{"id":2263972,"date":"2024-06-10T12:30:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T16:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/david-french-cant-resist-firing-on-former-allies\/"},"modified":"2024-06-10T12:32:43","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T16:32:43","slug":"david-french-cant-resist-firing-on-former-allies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/david-french-cant-resist-firing-on-former-allies\/","title":{"rendered":"David French Continues to Target Former Allies"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdavid-french-cant-resist-firing-on-former-allies%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2263972&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In \u2062the article from The New York Times, \u2063David \u2063French, an evangelical Presbyterian and conservative critic of Donald Trump, discusses his \u2063journey and ideological shift \u2064due to harsh criticisms\u200c he\u200b received from the right, including threats\u2064 towards \u200dhis family. Now working\u2062 at the Times, he writes pieces\u200d on how the Christian right was taken \u200cin by Trumpism, while he remained immune. French often argues that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sen-hawley-says-biden-abortion-policies-are-an-insult\/\" title=\"Sen. Hawley says Biden abortion policies are an insult\">pro-life conservatives<\/a> should prefer Joe Biden over Donald Trump, appealing to the hopes that \u200dmore\u2063 evangelicals become Democrats\u200d due to their disillusionment with Trumpian vulgarity.<\/p>\n<p>Another narrative\u2063 included explores personal \u2063and\u2064 political transformations after\u2062 significant events or realizations. \u2064For\u200b instance, a male feminist recounted his departure from feminism after facing condemnation from his allies and how he now refrains from disparaging his former cohorts. Similarly,\u200b the author reflects on his great-uncle, Stanley Williams\u2062 Moore, a\u200c respected political philosopher and former Communist who left the\u200c party after disagreeing with its stance but still \u2063faced consequences\u200c during the McCarthy \u200dera without betraying his principles or colleagues. This narrative suggests that people&#8217;s\u200d political changes are sometimes forced by betrayals or awakenings, prompting shifts in loyalty and \u2064personal beliefs.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>In The New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/09\/opinion\/presbyterian-church-evangelical-canceled.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Monday morning<\/a>, David French returns to his familiar theme: betrayal. An evangelical Presbyterian and an erstwhile staunch conservative, French made waves several years ago for his strong opposition to Donald Trump. When others on the right attacked him (and, inexcusably, his family), French was understandably rocked to the core. He began an ideological peregrination that landed him at the Times. He reliably cranks out columns explaining how the Christian right came to be infected with a Trumpian fever \u2014 and how he, along with a small faithful remnant, avoided the contagion.<\/p>\n<p>French explains, often, why pro-life conservatives should prefer Joe Biden to Donald Trump. The average New York Times subscriber is not an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nikki-haley-doubles-down-on-abortion-stance-at-iowa-evangelical-forum\/\" title=\"Nikki Haley doubles down on abortion stance at Iowa evangelical forum\">anti-abortion evangelical<\/a>, and indeed, probably has gone out of his or her way to avoid those sorts of benighted and backward people. David French, who has good reason to be angry at how he and his family were treated, settles scores on a weekly basis. His audience laps it up, hoping that French is a harbinger.\u00a0Perhaps other \u201cdecent\u201d evangelicals will grow so appalled at Trumpian vulgarity that they too will become reliable Democratic voters. One can only hope, Mildred!<\/p>\n<p>I am very interested in how people speak of the movements and institutions they have left behind. Many years ago, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/women\/womens-life\/10338624\/The-rise-and-fall-of-Americas-most-infamous-male-feminist-Hugo-Schwyzer.html\">The Telegraph called me<\/a> \u201cAmerica\u2019s most infamous \u2018male feminist\u2019.\u201d I don\u2019t know if the superlative was deserved, but I can\u2019t think of an American man whose infamy in that particular arena outclassed my own. I cultivated a reputation as an ardent and impassioned voice for gender equity, and then I blew that world up. <\/p>\n<p>Though I behaved badly, it is possible to be simultaneously a sinner and sinned against.\u00a0Many erstwhile allies and colleagues said some very nasty things about me, at least some of which were not deserved. Like David French, I got death threats. I was ejected, permanently and no doubt rightly, from the feminist world. <\/p>\n<p>Over the many years since, I have rebuilt a life and a career. It is no secret that I no longer believe all the things I once believed. I no longer hold the same convictions I once espoused in lectures and in places like\u00a0Jezebel\u00a0and The\u00a0Atlantic.\u00a0But here\u2019s the thing: I also generally avoid going after my former colleagues and friends. I do not bite the hand that once fed me, even if that hand has given me a few slaps to the face.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1825593440\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-15e6be7c289378527566719ae6b8a1b0 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-15e6be7c289378527566719ae6b8a1b0\"><\/div>\n<p>When people change their politics, they tend to ascribe that change to one of two causes. The first is betrayal, which is what David French does in today\u2019s essay and many others. They say something like \u201cI didn\u2019t leave evangelicalism; evangelicalism left me.\u201d I know many former Democrats and former Republicans who offer the betrayal narrative. They were always a loyal member of the party, but then the party was co-opted by the radical left or the MAGA right. Their personal values didn\u2019t change, but the values of the institution did.<\/p>\n<p>The other explanation is one\u2019s own awakening. You read a certain book, or hear a certain lecture, or watch a certain YouTube channel, and you gradually realize you no longer believe what you used to believe. You may still feel betrayed by your former church or political party, but that feeling of betrayal is because you believe they were lying to you all along \u2014 not that they were suddenly hijacked by an external force.<\/p>\n<p>I like to ask people who change parties or politics or faiths if the primary catalyst was an external betrayal or an internal evolution. Of course, it can be both, but usually, one comes before the other. What I find particularly interesting is how they speak of those who remain in the group that they are now abandoning.