “racist”, and other things that were slanders usually launched at them by the Left. By the late 1980s Neoconservatives began to take over the prominent Conservative publications, journals, and commentator spots. When Newt Gingrich came to power in the 1994 Republican Revolution this is when the final war was fought, the Neocons purged the conservative movement of all traces of Paleoconservatism, resulting in the triumph of George W. Bush running mostly on a Paleo platform then governing as a Neoconservative.

I suppose I was a lot like you - a 'paleo'conservative, born and raised in North Carolina, never voted for a Democrat in my life. Voted Reagan (600-ship Navy, f*** yea!), Bush (Sr.) and an almost straight slate of local GOP candidates, but it was under the first term of Bush Sr. the chinks began to show themselves, the abandonment of sound economic principles, reckless embracing of massive govt. growth and runaway military budget, the pandering to the religious right - The Newts, the Roves, the arch-neo-cons of Rumsfield and Wollfowitz et. al., and their Patriot Act and such that led me to never vow to vote GOP again. Not until they reverse that course and return to reason.

It is a hard thing to understand why the Neoconservatives pander to the Christian Right yet it was the Paleoconservatives who were, and still are, the most staunchly culturally conservative people around. They never pandered to anyone though; I suppose they wanted to pursue real substance in the issues rather than just the specific social issues. You could say they were determined at preserving a civilization rather than arguing social issues in general.

That was a good read. I find Frum to be offensive to my sense of what is reasonable. He is a typical Israel first Chickenhawk. Like most neocons he is so ready to send someone elses child into a meat grinder to keep Israel from getting their just deserts for their treatment of the other Semites in the region. Basically treating their neighbors like animals to be worked when the need arises and killed when they are inconvenient.

Anyone who points out the fact that they are wrong in this immoral abuse of their neighbors is labeled an anti-Semite.If you do not want to see your tax money go to Israel so they can continue their murderous ways then you are an anti-government right wingnut.

Basically if you are peaceful, respect others and will treat others as you wish to be treated you an extremist lunatic fringe.

So much of what he has said and written makes it clear that he wants the GOP to mold America into the mindless Golem of Israel. I am frankly tired of these type of strategies being played out in American politics. Politics just does not work well enough in America to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.