David French
@davidfrenchjag.bsky.social
NYT Columnist, visiting professor at Lipscomb University. Married to @nancyfrench.bsky.social. Iraq vet, Grizzlies fan, born in War Eagle Country and raised in Big Blue Nation.
My discussion with @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social about why the founders are helpful in combating the New Right is taking off. Check It out! youtu.be/cwMbBHi1kIc
What the New Right Really Wants — with David French
YouTube video by The Oath and the Office
youtu.be
The initial American strategy failed, the war with Iran is consuming the region, Iran and Ukraine are risking a face-off, both Russia and China are escalating their military commitments, American munitions are dwindling and Trump is raging. Other than that, everything is fine.
Opinion | World War Two-and-a-Half Is Breaking Out
Whatever is happening in Iran, it isn’t working.
nytimes.com
New episode! David French joins me on the postliberal right, birthright citizenship, and whether there is a path out of America’s democratic crisis. But first, @johnfugelsang.bsky.social and I look to the ideology behind Trump. @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...
What Trump and the New Right Really Believe | David French
Podcast Episode · The Oath and The Office · July 30 · 1h 16m
podcasts.apple.com
When many young people look at the church’s embrace of Trump, they’re not rejecting the church because they’re afraid to shed their sin and become better people. They’re rejecting the church because they refuse to embrace sin and become, well, worse people. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/o...
Opinion | Gen Z Thinks Religion Got Too Political
I wonder why that could be.
nytimes.com
The 2020 playbook is unfolding now, and I’m concerned, to put it mildly, that Mike Johnson is no Mike Pence. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/o...
Opinion | How Trump and His Allies Can Corrupt the Midterms
Stop the steal before it starts.
nytimes.com
Trump is testing how far unchecked presidential power can go. That's why, at LibCon2026, @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social, Bob Bauer, @lizagoitein.bsky.social, and @protectdemocracy.org's Justin Florence will ask: What would a presidency accountable to voters and the Constitution actually look like?
GOP devotion to the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, is in some ways even more troubling than their continued support for Trump. Their enthusiasm for a another corrupt adulterer shows that Christian moral compromise is metastasizing. They love their corrupt politicians, so long as they fight.
Opinion | Trump’s Corruption Stains, From Texas to Maine
Something is wrong if vice is all them and virtue is all you.
nytimes.com
Birthright citizenship is noxious to MAGA. They scorn it as relying on magic dirt — the idea that there is something inherent in American soil that makes a person an American citizen. Yet the same populists seem to believe in something like magic blood — that one’s lineage can make one superior.
Opinion | MAGA’s Birthright Meltdown Is in Full Effect
nytimes.com
The administration’s treatment of Donahue removes any remaining doubt that in Hegseth’s version of a meritocracy, there is no level of excellence that can trump politics, and it is difficult to overstate how much that principle will cripple a military in a democracy. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/28/o...
Opinion | The Purging of General Donahue Is a Breaking Point
nytimes.com
What if we don’t actually have a competitive two-party system? What if our nation actually has two one-party systems, instead? And if the United States has two one-party systems, then that means voters are constantly confronted with the stagnation and corruption that disfigures single-party rule.
Opinion | Two-Party System, One-Party Rule
nytimes.com
An outstanding piece by @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social in today's @nytimes.com. GIFT LINK: www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/o...
Opinion | A Malicious Chapter in the History of American Justice
nytimes.com
When I’m in my more optimistic moments, I think we’ll look back at last year as the high-water mark of Trumpism, when the combination of arrogance after Trump’s victory and the inherent authoritarianism of the Trumpist project led to a unique period of state violence and legal corruption.
Opinion | A Malicious Chapter in the History of American Justice
nytimes.com
"In their arrogance, Trump and Netanyahu defied their predecessors in all the worst ways, and now they court a profound defeat when, not long ago, a meaningful victory, however partial, was well within their grasp." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/o...
Opinion | Trump and Netanyahu Have Really Stepped in It Now
nytimes.com
Doomerism is indispensable to Christian nationalists, because it is only the downfall of democracy that makes the patriarchy palatable. But when you impose patriarchy back onto a society that has already embraced liberalism, you mainly remind people of why they chose liberalism in the first place.
