Free Republic
Browse · Search
GOP Club
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

A historian explains how mainstream conservatives made Trump (David Frum? Hahaha)
Vox ^ | August 13, 2018 | Zack Beauchamp

Posted on 08/13/2018 10:45:22 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Is President Donald Trump a perversion of the American conservative movement — or simply an honest reflection of what it’s been for decades?

Ever since Trump’s victory in the Republican primary, this has been one of the big questions hanging over American politics. If Trump’s anti-intellectual and race-baiting brand of politics is a parasite on the American right, then it’s possible the Republican Party can be cleaned up after him. That’s the premise of the so-called Never Trump movement, a small group of Republican elites and conservative intellectuals who have denounced the president and his allies in no uncertain terms.

But it’s possible the Never Trumpers are wrong. It could be that they’re the ones who have been deluding themselves into thinking that the conservative movement is a higher intellectual calling, when in fact it’s been a cover for a shallow and vicious brand of white identity politics for decades. If that’s true, then there’s no coming back from Trumpism. The conservative movement and its core institutions need to be radically reformed, if not outright abolished and rebuilt.

One of the most prominent Never Trumpers, former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, posed precisely this question at the end of an Atlantic essay on conservative polemicist and convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza. “Did they really change so much?” Frum muses about his Trump supporting allies, “Or did I?” Seth Cotlar, a professor of American history at Willamette University, set out to answer Frum’s question in a lengthy and extremely worthwhile Twitter thread — and suggested an answer the Never Trumper won’t like.

Cotlar, who grew up in a Republican household and teaches a course on the history of American conservatism, suggests that Frum is, in fact, the one who changed....

(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...


TOPICS: Issues; Parties; State and Local
KEYWORDS: gop; nevertrump; republicans; trump
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

1 posted on 08/13/2018 10:45:22 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
If Trump’s anti-intellectual and race-baiting...

Zack is projecting.

2 posted on 08/13/2018 10:49:23 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (<img src="http://i.imgur.com/WukZwJP.gif" width=400><p> zXSEP5Z xnKL3lW XywCCJd)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Vox Vomitus.


3 posted on 08/13/2018 10:51:01 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj ("It's Slappin' Time !")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
f Trump’s anti-intellectual and race-baiting brand of politics

Why do you post pure sh!t like this? Do you think it's a fun thing to do? I ask why?

4 posted on 08/13/2018 11:00:16 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
Re> when in fact it’s been a cover for a shallow and vicious brand of white identity politics for decades.

I believe it was the Democrats that voted against Civil rights, owned slaves, started the KKK and treat NON white Americans as their pets, all the while keeping them in ghettos with corrupt school systems to keep them poor.

5 posted on 08/13/2018 11:05:46 AM PDT by IC Ken (Stop making stupid people famous)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Last time I looked, politicians had to give voice to a message that tapped into the needs and the beliefs of people, even if that meant cobbling together a group of several factions based on culture, ideology, religion, race, etc. Democrats attempt to do it with their identity politics, and the behemoth they have built is rickety, hard to maintain and heavily dependent on being able to continue to succeed in selling their lies.

Republicans know what sells with the electorate, but they repeatedly sold goods that they would not deliver. The base figured it out and started sitting at home. All Trump did was pick up their message, turn up the volume, and started delivering using his unique skill set.

What has become completely clear to most intelligent voters is that career politicians and the malignant bureaucracy were running the government for their own personal benefit and ignoring the well being of the citizens and nation as a whole.

It is now clear that it is not rocket science to honestly run the government and provide for a healthy economic environment. It IS rocket science to do that, stuff your own pockets full of cash, keep your wealthy donors happy, and satisfy the citizens who you are really, really shafting.

Trump has yanked the clothes from the emperor and his family (the politicians, the bureaucrats and the MSM). Our anger and contempt is very real and beyond justified.

If I were a politician, a bureaucrat or a member of the media, I would be afraid of me and those like me. I, and those like me, may just snap one day. We all understand that, through your taxation and reprehensible spending, you have relegated our lives to being nothing more than a form of slavery. Yes, we are seething and simmering in our juices. It is in your self-interest to listen to us and, for a damned change, respond to our needs.


