David Frum just announced he is voting for Hillary. Has voted already. I swear...

[Hekate]

...this man has looked deathly sick all year -- so much so I wondered if he was suffering some awful illness in silence.

Tonight he looked nearly healthy again, and as though a terrible weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He laid out his reasons for supporting Hillary Clinton, and they all had to do with understanding the very institutions of the nation and the Constitution and being able to govern in a sane and rational manner.

As with Steve Schmidt, Nicole Wallace, and Michael Steele, I find myself seeing what is admirable in certain people with whom I fundamentally disagree about policy (Frum was one of Dubya's Neocons, f'godsake) when they reveal how much more they love the country I love than the party they used to serve.

When I think of how sick Frum has looked all year, it just serves as an example of what Trump does to people.

When I see him and others turn away from that festering abcess and articulate why, I think there is hope for us all yet.

[longship]

1. He may be still recovering from the night that Rachel Maddow handed him his ass.

Back in 2008!!!!

(With some Keith Olbermann commentary afterwards.)

Enjoy!

BTW, when your ass is kicked by Rachel Maddow, it remains kicked!

[bhikkhu]

18. I wonder if he sees, in retrospect, that his fears about our party were unfounded

and that his hopes for his own party were utterly unrealized; in fact, the state of his own party is worse by an order of magnitude since he gave that interview.

At least he does come across as a thinking person, who cares about his country, and it was good to see Rachel meet him across the table as an equal in thought and caring. I hadn't seen that one before - thanks for posting.

[longship]

25. You may be correct. Nevertheless, his ass remains kicked by Rachel Maddow.

Poor David Frum. Poor, poor David, with a perpetual ass kicking. And when your miserable ass has been kicked by Rachel, it remains kicked.

[catbyte]

20. Poor Frum. The only "soul searching" Republicans did after 2008 & 2912 was to

decide that there was nothing wrong with their message, and the problem was that their candidates weren't conservative enough. Now they've gone over the edge, kicking minority Trump supporters out of rallies just because they're minorities. They have gone stark raving mad. Their hated and bigotry have won out, and too many supposedly "decent" Republicans are too scared to disagree. It's really scary.

[Hekate]

23. Frum is a Jew and therefore also in a minority group. The embrace of the alt-right ....

...by Trump has unleashed a virulent strain of anti-Semitism, such as we have not seen exposed to the light of day in decades.

Everything about this is sickening. Imagine if this were my Dem party that had gone insane...

[JI7]

2. he supported Michael Steele at the RNC . he recognized the republicans need to appeal to others

i also noticed how he has looked and i really do hope it's not a serious illness.

i think he doesn't see this as his party.

[Ken Burch]

10. He's Canadian by birth, and the old Progressive Conservative Party there

(as opposed to the Conservative Party that formed the government in Ottawa from 2006 to 2015) generally represented a much more humane and inclusive notion of conservatism than we have here(for example, various Tory provincial governments sometimes established far-reaching social programs, it was a PC government that passed the legislation giving indigenous Canadians the right to vote, in 1958, and the Lincoln Alexander, the first black member of the Canadian House of Commons, was a Tory).

I think that tradition David Frum's notion of what conservatism should be about.

[oasis]

3. The writer of Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech is aware of the danger of a

Trump presidency. Many in the GOP get it.

[madaboutharry]

4. They have shown their honor.

David Frum use to annoy me like there was no tomorrow with his neocon bs. But although I will always disagree with his politics, I now have great respect for him. He is a true patriot who loves his country. These are the times when you find out what people are made of.

Now having said that, I have no doubt that as soon as this election is over I will go back to finding David Frum absolutely obnoxious.

[Hekate]

5. Yes

[JCanete]

28. That is going far further than I think the man deserves. He's still carrying water

for the rich by endorsing Hillary. Do you really think they want an insane person to destabilize their trans-national businesses? Sure, disaster capitalism is a real thing, but you want to destabilize other spaces, not the ones that are already greased for you.