Opinion | Christian Nationalism’s Dark Forebears
nytimes.com
Absolutely the worst thing about being a parent right now
David French@davidfrenchjag.bsky.social · 2mo ago"When I was in college I learned about the great man theory of history. I didn’t quite buy it. And now, thanks to President Trump, I’d like to modify my objections." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/o...
"When I was in college I learned about the great man theory of history. I didn’t quite buy it. And now, thanks to President Trump, I’d like to modify my objections." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/o...
Opinion | The Terrible Man Theory of History
nytimes.com
Fascism on the right. Communism on the left. Ancient antisemitic conspiracies seemingly everywhere. Tariffs. War in Europe. Gilded Age corruption. So many bad ideas re-emerging all at once. Why? www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/o...
Opinion | The Fire of Stupidity Cannot Be Contained
nytimes.com
If you want to know what is ailing our politics, this is a big, big part of it. #RealTime @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social @realbillmaher.bsky.social
"At the moment, the United States is negotiating with a regime that President Trump claimed we had already changed, to open a strait that was supposed to be open last month, and to end a nuclear program that we said we had obliterated." No, things are not going well. Here's why:
Opinion | The President Is Giving a Master Class in What Not to Do
nytimes.com
Trump is circumventing Congress’s power of the purse. He’s circumventing the judiciary. By potentially granting settlements to people who possess no valid legal claim, he’s circumventing civil and criminal law. This is one of the most purely monarchical moments of a monarchical presidency.
Opinion | There Are Scandals. There Is the Law. And Then There’s This.
nytimes.com
“Last Tuesday, the Republican majority leader of the South Carolina Senate, Shane Massey, stood before his colleagues and gave a speech that exemplified two virtues that can seem almost extinct in the Trump Republican Party: wisdom and courage.” @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social archive.md/2026.05.17-1...
Healthy political parties make each other better. To defeat a viable opponent, a party has to rise to the challenge. It has to fix its failures. It has to innovate. Defeating a sclerotic rump of a party is no achievement. Instead, one-party rule enables corruption. It fosters stagnation.
Opinion | The ‘Rabid Partisan’ Republican Who Defied Donald Trump
nytimes.com
The history of political evangelicalism is riddled with the same kind of story: A powerful man gains a following by casting himself as the heroic warrior against the heretical, and when he uses his power to indulge his basest desires, he treats exposure as an attack and justice as persecution.
Opinion | I Don’t Think You Can Even Call This Hypocrisy
nytimes.com
"I don’t want politicians to be 'authentic.' I want them to be decent. I want them to be honest. I want them to be competent. And if they fail those tests, they don’t redeem themselves by opposing Donald Trump." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/o...
Opinion | The Platner Trap
nytimes.com
From pardons to prediction markets, the transactional nature of the Trump administration is perhaps its most obvious characteristic. And transactional people often soothe their own consciences with the belief that everyone else is ultimately transactional as well — the only question is their price.
Opinion | The Kind of Men Who Flummox Trump
nytimes.com
America at 250: Where do things stand? KF Senior Fellow @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social speaks with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch about the Constitution, the dangers of concentrated power, and the role of the courts in such a deeply polarized time. https://nyti.ms/4tVvDwh
Opinion | Justice Neil Gorsuch on the ‘Miracle' of Agreement on the Court
David French and the Supreme Court justice discuss how the ideals of 1776 shaped -- and strain -- the country today.
nyti.ms
Human beings are liable for the actions of the machines they create, and if the machines commit crimes or violate the rights of others, then the humans who built the machines should find themselves in profound trouble with the law.
Opinion | There’s a 900-Year-Old Answer to Our Most Modern Problem
nytimes.com
Many thanks to @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social for writing this piece, for having thought the issue through. It is one of the most important issues of our time. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/26/o...
Opinion | Meet the New Leader of the Free World
nytimes.com
"I don’t think Americans fully appreciate the extraordinary cost of Trump’s bluster. It should go without saying, but once you threaten to invade an allied country, you don’t just place the existence of the alliance in jeopardy; you raise the possibility of allies turning into mortal enemies"
Opinion | Meet the New Leader of the Free World
nytimes.com