6 posted on 08/13/2018 11:26:57 AM PDT by RatRipper (Unindicted co-conspirators: the Mainstream Media and the Democratic Party)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

“shallow and vicious brand of white identity politics“

It’s not shallow. It’s kinda deep. And it’s not at all vicious.

Loving your own people is not hate, no matter how much David Frum, Bill Kristol, and Jennifer Rubin say it.


7 posted on 08/13/2018 11:32:20 AM PDT by Jim Noble (p)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
Oh, Zack . . .


8 posted on 08/13/2018 11:33:36 AM PDT by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jim Noble
You are on the mark.

"the so-called Never Trump movement, a small group of Republican elites and conservative intellectuals who have denounced the president and his allies in no uncertain terms.... "

There is nothing elite or intellectual about people like the self-promoting Canadian poseur, David Frum. Equaly absurd is the attribution of such to Kristol, whose Leftist father has admitted to having idolized Leon Trotsky, the butcher of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Neocon Phenomenon

9 posted on 08/13/2018 11:47:04 AM PDT by Ohioan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Another stupid premise that I stop reading within a few sentences.


10 posted on 08/13/2018 11:48:51 AM PDT by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: central_va

“Why do you post pure sh!t like this? Do you think it’s a fun thing to do? I ask why?”

“To learn what the enemy is thinking”. At least that’s how it’s been explained to me. Another rationale is that posting their anti Trump hit pieces is like gathering enemy intelligence so we know their strategies.

I think the liberals should simply be ignored.

Re-publishing Leftist propaganda is just aiding and abetting if you ask me.


11 posted on 08/13/2018 12:37:46 PM PDT by enumerated
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: enumerated

We already know the enemy at this point. I only need to burn my hand once to know the stove is hot and it hurts....


12 posted on 08/13/2018 12:44:17 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
You've got the lead for the weirdest found article of the week and it's only Monday.

Twitter makes people think that they are endlessly fascinating stars, so Seth Cotlar is now twittering about his family history, like anybody cares.

Cotlar's twitter feed is a very scattershot, stream of consciousness series of attacks on targets that really don't go together.

Bill Buckley and Dinesh D'Souza -- the same thing? Hardly.

One place he goes wrong is in considering Newt Gingrich as an intellectual's intellectual -- which he never really was.

Comparing Newt to Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or Charlie Schumer would be more appropriate -- and he might not come off longing that bad intellectually by comparison.

Another place he falters is in talking about the right's war with a "phantom left" and not considering that the same has often been true of the left's thinking about the right.

The enemy politically is always an exaggeration -- a phantom menace -- that people never really examine that closely.

I think Cotlar's probably right about David Frum, though -- not that Frum was responsible for Trump, but that there was never some golden age in which Frum was that great or deep or insightful.

13 posted on 08/13/2018 12:58:47 PM PDT by x
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

President Trump is a reaction to both parties thwarting the will of the citizens to stop the illegal alien inundation.
In every election since the last amnesty the Bush League Republicans have made sure we could only vote for amnesty candidates.
Win or lose, the Bush Plan for North Mexico (aka USA) would continue to be implemented.


14 posted on 08/13/2018 12:59:48 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jim Noble

David Frum, Bill Kristol, and Jebbifer Rubin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three of the many stooges of the Cheap Labor Express


15 posted on 08/13/2018 1:03:14 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: x; E. Pluribus Unum; fieldmarshaldj; central_va; IC Ken; RatRipper; Jim Noble; colorado tanker; ...

Nothing has ever beat this one, to my knowledge:

PIV is always rape, ok?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3108209/posts


16 posted on 08/13/2018 2:12:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum
If Trump’s anti-intellectual and race-baiting...

Exactly so. We think in terms of principles, not race.

17 posted on 08/14/2018 7:28:25 AM PDT by gogeo (No justice, no peace.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Jim Noble
David Frum, Bill Kristol, and Jebbifer Rubin

They love their own people.

And here's a hint. It aint YT or Americans.

18 posted on 08/14/2018 8:47:16 AM PDT by riri
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”


19 posted on 08/14/2018 8:53:56 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It rubs the rainbow on it's skin or it gets the diversity again!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

NeverTrumpers internalizing their self proclaimed conservatism.

Navel gazing azholes.


20 posted on 08/14/2018 8:58:01 AM PDT by TADSLOS (ThereÂ’s a tear in my beer...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
GOP Club
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson