Miscellaneous Musings: A Defence of David French
You shouldn’t live in an echo chamber.
I don’t normally directly respond to current events on my blog because once I finish writing about them, they’re no longer current. (I made an exception to this once before, when I wrote about Douglas Murray’s debate with Joe Rogan and Dave Smith.)
The Canadian psychologist and right-wing political commentator Dr. Jordan Peterson recently interviewed the New York Times columnist David French for his podcast (linked here). French had written an opinion piece titled The Democrats’ 20-Million-Dollar-Man Problem. French complained that the Left had demonised all forms of “traditional masculinity” as toxic. He posited that 1) this was bad in and of itself and 2) that it drove men into the arms of reprehensible figures like Andrew Tate. French noted that Dr. Peterson, unlike Tate, did a good job reaching out to young men with advice from which they benefited without being a misogynist.
Dr. Peterson was interested in having a discussion with French because 1) he was interested in what French was saying and 2) he was surprised that he had gained such a positive assessment from someone who had criticised his take on the Ukraine. (Details linked here).
Having watched the podcast, I say it can best be described as two smart men saying fair and reasonable things in civil dialogue with one another despite their political disagreements. But you would not get that impression from the comments section, which seemed to view French as evil incarnate. Why? Because French voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 (albeit begrudgingly) and the Daily Wire’s audience views that as an endorsement of all of Harris’s worst policies and ideas.
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For the record, French said, in an interview/debate with Charles C.W. Cooke (not to be confused with Charlie Kirk), that he would have regarded Harris as beyond the pale (for her treatment of Brett Kavanaugh) if it weren’t for the fact that he believed in the moral necessity of supporting the Ukraine and he thought Harris was good on that front. Did I agree with everything French said in that debate? No. (He drastically overestimated the likelihood that a President Harris would be Pro-Israel, for example.) That said, a Harris presidency wasn’t going to destroy America (regardless of what Elon Musk said) anymore than a Trump presidency was going to destroy democracy. (I know Harris and her ilk claimed a second Trump presidency would end American democracy but that was always a foolish argument.)
I also think it’s fair to note that French lives in Tennessee. Since 1996 (when it voted for Clinton against Dole), Tennessee has exclusively voted for Republican presidents. French’s vote wasn’t going to change that. The issue with French thus wasn’t that he had voted for Harris but that he had publicised his decision to do so. I’m actually sympathetic to that critique. Endorsements frequently turn into a game of ‘whose side are you on?’ rather than an honest attempt to explore the issues. That said, French’s friend Ben Shapiro endorsed Trump in 2020 (and 2024 but I’m focusing on 2020), so when Shapiro wrote the Politico playbook in 2021, Politico’s left-wing staff were up in arms about publishing the work of the ambivalently pro-Trump Shapiro. Right-wing outlets (like Fox News) rightly criticised Politico’s staff on the grounds that they were effectively seeking to live in an echo chamber. By their own logic, objecting to Peterson’s willingness to provide a platform to David French is also proof positive of being overly thin-skinned.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe for a second that everyone is entitled to a platform. Some people vocalise genuinely reprehensible views and it’s entirely fair and legitimate to say ‘I don’t want to provide those people with a microphone’. That’s why I don’t have a problem with Dr. Sam Harris and Douglas Murray criticising Joe Rogan for unantagonistically interviewing Darryl Cooper and Ian Caroll. That said, generally speaking, there seems to be more than a fair share of overlap between the kinds of people who strenuously object to Harris and Murray offering this criticism (i.e. Dave Smith and Tucker Carlson) and the kinds of people who utterly despise David French to the point of wanting Conservatives to sever all ties to him (e.g. Tucker Carlson.) That looks hypocritical from where I’m standing.
Now, to be clear, if Peterson were to interview Dean Withers or another outspoken Harris supporter then I do think it would be fair to call upon Peterson to grill him on that issue. (Since those people were much more supportive of Harris than French ever was.) And, to be clear, there are people who have said and done things that are reprehensible enough that Peterson shouldn’t platform them. (And Peterson acknowledges this, he once tweeted that he’d only have a discussion with the Hitler loving pundit Nick Fuentes “When hell freezes over.”)
The truth is French hasn’t crossed the line to earn that kind of repudiation (regardless of what Matt Walsh thinks.) The conversation between Peterson and French is the kind of civil political dialogue which we should do our best to encourage.
My name is Matitya and this is one of my Miscellaneous Musings.
