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On Last Night’s Sohrab-David Rumble
Last night Catholic University hosted an intellectual debate between the New York Post’s Sohrab Ahmari and National Review’s David French. The whole conversation was initially kicked off by a tweet of Ahmari’s, declaring (paraphrasing) that we must fight back against the cultural rot infecting our society, like drag queen story hour at libraries, with more than just kindness. The example Ahmari offered of that excessive kindness was David French, a man known throughout the conservative movement as exceedingly kind.
I happen to think that this whole debate, which set conservative intellectuals on a tear for over a week on Twitter and in the pages of every major publication, was set off by a poorly considered tweet on the part of Ahmari. I agree with him that the conservative movement has allowed the Left to pummel us, and the decision to go with Donald Trump in the primaries was an overcorrection. We chose Mitt Romney and Romney (as much as I admire him) did little more than smile when the Obama team basically called him a murderer.
But where I part with Ahmari is using the example of David French to illustrate where excessive kindness hurts our ability to push back against the Left’s abuse. During the debate, Ahmari contended that a President French wouldn’t have stood by Brett Kavanaugh, which is an outrageous assertion considering French was one of the strongest writers in Kavanaugh’s corner. A key Senate staffer during those deliberations concurred:
We actually used David’s powerful Kavanaugh defenses while advancing his confirmation in the Senate.
Ask Republican Senators who the most valuable voices on the outside were. Guarantee David is at the top of every list.
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) September 6, 2019
Overall the evening accomplished little; ad hominem attacks were too freely thrown about, mostly on the part of Ahmari, though after the event he did take to Twitter to apologize for what many found the most offensive, a perceived swipe at French’s military service in Iraq.
I sincerely thanked @DavidAFrench for his service when we began our debate. In questioning David's political courage, I did not intend to question his literal personal courage in serving in Iraq. For that I apologize.
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) September 6, 2019
Ahmari mentioned a piece from French written in the early 2000s about gay marriage, showing French had a change of heart about how to tackle the conversation. Ahmari used this change of heart against French, to which French should have mentioned that at that time in history, Ahmari was an actual communist and active with American communist organizations. We all have changes of heart, and it was disingenuous of Ahmari to use French’s against him when he has had several himself (in addition to his politics, Ahmari also experienced a conversion from nominal observance of Islam as a child, to atheism, and most recently, to Catholicism and was the topic of his most recent and widely acclaimed book).
The entire premise of the evening was Ahmari’s assertion that French and those of his “ilk” are doing too little in response to the cultural rot taking place in our society, with the example of the drag queen story hours. But in response to “what would you do?” Ahmari had few ideas, and the ideas he did have were, quite frankly, chilling from the perspective of a constitutional conservative. One of the examples of solutions offered by Ahmari was Senator Josh Hawley’s Internet Censorship Bill, which French called an “unwise and unconstitutional mess.” Ahmari’s feelings about the First Amendment, paired with what he said recently about the Second, left me questioning how he feels about the Constitution and its role in our modern lives.
Military-grade weapons should have no place in our streets.
In a historic cover editorial, the NYPost comes out in favor of banning assault weapons. Now.https://t.co/ZYOVSFzZVR
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) August 5, 2019
BREAKING: The late 18th century was not the be all, end all of wisdom.
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) August 5, 2019
The evening’s debate will be repeated on the campus of Notre Dame next week (it’s unclear if it will be livestreamed). The conversation about tactics is an important one, and hopefully it can continue with fewer personal attacks and defenses, and more about how to fight back against a dangerous cultural tide against conservatives, religion, and family.
EDIT: You can watch the debate for yourself here:
Published in General
I prefer the term “Severe Trump Skeptic” to NeverTrumper. I was open to Trump after he was elected with his appointment of James Mattis, and Justice Gorsuch. See “Time to Move on from NeverTrump.” http://ricochet.com/401094/archives/time-to-move-on-from-nevertrump/, However after Charlottesville, I have pretty well soured on Trump and believe that the best course of action would be for him to be defeated in the primary.
I agree that the term “NeverTrumper” has been greatly overused. I filed a post on “What name would you like me to call you by?” See http://ricochet.com/467791/archives/what-name-would-you-like-to-call-you-by/
Perhaps the best solution is to borrow from mental health definitions who refer to the “Autism Spectrum,” and to have our own “Trump Spectrum” with Jennifer Rubin and Rick Wilson hard on the Anti-Trump side of 100% opposed, Charlie Sykes, George Will, and me in the 80% opposed group, Jonah Goldberg and John Podhoretz in the 60% opposed group, Founder Rob Long in the 40% opposed group, Founder Peter Robinson and James Lileks in the 20% opposed group, William Bennett, Andrew Klavan in the 10% opposed group, all the way up to Mike Pence, and Sarah Sanders and DJTJ in the 0% opposed group.
Whatever . . .
I thought we long ago concluded on Ricochet that telling other people we know more about what they think than they do themselves was at best uncivil, and worst, moronic and/or a CoC violation?
Whatever . . .
Not to put words in others’ mouths, but I believe Jon Gabriel, Stephen Miller, and James Lileks very much wish that the Republicans had chosen a different candidate in 2016. They may prefer Trump to Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren and I wouldn’t call them Trump haters, but they are very critical. Not that I’m castigating them for that, I share their outlook. You could put the Mad Dogs & Englishmen podcast in that category, too. The Smart Girls Politics, Dave Carter Show, and Problematic Women podcasts lean pro-Trump. There’s something for pretty much everyone on the center-right.
That is what I love about Ricochet. There are a variety of different podcasts. If I want red meat, Andrew Klavan is there to dish it out. If I want middle of the road, Trump Supporters with some regrets, there’s lots of that. And if I want folks who are deeply disturbed by Trump, I have that too.
And we even have a podcast on science fiction literature now!
Finally got around to watching the thing.
David French is better than I expected. By that I mean better than I think he comes across on podcasts (where I’ve heard him a zillion times).
Ahmari is worse. I’ve had less exposure to him and I kinda hoped the impression I had of him would turn out to be exaggerated. It isn’t.