Prepare yourselves to be shocked: David French has something critical to say about conservatives! The man landed on our annual list of insufferable journos for this very behavior of being a “conservative” always criticizing the right, while never managing to find objectionable activity left of center – and he is at it yet again. This time, you have disappointed Dave by being critical of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, and he is having none of your arrested thinking on the matter!
French manages to deliver the laughter in that he begins with his contempt for conservatives lashing out at DEI, then immediately he presents the voice of Steven Pinker who is calling out the very same DEI programs. Dave praises this individual who is doing so, but for the correct reasons – as French explains, “Pinker is liberal, donates substantially to the Democratic Party and ‘loathes’ Donald Trump.” Well of course a professed Christian conservative such as French could never find someone such as Professor Pinker to be objectionable, but what is it that has Dave shaking his head and tapping his foot as those of us on the right, yet again, let him down in our thinking? He explains:
There are few national conversations more frustrating than the fight over D.E.I. Short for “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the term…used to have an agreed-upon meaning but has now been essentially redefined on the populist right. D.E.I. has become yet another catchall boogeyman, a stand-in not just for actual policies or practices designed to increase diversity, but also a scapegoat for unrelated crises.
Uh-oh, David, your stars-and-stripes overalls have come undone, and we can see your rainbow-hued Joe Biden britches showing again! What exposes David this time is not so much his lecturing of the right but his tactic. What he is employing is a liberal blueprint of reactionary commentary towards a successful critical campaign from the right. Pretending the conservative right is lashing out blindly provides cover, even as the topic is quite clear to anyone. DEI is not some nebulous entity that people are unaware of and thus frightened by its mysterious threats. It is a tangible tool to manipulate the culture and bend people to the will of those craving power.
On this matter, I recently covered one of Claudine Gay’s lesser-known tactics at Harvard – the push to erase whiteness on campus. She literally formed a task force to seek out and eliminate objectionable iconography, signage, and naming seen across the commons at Cambridge. This is indicative of the drive behind DEI; while claimed to be a path forward to open up opportunity it instead involves reaching back and tearing down things in a sign of resentment. It is the intent of leveling down the field rather than filling in the potholes and divots.
What has French upset is not that people on the right are ignorant mobs with pitchforks and torches lashing out rabidly, it is that they are piercing DEI with facts and effective countermeasures. And anytime there is an effective pushback on an ideology emanating from the left this defensive script is trotted out. French is prone to this “The conservative case against–” type of conjecture, implying that his targets do not even fully understand why they are upset. We are just frothing reactionaries, mad at whatever the leaders point at, according to the deep thinker. But this betrays French’s leftist leanings.
Besides an accusatory claim of ignorance of the critics, this stance is also an intentional shield for the ideology, made to allow its supporters to sidestep criticisms. Consider how often we have seen this deflection brought out. “Conservatives cannot even define what woke culture is,” has been a common refrain. “They are mad about things regarding Critical Race Theory not in the curriculum, and they do not understand it is not even being taught.” Now it is “They blame anything on DEI because they do not understand what it represents.”
In all of this defensive bluster there is a tell. While these charges are commonly used, what is rarely seen is the corrective commentary to follow. Think about it; anytime you may have heard, “They cannot define ‘woke’!”, those delivering this deflection never take the following step and define it themselves. Ardents of Critical Race Theory are fond of telling us we are wrong about its content but loathe explaining how. (Also, whenever it was shown that schools did have CRT programs in place the conversations inevitably would shut down.)
This is all by design, so these ideological efforts can take an eel-like evasive measure and evade exposure. Pin down the flaws of an effort and they are contorted like a social amoeba to skirt any valid points. These examples are evidence, as DEI, CRT, and Woke policies are grievance culture efforts and Affirmative Action policies are merely rebranded and shelved in a different aisle of our culture.
It is essentially boiled down to a shoot-the-messenger tactic but used as an offensive measure. The move is not to bolster the qualities of the ideology and defeat empty critiques with facts, it is done to impugn the character of those pointing out the problems in the hope their message is discarded. Note that DEI aided Claudine Gay’s rise to prominence, and once her professional work was shown as a scam her actions were not addressed, but those exposing her were said to be “weaponizing plagiarism”. When the hallmark work of Critical Race Theory - “The 1619 Project” - was shown by experts to be historically laughable it was defended as either a racist attack on writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, or whites refusing to address the problems of the past.
So here we have the latest lame effort being brought forward, this time from the vaunted mind of David French. While he takes the condescending position of claiming to instruct us on proper conservatism, he manages to instead expose himself by merely regurgitating the tired talking points of the Left – which delivers some heavy irony in the process. In telling us what we allegedly do not understand, David appears to miss out on the fact that he is shown to be the leftist he wants to deny while appeasing those leftists by defending their dogma.