David Frum, longtime columnist, pundit, and former speech-writer for president George W. Bush, penned an article in The Atlantic that, were I a psychology professor, I would present to my class as a prime example of projection. In the words of the great litigator Vincent LaGuardia Gambini: “Everything dat guy just said is b*****t.”
Following the assassination attempt on former President Trump, Frum published an article in The Atlantic titled “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/donald-trump-democracy-dictator/679006/">The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator.</a>” It would be easy to go through his article line-by-line and offer the classic admonition that people who point fingers often have three pointing back at them at every period. And, indeed, that is what projection is all about. 
Frum was my first editor at New Majority and FrumForum. He was a very nice guy and a generous host. His latest article is a disappointment and, in my view, irresponsibly slides right back into the “Trump is Hitler” narrative — in this case Mussolini — that brought the violence down upon the &#8220;Bad Orange Man&#8221; in the first place. He has learned nothing from what took place over the weekend, and what it truly means to those Americans not holed up in the Trump Derangement ward at Cedars Sinai. The assertions he makes are, quite simply, astounding in both their lack of self-awareness and distance from the experiences of the average American.
Here are a few that stuck out at me. Frum starts his piece by bringing up the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi — and the admittedly tasteless satisfaction some in the Trump camp expressed, as well as their floating a story that Pelosi was involved in a dispute with a gay lover. Is Frum saying political figures shouldn’t spread falsehoods, especially character assaults, for political points? He fails to mention the steady dirge of slanderous falsehoods aimed at Trump and his family for years, courtesy of the leaders of the party he pretends to oppose (he doesn’t) as well as the legacy media who serve as the DNC’s megaphone. He makes no mention of Mr. Pelosi’s mendacious wife, then-speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi, who knowingly pushed the lie that Trump was a Russian agent, supported the fabricated Steele dossier and the subsequent two-year, multimillion dollar Mueller witch hunt. Or how, as speaker of the house, she labeled then-President Trump an “imposter” before tearing up his SOTUS address on live television.
Frum goes on to write an utterly inflammatory and demonstrably false statement that is far more applicable to the Democrats for whom he carries backbreaking volumes of water than the Trump supporters he apparently believes to be as “deplorable” as the woman he voted for in 2016.
<blockquote>Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election.</blockquote>
The hypocrisy beggars the mind. For months in 2020, in over 200 cities, leftist mobs from Antifa to BLM acted as the Democrats’ brownshirts; they rioted, looted, committed arson, assaulted over 1,500 police and murdered some two dozen innocents while committing $2 billion in property damage. How many &#8220;MAGA extremists&#8221; were in those crowds? How many Biden voters? In fact, I’d like to ask Frum a simple question: The night before the 2020 election, in cities throughout the USA, businesses were boarding up their windows and storefronts. What were they concerned about? Trump voters becoming violent if Biden won, or Biden voters losing it if Trump won? He knows the answer.
He goes on:
<blockquote>The 2024 election was already shaping up as a symbolic contest between an elderly and weakening liberalism too frail and uncertain to protect itself and an authoritarian, reactionary movement ready to burst every barrier and trash every institution.</blockquote>
“Elderly liberalism”? One imagines a kindly New Dealer in a cardigan just trying to put a chicken in every pot versus a jackbooted authoritarian hellbent on destroying the Republic. If he were given a political version of a blind taste test and then asked to pick the authoritarian group, who would he pick? My guess is he would choose the side that weaponizes the IRS to harass political opponents, supports not a four-hour riot but rather months of mass mayhem, does everything in its power to prevent the duly elected president from governing as per the will of the people, either by tying him up in sham investigations courtesy of a corrupted intelligence and law enforcement apparatus, holds two show trial impeachments, deploys politicized AG offices to financially ruin and even jail his political opponents with ludicrous misapplications of the law. Perhaps even the side that tries to assassinate a political threat?
Frum, like many in the “Never-Trumper” camp, warns us of impending “fascism” as if we are back in 1933 Germany and a bitter, eccentric Austrian corporal is about to become chancellor. But he faces one hurdle to this hyperbolic prognostication: We already had a four-year Trump administration. So then, what policies did Trump initiate that he finds to be reminiscent of the Führer or Il Duce?
Frum’s Atlantic piece shows, opposition to Trump is emotional, even personal, not analytical. Certainly not if the one who is claiming that the party of “They’ll put y’all back in chains!,” “Basket of deplorables,” “Get in their faces!,” “Put a bullseye on him,” is innocent of the heightened political tensions that define these days.
I expected lesser minds than Frum to deploy an oblique way of simply saying “Trump had it coming.” Yet, it reveals just how deep the Ceti Eel of Trump-hatred has burrowed into the mind of the DC establishment and how Frum represents their interests.
In a display of utter detachment from reality and the voters upon whom he casts academically arrogant aspersions, he claims that Trump is different than other “dictators” (evidence of which has yet to be presented). He says they have no reason to be upset and thus should not gravitate towards the proverbial P.T. Barnum-like strong man. Things are great. He writes:
<blockquote>In 2024, U.S. troops are nowhere at war. The American economy is booming, providing spectacular and widely shared prosperity. A brief spasm of mild post-pandemic inflation has been overcome. Indicators of social health <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/average-wages-have-surpassed-inflation-for-12-straight-months/#:~:text=Average%20hourly%20wage%20growth%20has,improve%20their%20standard%20of%20living.">have abruptly</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-violent-crime-rates-statistics/index.html">turned positive</a> since Trump left office after years of deterioration during his term. Crime and fatal drug overdoses <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/20240515.htm#:~:text=Provisional%20data%20from%20CDC's%20National,drug%20overdose%20deaths%20since%202018.">are declining</a> in 2024; <a href="https://blogs.cdc.gov/nchs/2024/03/15/7567/">marriages</a> and <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/04/birth-rate-fertility-rate-decline-data-statistics-graph-2022">births</a> are rising. Even the country’s problems indirectly confirm the country’s success: Migrants are crossing the border in the hundreds of thousands, because they know, even if Americans don’t, that the U.S. job market is among the hottest on Earth.</blockquote>
Did he read this aloud? We have 750 military bases in 80 countries; servicemen recently died in Jordan. Perhaps the American economy is “booming” in the sense that the stock market is on fire. But much of the gains have been offset by rising interest rates and inflation. He calls it “A brief spasm of mild post-pandemic inflation.” Is he serious? So are Americans just imagining that their dollars today are only worth seventy-nine cents compared to just four years ago? Have wages risen 20% in that time and we missed it? As for the rest, notice everything he says is about horrific rises in crime and drug overdoses declining in 2024, as if this is Year Zero. How are the indices compared to December 2020? No matter, I’m sure he can reply with numbers tortured to say what he wants, as per the Paul Krugman approach.
Frum barely touches on the millions of illegals pouring into the country that are now swamping even his new-found Democrat allies’ <a href="https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/p/new-yorkers-are-getting-what-they">cities</a>. Indeed, for him the mass invasion is just a sign of how great things are!
And the obfuscation rolls on. This is because Frum starts with a premise that Trump is an evil dictator and his followers are too ignorant to recognize it. He then searches far and wide for data points to give his narrative legs while completely ignoring the plank in his camp’s own eyes.
Outside the beltway, however, millions of Americans have a slightly different view of things. And it is not because they are under the sway of an orange Rasputin. Rather, they live regular lives, struggling to make ends meet with a paycheck that is only 79% of what it was just four years ago, while trying to shield their kids from gender theory at school and fentanyl on the streets.
Frum does get something right. Political violence in this country is certainly nothing new. He just conveniently forgets who is the worst offender over the past decade. Setting aside the entire summer of burning cities, he curiously never mentions the Bernie Bro shooter who targeted GOP congressmen and women at a softball game, or the attacker who put Rand Paul in the hospital, or those who bombed pro-life centers, or the many instances of bloody assaults on Trump 2020 rally attendees, or the attacks on conservative speakers across college campuses. Would Frum need the same security detail to speak safely at Hillsdale College as Ben Shapiro would at U.C. Berkeley? And I wonder if he sees any nexus at all between the leader of the Senate Democrats threatening two Supreme Court Justices by name and the plot to kill one of them shortly after.
The bottom line is this: If you want to find out what your opponents are up to, look at what they are accusing you of doing. If they remain too blinded by hatred for the man who will upset their well-paying, insular DC apple cart, that’s a reflection on them, not you. Time to get up and “Fight!”
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader, author, columnist, and musician whose eclectic body of writing can be found in the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, Daily Wire, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge, and others. His latest book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pits-Rough-Tumble-Exchange/dp/B0CKPNCMQW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=FBF37276B680&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vcOViovcNlulLDwCgSAL69F_A30PW0Mtp0XkDLFpRDI.e73HGuCpMYaPK8os1N9Y87Bb_hElkxrUd2FszkudrUk&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=life+in+the+pits+Schaeffer+book&amp;qid=1705421538&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=life+in+the+pits+schaeffer+book%2Cstripbooks%2C100&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LIFE IN THE PITS: My Time As A Trader On The Rough-And-Tumble Exchange Floors</a> is available on Amazon and soon Audible. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
This article has been edited for clarity.