\u00a0Are they fools? Are they asleep? Are they <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pod_People_(Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers)\">pod people?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>My great-uncle, Stanley Williams Moore, was a respected political philosopher. My grandfather\u2019s younger brother, Stanley got his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cal, and served as a major in the Army Air Force during World War Two. He later landed a tenured teaching position at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.<\/p>\n<p>Uncle Stanley was a committed Communist. He joined the party in the 1930s when he was barely out of his teens. He stayed in the party during the war, and for years after. In 1954, at the height of McCarthyism, Uncle Stanley was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC). He took the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer the commission\u2019s questions. <\/p>\n<p>While Reed College today is a solidly lefty institution, it was not so in 1954. Though he had tenure and the rank of full professor, the trustees fired my great uncle for professional misconduct for refusing to cooperate with HUAC.\u00a0Forty years later, in 1993, the college apologized and invited Stanley back to give a lecture. He had the good luck to live long enough to see the pendulum swing, and to see what was once denounced as subversion declared to be heroism. (I do not suspect that his great nephew, who also lost his tenured teaching job in a public scandal, will be quite so fortunate, and for good reason.)<\/p>\n<p>Uncle Stanley had actually left the Communist Party 18 months before he was hauled before that Congressional committee. He left after learning of the \u201cdoctors\u2019 plot,\u201d a Soviet<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Doctors'_plot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> conspiracy theory peddled<\/a> in the last years of Stalin\u2019s rule. Many Jewish physicians were arrested and tortured. When the American Communist Party refused to break with Stalin after the damning revelations of cruelty and anti-Semitism, Uncle Stanley had had enough. He quit the party of which he\u2019d been a member his entire adult life.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the point: <em>despite<\/em> having left the party, my uncle never named names, even though doing so might have allowed him to keep his position at Reed. He never criticized nor exposed his former colleagues. To do so would have been fundamentally at odds with his ethics and his upbringing. Indeed, when it was widely reported that he was an active member of the party at the time of his firing from Reed, Stanley did nothing to correct that misperception. He wouldn\u2019t reveal the truth until 1978. In other words, he \u201ctook the fall\u201d for a cause in which he no longer believed, because to turn on his onetime comrades was unthinkable.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-30ef2e632e913f4acd805e57ca09efd9 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-30ef2e632e913f4acd805e57ca09efd9\"><\/div>\n<p>My Uncle Stanley was a gentleman to his core, and he modeled for me many things \u2014 including how one should speak (or not speak) of one\u2019s former allies.<\/p>\n<p>An anecdote about my great uncle: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tech-community-turns-against-the-new-york-times\/\" title=\"Tech Community Turns Against the New York Times\">ninety years ago<\/a> this year, Stanley was finishing his sophomore year at Cal. He was still just 19, and like his older brother and many other relations, a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon \u2014 and already a Communist.<\/p>\n<p>In May 1934, a series of violent strikes broke out along the waterfronts of every major West Coast port. The strikes would last three months, and there was frequent violence. More than a dozen were killed. One day, Uncle Stanley left campus to rally and organize with the dockworkers at the Port of Oakland. Expected at his mother\u2019s for dinner, he left his comrades and headed to her home in leafy, wealthy Piedmont, a few miles away physically, and a million miles away culturally and socio-economically.<\/p>\n<p>The sporadic riots had led Piedmont to establish roadblocks, manned by police and armed volunteers, intent on keeping \u201creds\u201d (Communists) out of their safe little suburb. Young Stanley rolled up to the roadblock in his jalopy and his customary Brooks Brothers suit. When questioned, he threw the police a grin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy name is John Reed,\u201d he said, naming America\u2019s most famous Communist; \u201cand I\u2019m off to visit the Trotskys.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b2d62ff3116fb90ff6e8beeb36967e41 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b2d62ff3116fb90ff6e8beeb36967e41\"><\/div>\n<p>The police, to whom those names meant nothing, looked at the charming and handsome fraternity man before them, and waved him through.<\/p>\n<p>Stanley\u2019s memory is a blessing, and his example of not condemning old friends and old associations is a much-needed reminder in this bitter and score-settling age.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article was originally published at the <a href=\"https:\/\/hugoschwyzer.substack.com\/p\/on-settling-scores\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">author\u2019s Substack<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-53267c08bee7cd0fd4a1ebf274078dfd fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-53267c08bee7cd0fd4a1ebf274078dfd\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Monday&#8217;s New York Times, David French revisits his recurring theme of betrayal. A once-firm conservative and evangelical Presbyterian, French notably opposed Donald Trump years ago, sparking severe backlash from the right, including attacks on his family. This understandably shook him deeply<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1885,"featured_media":2263973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Screen-Shot-2024-06-10-at-11.18.04-AM-1024x614.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2263972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Screen-Shot-2024-06-10-at-11.18.04-AM-1024x614.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1885"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2263972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2263973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2263972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2263972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2263972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}