Why David French is Wrong

(Knowing That I May Also Be Wrong)

David French, the conservative New York Times columnist that NatPops (nationalist/populists) love to hate, is out with a column sure to stir up the hornets’ nest of dissatisfaction from the Trumpenproletariat. Interestingly enough, it has also stirred me, though likely for different reasons.

Recognizing of course, that columnists and reporters only “suggest” titles for their work, one might assume a big wheel at the NYT gets a little consideration. The title of the column above is “To Save Conservatism from Itself, I Am Voting for Harris”, and the minute I saw it, I knew I would hate it. There are all kinds of good reasons for conservatives to vote for the Vice President, but saving “conservatism” isn’t one of them, and saving it ‘from itself” is decidedly not one of them.

Ideologically, David French and I are on the same “team”, although he is a good bit more of a social conservative than I am, and as even a cursory reading of his essay reveals, the abortion issue occupies a great deal of his attention.

But the major mistake he makes in this piece is conflating the conservative movement or “conservatism” with the Republican Party. To wit:

Since the day Donald Trump came down that escalator in 2015, the MAGA movement has been engaged in a long-running, slow-rolling ideological and characterological transformation of the Republican Party. At each step, it has pushed Republicans further and further away from Reaganite conservatism. It has divorced Republican voters from any major consideration of character in leadership and all the while it has labeled people who resisted the change as “traitors.”

This is all very true, but what does it have to do with conservatism? What French diagnoses (and with which I agree) is the evolution of a political PARTY, not conservatism. The GOP has become LESS conservative by my understanding of that word, and generally more populist (and collectivist, and dare I say “socialist”). Why EVER would a movement conservative consider these things a threat to conservatism? They are what conservatism is structured to oppose. Conservatism has not changed, and to the extent that one or the other of our major parties is better aligned (better, but not aligned) with conservatism, it remains the GOP. Choosing to vote for Harris is a fine idea if the message he wishes to send is one of “…saving the GOP from itself…” but that isn’t what he’s saying. French recognizes the category errors he is making and doubles down on them in this quote:

What allegiance do you owe a party, a movement or a politician when it or they fundamentally change their ideology and ethos?

Well, when you throw parties, movements, and people into one indiscernible category, it is not hard to see how French makes the category errors that he does. But parties…movements…people…and IDEAS…are different, different words because they are different things.

Russell Kirk, Conservative

French and others who make the mistake of thinking about “the Party of Reagan” as the basis of their conservatism forget that the “Party of Reagan” was once not the vessel for conservatism that it became when he came along. Parties change to attract voters. Ideologies do not. Reagan popularized and explained an ideology so effectively that it changed a party and changed a country. The ideology was not changed, it was not made more or less whole. It found political popularity through the vessel of a major party. The popularity of that ideology is considerably reduced these days in the presence of pandering populism, but the ideology needs no saving, not from Trump, not from Kamala Harris, or anyone else for that matter. Voting for Harris will not have a whit of influence on whether conservatism continues to value limited government, the rule of law, free markets, and an active role for the US in world leadership. Quite the opposite. Voting for Harris adds to the case that these things are less desirable in our politics.

Sending a Message With A Vote

I am not voting for Harris or Trump. I have yet to decide if that means that I will vote for a write-in candidate or just simply not vote for President. During a wonderful time with my daughters Friday (although for a sad event, a funeral in Charleston), they put me on the rack about this choice. When I told them I would not vote for Harris (their choice, natch), the first statement was “so you’re voting for Trump?”. At which point I restated my opinion that elections are not binary things, and that my job is not to pick the winner but to project my voice (through my vote). Like many of you who have graced the commentary section of this Substack, they don’t buy this. They, like you, think that you’re either for Trump or Harris and if you don’t vote for the one you’re supporting the other. I believe this to be piffle, and I don’t care how deeply you believe opposite, your comments below will not move me to either respond or evolve.

I raise this because THIS approach—write in or not voting for President—strikes me as a more effective means to send a message than voting for Harris. In other words, I want to vote for a lot of Republicans in Maryland, and I’ll likely vote straight ticket GOP (with special emphasis on the Luv Guv Larry Hogan). Let’s face it. If there were to be a considerable number of people who do what I am doing, Larry Hogan would earn considerably more votes than Donald Trump in Maryland. Nationwide, if Trump underperforms more classically conservative candidates, THAT—is a message to the GOP. But I don’t want to go too far with this, as this concept of “strategic voting” pretty much doesn’t add up to much.

Bottom line here, is that this is my problem with David French, The Bulwark, and Tom Nichols among others. THEY think that because the Republican Party no longer represents the ideology they once held dear, they need to support the other Party and its candidates in order to bring about some kind of Stalinist “purge” in the GOP. Even worse, in order to gain acceptance and credibility in the party they now push forward, they increasingly embrace policy choices decidedly out of step with ANY real understanding of modern American conservatism. I prefer to hold fast to my now forty plus year dance with Reaganism, and I will hope that one or both of the parties move toward me, recognizing that I am unlikely to see this. I will continue to cling to my allegiance to the Constitution and the blessings of our founding and vote for the person who more closely represents these things. When—as now—neither of the two major parties can put forward a candidate who can credibly claim to do so, I will not be forced into a choice.