davidfrenchjag.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Christian churches should be a source of healing, but powerful Christians with millions of followers choose to fuel the fires of hatred instead. Given that reality, it's no surprise that some Christians will put down their Bibles, pick up their guns, and kill the people they're taught to hate:

submitted 3 days ago • 23 comments

This gap between approval for Trump’s goals and disapproval of Trump’s methods helps explain why he’s been elected twice and why his approval sagged so quickly at the beginning of both terms. It also demonstrates why Democrats haven’t built an enduring majority, even when Trump goes too far.

submitted 7 days ago • 28 comments

"The combination of Iran’s weakness and the catastrophic consequences of an Iranian bomb mean that Israel’s strikes are both more justifiable — and more likely to succeed — than at any time in the recent past." www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/o...

submitted 8 days ago • 12 comments

It’s too early to declare a constitutional crisis, and debating the label we attach to any new event can distract us from focusing on the event itself. But each day brings us fresh evidence of a deeply troubling trend: America is no longer a stable country, and it is growing less stable by the day.

submitted 13 days ago • 76 comments

Politicians are weather vanes (as we’re all tempted to be), and there’s a foul wind blowing out of parts of American Christianity. When Joni Ernst's filmed her bizarre "apology" video, she was saying what too many Republicans want to hear: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/o...

submitted 17 days ago • 11 comments

The answer to the manosphere’s dark turn is rooted in embracing men with sincere affection, shunning the zero-sum calculus of the gender wars and offering a vision of masculine virtue that inspires men to heroic acts of compassion rather than vicious acts of aggression.

submitted 24 days ago • 22 comments

The years pass, but the memories never fade. I think of these men every day, but especially this day. Rest in Peace.

submitted 27 days ago • 3 comments

“As one American steps onto the world stage as a man of malice, another American answers, leading with love and compassion. They represent two starkly different visions of American character. And, if all goes well, Leo will command the world stage long after Trump is gone from public life.”

submitted 42 days ago • 14 comments

The military can do enormous damage to terrorist forces and temporarily diminish their ability to carry out attacks, but if you do not replace terrorist control with a competing force then jihadists have the time and space to eventually recover. What Israel must do to actually end Hamas:

submitted 45 days ago • 9 comments

How is the new right rationalizing its cruelty. By waging war on empathy. It's a sin now. No, really.

submitted 45 days ago • 26 comments

And thank you for hosting me!

submitted 48 days ago • 1 comment

"Why do Americans have such deep distrust of their government? It’s a simple question with a complex answer, but here’s part of the reason: All too often, the government wrongfully inflicts profound harm on American citizens and then leaves them with no recourse." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/o...

submitted 49 days ago • 6 comments

"It is no coincidence that as the religious right becomes less distinctively Christian, it is also becoming more intolerant of political dissent. If politics is the religion, then political disagreement is proof of apostasy." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/o...

submitted 52 days ago • 14 comments

The Christian right is dead, but the religious right is stronger than it’s ever been. The religious right has divorced itself from historical Christian theology, but still holds its partisan beliefs with religious intensity. The religious fervor is there. Christian virtues are not.

submitted 52 days ago • 15 comments

I'm incredibly proud of @nancyfrench.bsky.social. Her memoir, Ghosted, won the Christian Book Award for biography & memoir of the year. christianbookawards.com/winners.html

submitted 53 days ago • 11 comments

Despite each mistake and each successive scandal, the cabinet still cheers. After all, if they want to be seen as strong, they have to surrender to Trump. That is their only path. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

submitted 53 days ago • 5 comments

Where Trump’s critics see a wannabe dictator and his toadies, Trump’s supporters see something else. They see a commander and his generals. They see warriors. My thoughts on how MAGA sees the cabinet and how MAGA defines courage -- as standing with Donald Trump: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

submitted 53 days ago • 19 comments

"Conservatives should consider a counterfactual. Should the federal government be able to withhold all federal funding from a private Christian college (including, say, tuition dollars from the G.I. Bill or Pell Grants) unless it hires more Muslim faculty or admits more atheist students?"

