'Some Friends Would Like to See Us Fail'

David French may check off traditional Republican boxes—conservative, military veteran, evangelical Christian—yet admits he’s out of step with the party’s Trumpified base and is wary about its future. “If Donald Trump doesn’t win or doesn’t run in 2024, but somebody who adopts the ethos of Donald Trump wins or runs as a Republican in 2024, I don’t see that as an improvement,” French told me. “I see that as sort of this cementing of the identity of the party behind this particular ethos.”

French, senior editor of The Dispatch, has sounded alarms about the growing extremism on the right alongside Trump’s election lies, warning of potential “deadly violence” in the weeks ahead of the January 6 riot. “A significant movement of American Christians—encouraged by the president himself—is now directly threatening the rule of law, the Constitution, and the peace and unity of the American republic,” he wrote. On the afternoon we spoke by phone, Washington had been rattled by a self-described “patriot” demanding to speak with Joe Biden while threatening to detonate a bomb near the Capitol and spark a “revolution.” French said he fears the “angry populist” movement of the Trump era—or “the new right,” as he has also put it—will become irrevocably melded with the Republican Party.

Read Full Article »