His Journey Toward the Left Reaches a New Low
The meme has become reality: David French announced in his Sunday New York Times column that he is voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in November. To “save conservatism”—in reality, the sclerotic ideology that failed to stop the Left’s rolling revolution—French will be siding with the most pro-abortion, pro-trans, pro-open border, pro-riot, pro-Deep State, and pro-DEI presidential ticket in American history. If you’re wondering what the apotheosis of Principled Conservatism™ looks like, here it is: handing the keys of the country over to the Left as MSNBC hosts congratulate you for your “courageous” stand against the powerless hicks in flyover country.
Don’t let the list of his conservative bona fides near the top of the column fool you: French has fully embraced the ruling class creed that props up the current regime in Washington. He is the poster child of a tight-knit circle of evangelical elites whose anabaptist-for-thee rhetoric and theology of “Christian witness” has effectually recast the leading concerns of the regime into “Gospel issues,” making it safe for Christians to vote for Democrats.
One reason French says he will vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is because they “will stand against Vladimir Putin.” (It’s curious that Walz wanting a far closer relationship with the regime in China is not disqualifying for French.) Putin is supposedly the Hitler of the twenty-first century and must be stopped at all costs. But if Putin is as dangerous as French claims, what lengths is he willing to go to stop him? The U.S. declaring war on Russia? Dropping nuclear bombs on the country? It’s curious how little concern the most moralistic evangelicals seem to have with open-ended conflicts, wars of choice, and mass civilian casualties and deaths.
Another reason French will mark his ballot for the far-left Harris/Walz ticket is because Donald Trump is a violent authoritarian who will end our democracy. But Trump critics almost seem to forget that he had a first term in office, which, for good or for ill, is likely a preview of a possible second Trump administration. (My hope is that if Trump is elected, he will act far more in line with Richard Nixon’s envisioned second term prior to Watergate upending his presidency.) This is the same “authoritarian” Trump who abided by the decisions of federal courts after they overturned large swaths of his policy initiatives, especially involving his attempts to pare back the administrative state. It’s been a while since I studied the Weimar Republic, but I don’t remember Hitler simply acceding to the wishes of Paul von Hindenburg.
While Christians may decide they won’t vote for Trump, they don’t have the option of voting for candidates who stand squarely against the very moral order that God created. Vote for a third party. Decline to vote. But Christians cannot support the Democratic Party in its current form.
Take abortion. Yes, the Republican Party platform on life was altered prior to the RNC in ways that angered many evangelicals. But is French correct in calling it “functionally pro-choice”? The Republican Party platform “proudly stand[s] for families and life” and believes that “the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process and that the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights.” The platform also opposes late-term abortion.
Compare that language to the Democratic Party platform on this same question, which is put under the euphemistic subhead “Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice.” The Democrats “believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.” Furthermore, the Democrats pledge to “overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights” and “repeal the Hyde Amendment, and protect and codify the right to reproductive freedom.” Finally, “Democrats oppose restrictions on medication abortion care that are inconsistent with the most recent medical and scientific evidence and that do not protect public health.”
The contrast couldn’t be clearer. The Democrats want every American to shout the goodness of abortion. There’s no neutrality about this. There’s no sitting on the sidelines. You must scream from the rooftops that abortion is very good.
Even if French is correct that Republicans abandoned their principles on the question of life and became “a fundamentally different party,” this does not give him a right to vote for a party that is radically pro-abortion to its very core. This is logic 101. There is no right to do a wrong. There is no right to violate the natural law. And though French rightly points out the pro-life movement’s many failures in the post-Dobbs era, neither does this give Christians an opening to vote for Democrats.
What happened to the David French who harangued conservative Trump voters in column after column, week after week, for supposedly sacrificing their principles on the altar of power? But the man who hung Trump’s immorality around the neck of his evangelical voters is now fine with voting for the morally compromised Kamala Harris, who had an affair with then-married Willie Brown in the mid-1990s.
