RIP David Horowitz

Horowitz will be missed:

I just now learned that the champion conservative thinker and writer David Horowitz passed away yesterday. He was aged 86. I have a number of his books, and have followed him for quite some time. Indeed, those who do not know much about him will perhaps be misled by what I just said. Yes, he was a conservative warrior – but not always.

Back in my wild Marxist days in the late 60s I actually read stuff that he penned. That is because back in his wild Marxist days, he was a leading New Left intellectual and activist. Among other things, he was the editor of Ramparts magazine. I used to read that publication religiously back when I was a hippy and leftist.

So we both went from being young men of the left to older and wiser men of the right. He became a major nemesis of the Marxist left, and later on he spent a lot of time warning us about militant Islam. Ever a champion of freedom and personal liberty, he was a powerful advocate for conservative values and beliefs.

A brief timeline goes like this:

1939 – Born in New York to Jewish high school teachers
1959 – Earns a BA from Columbia University
1961 – Earns an MA from the University of California, Berkeley
Mid-1960s – Works for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in London
1968 – Begins work as co-editor of Ramparts in California
Late 70s – Begins changing his political views
1987 – Co-hosts a “Second Thoughts Conference” in Washington, D.C.
1992 – Co-founds the monthly magazine Heterodoxy
1998 – Co-founds the David Horowitz Freedom Center
2015 – Describes himself as an agnostic
2025, April 29 – Died after a lengthy battle with cancer

Some of the volumes of his that I have are these (in order of their publication):

Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the 60s – with Peter Collier (Summit Books, 1989)
Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey (Spence Publishing, 2003)
Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Regnery, 2004)
Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future – with Robert Spencer (The David Horowitz Freedom Center, 2011)
Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America (Humanix, 2018)

To give you a feel for his concerns and emphases, let me share from earlier reviews I did of two of these books. As to Left Illusions, I said this in part:

Like Whittaker Chambers before him, David Horowitz must have thought he was abandoning the winning side for the losing side, when he embraced conservatism. Chambers left Communism for Christianity, at a time when, in the eyes of many, it was not expedient to do so.  So too, Horowitz, a leading leftwing intellectual of the 60s and 70s, had second thoughts. For both men, the change in thinking was costly, with severe reactions to their defections.

 

This book, a collection of articles, most of which were published before, gives us an intellectual history of Horowitz’s rise in the Left, and his eventual disaffection with it. Thus it includes some of his earlier leftist pieces, including some published in the radical Ramparts, which he formerly edited. But the bulk of the articles here come from his new found conservatism, and feature some of his best writings from the late 70s to 2003.

 

Horowitz has already covered his second thoughts in book form, especially in Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (co-written with Peter Collier in 1989), and Radical Son (1997). Here he covers a wide range of issues, with all of the conservative battlegrounds given a run. Thus some three decades worth of controversy are covered, with articles on Solzhenitsyn, Nicaragua, racism, political correctness on campus, AIDS, free speech, multiculturalism, the Middle East crisis, terrorism, and the Clinton years all given judicious treatment.

 

Unlike Chambers, it was not a religious conversion that prompted this change of heart. It was a growing awareness that the Left was simply hypocritical, constantly denouncing supposed atrocities of capitalism and American foreign policy, while ignoring or condoning the barbarism of socialism and leftist dictatorships. An enormous amount of human blood had been shed on the altars of leftist utopianism, Horowitz discovered.

 

Thus as someone who has been there and done that, his criticisms of the left deserve to be heard. Not many have renounced their leftwing past. I happen to have been one to do so, but there are not that many around. Irving Kristol once said that a neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. It seems that many leftists prefer to live with their illusions than take a stand for reality. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2004/05/06/a-review-of-left-illusions-an-intellectual-odyssey-by-david-horowitz/

And this from my review of Dark Agenda:

He has written dozens of excellent books since his turnaround, and his newest is no exception. And consider its subtitle: “The War to Destroy Christian America”. Not bad for a Jewish ex-Marxist who is a declared agnostic. Indeed, this is an impassioned defence of America’s Christian roots, and a crucial look at the Left’s war against both America and Christianity.