Politicon 2017 – Day 1

David Frum And The Never-Trumper’s Convenient Amnesia

David Frum And The Never-Trumper's Convenient Amnesia

Adolf Hitler

David Frum

Donald Trump

Nancy Pelosi

Opinion

Paul Pelosi

Readers Pass

Republicans

The Atlantic

Less than 24 hours after a failed assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump — which left one bystander dead and three others, including Trump, injured — The Atlantic&#8217;s David Frum blamed the violence on the former president and his supporters.
&#8220;The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator,&#8221; blared the headline, and on the off-chance anyone missed the intended tone of the piece, a subhead followed: &#8220;Violence stalks the president who has rejoiced in violence to others.&#8221;
Frum&#8217;s premise was that Trump was a fascist and because &#8220;fascism feasts on violence,&#8221; the former president was simply getting a taste of that which he had fostered.
Addressing the attack on Trump, which took place on Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally, as &#8220;a horror and an outrage,&#8221; Frum went on to invoke history to quickly forget the name of the man who would commit such a despicable act. But first he blamed the victim, writing,&#8221;Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well.&#8221;
&#8220;Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election,&#8221; the political commentator continued, returning to his original premise. &#8220;Fascist movements are secular religions. Like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth. The Mussolini movement in Italy built imposing monuments to its fallen comrades. The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance.&#8221;
Frum ventured further in the same vein, ultimately concluding that &#8220;the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.&#8221;
Critics were not impressed with Frum&#8217;s take — and even less impressed with his timing — as they responded via X.
&#8220;David Frum needs help. In every way,&#8221; Joe Concha commented.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
David Frum needs help. In every way. <a href="https://t.co/iwLuEfvth0">https://t.co/iwLuEfvth0</a>
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeConchaTV/status/1812596083748729057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;They are still trying to get Trump killed,&#8221; The Blaze&#8217;s Auron McIntyre added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
They are still trying to get Trump killed <a href="https://t.co/xMZNwsYrp2">https://t.co/xMZNwsYrp2</a>
— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) <a href="https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/status/1812539711602196811?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Former Bush 43 political appointees with Trump derangement are some of the most pathetic, delusional, and self-righteous people in politics. Blaming Trump and his family for his near assassination? @davidfrum definitely wins the trophy with this one. Truly a douche bag,&#8221; Mike Davis posted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Former Bush 43 political appointees with Trump derangement are some of the most pathetic, delusional, and self-righteous people in politics.
Blaming Trump and his family for his near assassination?<a href="https://twitter.com/davidfrum?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@davidfrum</a> definitely wins the trophy with this one.
Truly a douche bag. <a href="https://t.co/f8kCb1h6v6">pic.twitter.com/f8kCb1h6v6</a>
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) <a href="https://twitter.com/mrddmia/status/1812582242532921812?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Daily Wire&#8217;s Megan Basham added, &#8220;You literally just published an essay saying Trump had it coming less than 24 hours after an assassin missed taking Trump&#8217;s life by millimeters. People are disgusted by what you wrote in @TheAtlantic because it was disgusting. You are not the victim here. Sit down.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
You literally just published an essay saying Trump had it coming less than 24 hours after an assassin missed taking Trump&#8217;s life by millimeters. People are disgusted by what you wrote in <a href="https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheAtlantic</a> because it was disgusting. You are not the victim here. Sit down. <a href="https://t.co/FfwcOd6p3q">https://t.co/FfwcOd6p3q</a>
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) <a href="https://twitter.com/megbasham/status/1812640802037702821?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Politicon 2018 – Day 2

