# "When Did The GOP Lose Touch With Reality" by David Frum **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 28, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320 "2011-11-28T05:29:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/161 "2011-11-30T18:57:30Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Hi again **Terr** : > > Have you actually read David Frum’s article? Do you have any comment on it? I did. I commented on it before. I will repeat it. There is no one more fervent than a recent convert. Witness David Frum. Or, for the other side of the coin, David Mamet. Hell, [Frum himself says he is not a conservative anymore](http://www.frumforum.com/conceding-one-to-the-critics). ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/162 "2011-11-30T19:00:10Z")
It’s not so much about the individuals that make up the party, but the movements and ideals of the party, holistically. The crazy has been whipped up into a fine lather this past decade, and the GOP has done nothing more than to encourage it while everyone else would be laughing if it weren’t so damn tragic and embarrassing. They’re cutting off their nose to spite their face. Unfortunately, it’s our face too. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/163 "2011-11-30T19:02:11Z")
But Frum isn’t a convert. He’s still a Reaganite. He has problems with the hardliners in his party trying to crash the country’s economy. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/164 "2011-11-30T19:04:27Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > But Frum isn’t a convert. You don’t get to decide that. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/165 "2011-11-30T19:08:03Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I did. I commented on it before. I will repeat it. > > There is no one more fervent than a recent convert. Witness David Frum. Or, for the other side of the coin, David Mamet. That’s simply a comment that shoots the messenger. You could have said that without even reading the article (and indeed, friend **Shodan** did just that). Any comments on the **substance** of the article? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/166 "2011-11-30T19:17:43Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I did. I commented on it before. I will repeat it. > > There is no one more fervent than a recent convert. Witness David Frum. Or, for the other side of the coin, David Mamet. > > Hell, [Frum himself says he is not a conservative anymore](http://www.frumforum.com/conceding-one-to-the-critics). No, he says his views on some issues do not represent the “consensus conservative view.” And there is no “conversion” here, that is, there is no admission at all that **Frum** has changed **his** mind about anything; the party seems to have moved around him, which does happen a lot. [Michael Lind](http://www.amazon.com/UP-CONSERVATISM-Right-Wrong-America/dp/0684827611) is an example of a commentator who is not a conservative any more. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/167 "2011-11-30T19:21:00Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > That’s simply a comment that shoots the messenger. You could have said that without even reading the article (and indeed, friend **Shodan** did just that). > > Any comments on the **substance** of the article? In politics, the messenger determines the substance. Once you know who/what Frum is, the substance is just run of the mill Democrat complaints about Republicans. Big whoop. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/168 "2011-11-30T19:30:23Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I did. I commented on it before. I will repeat it. > > There is no one more fervent than a recent convert. Witness David Frum. Or, for the other side of the coin, David Mamet. > > Hell, [Frum himself says he is not a conservative anymore](http://www.frumforum.com/conceding-one-to-the-critics). The only thing that would prove that is if you had a quote from Frum saying directly: “I am a liberal now”. Since such a thing does not exist, all you are doing is showing the incredible twists that happen in a conservative mind when people he used to respect change their views. Your cognitive dissonance would be comical, if it wasn’t so sad, to watch as you have to change gears to decry someone who you once probably admired. I’m going to try a little game: The right wing thinks Obama’s liberal. Ok, fine, let’s go with that. I disagree with many of the things Obama’s doing. Am I conservative? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/169 "2011-11-30T19:30:40Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > In politics, the messenger determines the substance. Once you know who/what Frum is . . . Not what you think he is. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/170 "2011-11-30T19:49:57Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not what you think he is. You don’t get to decide what he is for me. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/171 "2011-11-30T20:06:02Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > You don’t get to decide what he is for me. You do not get to decide that Frum is a “convert” from conservatism or something when he is not. Or, rather, you do, of course, but not in any sense of which any one else is obliged to take note. I could decide that Herman Cain is a secret Communist, but that’s **my** problem, not his nor yours. ---
