Never heard of them.
While fighting off this stupid cough that interrupted our podcasting schedule, for my sins I listened to Mona Charen's "new" podcast interviewing David French.
I listened all the way to the end, and I have some thoughts. Many thoughts. So, before we begin --
-- I am contractually obliged to contextualize the interview for you.
Charen and French represent the moral and intellectual pillars of the Right. The one, unique thing they supposedly brought to every table and panel and podcast and program to which they were invited (and they were invited to a lot of them) was their penetrating insight into politics. It's why The Bulwark hired Charen. It's why The New York Fucking Times whitewashed French's inconvenient past and added him to their already top-heavy lineup of Conservative opinion-havers.
Because these guys, above all others, knew the skinny. They knew the deal -- the real deal. They were tight with the shot-callers. They were in the little rooms with the Big Thinkers who were making the Big Decisions. They could be trusted to reliably report on what was really going on deep in the heart of Conservatism. And, even more important than all of that, they knew all what all of us sneaky terrorist-loving, Murrica-hating, baby-killing, commie Liberals were up to with our schemey schemes.
Using their credentials and character-references from all the other unimpeachable pillars of Conservative credibility, they spent decades stamping their imprimatur all over reassurances that the Right was, in every way, oh so much better than the petty, addled, hateful Left. More noble. More thoughtful. More respectful of the rule of law. More decent. More honest. More generous. More virtuous.
In fact, the Right was so incomparably superior to the Left in every way, that there was barely any point in comparing the two.
So, please read the following excerpts which I have faithfully transcribed in the knowledge that this is how people like Charen and French were regarded by the Right and the legacy media, and it was the basis of this unique expertise that they have been paied as writers and speakers.
Ahem.
FRENCH: But here's what ... I'm more worried about, us, the American people. Because if you ... what [Trump is] also doing is he's fostering in his followers the same hatred that he feels. And so what when I learned this, y'know, I, in 2016 I voted third party. And 2020 I voted third party. In 2024 I voted for the Democrat -- for Kamala Harris. First time I ever voted for a Democrat for president in my life. And when I wrote about that the blowback from ordinary people, like, ordinary Republicans that I know was really surprising to me. Especially considering that they knew I hadn't voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.
FYI, being taken completely by surprise by things Liberals have been writing about and warning about for decades is going to be kind of a theme here.
FRENCH: But they had been so inculcated with this hyper-partisanship, of Democrats as "Demoncrats", and the dehumanization of their political opponents that they really saw me as joining the enemy of the country. Whereas if I was... if I'd voted third party again they would view me as sitting out the fight. By voting for the Democrats they viewed me as joining the other side, and it's that internal hatred that is the fuel for this fire. And that's what I'm more worried about than any specific actions. Because all of these actions are empowered by that hatred. And then Trump milks it and fuels it and fuels it. And so I don't know, Mona, what we do with all that hatred after Trump leaves the scene?
Then, after some hand-waving and throat clearing about how awful the Elites are (that's you and me) and how "they" look down on Christians...
FRENCH: ...and then, when I got on the wrong side of the Christian conservative World by not supporting Donald Trump what I experienced was something worse than anything I'd had experienced at the hands of the left...
Then after still more hand-waving and throat clearing about how awful the Left was on few college campuses...
FRENCH: ...and so then I began to hear the stories of... and when I got, y'know uh my feet in, when I got in mainstream media [ed. he means, when the New York Fucking Times whitewashed his record and gave him a job], um, I began to hear stories from people who had interacted with Christian conservatives and the stories of hatred and vitriol and abuse were horrifying. And, so, y'know one of the things that I wish I could say is, like, go back and go to these churches where they say "Why are they looking down on us?" and say guys you don't know what other people in the pews around you are saying and doing to your opponents. And if you could sit... if you could walk a mile in their shoes you would know this. You would know that if I cross the Evangelical conservative movement I can expect terrible things. Terrible treatment. Horrible treatment. Threats. I can expect threats. I can expect intimidation. I can expect the worst kind of name calling and slander.
Then more throat clearing about how most Conservative evangelicals are not this way.
Really? And how the fuck would you know that? After all, you claim you had no fucking clue about any of this heinous shit your chosen party, your chosen movement and your chosen faith were up to until it bit you personally in the ass.
FRENCH: ... but I've gotten to the point where I'm not... I'm ... the fact that you are sitting in institutions in which many, many, many of the members in good standing are abusing their fellow citizens and you don't do anything about it...
...but when you're a part of a movement and you're part of an institution that is supposed to be following the person of Jesus Christ and it doesn't alarm you when you hear of all of the abuse towards critics etc. emanating from your own institutions? And that doesn't alarm you? Uh, that is that is very difficult to deal with, Mona.
No shit, Sherlock.
FRENCH: It's very difficult to deal with the fact that there is such indifference to the suffering that their own institution inflicts on its critics.
Golly, if only there had been some sort of warning. A hint. Some subtle clue that Conservative Evangelical are monstrous hypocrites.
Fun Fact: In two months it will be the 20th anniversary of "Little Red State Fundy". I am so fucking tired of these people.
Then it was Mona Charen's turn for some throat clearing about how she used to get some hate mail from the Left, and how "people" would compliment her on how brave she was to be out there in the world calling Liberals naughty bad people. And then...
CHAREN: But when I got on the wrong side of MAGA, um, it was off the charts. I mean, on Twitter in 2015 to 2016, uh that was when I first started getting the unbelievable misogynistic antisemitic... y'know, uh all of that stuff, hatred aimed at me, um, y'know, the contempt that, y'know. And so I ... I have a limited amount of sympathy for the people who are constantly saying how, y'know, we really need to understand that MAGA is just a reaction to the way they're being badly treated...
Here's more good news! After 40 years of playing dumb, these two brain wizards seem to have finally cracked the code for how Conservative propaganda works!
FRENCH: ...but this sort of idea that a lot of people take so personally in their own lives -- they're so personally offended in their own lives by the disdain, like, that the Women's Studies Department in Oberlin might have for them.
CHAREN: I know... I know!
FRENCH: When they have nothing to do with their lives, y'know.
CHAREN: Exactly!
FRENCH: But I think what.. what also happens, you have to realize, a lot of the business model of right-wing media is to go find the most contemptuous leftist...
CHAREN: Yep!
FRENCH: ...and put them front and center and saying "Look and see what they think of you!"
CHAREN: Yes!
FRENCH: ... and they're not representative. They're not the normal person left of center. But it's all about sort of feeding the sense of grievance.
CHAREN: Yep.
Also, did you know that Republican voters are morons? Yeah, its true! They don't actually sit around pondering the deficit and quoting Edmund Burke. In fact, they don't know fuck all about anything!
FRENCH: Trump couldn't return without civic ignorance at mass scale. And so what's what you saw if you looked at the data was that amongst the people who are well informed about the news, Kamala Harris won those people pretty substantially. Trump won people very substantially who got their news from nowhere at all.
Mr. French, Ms. Charen, those are your people you're talking about. Your people and your party.
And since you have now succeeded in making your failure my problem, this would be an excellent time to consider spending the rest of your lives apologizing to those of us who warned you this would happen, and who will have to spend the rest of our lives cleaning up your catastrophe.
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