However, I don’t want to settle for the easy charge of hypocrisy. French has discovered that one must make trade-offs in politics—which is a good step. The problem lies, however, in his morally ludicrous judgement of the good that each of the candidates would do should they ascend to the White House.
At its core, a vote is about making a proper assessment of which candidate will better achieve the common good of the civil order. But the common good does not equate to supporting abortion on demand, LGBTQ insanity, erasing our Southern border, and the looting and burning down of our cities. French’s political judgment has seemingly been warped beyond all recognition by a deep-seated disdain toward his chief political enemies: Donald Trump and his large band of evangelical voters.
What would the past iterations of David French—the man who defended keeping the Confederate battle flag at public Confederate memorials and denounced critical race theory as “racial poison”—think of David French now? But the far more interesting question is, What presuppositions did French hold then that helped turn him into a Harris voter? And how did the Big Eva machine grease the skids of his transformation from conservative movement lawyer to mouthpiece for the Left? After all, by constantly giving French a platform, evangelical elites have been tacitly instructing evangelicals for well over a decade that French is an example to which every Christian should aspire to in public life.
But for French, his good friend Russell Moore, and others in the Big Eva orbit, the slippery slope remains undefeated. A perspicacious commentator on X even asked in 2019 when French would be endorsing Kamala Harris after French pointed out that her abuse of “executive authority” was “a key part of her platform.” The general course of too many public theologians, well-known pastors, and institutional evangelicals has been to downplay the sins of the Left while excoriating the sins of the Right, which clearly has helped many in their own journeys toward the Left.
Summing up French, there’s his adamantine shell of Never Trumpism that cannot be breached. There’s his submission to woke platitudes that nearly every member of the evangelical industrial complex voiced during the summer of 2020, as Megan Basham recounts in her book Shepherds for Sale. There’s French’s open praise of drag queen story hour (the American founders, by contrast, had the moral character not to confuse liberty and licentiousness). There are the bad biblical interpretations that prop up French’s twenty-first century morality. And there’s his gleeful consuming of the rot our culture keeps churning out on every streaming platform.
The PCA’s decision to rescind French’s invitation at their recent General Assembly looks even better in retrospect. They rightly refused to platform a man who would have attempted to make it safe for those in the audience to vote for the most leftist presidential candidate in our nation’s history. As Proverbs 14:7 teaches, “Stay away from a fool, for you will not find knowledge on their lips.”
After that dust up, American Reformer Contributing Editor Ben Dunson wrote at First Things, “Courage to do the right thing in the face of unrelenting cultural pressure is contagious. And such contagious courage is sorely needed today.” Pastors and evangelical institutions must have the courage to combat the gross moral errors of individuals like David French and groups like Evangelicals for Harris who are guiding Christians down a terrible road, strewn with the bones of the dead. The theologically inept Christianized politics that many evangelical institutions have advanced over the past few decades has produced leaders who waffle when adversity comes and then capitulate—all the while gaslighting everyone else that they are the only ones displaying moral clarity.
Christians must forcefully reject this trajectory. They must help mold and publicly platform Christians who combine a serious understanding of politics with the fortitude and moral character to safeguard and strengthen the pillars of a decent civil order. There is much work to be done. But if the very early stages of a renaissance that looks to be happening in some Christians circles is any indication, the foundations are being poured right now that will support future success.
Image Credit: Unsplash
The above article is for the sheep in the New Conservative Flock (NCF). It wants to persuade the NCF about how far French has fallen from conservative sainthood. Then again, he might have written similar things about George Will who refused to join the NCF and supported Biden in 2020. As of now, Will favors neither major candidate as far as I know.
What shows that the above article is for the sheep in the NCF because it is full of pejoratives and hyperbole. Why is it that each new Democratic Presidential nominee is the most radical, leftist candidate in history? Those of us who have any level of leaning toward Marx laugh when the NCF calls the democrats leftists. It simply is not the case. Whereas the NCF hopes to capture the labor vote by pushing Culture Wars, the Dems have acted as vanguards for labor. The end result is that neither major political party actually advances the workers interests in the workplace. For neither major political party is promoting more worker control over the workplace–which is something real Leftists do.
