[Help us preserve David’s legacy: HERE.]
“To restore civil sanity and order it is first necessary to call things by their right names,” David Horowitz wrote in one of his final articles. That was the uncompromising measure of his life.
When he discovered that he was part of a corrupt and evil movement, he did not hesitate to denounce it and to leave. “Can the left take a really hard look at itself?” he demanded.
The Left never could, but David did. And that was his power. He changed the conservative movement through the conviction that the way forward was to find the truth and fight for it.
That was our mission when David Horowitz was here. It’s our mission after his passing.
David’s passing is an incalculable loss to the movement and to the country, but he is still here with us in his voluminous writings, his many books (available through the Freedom Center store) and his countless articles (over 360 of which are available at Front Page Magazine) and in the excellent team that he built over the years to carry forward his agenda. After writing two books about his mortality and death over the last twenty years, he knew what was coming and set out to build an organization that could speak in his voice, tell the truth and carry on his fight.
Saul Alinsky had many devilish rules, but David had three fundamental moral principles.
- Fight to get to the bottom of every story: no matter who gets upset
- Don’t be afraid to tell the truth about America’s enemies
- Confront our domestic enemies directly and fearlessly
David Horowitz used those three principles to reshape the conservative movement. And he shaped every one of us, writers, readers and leaders at the Freedom Center.
He certainly shaped me.
When David first told me that he meant me to be his intellectual heir, I thought it was an honor I was not worthy of. I still think that way because no one could possibly replace David. And it’s not my job to replace him, but to take his principles, to build on them, to introduce them to a new generation of readers, writers and activists, and to make them relevant every single day.
That’s what I already do in my writing. It’s what I intend to do as the Freedom Center’s CEO.
After his passing, the David Horowitz Freedom Center board appointed me to head the organization. What that really means is that the incredible team that David built, Michael Finch, our president, Todd Snider, Mark Tapson, whose writings you already know and podcasts you listen to, Jamie Glazov, the editor of Front Page Magazine who wrote the definitive article on David’s life and work, Lonny Leitner, whose Go for the Heart training has changed politics, the Shillman fellows Bruce Thornton, Bruce Bawer and Jason Hill, who represent some of the finest intellectual talent we have to draw on, Robert Spencer, another Shillman fellow (an honor I also share with him), whose determination to tell the truth about Islam is in the finest traditions of David’s life, John Perazzo of Discover the Networks, Sara Dogan on the campus beat and the other valued warriors are still fighting to defeat the enemies of our country and our culture.
They’re carrying on David’s fight.
I’m proud to work with them every day, using David’s teachings and their skills, with our allies and partners, to lead the charge against the Left, against Islamic terrorists, against Communist China and all the foreign and domestic enemies of our great country, and to fight to win.
That was the message David hammered home to me in phone call after phone call in what would turn out to be the final months of his life. Some mornings I would wake up to three messages from David. His voice might be hoarse, but his thoughts were clear. He wanted us to pull no punches. He believed that one article or another could have been stronger in calling out the Left as the enemies of this country, as traitors, racists, hypocrites and destroyers.
Every time I work on an article, I can hear David’s voice telling me to hit harder. And if I have trouble hearing it, I just click through to my voicemail.
When David first brought me into the organization, I was awed at the incredible opportunity to work alongside him, and to meet and work together with the talented writers and activists whom I had only previously read about. Too many of those, like David, are gone now, but I was privileged to learn from them and to be part of an organization that was based on teaching and training the next generation how to fight. That’s part of what I want to do with the Center, to pay it forward, to train and teach others, as David taught and trained me to take up his war.
My vision for the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a little organization with a big cause, is to take that talent, to build on it and to use it to change everything. The way that David did.
Even as David’s health worsened, the Freedom Center took a severe beating when the government came after us. Our investigative work, our truth-telling, and, above all else, the fact that we were winning, that the Trump administration had incorporated some of our people who had come through the Freedom Center and had spoken at our events, and had brought our ideas and way of doing things with them, led the Washington Post, an IRS figure and others to incite a six-year investigation that drained our resources and cut our operations to the bone.
But we survived. The witch hunt is over and we are still here and ready for the next fight.
My message to our donors, our FPM+ members and all our loyal readers, is that we are coming back. We appreciate all of your support, whether it’s your donations, your membership or even your willingness to share one of our articles. Every little bit of it counts towards David’s fight.
Our fight.
As this year unfolds, we will continue having our regular events,but we will also add new offerings, more in-depth FPM+ series, new shocking investigations, reports, podcast episodes, pamphlets and books. We will look for new ways to keep David’s legacy alive, especially his articles, books and speeches with a digital memorial library, but we will also use our talents and skills to confront the threats of today and tomorrow.
David Horowitz wanted us to do more than preserve his legacy, but to build on it and to make it our own by contributing the best of ourselves to the cause.
New projects will be launched alongside Freedom Center Investigates, whose investigative journalism has reached influencers and elected officials, that will focus on specific areas including Israel and the corruption of our educational system, and we will bring new voices to the table at Front Page Magazine and through our podcasts, especially The Right Take with Mark Tapson, and we will find new ways to get our ideas and message out there.
There will be changes coming to the Freedom Center, but they will not change our core values which are rooted in David’s vision for a movement absolutely committed to telling the truth.
No matter what.