‘The Gunman And The Would-Be Dictator’: The Atlantic Says Trump ‘Had It Coming’ Less Than 24 Hours After Assassination Attempt

'The Gunman And The Would-Be Dictator': The Atlantic Says Trump 'Had It Coming' Less Than 24 Hours After Assassination Attempt

assassination

Gun Violence

Political Violence

Thomas Matthew Crooks

Violence

On Thursday, political commentator and author David Frum tweeted the following:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Any decision-system that produces the result that Donald Trump (!!) loses the vote count but becomes president anyway is obviously defective and in need of change.
&#8212; David Frum (@davidfrum) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1108761377970098178?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote>
Any decision-system that produces the result that Donald Trump (!!) loses the vote count but becomes president anyway is obviously defective and in need of change.
</blockquote>
On Saturday, he replied to a tweet from The Wall Street Journal that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/targeting-the-electoral-college-11553036512?mod=e2tw">linked</a> to an opinion piece from the editorial board titled &#8220;Scrapping the system the U.S. has used to select Presidents since its founding will likely soon be the Democrats&#8217; default position.&#8221;
In the piece, the WSJ editorial board writes about two primary necessities served by the Electoral College:
First, they note that &#8220;the founders designed the Electoral College to help ensure that states with diverse preferences could cohere under a single federal government.&#8221;
<blockquote>
Anyone who thinks this concern is irrelevant today hasn&#8217;t been paying attention to the current polarization in American politics. The Electoral College helps check polarization by forcing presidential candidates to campaign in competitive states across the country, instead of spending all their time trying to motivate turnout in populous partisan strongholds.
</blockquote>
Second, they write that the Electoral College stabilizes the voting process &#8220;by delegating vote-counting to the states and thus delivering with rare exceptions a faster result.&#8221; They add that a &#8220;nationwide recount&#8221; could be catastrophic.
In response to this piece, Frum tweeted:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Opinion: Scrapping the system the U.S. has used to select Presidents since its founding will likely soon be the Democrats&#8217; default position <a href="https://t.co/wSY4ySTip7">https://t.co/wSY4ySTip7</a>
&#8212; The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) <a href="https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1109507623022415872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote>
The 12th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 22nd, 23d, and 26th amendments to the Constitution each previously altered the system for selecting presidents.
</blockquote>
The 12th Amendment changed the way electors vote on presidents and their vice presidents.
The 14th Amendment states that &#8220;all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,&#8221; and that all Americans must be given &#8220;equal protection of the laws.&#8221;
The 15th Amendment was meant to guard former slaves from being denied voting rights by federal or state governments, stating that &#8220;the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.&#8221;
The 19th Amendment states that &#8220;the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.&#8221;
The 22nd Amendment sets term limits on the president.
The 23rd Amendment gave residents of Washington D.C. the right to vote for Electoral College representatives.
The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 years old to 18 years old.
In one way or another, all of these amendments changed the way in which the voting process worked. However, none of these amendments changed the bedrock set of principles by which the United States elects its president.
The Electoral College was designed by the Founding Fathers as a carefully balanced compromise &#8212; one that would ensure a right of self-governance but also avoid a tyranny of the majority. Many of the Founders expressed great disdain for a &#8220;pure&#8221; democracy, which &#8220;soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself,&#8221; according to John Adams.
It&#8217;s unclear if Frum&#8217;s tweet is meant to act as an endorsement of the popular vote or as support for changing the Electoral College. Nonetheless, it comes across as rather disingenuous, as it appears to imply that because a litany of changes have been made to the way in which we vote, an elimination or massive structural alteration of the Electoral College would be just another in a long line of such changes.
However, as noted above, the changes, while indeed incredible, did not alter the great compromise. A move to a popular vote, or too great a change to the Electoral College, could crack the foundation upon which our republic is built.
For additional analysis of Frum&#8217;s tweet, The Daily Wire reached out to Tara Ross, lawyer and author of three books on the Electoral College, including her most recent, &#8220;The Indispensable Electoral College: How the Founders&#8217; Plan Saves Our Country from Mob Rule.&#8221;
Ross replied:
<blockquote>
I will respectfully disagree with the tweet. The system we use for electing Presidents has remained essentially unaltered since the founding. The 12th Amendment made a few minor changes to separate the voting for President and Vice President, but its provisions are otherwise virtually identical to those in the original Article II provision. The federalist, state-by-state election system created at the Constitutional Convention was left entirely intact. No amendment since has changed that process. The other amendments cited all had other purposes:
(1) Several amendments expanded the franchise: States can&#8217;t deny the right to vote based on race, gender, or age (18 and above). Similarly, the 23rd Amendment ensured that D.C. is now represented in the Electoral College. Expanding the franchise does not alter the federalist, state-by-state election process created by Article II and affirmed by the Twelfth Amendment. It&#8217;s worth remembering that no state is required to let its citizens vote in the first place. A state legislature could simply appoint electors on its own, without reference to any popular vote. This was true in 1787, and it is true in 2019. The Supreme Court affirmed this situation in Bush v. Gore: &#8220;The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the electoral college.&#8221;
(2) The 22nd Amendment cited in the tweet did not alter the presidential election process. It did add to the eligibility provisions listed in Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the Constitution.
</blockquote>
For more information about the Electoral College versus the popular vote, check out this video:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LXnjGD7j2B0" width="720"></iframe></div>

