Sohrab Ahmari

[[File:Sohrab Ahmari.jpg|165px|thumb|right|Sohrab Ahmari]]
{{Pundits}}
'''Sohrab Ahmari''' {{lived|February 1, 1985}} is an [[Iran]]ian-born [[American]] conservative commentator.<ref>[https://www.wsj.com/articles/my-familys-iranian-revolution-11549035114 My Family’s Iranian Revolution]</ref> Ahmari is married to architect Ting Li, with whom he has a son and a daughter. He is most famous for his espousal of illiberal thought on the American right, specifically through criticizing those who present a "live and let live" style of thinking, such as telling his audience in 2018 that "There's no polite, David French-ian third way around the [[Culture war|cultural civil war]]. The only way is through."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20190529001110/https://twitter.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1132611993070899200 "If you can't see why children belong nowhere near drag, with its currents of transvestic fetishism, we have nothing to say to each other. We are irreconcilably opposed. There's no polite, David French-ian third way around the cultural civil war. The only way is through."] by @SohrabAhmari, 5/26/2019</ref> The call out of [[conservative]] lawyer David French eventually led Ahmari to write an article criticizing what he called "David French-ism" which he basically used to mean conservatives who aren't as willing to use [[authoritarian]] measures as he is,<ref name=against>[https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/05/against-david-french-ism AGAINST DAVID FRENCH-ISM]</ref> eventually resulting in French writing a response to these criticisms<ref name=response>[https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/david-french-response-sohrab-ahmari/ What Sohrab Ahmari Gets Wrong]</ref> and a [[debate]] between the two in September 2019.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAG28K0nGAU CULTURAL CONSERVATIVES: TWO VISIONS RESPONDING TO THE POST-LIBERAL LEFT]</ref>

==Feud with French==
According to Ahmari, one of the bigger issues with French and his [[ideology]] is the refusal to allow the government to intervene in what he sees as the ills of civilization, writing:

{{quotebox|For French, the solution to nearly every problem posed by a politics of individual autonomy above all is yet more autonomous action. But sentimentalization of family life won’t be enough to overcome the challenges posed to it by the present economy. Calls for religious revival are often little more than an idle wish that all men become [[moral]], so that we might dispense with moral regulation.

Government intervention will not be the answer to every social ill. In many instances, [[free market]]s and individual enterprise can best serve the common good, albeit indirectly. But I take issue with David French-ism’s almost [[supernatural]] faith in something called “culture”&nbsp;— deemed to be neutral and apolitical and impervious to policy&nbsp;— to solve everything. Questions that are squarely political&nbsp;— that is, that touch on our shared quest for the common good&nbsp;— become depoliticized by this culture-first strategy. The libertine camp prefers the same depoliticization, of course; they’re much better at winning in the realm of culture than David French will ever be.<ref name=against/>}}

The request to change tactics and move away from the "[[small government]]" one conservatives had been using for decades, put together with the sly shot at the notion of politics being downstream from culture, one associated with conservative idol [[Andrew Breitbart]],<ref>[https://www.salon.com/2022/09/23/the-right-loves-to-say-politics-is-downstream-from-culture-but-on-the-right-the-opposite-is-true/ The right loves to say "politics is downstream from culture," but on the right the opposite is true]</ref> resulted in Ahmari's essay being incredibly controversial, with several [[right-wing]] authors expanding on or criticizing his ideas.<ref>[https://rlo.acton.org/archives/109199-the-ahmari-french-debate-a-reading-list.html The Ahmari/French debate: A reading list]</ref>

The question of what it was going to be replaced with was where things got especially worrisome. Charles C. W. Cooke, writing in the ''[[National Review]]'', specifically criticized Ahmari for not actually explaining what he wants and how he intends to get it.<ref>[https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/okay-sohrab-ahmari-but-why-did-you-snap/ Okay, Sohrab Ahmari, but Why Did You ‘Snap’?]</ref> John Zmirak, although he does go after French in his article on the topic, still called what Ahmari wanted "a mongrelized mix of [[theocratic]] [[socialism]], [[Catholic]] [[authoritarianism]],{{efn|Zmirak is himself a Catholic and has a long history of writing within the Catholic right-wing.<ref>[https://stream.org/author/johnzmirak/ John Zmirak]</ref>}} and despair or contempt for our country."<ref>[https://stream.org/iran-iraq-war-among-conservatives/ The Iran-Iraq War Among Conservatives]</ref> Meanwhile, Damon Linker argued in ''The Week'' that Ahmari's demand for those in the [[religious right]] to have power despite the country not agreeing with them was actually an attack on the idea of [[democracy]] itself.<ref>[https://theweek.com/articles/844957/how-intellectual-right-talking-itself-into-tearing-down-american-democracy How the intellectual right is talking itself into tearing down American democracy]</ref>

