To read more from Jeff, visit ArisefromtheDust.com.

Cover image via YouTube screen grab.

Last Tuesday, my wife and I watched the BYU TV broadcast of a devotional featuring Elder Patrick Kearon, an Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his wife, Jennifer. Both were inspiring, intelligent, and thoroughly interesting speakers who positively influenced the many thousands of students attending this event. Naturally, their remarks had no political overtones, free of jabs at any political candidate, as parents of students might expect from both speakers and teachers.  These weekly Tuesday gatherings at the large Marriott Center, called “devotionals” when there is a Church-related speaker and “forums” when someone notable outside the Church is invited to speak, are an important part of BYU culture and education.

During that Tuesday devotional, I was surprised when  BYU President Shane Reese announced that the speaker next Tuesday for the first forum of the semester (one of only three forums on BYU’s fall schedule) would be a man well known for his outspoken political views related to the contentious presidential election before us. The speaker is David French of The New York Times, a writer whose recent work has been dominated by criticism not just of Donald Trump but also his supporters. A list of his latest columns for the Times shows that from Sept. 8 to Sept. 19, five columns in a row involved Trump and the MAGA movement, and most of the rest of the listed columns are anti-Trump or pro-Harris. My concern is not over his choices, but over Brigham Young University’s choice to select him as the speaker just weeks before the election. How can this be seen as anything but a political statement?

Despite publicly identifying as a “conservative” (or, per the headline of a Jan. 2024 interview, a “Never-Trump Conservative”) and “evangelical,” he has proclaimed that his “pro-life” views compel him to vote for Kamala Harris (see “David French on the Pro-Life Case for Kamala Harris,” a podcast from Aug. 19, 2024). Even if he politely refrains from discussing his politics at BYU, even if he only talks about the joys of crocheting or gardening, why would this controversial man be chosen as a rare forum speaker at a major event where all students are encouraged to attend? Doing this right before the election makes it impossible to overlook the potential political implications. Of the thousands of luminaries that could have been chosen to enlighten out students, why select a man who is mostly known for his opposition to one of two contending candidates? This seems unfair and unwise.

On Sept. 15, just two days after a second assassination attempt on the life of Donald Trump — something that mainstream media outlets told us was his fault for his violent rhetoric — French wrote a column for The New York Times warning that Trump’s opposition to prolonging the bloody war in Ukraine made him a danger — a danger that apparently needed to be stopped:

Trump’s reluctance to say the plain truth — that a Ukrainian victory is in America’s national interest — demonstrates that he is still a prisoner to his own grievances, and there is no one left who can stop him from doing his worst. (David French, “Why Trump Won’t Say He Wants Ukraine to Win,” New York Times, Sept. 15, 2024)

In my opinion, the extreme language of Trump haters talking about the need to punch him in the face, take him behind the barn, or doing whatever it takes to stop the “existential threat” to “our democracy” itself from a man often compared to Hitler, might be just the kind of thing that can drive an unstable or easily manipulated person into doing what we have seen twice now: attempting to assassinate a former president running again for office.  French wrote about Trump shortly after the second assassination attempt, without mentioning the attempted violence, without condemning it,  without calling for an end of the use violence to stop Trump. Instead, he worried that “there is no one left who can stop him.” He’s not calling for violence of course, but his words might be easily misunderstood. The same article also points to the need to “stop” Putin. Is it possible that someone might read those words and somehow conclude that Trump needs to be stopped just like Putin needs to be stopped, with violent force? The issue here is not whether prolonged war in Ukraine is desirable, but whether someone seemingly unable to condemn political violence against a despised opponent is the right voice that our students need to hear.

The answer we can expect from some academics is that we need “diversity” in thought, and French represents a fresh, diverse voice. Those who have been reading and listening to the mainstream media for the past few years will recognize that there is very little fresh or original in speaking out against French’s favorite target. That’s not to say that such criticism is incorrect, but it has been incessant. Is there really a need for more of the unified voice of mainstream journalists denouncing one particular candidate as an existential threat who needs to be stopped?

The choice of David French for BYU’s upcoming forum was surely made long before the new administration under President Reese, but the decision is unfortunate nonetheless. One can only wonder why it was made in the first place. Why choose a politically outspoken columnist as a forum speaker right before the elections?