David Frum Advocates Electoral College Change, Citing Trump Win

2020 Election

Electoral College

Director Rob Reiner, his pal Morgan Freeman and journalist David Frum have joined forces to create a &#8220;Committee to Investigate Russia,&#8221; designed to uncover the truth behind Putin-led meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Reiner announced the CIR on Tuesday, posting to Twitter that he wants Americans to &#8220;understand the gravity of Russia&#8217;s invasion of our democracy,&#8221; adding that he intends on using his resources to truly solve the mystery of how Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election.
The group launched their website,<a href="https://investigaterussia.org/"> InvestigateRussia.com</a>, on Wednesday. It has a few fancy videos &#8212; one of which stars Freeman, who warns that Russia is waging a war on the United States that we can no longer afford to ignore. &#8220;We have been attacked,&#8221; bellows Freeman. &#8220;We are at war.&#8221;
<blockquote data-lang="en">
For generations, ppl have fought to protect democracy. Now it&#8217;s our turn. Watch Morgan Freeman explain Russia&#8217;s plot to undermine the U.S. <a href="https://t.co/t65wckbmxS">pic.twitter.com/t65wckbmxS</a>
&#8212; Investigate Russia (@InvestigateRU) <a href="https://twitter.com/InvestigateRU/status/910100283463798785">September 19, 2017</a></blockquote>
The video makes no mention of the Obama Administration&#8217;s longstanding &#8220;hands off&#8221; policy with regard to the foreign superpower, only that it became clear after the 2016 elections that something must be done about Vladimir Putin&#8217;s meddling.
The site&#8217;s mission statement is equally eye-rolling.
<blockquote>
The Committee to Investigate Russia is a nonprofit, non-partisan resource provided to help Americans recognize and understand the gravity of Russia&#8217;s continuing attacks on our democracy. All relevant information is aggregated in one place to provide context and allow users to see the full picture of what Russia has done and will continue to do unless we start paying closer attention. For generations, people have fought to protect democracy. Now it is our turn.
</blockquote>
Reiner, of course, is not necessarily qualified to lead a crack investigative team into battle against one of the world&#8217;s most secretive governments, but he directed When Harry Met Sally, so clearly he understands how two disparate countries can be led, unwilling, into a long-term, antagonistic relationship.
But, that&#8217;s also why Reiner has recruited Frum, a journalist who has been working to &#8220;expose&#8221; Donald Trump&#8217;s nefarious multi-national scheme to subvert the American electoral process from day one.
Also apparently on board, military historian Max Boot (perhaps most notable <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=10&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiWt-fNi7fWAhUs9IMKHfMvDCEQtwIIWDAJ&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.realclearpolitics.com%2Fvideo%2F2017%2F07%2F13%2Ffireworks_tucker_carlson_vs_max_boot_on_russia_you_dismiss_anyone_who_doesnt_share_your_view_as_a_nazi.html&amp;usg=AFQjCNEsMCarZWRR5XYjriM1RW9xyk3G0g">for screaming at Tucker Carlson</a> on the latter&#8217;s prime time program last summer), and former national intelligence director James Clapper, who was so deeply involved in investigating Russia as part of the Obama Administration that <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/21/james-clapper-says-he-was-unaware-of-manafort-wiretap-order-video/">he had no idea Paul Manafort was being wiretapped by his own agency</a>.
Clearly, this is exactly the all-star team America requires to help defeat their Cold War foe. At the very least, it should be entertaining &#8230; right?

Actor Rob Reiner Launches Committee To Investigate Russian Election Meddling

Hollywood

Rob Reiner

Bret Stephens of The New York Times analogized Donald Trump&#8217;s assumption of the White House to the hijacking of Flight 93 by Islamic terrorists during the 9/11 attacks.

Mocking an article from September of 2016 by Michael Anton entitled, &#8220;<a href="http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/">The Flight 93 Election</a>,&#8221; Stephens initially dismisses fears of America as a nation in crisis via the spread of leftism:

<blockquote>
To imply, as Anton did, that Barack Obama, for all his shortcomings, was Ziad Jarrah, Flight 93&#8217;s lead hijacker, is vile. To suppose that we&#8217;d all be dead if Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws, had been elected is hallucinatory. To argue that the United States, for all its problems, was the equivalent of a doomed aircraft is absurd. To suggest that Donald Trump, a man who has sacrificed nothing in his life for anyone or anything, is the worthy moral heir to the Flight 93 passengers is a travesty.
</blockquote>
Stephens concludes that perhaps it is Trump who represents the political manifestation of 9/11&#8217;s Islamic terrorists, painting Hillary Clinton&#8217;s failed presidential campaign as analogous to the failed attempt by Flight 93&#8217;s passengers to secure the cockpit:

<blockquote>
Maybe 2016 was the Flight 93 election, or something like it. Maybe the pilots are dead. Maybe the passengers failed to storm the cockpit. Maybe the hijackers reached their target by landing on the White House after all.
</blockquote>
Stephens describes himself as &#8220;proudly conservative,&#8221; and is often presented as a conservative when participating in television news media discussion panels on outlets such as CNN. 

<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt height="454" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/bret_stephens_tweet-1.jpg" width="621" /></div>

<div class="embed video fluid-video"> </div>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/10233/bret-stephens-im-gonna-vote-hillary-clinton-robert-kraychik">Last October</a>, Stephens announced that he would be vote for Hillary Clinton, repeatedly describing Donald Trump as a &#8220;threat to the Republic.&#8221; In doing, he joined other self-described conservatives such as David Frum and David Brooks.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>.

bret_stephens_tweet

NYT Conservative Columnist Compares Trump To Flight 93 Hijacker

Bret Stephens

David Brooks

Hillary Clinton

Media

Media Bias

New York Times

Republican Party

Wall Street Journal

The Atlantic&#8216;s David Frum called for an &#8220;independent investigation&#8221; of &#8220;Trump-Russia&#8221; in a Wednesday-published <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheAtlantic/videos/10155392960123487/">Facebook video</a>.

Advancing the narrative of last year&#8217;s presidential election having been compromised by &#8220;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/russian-election-hacking">Russian Hacking in the U.S. Election</a>,&#8221; Frum falsely claims that grand jury subpoenas <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/09/politics/grand-jury-fbi-russia/">issued last Tuesday</a> to &#8220;associates&#8221; of Michael Flynn are connected to a &#8220;Trump-Russia&#8221; investigation.