As for the criticisms of French, he has already explained his support for the LGBT community. The above article wants to send that community back to the margins of society. As for abortion, there are other pro-life issues, such as climate change, social safety nets, and environmental racism that also interfere with people dying unnecessarily before they should. And therefore, there is no consistent pro-life candidate or political party between the Dems and the Repubs. As for Putin, does he have to be a Hitler to be opposed? For if he does, then Hitler would become the minimum standard of evil. And perhaps, Yossi Melman’s February 27th, 2022 opinion piece in Haaretz described Putin perfectly in the article’s title: ‘Vladimir Putin Is Not Adolf Hitler, but the Echoes Are Getting Louder‘
Authoritarian followers of this website will be very disturbed by any criticisms of the above article. And, btw, the PCA should repent from being politically tribal. But those followers should ask Sabo to list 10 members of the Deep State. It’s not that there are no special interests working behind the scenes trying to control our government. But together, those special interest groups do not form a monolith. We should note that many big businesses richly benefited from Trump’s policies at our nation’s expense. And, btw, if there are corporations that support Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion, then that’s a point in their favor. For the opponent of Democracy with equality is authoritarianism with hierarchy. And at this point, neither major political Presidential candidate nor major political party is consistently for Democracy with equality. It is the case, though, that one of the two major political parties is far more authoritarian than the other–and it isn’t the Dems.
Perhaps Sabo should rewrite the above article but only after reading what George Will has said about the Dems and the Repubs acting like third graders with their name calling.
Curt, which big businesses do you believe richly benefitted from the Trump administration’s policies at the nation’s expense? How did they benefit and how do you figure those benefits were at the nation’s expense? And, seriously, why is it that each successive Democratic Presidential nominee is the more radical and leftist than his or her predecessor?
Adam,
The ones that used their tax breaks to buy back stocks in order to boost the price of their shares. And it is the ones that cut costs at the expense of the environment. BTW, the deficit increased that year too.
As for my comment about democratic candidates being portrayed as being the farthest left, you have to ask the NCF for the answer to that question. After all, that is how Biden was being portrayed before he left the Presidential race and that is how Harris is being portrayed now.
Don’t feed the trolls.
I’m convinced this Curt troll gets paid to do it.
Mike,
Realize that you have convinced yourself of a claim without evidence.
And I don’t get paid, But that isn’t the issue. The issue is whether the above article treated a fellow believer, one for whom Christ died, fairly. If you think that the above article treated David French fairly, then can you then say why?
Curt, You wrote: ‘Why is it that each new Democratic Presidential nominee is the most radical, leftist candidate in history?’ This isn’t an unreasonable statement. In fact it could likely be proven in a court, since there’s so much evidence to prove it’s true. Remember when presidential candidate Barack Obama was against gay marriage? Where do he and his party stand now? Remember when Bill Clinton wanted abortion to be safe, legal, and rare, and now Tim Walz favors it with little to no restrictions? The list could go on.
It’s laughable to suggest each new Democratic Presidential nominee is NOT the most radical, leftist candidate in history. After all, the party is PROGRESSIVE–they are progressing away from Conservatism by definition. While the nominees may have not yet reached the level of radical and leftist as some who lean Marxist may prefer, nonetheless, on the proverbial line segment the indicator of Democratic party principles has been moving left for decades.
Jill,
You pick one or two criteria for determining who is the most radical leftist candidate?
The reason why you call each new set of dems the most radical leftists is because: 1) you are doing so because of the issues that are most important to you, not to leftists; and 2) because you insist on viewing politics in binary terms. Reality is much more complicated. For example, there are some views that Leftists share with some conservative libertarians such as US foreign policies and international law. But in the foundational part of being Left, the dems are closer to the Repubs than they are to the Left. Both major parties support Capitalism. The Left does not. The Left wants either a hybrid economic system or a one that is governed by workers, not owners. Lenin and Stalin split from Marx on that central issue. BTW, Marxists are not radical leftists, they are the standard definition of the Left. And, btw, the Left, just like liberals and conservatives, is not monolithic.