==From neoconservative to whatever he is now==
{{cquote|My moral opinions were as interchangeable as my clothing styles and musical tastes. I could pick up and drop this ideology or that. I could be a high-school "[[goth]]," a college [[socialist]], a law-school [[neoconservative]]. I could dabble in [[drugs]] and build an identity around my dabbling. I could get a girlfriend, [[Adultery|cheat on her]], dump her willy-nilly, and build a pseudo-identity around that, too.|||The man himself<ref name=Grove>[https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-post-editor-sohrab-ahmaris-strange-journey-from-communist-to-theocrat New York Post Editor Sohrab Ahmari’s Strange Journey From Communist to ‘Theocrat’]</ref>}}
{{cquote|Over his checkered career, Ahmari has undergone a number of conversions, from [[secular]] [[Muslim]], to [[atheist]], to [[communist]], to Catholic (with a few side trips along the way), so his newfound admiration for [[Chinese]] hegemony may simply be the next step on his ideological evolution toward… well, who knows. The only thing that seems certain is that the arc of Ahmarism does not bend toward [[freedom]].|||Charlie Sykes<ref name=Grove/>}}
{{cquote|Here’s what stares me in the face: Ahmari’s life story&nbsp;— a Muslim immigrant who wound up becoming a [[Trumpism|Trumpian]] moralist by way of [[Marxism]] and then free-market conservatism&nbsp;— is a tribute to the value-neutral [[liberalism]] he now claims to despise. Whatever hopes remain of a decent conservative movement rest in rejecting the illiberalism he now embraces&nbsp;— the one that would close the door to some future Ahmari, embarking on an experiment in living all his own.|||Bret Stephens<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/opinion/sohrab-ahmari-conservative.html The High Church of the Low Blow]</ref>}}
James Kirchick, a neoconservative writer who has been with Ahmari since the start of his career as a commentator, documented exactly what his time in the spotlight has been like in a 2022 article for the website Tablet. In it, he noted how Ahmari began as a relatively standard neoconservative himself, and somebody who was particularly concerned about the illiberalism on the right after events like [[Brexit]] and the election of [[Donald Trump]] (calling it "the worldwide crisis" in an article for ''Commentary'' from 2016<ref>[https://www.commentary.org/articles/sohrab-ahmari/illiberalism-worldwide-crisis/ Illiberalism: The Worldwide Crisis]</ref> and the arguing this was a "terrible American turn" the following year<ref>[https://www.commentary.org/articles/sohrab-ahmari/terrible-american-turn-toward-illiberalism/ The Terrible American Turn Toward Illiberalism]</ref>), only for Ahmari to himself become one of the biggest cheerleaders for what he once fought against.<ref name=Kirchick>[https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/sohrab-ahmari When the Pope Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie, That’s Ahmari]</ref>

Kirchick specifically noted that this shift occurred after Ahmari moved away from ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' and ''Commentary'' and becoming the editor of the op-ed pages for the ''[[New York Post]]'' in 2018 as the thing which caused a shift in Ahmari's perspective.<ref name=Kirchick/>{{efn|Although Kirchick makes a small factual error. He says ''The New York Post'' "had endorsed Trump in 2016" when that's not quite what happened. Although the newspaper did endorse Trump for the Republican Primary that year,<ref>[https://nypost.com/2016/04/14/the-post-endorses-donald-trump/ The Post endorses Trump for NY primary]</ref> comments like this usually are referencing who was endorsed in the general election, and the newspaper failed to give Trump said support.<ref>[https://www.nydailynews.com/2016/11/08/why-didnt-the-new-york-post-endorse-donald-trump-the-right-wing-tabloids-silence-speaks-volumes/ Why didn’t the New York Post endorse Donald Trump? The right-wing tabloid’s silence speaks volumes]</ref>}} From this point forward, the rest is history:

{{quotebox|In March 2019, the conservative Catholic journal ''First Things'' published an open letter that Ahmari helped draft. Titled “Against the Dead Consensus,” it looked favorably on Trump’s takeover of the [[Republican Party]], lambasted “consensus conservatives” for “fetishizing” “individual autonomy,” and condemned other aspects of “tyrannical liberalism” such as “the transhumanist project of radical self-identification.”{{efn|It would seem that Ahmari does not mean [[transhumanism]] as it is commonly thought of.}} Two months later, Ahmari went further. In “Against David French-ism,” also published in ''First Things'', he singled out the even-keeled, [[evangelical]] political commentator as just the sort of spineless conservative “unsuitable to the depth of the present crisis facing religious conservatives.” (As the titles of his ''First Things'' manifestos suggest, Ahmari had become motivated more by his animosities than his passions.)<ref name=Kirchick/>}}

From this point forward, Ahmari has spent the majority of his career doing little more than defending foreign authoritarians, regardless of how much their actions actually align with his values, funnily enough. One particularly infamous tweet saw him declaring that he's "at peace with a Chinese-led 21st century."<ref name=Kirchick/> However, one is forced to wonder why Ahmari, a practicing Catholic who bases his political views off of his [[theology]], would be fine with a world led by a state atheist nation<ref>[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/30/is-china-a-religious-country-or-not-its-a-tricky-question-to-answer/ Is China a religious country or not? It’s a tricky question to answer]</ref> where Christianity is either persecuted or state-controlled.<ref>[https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/08/30/christianity/ 4. Christianity]</ref>