Without presenting any evidence of either the &#8220;<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/us/2016-presidential-campaign-hacking-fast-facts/">Election Hacking</a>&#8221; narrative or of its connected storyline of conspiracy between Trump and the Russians in an operation of political subterfuge, Frum says: &#8220;The country needs an independent investigation of Russia&#8217;s actions in the 2016 presidential election, and it needs it now.&#8221;
Congressional Republicans, says Frum, are insufficiently interested in pursuing the aforementioned narratives: &#8220;They do not want to know.&#8221;

Frum instructs his audience to preserve the aforementioned narratives:
<blockquote>
&#8220;What exactly do President Donald Trump or those around him to Russia and to Russians? Trump won&#8217;t say. Russia won&#8217;t look. The FBI may not be allowed able to tell. But your voice still matters. Make it clear: You won&#8217;t accept lies. You won&#8217;t forget. And you won&#8217;t let this attack on America and its democracy vanish into the usual Trump noise.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Watch the political infomercial below:

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Frum <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/13225/frum-im-man-right-robert-kraychik">regularly</a> <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/13007/frum-joins-resist-leftists-new-video-robert-kraychik">traffics</a> in <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/12652/frum-trump-owes-presidency-hostile-foreign-robert-kraychik">innuendo</a> <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/13798/frum-trumps-goal-become-trillionaire-robert-kraychik">framing</a> Trump as a stooge of malevolent Russian governmental machinations to damage America. Despite his near-exclusive pushing of Democrat and left-wing narratives, Frum describes himself as a conservative Republican, and is introduced as such when appearing as a guest or panelist on news media programs. 
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/10462/frum-vote-patriot-clinton-protect-constitution-robert-kraychik">Last November</a>, Frum wrote &#8220;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/dont-gamble-on-trump/506207/">The Conservative Case for Voting for Clinton</a>,&#8221; describing the former first lady as a &#8220;patriot.&#8221; Voting for Clinton, he said, was a move to defend the republic and the Constitution.
Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

‘Conservative’ David Frum Hypes ‘Trump-Russia’ Narrative

Democratic Party

James Comey

Leftism

Russia

Trump Administration

Vladimir Putin

Commentary editor John Podhoretz linked to an interesting piece on Twitter on Thursday:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Please read this extraordinary <a href="https://twitter.com/davidfrum">@davidfrum</a> essay on World War I and the lessons of history: <a href="https://t.co/vjPn9ZvGcR">https://t.co/vjPn9ZvGcR</a>
&#8212; John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) <a href="https://twitter.com/jpodhoretz/status/849966565688832000">April 6, 2017</a></blockquote>
Frum&#8217;s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/06/world-war-i-legacy-democracy/394616/">piece</a> is definitely worth a read, but it also highlights the fact that many Americans are not really familiar with World War I. The war is in the realm of forgotten history; yet it was a war that forever changed the landscape of the globe.
Here are seven things you need to know about America&#8217;s involvement in World War I.
1. World War I stemmed from European conflicts. The war was triggered by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gavrilo-Princip">a Southern Slav nationalist</a> who wanted to drive Austria-Hungary out of the Southern Slav region. That set off a domino effect in Europe, as it prompted Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, which resulted in Russia declaring war on Austria-Hungary, Germany declaring war on Russia and then France for refusing to pledge neutrality. The timeline looked something like this in 1914: (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I">H/T:</a> Britannica)
<blockquote>
Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia on August 5; Serbia against Germany on August 6; Montenegro against Austria-Hungary on August 7 and against Germany on August 12; France and Great Britain against Austria-Hungary on August 10 and on August 12, respectively; Japan against Germany on August 23; Austria-Hungary against Japan on August 25 and against Belgium on August 28.
</blockquote>
In other words, &#8220;the war pitted the Central Powers&#8212;mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey&#8212;against the Allies&#8212;mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States,&#8221; according to Britannica. Which raises the question: why did the U.S. get involved in a warring conflict between European nations?
2. America entered the war after Germany attacked numerous American ships. America had initially remained neutral during the war; President Woodrow Wilson&#8217;s <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/06/521793810/at-a-hefty-cost-world-war-i-made-the-u-s-a-major-military-power">re-election slogan</a> was &#8220;He kept us out of war,&#8221; which he rode to another term in the White House. Circumstances changed a year later when Germany launched submarine attacks against U.S ships and the discovery of the &#8220;Zimmerman Telegram,&#8221; in which intercepted German communications revealed that Germany was attempting to forge a deal with Mexico in which &#8220;Germany would help Mexico recover the territory it had ceded to the United States following the Mexican-American War&#8221; in exchange for Mexico supporting Germany&#8217;s war efforts, according to <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/wwi">the State Department&#8217;s website</a>. These actions eventually swayed Wilson toward issuing a declaration of war against Germany; Congress subsequently approved.
3. To the surprise of the world, America&#8217;s forces won the war for the Allied forces. America&#8217;s military might was not taken seriously by Kaiser Wilhelm. In fact, when he was told that unleashing German submarines as a means of war would result in America entering the war, Wilhelm responded with a note that read, &#8220;I do not care.&#8221;
&#8220;Even if the Americans did declare war on Germany, he blustered, they were just a bunch of cowboys with an army barely worthy of the name,&#8221; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304632204579337012650058546-lMyQjAxMTA0MDIwNTEyNDUyWj">wrote</a> King&#8217;s College lecturer Nick Lloyd in a Wall Street Journal column. &#8220;What use would these weaklings be against Germany&#8217;s legions?&#8221;
America did only start the war with 130,000 troops, but the troops swelled to a whopping four million by the war&#8217;s end, according to <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/06/521793810/at-a-hefty-cost-world-war-i-made-the-u-s-a-major-military-power">National Public Radio</a>. Between the draft and an influx of volunteers, the American military had reached a remarkable size to fend off the Central Powers.
Additionally, American Gen. John &#8220;Black Jack&#8221; Pershing changed the war&#8217;s strategic front from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/trench-warfare">trench warfare</a> to open warfare, which brought &#8220;mobility to warfare by emphasizing American aggressiveness and marksmanship,&#8221; per <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/49291/pershings-decision-how-the-united-states-fought-its-first-modern-coalition-war">the Army&#8217;s website</a>. The change in tactics and the size of America&#8217;s forces under the command of British and French troops eventually brought Germany to request an armistice.
4. World War I transformed America into a world power. Not only because of the massive increase in the size of America&#8217;s military, but because &#8220;the military also modernized and became more professional,&#8221; per NPR.
5. However, America&#8217;s transformation came at a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/opinion/should-america-have-entered-world-war-i.html">cost</a>. There were 117,000 Americans killed and 202,000 wounded during the war.
6. World War I set the stage for World War II. New York Times columnist Michael Kazin <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/opinion/should-america-have-entered-world-war-i.html">argued</a> that America&#8217;s intervention into World War I is what indirectly led to World War II:
<blockquote>
How would the war have ended if America had not intervened? The carnage might have continued for another year or two until citizens in the warring nations, who were already protesting the endless sacrifices required, forced their leaders to reach a settlement. If the Allies, led by France and Britain, had not won a total victory, there would have been no punitive peace treaty like that completed at Versailles, no stab-in-the-back allegations by resentful Germans, and thus no rise, much less triumph, of Hitler and the Nazis. The next world war, with its 50 million deaths, would probably not have occurred.
</blockquote>
But it was not necessarily the war itself that led to World War II; it was the vacuum left in place by America and the Allies. Lloyd noted in his column that following the Senate&#8217;s failure to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, America and the Allies retreated from the world stage for a time; fascism and Nazism arose in their absence. World War I also opened the door toward the Bolshevik Revolution overtaking Russia.
7. Had America not intervened in World War I, the consequences would have been dire. Frum argued in his piece that without America&#8217;s intervention, &#8220;the Kaiser&#8217;s Germany would have emerged from such an outcome as the dominant power on the continent of Europe,&#8221; meaning that &#8220;the United States would have gotten an early start on the Cold War, and maybe a second hot war, supported by fewer and weaker allies against a richer and more dangerous opponent &#8212; and one quite likely to have developed the atomic bomb and the intercontinental ballistic missile first.&#8221;
&#8203;Additionally, Frum noted that without America&#8217;s intervention, Germany&#8217;s imperialism would have won the day and struck a massive blow against democracy.
That is the ultimate takeaway Frum believes we should take from World War I: if America remains on the sidelines, &#8220;the aggressive and illiberal&#8221; will rise in its place and the world will move away from the freedoms that Americans hold dear.
<a href="https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter">Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter.</a>

