Sohrab Ahmari’s frontal assault on David French seems to have been the spark that lit the powderkeg. The pile-on from the right is reaching epic proportions.
The newly rebooted Human Events has taken up the sword, hacking away at David French-ism in general and National Review in particular.
Over at American Greatness, Julie Kelly came flying off the top rope to pin French to the mat, while her colleague Matthew Boose metaphorically swatted the stunned Pharisee with a folding chair when he tried to get up.
The response of French and his acolytes is both predictable and revealing.
Naturally, French doubled-down on his virtue, and his followers were quick to remind everyone of the things they already knew (because he keeps bringing it up) about his family life and military service. This was the predictable part.
What was revealing was that French also began playing the “beware a Christian theocracy” card, which is a staple of the liberal left, even as it makes nuns pay for birth control and persecutes Christian bakers and florists.
Since French was making a liberal argument, naturally the liberals have applauded and the usual suspects who normally bash National Review and French are now portraying them as the “good guys” and the “reasonable” wing of the conservative movement.
So far, this is little more than a catfight among the swamp creatures who dwell inside the beltway, but out in the hinterland, something else happened.
For the first time I can recall, a Catholic bishop has formally denied Holy Communion to nominally Catholic politicians for their voting record.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield put out a public statement that the President of the Illinois Senate and the state Speaker of the House (both Democrats, naturally) were barred from Communion because of their support for legislation legalizing virtually all abortion up to the moment of birth. The Bishop also included any other nominal Catholic politicians in his diocese who voted for the vile measures.
This hard line against “cafeteria Catholics” is a long time coming and demonstrates that the frustration of Ahmari is not unique. For decades Catholics have tolerated politicians who profess to share their faith and then vote to undermine and persecute it at every opportunity.
All of these events make clear that social conservatives are tired of being used by the corporatist liberals who run Conservatism, Inc.
For decades the “social liberal but fiscal conservative” recipe has been pitched as the key to a successful GOP majority. It has failed utterly.
I think a crucial step in cracking this coalition was the failure of the GOP leadership to defund Planned Parenthood when Republicans controlled both branches of Congress and the presidency. This was an easy thing to do, and – given the horrible news that Planned Parenthood made money selling off baby parts – utterly defensible.
But instead Congress could only rouse itself for corporate tax cuts. Actually keeping its pledge to the Right to Life movement was too much to ask.
These people may have claimed to support conservative positions, but they were always liberals at heart.
How else to explain their sudden eagerness to hop in board the gay marriage bandwagon? It’s telling that Ahmari’s example of degeneracy (a drag queen reading to young children) draw such a vehement defense from French, who insisted that really, there was nothing to be done to stop it other than ask nicely.
I’ve been using the phrase Quisling Never Trumper for a while now, but it’s clear the treason goes well beyond the advent of the Trumpening. These people kept losing not because they were too principled to fight, but because they secretly internalized all of the lies of the left.
They were always liberals.
And now they've been revealed. The super-religiousity was a blind to dupe their fellow Christians into confusing "nice" with "faith."
For example, early on, Ahmari was asked if he "loved his enemies" in regards to the liberal left.
You see, if he didn't, he was a hypocrite and UnChristian.
Note that no one asks David French if he loves Donald Trump. Mr. Super-Christian can dump hate on him all day long and that's okay because it's righteous, liberal hate.
At any rate, the curtain has now been pulled aside and social conservatives are acting accordingly.
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