David French: The Rise of the Tough Guy Right

David French is lamenting the rise of “the tough guy Right”:

“What’s far more worrisome is the way Trump feeds some of the worst impulses in the conservative movement, turning otherwise sane and smart people into Facebook commandos and Twitter SEALs. Trump is a man of the moment, and that moment belongs to the tough-guy Right. …

They are the tough-guy Right, and you can always tell when you’re dealing with them. Express concern that, say, Trump’s first national-security adviser lasted less than a month on the job before being fired, and you’re “pearl-clutching.” Call out lies on your own side and you’re accused of angling for a gig at the New York Times, or of attempting to curry favor with the crowd that frequents those ubiquitous Beltway cocktail parties. Criticize these tough guys and they’ll call you a mealy-mouthed “beta male,” looking at the liberal elite and begging for love. (Trump is, of course, an “alpha,” and they all want to be one, too.) …

None of this is honorable. It’s low and partisan. I don’t care how many war allusions you use, how insulting you are on Twitter, or how many times you accuse your opponents of “pearl-clutching” and “bed-wetting.” Unless your argument is honest, principled, and consistently applicable to both sides, you’re just being tribal. …”

Now for the entree:

“One way to understand what we are witnessing, amid the national humiliation of Donald Trump’s presidency, is to see it as the total collapse of conservative ideology. That might seem like a strange claim in a year when the far right seems ascendant throughout the Western world, and when the Republican Party nominally controls the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time in a decade. But I think it’s accurate, and all the breathless Ayn Rand fanfics hidden away in the hard drive of Paul Ryan’s Windows Vista PC don’t make it less so. (It does not follow, by the way, that “liberal” ideology is in such great shape either, and the two phenomena are not unconnected. Topic for another time!)

As a political force, American conservative movement has been morally and philosophically bankrupt for decades, which is one of the big reasons we are where we are right now. …

It couldn’t last, and it didn’t: The grand bargain the Republican elite thought it had struck with the loonier fringes of the lumpenproletariat came undone in spectacular fashion in 2016. Donald Trump and his pitchfork brigade stormed the country club, chugged all the Pinot Grigio straight from the bottle and then barfed it up on the imitation Persian carpets.

What’s left of the conservative intelligentsia is either whimpering in the corner alongside New York Times columnist David Brooks or groveling before its new overlords and swearing eternal fealty. Either way, it’s pathetic. Buckley may have been an erudite con artist to a large extent, but he had a coherent worldview, avoided telling outright falsehoods and would genially have agreed that there were some good things about the Enlightenment, and perhaps even about postwar American culture …”

I laugh every time I watch this video. It sums up their situation.

About Hunter Wallace 12390 Articles
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49 Comments

  1. Criticize these tough guys and they’ll call you a mealy-mouthed “beta male,”

    Notice that French can’t even bear to repeat the actual insult we lob at them, cucks. That’s how deep it cuts.

  2. What French is bemoaning is that his light-in-the-loafers Lindsey Graham/Jeb Bush “right” has no power and isn’t likely to regain power except possibly in a “Rump USA”. Rump USA is what will be left when the south and left coast secede.

    French needs to sit down and STFU.

  3. David French, Egg McMuffin, Rick Wilson, William Kristol, Miss Lindsay Graham…..The #NeverTrump crowd consists of cuckolds, cowards, homos and nu-males. The only one with T levels high enough to fight Trump is Rosie O’Donnell.

  4. Historically false. Chuck Norris, Brice Willis, Stlvester Stallone, and Arnold Scwarzenegger all are tough guys on the right since the ’80s Action Star days.

    What has happened is the Neo-Conservatism of the W. Era has collapsed (Jews have never been known as good managers Historically.)

    That left a gaping hole that has been filled by Paleo-Cons, Populists, & Alt-Righties.

    The Neo-Cons are a spent force and I predict most will retire to Israel soon.

    • Agree except the last bit about retiring to Israel. No.

      The Neo Con rats deserting a sinking ship are swimming over to places like the Atlantic Magazine. They’re playing the theme song to “Welcome Back Kotter”. The Atlantic Magazine is getting loaded with ex Neo Cons – David Frum, Elliot Cohen, Elliot Abrams, that Goldberg guy who served as a prison guard for the IDF but who also helps Arab migrant refugees to the US, makes sure they get plugged in to Liberal anti white causes.

  5. ‘David French is lamenting the rise of “the tough guy Right”:

    Blame yourself and your fellow Leftists, Mr. French, for trying to turn us, men, into simpering whiney women.

    • I’m a woman and I’d never be as much of a bitch as this guy. I bet I could beat him up too! Then go make a nice dinner for my family, maybe do some laundry lol.

  6. ‘As a political force, American conservative movement has been morally
    and philosophically bankrupt for decades, which is one of the big
    reasons we are where we are right now.

    That’s because it has not been ‘Conservative’, Sir – but, Liberal; and, thus, has ‘conserved’ pretty much nuthin’…

  7. Conservatism, as an intellectual and political movement, was killed by the same people who claimed to uphold it: people just like David French, William F Buckley and William Kristol. Conservatism became controlled opposition, a most useful tool of the left. French whines and whimpers because no one gives a damn about what he says anymore. Bravo!

    • You’re very right, Mr. Whitaker.

      Unfortunately, the Bush family, very fine people, put the final nail in the coffin of something that had postured itself as opposition, but, which simply became thinly veneered collaboration.

  8. Is this the same “tough guy” David French who touted his military service, which consisted of writing briefs in the Green Zone? It was said of him that he “fought in Iraq” (I don’t know if he himself claimed this) – what he really was was an Army lawyer.

    • Haha an actual cuck! I bet his wife is a mud shark. Actually, I think the Daily Stormer showed her social media account where she was fawning all over that black Milwaukee sheriff and some other black guy. Wow. No wonder he hates Trump. The inferior always resents the superior.

  9. “The grand bargain the Republican elite thought it had struck with the loonier fringes of the lumpenproletariat” – excellent, he’s starting to question fact that they are courting democrat voters who will never vote republican. Maybe he’ll even start supporting Trump. Well that is unless he’s conflating the working class with the lumpenproletariat.

  10. Just read article, will never get those 5-10 minutes back unfortunately. That David French guy is a fool…sounds like a true cuckserative. LOL

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