submitted 56 days ago • 23 comments

"At the core of the complaint is a simple idea: No matter what you think of Harvard’s conduct, it still enjoys constitutional rights, and the Constitution does not permit the president to unilaterally wield the power of the purse to punish his political enemies." www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/o...

submitted 56 days ago • 12 comments

When you look up "cancel culture" and "snowflakes" in the dictionary, you should see a picture of a Trump rally.

submitted 56 days ago • 11 comments

The response to this is absolutely unhinged. Nancy's NOT saying that she interrupts people who want to be left alone. But she is saying that she wants to be welcoming to people and not zone everyone out. Seriously, read the replies to her. WOW.

submitted 57 days ago • 238 comments

David Gibson, director of the CRC, discusses the papacy post-Francis with @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social and Leah Libresco Sargeant on "The Opinions," a @nytopinion.nytimes.com podcast.

submitted 59 days ago • 1 comment

"In the contest between a love for liberty and a hatred for the left, hatred won, and now the freethinkers of the anti-woke right have enabled the rise of the most speech-restrictive authoritarian president since Woodrow Wilson, who prosecuted his political opponents by the thousands."

submitted 59 days ago • 6 comments

When you hire people who mock the very idea of standards or integrity (especially as applied to them), then this is exactly what you get: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/u...

submitted 62 days ago • 15 comments

There is a different version of the Christian faith, one that is far removed from the political headlines. This faith loves its enemies. It mends the broken heart. And it declares, by word and deed, that no one is too lost to experience the love of God. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/o...

submitted 63 days ago • 20 comments

“A resurrection church that follows a resurrected savior should be a balm, not a blowtorch. It will never be perfect, of course, but its fundamental orientation isn’t toward protecting itself, but toward serving others. Its default posture toward difference isn’t suspicion, but affection.”

submitted 63 days ago • 12 comments

What is happening at the Naval Academy is an insult to our midshipmen and an insult to our country. Patriotic, conscientious Americans should rise up against it. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/o...

submitted 63 days ago • 3 comments

A thought . . . Lots of the "anti-woke" folks who came over to Trump were living in deep blue areas cut off almost entirely from MAGA culture. They felt burned by the up-close encounters with the "woke." But they had no close contact with MAGA at all. Now some of them are shocked at what they see.

submitted 65 days ago • 15 comments

"If people who are covered by the Bill of Rights can now be whisked away from the United States of America, dumped into an inhumane prison, and then an American government just washes their hands of it you’ve just hacked the Bill of Rights. There’s just no other way around it."

submitted 65 days ago • 10 comments

"The court’s past failures have destroyed lives and put our Republic in mortal danger. Its past courage has inspired revolutionary change. Unless Trump backs down, the court will face the same choice it faced in 1954--yield in the face of enormous resistance or stand even when the politicians fail."

submitted 66 days ago • 9 comments

Justice Sotomayor: “To the extent the government removes even one individual without affording him notice and a meaningful opportunity to file and pursue habeas relief, it does so in direct contravention of an edict by the United States Supreme Court.” The judicial branch still has a spine:

submitted 70 days ago • 8 comments

A powerful Republican faction is breaking with free trade and free markets to remake the American economy — and American culture — from the ground up. They don’t want to negotiate better trade deals. They want to reverse the globalization of the American economy. They want the 1950s back.

submitted 73 days ago • 12 comments

After all this POTUS-engineered market volatility, it will be very, very interesting to see who made and lost money over these past few days.

submitted 74 days ago • 32 comments

Stocks are soaring because it's always great when someone just stops hitting you with a hammer. But when they stop, the next step is to take the hammer out of their hands. Congress needs to take back its tariff authority. And we need to keep saying it until it happens, in this Congress or the next.

submitted 74 days ago • 47 comments

I had a great conversation with Rory Stewart on what it's like to be a conservative opposing the new right in the UK. Here's part of his answer, and it absolutely resonates with how MAGA treats its conservative foes: Listen to the whole thing here: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/o...

submitted 76 days ago • 10 comments