Frum suddenly discovers that America is becoming nonwhite

David Frum writes in his Diary:

May. 10, 2006: Fit to Print?

Here’s an item that appeared below the fold in today’s Washington Post: Nearly half the nation’s five year olds (45% to be precise) are now ethnic minorities, with most of the surge in minority population driven by Hispanic immigration. About half that immigration is illegal.

In other words, the decision today not to enforce the immigration laws is guaranteeing that the US of the second half of the 21st century will cease to be a country predominantly populated by people of European descent. Isn’t that sort of a big deal? Oh well, I suppose we should be glad the item made a newspaper at all ….

Remembering how in the past Frum consistently had said that any concern about America’s racial composition was illegitimate, I wrote him the following e-mail:

Mr. Frum,

Regarding your below “Diary” item, when have you EVER expressed any concern about America ceasing to be a white country? I published The Path to National Suicide: An Essay on Immigration and Multiculturalism in 1990 warning about this. Buchanan (who at that point had not become the complete anti-Israel bigot he is now) endorsed my book and the need to defend European America. Brimelow published Alien Nation in 1995 making the same points. Various paleoconservatives also warned about this. Your only stance through those years was to criticize Buchanan in particular, and paleocons in general for their nativism and xenophobia. You even wrote to me in a letter in 1994 that America had no right to stop Third-World immigration because of our “history of racial discrimination.” You said that any concern about the racial composition of America was wrong. And now you come along and, acting as though you’ve never before heard about the de-Europeanization of America, say, “Isn’t that sort of a big deal”? Which you immediately follow by a resigned, “Oh, well … “

If you did regard it as a big deal, why didn’t you write about it during the last 15 years, instead of just attacking the immigration restrictionists? And why don’t you write about it now? But in order to write about it, you’d actually have to think about the issue, which you have never done. For example, do you believe that a white country ceasing to be a white country is something to be avoided? If so, why? Does our white European heritage and character represent a value to be defended, or is it completely irrelevant, which is what the neoconservative and liberal ideologies say? Are you prepared to call for restrictions on non-Western immigration into the U.S.? Are you prepared to defend the morality of this? And how will you reply when people call you racist?

You could consult my writings which would fortify you in this area, since a central focus of mine has been to show the morality of preserving America as a predominantly European country.

However, if you fail to go beyond the resigned comment you’ve made here, then this will remain David Frum’s entire oeuvre on the suicide of white America and the white West:

Isn’t that sort of a big deal? Oh well, I suppose we should be glad the item made a newspaper at all ….

A generation or two generations from now, when the Americans of that day find themselves in a Third-Worldized country, do you want it to be rememembered that this was all you had to say on the subject?

Lawrence Auster

I should have also pointed out to Frum how dishonest it was to act as if the de-Europeanization of America is only occurring because of illegal immigration. It’s obvious why he said this. It’s okay to oppose illegal immigration. It’s not okay to criticize our non-discriminatory legal immigration, which of course is the main source of the problem.

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A reader writes:

Great pieces, thanks. I have my two cents you are free to ignore. I wonder if it is counterproductive to take shots at Frum when he starts showing a glimmer of awakening from the neocon delusion. Might it not be better to encourage him, pointing out to him all the reasons why he should embrace the patriotic and restrictionist position now, instead of sending him scurrying back to the comfort of his fellow neocons and the open borders utopians, like William Kristol? I think flattery and welcome might be better than a spiky “Where have YOU been all this time?” We want to win him to our views and get him to espouse them to a broader public, not to think they are copyrighted and he can’t use them without losing stature as an independent thinker. To some extent, it might even be useful to pretend to follow while leading.

For your ideas to have their greatest effect, it may be you should not seek to establish ownership of them either on your own behalf or on behalf of traditionalists or paleocons. The record is what it is. We want to win, not just be right. We may be approaching a turning point in national opinion. We don’t want to blow it by forcing people to admit to others or themselves that they are taking up the views of people or groups they have ignored or spurned.

I know you are on the field and I am on the sidelines. Just think of this as a comment from a loyal reader.

Best wishes and God bless,

LA replies:

I thought about that too, and I actually softened the tone of the e-mail before I sent it. I was not just saying in a know-it-all way, “Where have you been?” I was challenging him to be serious on this.

At the same time, the chances of his being serious are between 100th of a percent and 1000th of a percent. Seriously. I have followed him on this issue for 15 years, since his attack on Buchanan in the American Spectator in 1991. And I’m not going to fool myself about that. If I saw any glimmer of genuine seriousness on Frum’s part, it would be different.

However, if I seem to be laying claim to ideas, and saying, “You have to agree with me,” then that is a mistake and I need to avoid that. But the main point is not whether they agree with me or with paleocons, but whether they can be serious about the issue as long as they are still holding onto their past positions. It’s not that Frum rejected me or paleocons, it’s that Frum said consistently that concern about America’s racial composition is not legitimate. I’m reminding of him that now, in order to spur him to thought. If he were serious, the fact that I’m confronting him so directly would not be an inhibition to serious thought on his part.

It is a difficult area to navigate. But one thing I refuse to do is fool myself. If I saw even a glimmer that he was actually grappling with the issue, instead of saying, “Oh, well,” then I would have written to him in a different, less challenging manner.

However, looking over my e-mail again, I agree that it is too much about me.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 10, 2006 11:34 AM | Send