A high-profile conservative evangelical influencer announced Aug. 11 he’ll vote for Kamala Harris in an effort to save conservativism.
New York Times columnist David French and his wife, Nancy French, already have become persona non grata in some evangelical circles for calling out the cruelty and immorality of Donald Trump. Yet they have remained steadfast in their own political and theological conservatism.
David French
In an Aug. 13 appearance on MSNBC, David French explained more of the rationale behind his op-ed published the day before. Asked if he thinks it would “send a message” if Republicans lose the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives this year due to Trump’s influence, he responded affirmatively.
“It will send a message,” he said. “Now who knows if it’s received. There’s a difference between sending a message and absorbing a message. You would absolutely send a message that the path of MAGA is a path of electoral ruin then. If you’ve been a lifelong Republican, I’ve got news for you: This party is not the party you grew up with and it’s surprising to me how few people I encounter just in daily life who have fully absorbed that.”
“If you’ve been a lifelong Republican, I’ve got news for you: This party is not the party you grew up with.”
In his op-ed for the Times, French recites his conservative bona fides, including his belief that life begins at conception and his support for the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
“But I’m going to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 and — ironically enough — I’m doing it in part to try to save conservatism,” he wrote.
“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.’”
As a fundamental illustration of this change in values, French cites the ideal that lying is wrong.
“I have never seen a human being lie with the intensity and sheer volume of Donald Trump,” he noted. “Even worse, Trump’s lies are contagious. The legal results speak for themselves. A cascade of successful defamation lawsuits demonstrate the severity and pervasiveness of Republican dishonesty.”
He also contends it should not be controversial to declare that political violence and threats of violence “have no place in the American democratic process. … The level of threat against public officials has escalated in the MAGA era, MAGA Republicans often wield threats as a weapon against Republican dissenters, and every American should remember January 6, when a mob of insurrectionists ransacked the Capitol.”
Further, Trump’s cruelty “is embedding itself deeply within one of Trump’s most loyal constituencies, conservative evangelicals,” he added. “It is difficult to overstate the viciousness and intolerance of MAGA Christians against their political foes. There are many churches and Christian leaders who are now more culturally Trumpian than culturally Christian. Trump is changing the church.”
“It is difficult to overstate the viciousness and intolerance of MAGA Christians against their political foes.”
French acknowledged he has friends and family who do not understand or agree with his position. But he sees an urgency to the present moment.
“We should make the argument — firmly but respectfully — that this is no ordinary race and that the old political categories no longer apply.”
To those who question whether he’s still a conservative, French replied: “I can’t vote for Trump precisely because I am conservative. I loathe sex abuse, pornography and adultery. Trump has brought those vices into the mainstream of the Republican Party. I want to cultivate a culture that values human life from conception through natural death. Yet America became more brutal and violent during Trump’s term. I want to defend liberal democracy from authoritarian aggression, yet Trump would abandon our allies and risk our most precious alliances.”
If Harris wins the presidency — by default silencing Trump — “conservative Americans will have a chance to build something decent from the ruins of a party that was once a force for genuine good in American life,” he concluded.
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