The aptly-named David French, whose latest sinecure is as the New York Times’s pet pseudo-Conservative, has really come into his own as the conservative who liberals want, and who liberals need. Soft, sissified, and sanctimonious, he’s pretty much John Lithgow in Footloose if the priggish preacher watched a lot of Morning Joe – and he’d be careful to overlook the Mika homewrecking thing because he knows where his wafer is buttered. French is always there to wag a finger at the right-wingers, articulating a vision of conservatism shackled by norms and principles that prevent them from actually conserving anything. French is not merely a surrender monkey, but a surrender organ-grinder’s monkey, dancing for nickels to whatever tune his master plays.
He’s the perfect conservative for people who hate conservatives, always eager to please by being eager to lose. His writing sounds like what leftists sipping their kombucha and perusing the paper think is conservative, but it is nothing of the sort. There’s not a leftist premise that French fails to accept, and he’s embraced by the enemy only because he’s non-threatening. He’s a friend zone conservative, the guy the leftists come to for succor when the mean butchcons keep them from killing babies or allow people to keep scary guns (French was once with us on these and other issues, but he somehow happened by pure chance to evolve into the same positions on these matters as the people paying him – weird coinnkydink, huh?). David is the guy the hottie cries to about the big, bad stud who’s mean to her and then, after he’s wiped her tears, she goes over to the big, bad stud’s place while David writes a screed about what a jerk the guy the hottie actually wants is. You read his stuff and you know there’s some weird stuff underneath it all. You get the vibe that the guy’s bowser history is something you want no part of.
Lately, French has been flacking in favor of Disney, because apparently there’s a conservative principle we were unaware of where we must submit entirely to woke corporations and accept whatever poison they choose to inject into our culture. The left wants our submission, and David comes along to explain why, to attain True Conservatism™, submission is mandatory. It’s kind of remarkable how he is so perfectly attuned to the desires of the leftists who read his garbage paper. David French is whatever he needs to be at any given time. When he was litigating First Amendment stuff, he was some kind of civil libertarian, then he was a conservative at National Review, then he was whatever the hell those dopes are at The Dispatch, and now he’s the muddled mess pumping out nonsense at the NYT. He’s a ridiculous man, but he’s figured out his scam, and it works for him.
To the extent that French makes an argument about the legal ramifications of Ron DeSantis taking away the special privileges and sovereignty of Disney in Central Florida, it’s not much of a legal argument. He was an ex-First Amendment litigator and wants to make this a First Amendment case. That’s understandable, because the First Amendment claim, which is terrible, is actually the best of the claims, as well as the sexiest. But the real meat and potatoes are the basic statutory and contractual issues, but French either does not know that or he does know that his audience does not want to hear that the Disney will get beaten on prosaic legal issues instead of triumphantly saving the Mouse from free speech martyrdom.
Can Disney create a contract that is not subject to state law? No. Did it comply with the statutory notice requirements before it made its insider play to solidify its Magic Kingdom in near-perpetuity? No. Can a court force a state government to implement a statutory scheme (since Florida voted to eliminate the old one) that recreates the Disney sweetheart deal? No. So this really isn’t about all that highfalutin’ free speech for corporations stuff but about basic, boring legal stuff.
And the free speech arguments are independently terrible. I guess his argument is that if you claim you’re the victim of First Amendment oppression, you get a free pass from the elected government, and if that’s his argument, it’s a really bad argument. French parrots Mickey’s argument that Disney ran its fool corporate mouth, ticked off the Republicans, who then used their power to make laws to wipe out the special board that Disney controlled that was the quasi-government in the Disney region. He cites case law so his audience will be impressed, but you cite case law to show that similar cases were decided in the way you want this one decided. The case French cites is not similar; the case that is similar he ignores. That case teaches that the motive of a governmental body when doing is something legal is something the courts cannot assess. In other words, if the elected government has the power to do it, why it is doing it does not matter. Seems like a pretty bad case for French’s position, which might be why he never mentions it.
Now, Disney has been lucky in its draw of the federal district judge (Let’s not even go there about whether this case should be in federal court) because this judge regularly rules against DeSantis and regularly get slapped around by the Court of Appeals. In fact, the 11th Circuit did just that a couple days ago in a different case. So, you can count on the judge to get the legal issues wrong, and for the regime media to do so too, and then for the 11th circuit to utterly demolish the case. Ron DeSantis is going to win. Much of what we’ve been seeing in the regime media, and from French, is legal wishcasting. David French’s inspiring story of Disney standing up for free speech – which is a laugh – is going to crash when it runs into routine legal principles. You won’t hear it from David French, or from any of the regime media, but you have heard it here.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get Inferno, the seventh book in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, as well as his non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America.
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