7 Things You Need To Know About America’s Involvement In World War I

American History

Woodrow Wilson

Joining C-SPAN&#8217;s <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?424374-3/washington-journal-david-frum-discusses-build-autocracy">Washington Journal</a> on Thursday, David Frum accused President Donald Trump of being primarily motivated by desires of self-empowerment and self-enrichment. Unlike ideologically-driven dictators and authoritarians of the 20th century, contemporary autocrats, he said contemporary autocrats like Trump are more motivated by materialism and an appetite for power.

&#8220;If you were Donald Trump, and your goal was to become a trillionaire,&#8221; asked Frum rhetorically, before speculating how the president would &#8220;shut down legal institutions&#8221; towards that end.

Frum lamented how Congress had, according to him, &#8220;shut down all investigations of [Trump&#8217;s] money scandals&#8230; and the Russia connection&#8221; at the direction of the president.

Blending the innuendo-laden narratives of Trump as a knowing or inadvertent agent of malevolent Russian governmental influence and 2016&#8217;s presidential election being compromised by &#8220;<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-cyber-idUSKBN15X0OE">Russian election hacking</a>,&#8221; Frum described today as &#8220;a time when we&#8217;re dealing with the most successful foreign government penetration of the US government.&#8221;

Trump and his family were engaged in &#8220;massive self-enrichment,&#8221; said Frum, contrasting this alleged scandal of the president&#8217;s corruption with the Obama administration&#8217;s Fast and Furious operation, which he described as &#8220;not a scandal&#8221; and &#8220;an imaginary scandal.&#8221;

&#8220;What he&#8217;s interested in is building his own authority and using the power of the state to advance his family&#8217;s own business activities,&#8221; said Frum.

Trump&#8217;s business career was described by Frum as &#8220;one of failure,&#8221; with exceptional successes built on corruption: &#8220;Donald Trump&#8217;s own business career has been, is one of failure except where he was able to capture and take advantage of special concessions and special advantages for politically favored businessmen. That&#8217;s what he&#8217;s always been.&#8221;

Frum describes himself as a conservative Republican, a description repeated of him by left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlets. He is a somewhat regular participant in political discussion panels on television news media outlets in order to produce a pretense of ideological and partisan balance.

<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/10462/frum-vote-patriot-clinton-protect-constitution-robert-kraychik">Last November</a>, Frum wrote &#8220;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/dont-gamble-on-trump/506207/">The Conservative Case for Voting for Clinton</a>,&#8221; in which he described Hillary Clinton as a &#8220;patriot&#8221; who would protect the Constitution and American sovereignty.

Watch Frum&#8217;s appearance below.
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Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

Frum: Trump’s Goal Is ‘To Become A Trillionaire’

C-Span

&#8220;There&#8217;s an abundance of evidence that &#8211; from his behavior alone &#8211; that Donald Trump is compromised in some degree or capacity by the Russians,&#8221; said left-wing pundit Rick Wilson on Monday.

