French Fries

It’s a curious path from the National Review to the New York Times, given the ouster of James Bennett, the long time editorial page editor, following the Times’ publication of Senator Tom Cotton’s op-ed. Then there was Bari Weiss’ quitting in the face of an unwelcoming colleagues who characterized her as a liar and bigot. Yet, here was are, with former NRO writer David French making his debut as a New York Times columnist.

Before I go further, let me put my own partisan cards on the table. I’m a conservative independent. I left the Republican Party in 2016, not because I abandoned my conservatism but rather because I applied it. A party helmed by Donald Trump no longer reflected either the character or the ideology of the conservatism I believed in, and when push came to shove, I was more conservative than I was Republican.

He’s not the only Never-Trump conservative to find his name atop a NYT column. but he’s already become the target of enmity for taking on the timely and highly controversial issue of police reform in a column entitled “‘Bad Apples’ of Systemic Issues?” On the heels of the Tyre Nichols murder in Memphis, it’s certainly an issue of pressing concern. It’s also an issue about which the Times’ editorial board shows neither depth of understanding nor latitude.

In between his “full disclosures” which circumstantially manages to provide readers with his resume as conservative, JAG officer in Iraq and President of FIRE, when it was still Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, he offers a leveling thesis based upon the Horseshoe Theory of political radicalism about why there is such a partisan divide as to confidence in police.

.In 2022, no institution (aside from the presidency) reflected a greater partisan trust gap than the police. A full 67 percent of Republicans expressed confidence in the police, versus only 28 percent of Democrats.

Why is that gap so large? While I try to avoid simple explanations for complex social phenomena, there is one part of the answer that I believe receives insufficient attention: Our partisanship tends to affect our reasoning, influencing our assessments of institutions regardless of the specifics of any particular case.

And just like that, the David Frenchisms appear. “Reasoning” is the word used, although it has little to do with reasoning and far more to do with believing.

Here’s what I mean. The instant that a person or an institution becomes closely identified with one political “tribe,” members of that tribe become reflexively protective and are inclined to write off scandals as “isolated” or the work of “a few bad apples.”

Conversely, the instant an institution is perceived as part of an opposing political tribe, the opposite instinct kicks in: We’re far more likely to see each individual scandal as evidence of systemic malice or corruption, further proof that the other side is just as bad as we already believed.

In that flash, a sound point is made, that perceptions have nothing to do with reasoning, but with the reflexive antagonism toward whatever position the other guys take. This is something of a political truism, but does it do anything to better understand the partisan division toward police?

There are good reasons for respecting and admiring police officers. A functioning police force is an indispensable element of civil society. Crime can deprive citizens of property, hope and even life. It is necessary to protect people from predation, and a lack of policing creates its own forms of injustice.

But our admiration has darker elements. It causes too many of us — again, particularly in my tribe — to reflexively question, for example, the testimony of our Black friends and neighbors who can tell very different stories about their encounters with police officers. Sometimes citizens don’t really care if other communities routinely experience no-knock raids and other manifestations of aggression as long as they consider their own communities to be safe.

This might have been the start of a deeper consideration of what’s behind the experience of the other tribe, whether that’s the experience of “our Black friends and neighbors” or their allies, the white knights who chant ACAB as they march and throw the occasional Molotov cocktail. Unfortunately, that’s not where it headed.

At this point you might be asking: When is the left reflexively defensive? What institutions does it guard as jealously as conservatives guard the police?

Consider academia. Just as there is a massive partisan gap in views of the police, there is a similar gap in views of higher education. According to a 2022 New America Survey, 73 percent of Democrats believe universities have a “positive effect” on the country, while only 37 percent of Republicans have the same view.

The thrust of this argument was obviously more horseshoe theory than cops. David sought to show that just as the right shows knee-jerk support for police (except the FBI, an  institution in which the two sides have reversed positions without the apparent recognition of their stunning inconsistency), the left does the same with academia. The problem is summed up in a fairly typical New York Times reader comment by “Maria.”

Hmm, this is a careful, undoubtedly heartfelt, attempt to deal with political partisanship on matters that have to do primarily with racism. But no analysis of racism. Police brutality is disproportionately directed at people of color. The tribe that talks about ‘bad apples’ are those who refuse to acknowledge this structural reality (in addition to the legal privileges the police enjoys that protect its tribe from full accountability).

And when that sort of position is presented in higher ed, people like me take notice and want to put the speaker on the spot for their racism. Hence the high incidents of racist speech reported on campuses (together with homophobic, mysoginistic, ableist, etc). You have to peel the onion further to get to the bottom of the problem. You are right. There is no equivalent between critiquing racist speech and defending racist cops. But dig deeper for the source and possible solutions.

The New York Times isn’t NRO, and it’s not going to be that easy to overcome its tribal allegiances and avoid being tarred a racist because there is no reasoning involved when it comes to the dogma of a secular religion as opposed to the David’s Catholicism. I enjoy David’s writing and wish him the best in this new endeavor.