**Author:** ![PigArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/172 "2011-11-30T20:16:06Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I also remember reading with great amusement various leftie “experts” that were “definitively proving” that Wiener’s pictures were fake. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/173 "2011-11-30T20:18:21Z")
> [@kenetic](#): > > Cite? The only one I remember was Jon Stewart, who remarked that the dude he knows (intimately for years) has “more Anthony and less Weiner” than apparent in the pix. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/174 "2011-11-30T20:18:56Z")
For those who cannot bring themselves to actually read the article (or for others who seem confused, and think it is from the New Yorker or the New York Times or whatever), David Frum himself seems to have anticipated that some would think that he had changed: > [@](#): > > I have been arguing that we conservatives need to follow a different course. And it is this argument that has led so many of my friends to demand, sometimes bemusedly, sometimes angrily, “What the hell happened to you?” I could fire the same question back: “Never mind me—what happened to you?” He indicates clearly how the party has moved away from him and others, and now embraces > [@](#): > > ultralibertarianism, crank monetary theories, populist fury, and paranoid visions of a Democratic Party controlled by ACORN and the New Black Panthers. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/175 "2011-11-30T20:24:28Z")
Another choice quote from the article: > [@](#): > > But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action phony doomed to inevitable defeat. I would add to that conservative alternative knowledge system: Outside this alternative reality, people read political articles and debate the pros and cons of the content. Within the system, they refuse to read, and dismiss any criticism of their alternative world view by shooting the messenger. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/176 "2011-11-30T20:29:34Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Another choice quote from the article: > > I would add to that conservative alternative knowledge system: > > Outside this alternative reality, people read political articles and debate the pros and cons of the content. Within the system, they refuse to read, and dismiss any criticism of their alternative world view by shooting the messenger. If you ever try lurking alternately on Democratic Underground and Free Republic . . . they’re both partisan echo chambers, of course, but there the resemblance ends. The DUers at least appear to be living on the same planet as the different-thinking, the moderate, and the apolitical; the Freepers do not. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/177 "2011-11-30T20:31:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You do not get to decide that Frum is a “convert” from conservatism or something when he is not. Or, rather, you do, of course. Glad you recognize that. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/178 "2011-11-30T20:37:09Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Glad you recognize that. You really **can’t** read for comprehension, can you? Or perhaps the issue here is not comprehension but honesty. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/179 "2011-11-30T20:42:45Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Glad you recognize that. I realize you only changed a comma to a period, but in the future, don’t change text inside of quote boxes. It creates a misleading impression of what the other person said. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/180 "2011-11-30T20:46:46Z")
> [@kenetic](#): > > Cite? > **[Breitbart's Weiner hoax: New photos surface! Analysis, and Surprise! (UPDATED)](https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/30/980617/-Breitbarts-Weiner-hoax:-New-photos-surface!-Analysis,-and-Surprise!-%28UPDATED%29)** > > I apologize for yet one more diary on this subject, but I have a lot of information and photos - too much for a comment. I've been puzzling this out for days, asking questions as new information ... > **[The Jig Is Up: Yfrog Disables E-mail Upload Service; Anthony Weiner Stands...](https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/02/981422/-The-Jig-Is-Up:-Yfrog-Disables-E-mail-Upload-Service;-Anthony-Weiner-Stands-Vindicated?via=search)** > > The blog Cannonfire, which closed the case yesterday on the so-called "Weinergate" affair when it ... [http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/28/breitbart-publishes-risque-photo-claims-its-anthony-weiners-wiener/](http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/28/breitbart-publishes-risque-photo-claims-its-anthony-weiners-wiener/) [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/29/980400/-Breitbarts-#TwitterHoaxHow-It-Went-Down-(updated-wsmoking-gun)?via=siderec](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/29/980400/-Breitbarts-#TwitterHoaxHow-It-Went-Down-%28updated-wsmoking-gun%29?via=siderec) > **[EXPOSED: How Weiner was framed (Updated X 2)](https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/01/981159/-EXPOSED:-How-Weiner-was-framed-%28Updated-X-2%29)** > > I haven't written in ages and will be up front in admitting that this is going to be a short piece because I am not going to quote the people who did the hard work figuring this out but here is some ... > **[Weinergate | Photo Analysis | Andrew Breitbart](https://www.mediaite.com/online/exclusive-mediaite-analysis-of-weinergate-photos-supports-anthony-weiner-and-andrew-breitbart/)** > > Some, notably a blogger at DailyKos, have suggested that the screen shot that Andrew Breitbart's Big Government ran when it broke the Anthony Weiner Twitter story is a forgery. Our resident expert, Philip Bump, reviewed their findings, and... I am sure you can find a few hundred more. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320.md?page=10)