Not taking anything away from her, because I'm appreciative of the platform Clinton is ACTUALLY running on right now and it takes an extrordinary person to rise to the top of the democratic ticket in this nation, but corporate interests have known who they want to win for quite some time, and it has never been Trump. As to the media rigging, now that Hillary is a shoe-in there's no harm in making this appear to be a horse race, especially since a beleaguered candidate with no clear mandate is far less likely to suddenly go populist.

[anneboleyn]

6. I heard today that Bush II & Bush I are voting for Hillary, and honestly I believe it. Trump

was a total ass with his childish ridiculing of Jeb and racism towards Jeb's family, which for some bizarre reason made Trump popular with the repub primary audiences. And of course he blamed Bush II for 9/11 during the repub debates. I am sure they hate him, AND I think they recognize that Trump is a dangerous creep with ties to Putin (based on the Newsweek story!)

[Avalux]

7. I like what you've said here, a lot. That's why I think Hillary will win bigger than considered.

I think there are many Republicans who will silently vote for her because they love this country.

[ibegurpard]

8. Frum has always been

One of the more reasonable and moderate conservative commentators.

[Cha]

11. Thank you for this, Hekate!

[Hekate]

13. You are so welcome. I just had to say it, and I thank all who have responded...

This is without question the vilest election I have ever endured, and it won't be over even after the votes have been counted and certified.

I look for rays of hope to keep me going, and this turned out to be one of them.

[Cha]

14. "I look for rays of hope to keep me going, and this turned out to be one of them."

I'm right there with ya.. sitting here looking for rays of hope.. and your thread looked like a good one.. made me tear up in fact.

Any glimmer of humanity and I'm mush.

[SunSeeker]

16. K & R

[Beacool]

17. Most of the Bush administration folks are voting for Hillary.

Probably even both former presidents. The family can't stand Trump and think that he's not qualified to be president.

[Upthevibe]

21. Good post. Thank you. I appreciate some honest, thought-out, discussion. I sure never wanted

it to come to this.

[TeamPooka]

29. Picking Sarah Palin started this slide of moderate Republicans away from their party. Frum got fired

for his opposition to Palin's rhetoric and xenophobia in 2008 from the National Review
The magazine ciouldn't take a mutiny in it;s ranks
This year the National Review has stood against trump joining the mutinty.
Who'da thunk it? as my grandpa used to say.

[radius777]

19. imo, polls are underestimating her Repub support,

I was reading something over at DailyKos about this, that poll models aren't equipped to deal with this type of election, where a good chunk of one party may vote for the other, similar to 1980 (but probably not on that epic scale), where the polls were very wrong, many showed a much closer race than it turned out to be because a large percentage of Dems voted for Reagan.

The thing is, if life-long Repubs like Frum, the Bushes, etc are "with her", and conservative newspapers that haven't endorsed a Dem in 100 years are "with her" - that is a clear indication of something bigger going on, that will be reflected in the voting, imo.

[czarjak]

22. "Kicking and screaming"...

Come home, huh, Dave? Fuck you anyway.

[OnDoutside]

24. Theres nothing admirable about Michael Steele. He's been

Running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, especially the last couple of weeks.

[grantcart]

26. Agree Hekate, Frum has matured

He could have cashed in but is more principled than when he was Bush lackey.

He supported same sex marriage and doesn't rumour monger.

He had a long bout with Lyme disease and it affected his face but he actually is looking better than a couple of years ago.

[DemonGoddess]

27. K&R!

[Cha]

30. Frum Tweet

David Frum
✔ ‎@davidfrum
If a domestic intelligence agency won’t protect the integrity of elections against foreign manipulation lest it look partisan, who needs it?
1:42 AM - 1 Nov 2016
1,703 1,703 Retweets 2,596 2,596 likes

https://theobamadiary.com/2016/11/03/president-obamas-day-in-jacksonville/

[Hekate]

31. Gods yes

[lillypaddle]

32. K&R nt

[wildeyed]

33. Frum is not that bad.

I follow him on Twitter because he was one of only a few conservative pundits I could find who is not irredeemably racist. I assumed that he would vote for Clinton. Glad he stated his preference publicly.