David French has emerged as one of the most hated personalities in conservatism. He’s essentially a meme because of his most famous column defending drag queen story hour as a blessing of liberty. Yet is this hatred really deserved? Of course it is. But does the hatred stem from mere disagreement or something far more sinister.
Russell Moore invited David French on his podcast for one of Big Eva’s most effeminate pairings to discuss what David French-ism is. Russell Moore believes that this concept is an unwillingness to fight. However Russell Moore understates the issue, mitigating the definition. You see, David Frenchism is in the name, French.
In World War Two the French surrendered to the Germans after their Maginot Line was breached. On paper the French military should have been stronger than the Germans, but their tactics were evidently outdated, and they were arrogant enough to leave a hole in their defenses and not respond to a German bottleneck of tanks.
However bad these blunders were, it was akin to being down double digits in the first quarter. The French still had a massive colonial empire that could be mobilized towards the war effort. And they also had the British as an ally. In other words, the French could have continued the war but chose not to. And that decision was made by intellectuals who reasoned that World War One could not be repeated and so it was better to live under Nazi rule than relive the experience. They determined that Paris was too sacred to risk in conventional warfare. They reasoned that the people would understand, all while many of them could continue living in Vichy France.
And that is the perfect metaphor for David French. He wants us to surrender every cultural battle despite our potential to turn things around. He want conservatives to accept that which we oppose under the guise of the principle of neutrality, a concept with diminishing support on the right.
And his devotion to the old way, to Bush II conservatism, along with Jonah Goldberg and Erick Erickson, has a whole class of people who were once thought leaders on the right moving to the left.
He feigns as though he’s consistent on principles when he has embraced Branch Covidianism and Critical Race Theory, the former would have been wholly rejected by the right if not for Trump. But in reality, the sheep’s clothing is falling off, and now that David French can’t write about his hatred for Trump, he writes primarily about his hatred for the church, in the efforts that they embrace leftism and Critical Race Theory. Such is the fall of someone who was never that good in the first place.