==What does he actually believe?==
Best as anybody can tell, nothing. Back in 2021, Shannon Last, a Catholic speechwriter, made an entire [[Twitter]] thread noting various contradictions in what Sohrab used to say and what he says now.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210524184025/https://twitter.com/shannon_last/status/1389767387348672521 Although it has since been deleted, an archive can be found here][https://web.archive.org/web/20210507010324/https://twitter.com/shannon_last/status/1390453450928967681 and here]</ref>

When this is brought up, Ahmari will usually [[frame]] this not as him changing his views for the sake of grifting, but instead merely him changing his mind as a result of new information. Responding to the various attacks on him for his change in [[worldview]], he wrote:
{{quotebox|The Bulwarkers’ and Never Trumpers' tantrums against me can be summed up as, "He has changed his mind!" Have I? Yes. But so did many of my conservative icons, most of whom were [[Zeal of the convert|converts]] of various sorts. For that matter, so did my patron [[saint]] in the Church, [[Augustine of Hippo]], who spent a decade as a [[Manichaeism|Manichee]] and then a Neo-Platonist before assenting to the fullness of the Catholic faith.<ref name=Grove/>}}

However, the issue is not merely that he changed his mind on certain subjects, it is that he did so suddenly and out of nowhere. If this were the Ahmari we arrived at after, say, a decade of him having new experiences and learning more about the world, even if his positions would still be disagreeable, few would have the complaints they do today. However, Ahmari's overnight transformation from a defender of liberal democracy to one of its loudest critics reeks to many as throwing away his old beliefs for the sake of becoming more popular in the Trump-era intellectual right. This is the man who once famously said, "There is no returning to the pre-Trump conservative consensus that collapsed in 2016."<ref>[https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/03/against-the-dead-consensus AGAINST THE DEAD CONSENSUS]</ref> It very much seems like he came to that conclusion and wondered what views would get him the most support in this new landscape, not that he changed his mind because he finds these ideas worthwhile.

The fact that his pick for a right-wing target was David French, somebody whom Trump supporters infamously harassed on Twitter during the 2016 Presidential Election<ref>[https://www.npr.org/2016/10/26/499440089/harassed-on-twitter-people-need-to-know-the-reality-of-what-its-like-out-there Harassed On Twitter: 'People Need To Know The Reality Of What It's Like Out There']</ref> (and whose dislike for Trump is so strong he even considered running for President himself just to give anti-Trump conservatives somebody to vote for<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160620185721/columbiadailyherald.com/news/local-news/david-french-came-really-close-running-president/ David French came ‘really close’ to running for president]</ref>), further backs up this notion. Jonathan Last specifically noted while writing in ''The Bulwark'' that, although Ahmari could have picked many conservatives to target as several fit the mold of the kind of right-winger he wanted to criticize, it seemed that he picked French specifically because of his opposition to Trump.<ref name=Last>[https://www.thebulwark.com/sohrab-ahmaris-culture-war-is-really-just-about-donald-trump/ Sohrab Ahmari’s ‘Culture War’ Is Really Just About Donald Trump]</ref> 

This is especially notable because, as both Last<ref name=Last/> and French<ref name=response/> note, Ahmari's description of "David French-ism" has almost nothing to do with the man, and his constant referring to Trump as somebody who brought back the religious conservative movement bears little reference to Trump. The man who couldn't name his favorite [[Bible]] verse<ref>[https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/politics/donald-trump-favorite-bible-verses/index.html Trump says Bible is his favorite book, but declines to share favorite verse]</ref> and screwed up a Biblical citation at [[Liberty University]]<ref>[https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-mistakes-biblical-citation-liberty-university-event/story?id=36358857 Donald Trump Mistakes Biblical Citation at Liberty University Event]</ref> is far from a dedicated Christian. He infamously rarely attends church services<ref>[https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/09/28/religion-trump-biden-pence-evangelicals Republicans see Trump as a more of ‘person of faith’ than Biden, Pence, every 2024 GOP candidate]</ref> and is someone who most Americans don't even see as Christian.<ref>[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/03/25/most-americans-dont-see-trump-as-religious/ Most Americans don’t see Trump as religious; fewer than half say they think he’s Christian]</ref> Yet he, and not the self-identified [[evangelical Christian]] David French,<ref>[https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/david-french-sohrab-ahmari-and-the-battle-for-the-future-of-conservatism David French, Sohrab Ahmari, and the Battle for the Future of Conservatism]</ref> is the one on the side of the religious in the culture war.

==See also==
*[[Mezionism]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|90%}}

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[[Category:Atheists]]
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[[Category:Catholics]]
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[[Category:Leftists who turned right with age]]
[[Category:Living people]]
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[[Category:Political pundits]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory promoters]]
[[Category:Right-wing activists]]
[[Category:Trumpism]]

Categories: Atheists, Authoritarianism, Authors, Catholics, Communists, Iranians, Leftists who turned right with age, Living people, Muslims, Political pundits, Pseudohistory promoters, Right-wing activists, Trumpism