Joining a discussion panel on left-wing and Democrat-aligned MSNBC, Wilson made an attempt at humor: &#8220;There&#8217;s vastly more evidence that Donald Trump is a Russian stooge than there ever was that Barack Obama was a Kenyan Muslim terrorist sleeper agent.&#8221;

Wilson presented himself as hawkish towards Russia and Vladimir Putin. He also indirectly referenced a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/no-gday-mate-on-call-with-australian-pm-trump-badgers-and-brags/2017/02/01/88a3bfb0-e8bf-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html">report based on unnamed sources</a> of an allegedly contentious conversation between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull regarding refugee admissions. The allegations of the report &#8211; incidentally originating with The Washington Post, a left-wing news outlet aligned with Democrats &#8211; have <a href="http://www.2gb.com/podcast/pm-denies-trump-hung-up/">since been challenged</a> by Turnbull.

Wilson accused Trump of of viewing Putin as &#8220;representing American values:&#8221;
<blockquote>

 
&#8220;This is a guy who&#8217;s going out of his way to destroy our alliances throughout the world, to compromise our alliances, to wreck the relationships we&#8217;ve had with Australia, with Britain, with European countries. And yet, every day that he&#8217;s called on to talk about Vladimir Putin, it&#8217;s in terms of respect, it&#8217;s in terms of wanting to get along, it&#8217;s in terms of how he can make Vladimir Putin&#8217;s life just a little easier every day.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
It&#8217;s a moment, frankly, that folks who have paid attention to the Russian national behavior &#8211; not only from the Cold War era, but recently, where they kill journalists, they poison political opponents, they shoot down civilian airliners and invade their neighbors &#8211; this is not somebody that I think represents American values in any way whatsoever, but Donald Trump apparently does.&#8221;
</blockquote>
For months, leftists and Democrats pushed unsubstantiated narratives connecting Trump and Russia. Initially <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4041654/Hillary-Clinton-blames-Russian-plot-losing-election-says-personal-beef-against-me.html">blaming Russia and Putin</a> for interfering with the 2016 presidential election and tipping the scales in Trump&#8217;s benefit (a narrative <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/12652/frum-trump-owes-presidency-hostile-foreign-robert-kraychik">still advanced</a> by left-wing Republican David Frum), it then transitioned into Trump being beholden to Russia as a result of Moscow&#8217;s possession of <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia">compromising intelligence</a> and his <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-jeopardize-us-531140.html">financial investments</a> in the world&#8217;s largest country.
Wilson&#8217;s <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/rick-wilson.html">profile</a> at The Daily Beast &#8211; another left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlet &#8211; describes him as &#8220;a national Republican political strategist and media consultant based in Florida who has produced television for governors, U.S. Senate candidates, super PACS, and corporations.&#8221;

Wilson implicitly <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/18/the-task-now-for-conservatives-hope-for-the-best-assume-the-worst-rebuild-our-movement.html">describes himself</a> as a &#8220;real conservative&#8221; who understands and espouses &#8220;real conservatism.&#8221;

MSNBC is attempting to rebrand itself as an objective and nonpartisan news media outlet, having dropped its previous &#8220;Lean Forward&#8221; &#8211; a nod to the neo-Marxist &#8220;progressive&#8221; movement &#8211; slogan from its marketing and promotional materials.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.
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Wilson: ‘Trump Is Compromised… By The Russians’

MSNBC

Rick Wilson

The Daily Beast

Washington Post

Left-wing Republican David Frum described himself as &#8220;a man of the right&#8221; on Monday while participating in a discussion panel on left-wing and Democrat-aligned MSNBC.

Frum advised his fellow leftists and Democrats to narrow their demands of Republicans to &#8220;two asks;&#8221; 1. A new law requiring the Treasury Department to release the tax returns of Donald Trump (and presumably future presidents), and 2. The establishment of an independent commission to investigate allegations of Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election.
Madelyn Albright and Michael Chertoff were described as &#8220;competent intelligence professionals&#8221; by Frum, who recommended that the two former government officials lead an inquiry into &#8220;what happened in the 2016 election:&#8221;

<blockquote>
&#8220;Look, there&#8217;s this vast ferment of activism that is bubbling up in the country and a lot of it from viewers of this network. I&#8217;m not a person &#8212; I&#8217;m a person of the right. I still am. I&#8217;m probably &#8212; I have different views on the capital gains tax from most of the people viewing this program tonight. What I would be beseech those who want to do something constructive: focus on two asks. Where other movements in the past like Occupy Wall Street have fallen apart, is they had 900 asks. If you have 900 asks, you have none. There are only two. The treasury should release the president&#8217;s tax returns, and that should be a law, and there should be an independent commission headed by competent intelligence professionals. I nominate Madelyn Albright and Michael Chertoff to do an independent investigation with subpoena power of what happened in the 2016 election. Ask those two things. That&#8217;s enough.&#8221;
</blockquote>
As evidence of his right-wing bona fides, Frum claimed to hold an attitude towards taxation of capital gains different than most of MSNBC&#8217;s audience.

Last November, Frum <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/10462/frum-vote-patriot-clinton-protect-constitution-robert-kraychik">penned an article</a> entitled, &#8220;<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/dont-gamble-on-trump/506207/">The Conservative Case for Voting for Clinton</a>,&#8221; describing Hillary Clinton as a &#8220;patriot&#8221; who would protect &#8220;the republic and the Constitution.&#8221; 
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/12652/frum-trump-owes-presidency-hostile-foreign-robert-kraychik">Weeks ago</a>, Frum <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/an-inaugural-celebration-that-rings-hollow/513902/">claimed</a> that Trump&#8217;s presidency remains a function of a &#8220;hostile intelligence operation&#8221; executed by Russia at the direction of its president, Vladimir Putin.

<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/13007/frum-joins-resist-leftists-new-video-robert-kraychik">Last week</a>, Frum joined Democrats and the broader left in advising them how best to &#8220;resist&#8221; Trump.

Frum belongs to a cadre of left-wing Republicans bandied around left-wing and Democrat-aligned media outlets to provide an illusion of political and partisan balance. Nonthreatening to the dominant narratives of Democrats and the broader left, they amount to controlled opposition. Such left-wing Republicans mostly claim political bona fides via experience with political campaigns and/or Republican politics.

