Notes on the Ahmari-French Controversy

Last week, one of the more long-simmering disputes in contemporary conservative thought flared up pretty dramatically. Sohrab Ahmari—erstwhile Wall Street Journal contributor, current New York Post writer, and prominent conservative Catholic—fired off a sharp polemic in the pages of First Things against a certain strain of conservatism epitomized by National Review writer David French. (French issued a rejoinder shortly thereafter.)

I don't want to paint over too many nuances, but much of the online chatter surrounding this dust-up has framed the debate as a clash between Ahmari's hard-nosed “Trumpian” approach to politics—which is less squeamish about the use of state power than traditional Reaganite conservatism—and French's more conciliatory classical liberalism, which emphasizes pluralism and procedural norms. That's a fascinating conversation, to be sure, but it tends to downplay the distinctly Christian dimension of the controversy. Religious, not tactical, commitments underpin these two writers' views.