Another part of seeing politics as binary is that the New Conservative Flock (NCF), which is being shepherded by Donald Trump is so significantly different from the previous status quo conservatism that some of the previous status quo conservatives have decided to support the dems rather than the Repubs.
It isn’t necessary to think in binary terms when thinking politically; in fact it may be harmful to do so. Why? Because unnecessarily thinking in binary terms, such as with holding a black-white worldviews, is a foundational part of authoritarianism. And we should note that authoritarianism respects no ideological boundary. Any ideological side, including leftists, can tragically embrace authoritarianism.
Curt, Your reply seems to have missed the last line of my first paragraph: “The list could go on.”
Jill,
You don’t prove anything by saying that the list could go on. And what you specified in the list doesn’t show a move to being more radical. Those who are most radical are the ardent, not the reluctant, voters for Trump. Listen to the criticism of traditional conservatives like George Will to see how far Trump has led his party from traditional Republican values.
As for the dems, take the abortion issue. How Clinton wanted abortions to be rare was found in mitigating the conditions that caused people to choose abortion. And fewer people requested abortions when he was President. But he also vetoed a Partial Birth Abortion Plan. Walz had the language change for those babies who survived an abortion. That instead of saying that doctors were to take all measures to preserve the life of the baby, they are now required to care for the infant.
The changes in approach to LGBT issues really reflects society more than it reflects a radical turn by the Dems. And so didn’t Obama change his stance on LGBT rights in the middle of his Presidency?
In essence we see a back and forth in the Democratic Party. Yes they accepted the LGBT community, in a secular pluralistic society, why not follow the lead of society? Why must we fight Culture Wars against that community when we could evangelize instead. And Jesus told us if people don’t listen to our evangelism, then we are to move on.
Also, which political party is changing its stance on Russia? Traditional Republicans saw Russia as a threat as the Dems do though the latter group unnecessarily provokes Russia. It is the Trumpublicans who are arguing amongst themselves as to whether they should treat Russia as a friend and ally or as an enemy.
Where the dems seem to be returning to where they were is seen in their wanting corporations to pay their fair share. Other than that, they have either been going with the flow of society or holding steady.
Curt Day delenda est.
I forgot to address Trump’s authoritarianism and plans to end Democracy. The short answer to that claim is January 6, 2021. Then all we have to do to add to that evidence is to include Trump’s own words and his personality type.
The comparison to Nixon in order to deflect the charges of Trump’s authoritarianism is is odd. Nixon didn’t become an authoritarian overnight with Watergate. Rather, his authoritarianism, like that of the Dems, was seen behind the scenes just as the Watergate break in was done behind the scenes.
I love the phrase “Anabaptist for thee rhetoric”. It aptly describes the church environment I spent 20 years in and also why I left that environment. The whole thing came to feel like a massive gaslight long before I left.
I’ve followed this author since he was a Mt. Vernon Fellow at “the Center for American Greatness.” He has an unhealthy obsession with Mr. French.
Says the guy who admits he has been following a far, far less prominent figure than David French. . . .
I’m quite interested in what comes out of Hillsdale. At this moment, it’s merely a troll farm.
Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.
Ryan,
If Jim’s view of Hillsdale is merely an example of the pot and the kettle calling each other black, does your response imply that you agree with Jim’s assessment of the institution?
I believe that French is possessed by a demon. What else can explain a guy I read all the time up to the redefinition of marriage, and respected highly, to becoming this promoter of evil?
Mike,
Is promoting the freedom of religion, which includes the freedom to worship false gods, also promoting evil?
The problem with your article is two fold.
First, you could write this exact same arficle about anyone supporting Trump. Like Harris, he’s completely disqualified himself from the presidency. Only in a nation of fools — ours — is he a candidate.
Second, have you approached French about any of this? The Bible has a few words to say about how to address disagreements between believers, and you failed to heed them. Shame on you.