MSNBC is attempting to rebrand itself as an objective and nonpartisan news outlet, dropping an earlier used promotional slogan &#8211; &#8220;Lean Forward&#8221; &#8211; which made overtures to neo-Marxist &#8220;progressive&#8221; politics.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.
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Frum: ‘I’m A Man Of The Right,’ But…

Left-wing Republican David Frum took to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheAtlantic/videos/10155072425148487/">Facebook</a> to join the neo-Marxist and Democrat call for &#8220;resistance&#8221; against President Donald Trump.

Watch Frum&#8217;s video via The Atlantic &#8211; a left-wing and Democrat-aligned magazine where he is a senior editor &#8211; below.
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Using images and videos depicting Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, Frum warns of a &#8220;new authoritarianism&#8221; sweeping across America. &#8220;Can It Happen Here?&#8221; asks a red-colored slide depicting a menacing likeness of Trump with evocative background piano music.

Frum begins by warning viewers of what he describes as an America imperiled by Trump:

<blockquote>
&#8220;What happens in the next four years is up to you. Don&#8217;t be afraid. This moment of danger can be your finest hour as a citizen and as an American.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Frum derides Fox News, Breitbart, and Infowars as part of &#8220;disinformation and defamation&#8221; machine in service to Trump:

<blockquote>
&#8220;We expect the free press to inform voters of the actions of government, and we expect elected officials to offer reasonable cooperation to media active in the public interest. But Trump has made clear that he regards independent media as his most dangerous enemy. He and his allies are developing a countermedia, stretching from Fox to Breitbart to Infowars to fill the information space with disinformation and defamation.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Frum also pushes narratives related to &#8220;Russian hacking&#8221; and the Trump family&#8217;s &#8220;self-enrichment&#8221; via &#8220;dodgy deals.&#8221; He also notes Trump&#8217;s refusal to release his tax returns.
Black Lives Matter agitators and &#8220;immigration protesters,&#8221; advises Frum, will be more effective if they better mask their genuine political views:

<blockquote>
&#8220;Trump actively goads protesters to burn flags and challenge police. Civil unrest will not be a problem for the Trump presidency. It will be a resource. Immigration protesters marching with Mexican flags, Black Lives Matter demonstrators bearing anti-police slogans, these are the images of the opposition that Trump will wish his supporters to see.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Frum closes by echoing the call to &#8220;resist&#8221; Trump:

<blockquote>
&#8220;Intimidation will go where the people are &#8211; not on the sidewalks &#8211; but in digital space. And authoritarian leaders won&#8217;t lecture, they will tweet. We&#8217;re living through the most dangerous challenge to the free government of the United Stated in decades. If the story ends without too much harm to the republic, it won&#8217;t be because the dangers were imagined, but because citizens resisted.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Despite describing himself as a &#8220;conservative,&#8221; Frum is regularly invited to participate on left-wing political discussion panels across the television news circuit.
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/10462/frum-vote-patriot-clinton-protect-constitution-robert-kraychik">In November</a>, Frum called on conservatives to vote for Hillary Clinton, who he described as a &#8220;patriot.&#8221; He claimed that Clinton would, as president, defend the Constitution and American sovereignty.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

Frum Joins ‘Resist’ Leftists In New Video

Breitbart

Fox Business Channel

Fox News

Infowars

David Frum &#8211; a speechwriter of former President George W. Bush and now left-wing political pundit who casts himself as moderately conservative &#8211; has taken to the pages of The Atlantic to cast President Donald Trump&#8217;s inauguration address as &#8220;hollow&#8221; in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/an-inaugural-celebration-that-rings-hollow/513902/">his latest column</a>.
After mocking American reverence for the peaceful transition of power between federal administrations, Frum does his part to further the broader narrative &#8211; pushed by CNN, The New York Times, the Obama administration, and similarly minded sources &#8211; of Trump&#8217;s presidency as illegitimate. 
Frum begins by recalling the presidential election&#8217;s popular vote outcome:
<blockquote>
&#8220;But given the heavy emphasis of the American system on plebiscitary legitimation of the president (&#8220;the people have spoken, let us all unite behind their choice&#8221;), it&#8217;s especially stressful if the winner of the Electoral College fails to win a popular-vote majority, as now has occurred twice within a political generation. France is the only other advanced democracy that has a non-parliamentary executive, and France uses a run-off system to ensure the ultimate winner gains an absolute majority of the vote.

That stress of the anti-majoritarian potential of the presidency is intensified if the popular-vote defeat is not narrow, as in 2000, but dramatic, as in 2016. (If Hillary Clinton had caught the lucky bounce, her popular-vote margin would have been greater than those of John F. Kennedy in 1960, Jimmy Carter in 1976, or George W. Bush in 2004.)&#8221;
</blockquote>
Frum concludes by framing Trump as a de facto operative &#8211; witting or otherwise &#8211; of Russian President Vladimir Putin&#8217;s by quoting Federalist 68 and The New York Times:

<blockquote>
&#8220;Adding further to the stress is that the incoming president represents exactly the kind of figure that the 1787 contrivance was designed to bar from office.

From Federalist 68:

Cabal, intrigue, and corruption: These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?&#8221;

&#8230;

&#8220;From Friday&#8217;s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html">New York Times</a>:
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/donald-trump?inline=nyt-per">Donald J. Trump</a>, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Frum states as a matter of fact that Trump&#8217;s presidency is &#8220;[owed]&#8230; in some large part of a hostile foreign intelligence operation.&#8221;
A regular presence on the left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media circuit, Frum is a favorite guest of CNN&#8217;s Fareed Zakaria. He is regularly described by his colleagues as a &#8220;conservative.&#8221;
Days before the 2016 presidential election, <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/10462/frum-vote-patriot-clinton-protect-constitution-robert-kraychik">Frum called on conservatives</a> to vote for Hillary Clinton &#8211; who he described as a &#8220;patriot&#8221; &#8211; in order to protect American sovereignty, the Constitution, and the republic at large.

To Frum&#8217;s credit, he is of a small handful of &#8220;mainstream&#8221; media personalities who at least partially identified forces of political disruption related to changing demographics in the West wrought by policies related to immigration (both legal and illegal), visitation, and border security. 

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

Frum: Trump Owes Presidency to ‘Hostile Foreign Intelligence Operation’

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