It’s Hard to Hate David French (but he does hate you)
David French is like a white tiger. Dangerous, ugly, and rare.
in the Dispatch, a conservative online news magazine, a column by David French
David French is a religious conservative and columnist, and calling him that is a mark of respect. Here at Assigned, we call a spade a space, which is why we refer to most of the news outlets we cover as far right, right wing, extreme right, Christian nationalist, Christofascist, White Supremacist, and so on. David French, however, is the other thing. He’s also the favorite conservative of many centrist mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times or the Slate Political Gabfest.
In the column, French explains that he believes trans people go against his god, that being trans is wrong and a sin, and also that we should be allowed to go to hell peacefully, without a violent religious theocracy sending us there before our time.
OH WOW DAVID FRENCH, THANK YOU SO MUCH, I GUESS?
David French is all for transgender people being discriminated against in employment, in housing, in medical care. He’s for us being social pariahs, grimly hanging on to lives at the absolute edges of society, and often losing our lives pointlessly, and before our time. He believes that all the effects of discrimination on our community, the poverty, unemployment, mental health toll, drug and alcohol use and abuse, violence, suicide, incarceration, all of that is just and right and natural and a sign of his god’s judgement on us.
But… he doesn’t think there should be a law telling us how we can dress, or whether we can publish websites, like I’m doing now. He doesn’t even think trans youth should be taken from loving parents who follow the best available medical advice they can find. (He’s a bit grudging about it, and in the column above he makes it clear he’s even unhappier about a California law protecting trans youth from being forcibly returned to abusive Christian homes, but nevertheless he is clear that he’s against this.)
This is probably where I should either say “and that’s why he’s so dangerous,” or else, “and that’s why he’s not as dangerous as many other right wing pundits are.” But the truth is, with French I am perpetually torn between those points of view. I think French’s position, nestled deep inside the bosom of the mainstream media, a conservative viper suckling at a mainstream teat that likes to think itself liberal, is very dangerous. I also think there’s something admirable about his refusal to goose step completely in line with all the fascist, authoritarian, anti-democratic impulses of the GOP.
I don’t trust David French, and I don’t like David French. I have no doubt the feeling is mutual. I do, however, respect him for seeing a fascist movement arise in the GOP and refusing to pretend he doesn’t see what’s there. He may dissemble and protest that there is as much authoritarianism on the left, but ultimately I believe he understands the broad strokes of our political landscape for what it is. So yes, in a sense, I respect French. I am not, however, deluded enough to think David French could respect for me, or any trans person alive, in return.
