Frenchism vs. Ahmarism

Among the catch-up activities I'll need to do once I'm on the other side of the tech-week marathon for the show I'm in is the debate between Sohrab Ahmari and David French that happened last week. Both conservative Christian writers, the men had been sparring since last May, when Ahmari published a stinging manifesto-invective called "Against David French-ism."

There the formerly Muslim, formerly progressive, formerly evangelical, and now conservative Roman Catholic Ahmari announced that the time had come to shed the liberal public sphere conservatism of David French. The tipping point for Ahmari came with the advent of "drag queen story hour"--events in a few dozen cities where drag queens read stories to children in public libraries. Such events, Ahmari posits, demonstrate that a stronger, more militant hand is needed to halt America's cultural and spiritual decline. He argues for Christians " to fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good." There are friends and enemies, Ahmari says. We must distinguish the one from the other and treat the groups accordingly.

French responded, somewhat bewildered to have been promoted to poster-boy for milquetoast conservatism. A veteran, lawyer, and National Review writer, French had made a name for himself as one of the many conservatives who, in 2016, distanced themselves from then-candidate Donald Trump. Subsequent events--primarily Republicans' rock-solid support for President Trump--have put him on the wrong side of history, red-state-wise. Yet he remains well respected in terms of his conservative credentials.

French grounds his rebuttal to Ahmari in a the very civil liberalism Ahmari critiques. Although he is no fan of drag queens reading to children, French avers, he cannot help but see such events as solidly in line with First Amendment protections. From the start, he challenges Ahmari's vision (very Carl Schmittian, really) of politics as a battlefield of friends and enemies:

Here is the absolute, blunt truth: America will always be a nation of competing worldviews and competing, deeply held values. We can forsake a commitment to liberty and launch the political version of the Battle of Verdun, seeking the ruin of our foes, or we can recommit to our shared citizenship and preserve a space for all American voices, even as we compete against some of those voices in politics and the marketplace of ideas.

For French, the USAmerican Constitution provides more than enough space for such worldviews to express themselves and even battle for legislative power without instituting a scored-earth campaign to vanquish one or the other side. Moreover, as Christians, we are called to love enemies and do good to those who persecute us. Imperial Ecclesiastical militancy, he suggests, is difficult to realize alongside agape. 

The squabble produced tons of response and counter-response pieces from various sides. Now, on one level, this was an insular debate among a certain strata of a certain subset of conservatives online. Its immediate relevance to the larger political sphere are questionable. But on another level, the tension replicates debates among progressives about militancy, civility, and What Is To Be Done. 

Is the situation so dire, the fight so existentially critical, that "normal" routes of politics no longer serve? At what point do we stop pretending to "just disagree" and start fighting a different kind of battle? And who gets to decide when the normal form of politics should revert to its baser form of warfare?

It was fascinating, then, to see the two men actually engage in a live debate. Or--it will be fascinating to watch once I'm able to devote 90 minutes to it.

More tomorrow,

JF