David Frum - Autocracy

Frum in a BloggingHeads.tv post

As a life long devoted CBC radio listener and I'm 63 now, so I'm very familiar with all the personalities that have come and gone throughout the years and their political views, generally speaking.

 Canadian born David Frum, who now works as the editor of The Atlantic Magazine, I've heard many of his commentaries, especially when he worked for past President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., as his speech writer. I knew that Frum had to be a very bright and a well educated person, though I never agreed with his political views and I never knew him to be anything but a Republican, and the so called, "neoconservative". I was left scratching my head wondering why. Ironically he was once an NDP supporter back in 1975.

 I could never quite figure why or how he ended up in Washington with Conservative/Republican views as I really thought Barbara Frum's son would some how be more discerning. That might be naive of me to say and I don't want to be unkind, but in spite of my opinion of David Frum, I must say, after hearing an interview this morning with him talking about his present views reflected in his article,  How to Build an Autocracy in The Atlantic Magazine, he's obviously gained discernment and has got his finger on the present political environment of 'alternative facts,' where democracy seems to be more about entitlement than human rights.

His left leanings were been abandoned in the early years of 1975, while campaigning in Ontario for NDP candidate, Jan Dukztra. Upon reading the book, Gulag Arcipelago by Solzhenitsyn, given to him by his mother, he found himself ridiculed by his fellow volunteer NDP campaigning buddies and he left, the left, never to return.

  I confess I've never read any of his books, but a few of them were received very favourably in his more left leaning years such as, Dead Right in 1994 and How We Got Here.

Another irony is the when David Frum was offered the job as George W. Bush's speech writer, he wasn't a Bush supporter, had no experience in government, felt unqualified, and strongly doubted that Mr. Bush was up for the presidential office. He was once again to change his opinion after the election.

 David Frum describes his political views this way.

" I'm a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I've attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush—not the "Read My Lips" Bush, the "Axis of Evil" Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea."

 David Frum I think is a bit of an enigma and a political chameleon, and maybe that's not a bad thing. Obviously his political perspectives have changed once again, in light of the election of Donald Trump. He's stated that he'd voted for Hillary Clinton.