 

As he says early on in the book, “Since its birth in the fires of the French Revolution, the political left has been at war with religion, and with the Christian religion in particular.” He quotes well-known leftists like Bill Maher who once said, “Religion must die in order for mankind to live.”

 

The book provides plenty of evidence of this war on Christianity. And he correctly notes how invaluable Christianity – especially the Protestant version – was to the very founding of America. The Pilgrims fled the official state religion of Britain, and the persecution that went with it, to create a place where religious freedom could prevail.

 

The Mayflower Compact of 1620 was just one of the documents that makes this clear. Allowing for religious differences, as opposed to a uniform state religion, was part of how the New World was deliberately being set up. Even less than devout Christians like Jefferson ran with this.

 

His much understood “wall of separation between church and state” had nothing to do with banning religion in public. On the contrary, as Horowitz reminds us, it was meant to assure Connecticut Baptists that “government would never infringe on the free exercise of their religion.” And that is just what the First Amendment is all about as well.

 

But the secular left has turned all this on its head, claiming religion and government don’t mix. The truth is, the American experiment succeeded so brilliantly exactly because Christian truths were foundational to the nation’s beginning. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2019/07/15/a-review-of-dark-agenda-by-david-horowitz/

Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA just said this about the passing of this great defender of freedom:

Rest in peace to my friend and mentor David Horowitz, who has just passed away. A fearless truth-teller, David was a titan in the battle of ideas and a warrior for Western civilization.

David grew up on the hard Left and remained a committed Marxist into his 30s. But he had the rare courage to question everything, and ultimately reject the radicalism of his youth to become one of the most influential conservative thinkers of our time.

Without David Horowitz, I’m not sure Turning Point USA would exist. David was a lifelong crusader and maverick for the conservative cause. A former communist turned fierce anti-left advocate, he dedicated his life to confronting the ideologies he once embraced.

Over 90% of our earliest major donors were introduced at a David Horowitz event—thanks to his warm endorsements and generous introductions. His support opened doors that would have otherwise remained closed.

David always believed in me and in Turning Point USA. He saw our campus movement as a rebirth of freedom—the kind of revival he long hoped to see. We spoke often by phone, and he remained a trusted teacher and mentor throughout my journey.

David understood the Left—not just its surface slogans, but its underlying motivations, its tactics, and most importantly, how to effectively confront and defeat it. His life was a testament to courage, intellectual clarity, and unwavering moral conviction. He showed that truth—once found—demands action, no matter the personal cost.

His David Horowitz Freedom Center was a launchpad for so many voices on the Right—including mine. In 2014, he invited me to speak at his Restoration Weekend, one of the first big breaks of my career. He believed in young leaders long before the world did.

Twenty-five years ago, David mentored a high school student named Stephen Miller. He supported him through Duke, through the Senate, and into the Trump White House. Today, Stephen is one of the most impactful architects of America First immigration policy. A legend thanks to David’s mentorship.

As Politico wrote, “If you want to understand the immigration policies [Trump] has put into place, you have to also understand Horowitz.” David’s fingerprints are all over the populist revival of the last decade.

David saw the Left clearly—and early. His books Indoctrination U and One Party Classroom were prophetic, exposing the rot on college campuses years before most conservatives dared to speak up. They helped inspire my own book The College Scam and much of Turning Point USA’s campus strategy.

But David didn’t just write. He debated. He showed up. He walked into hostile auditoriums and faced down Marxist professors, Islamist apologists, and race hustlers—armed only with truth, moral clarity, and a sharp tongue.

Back in 1999, David called out the Left’s weaponization of civil rights and its growing hatred of white people—a topic so radioactive that most conservatives avoided it for two more decades. He said what others were afraid to even whisper.

He published over 50 books, debated thousands, mentored dozens, and shaped the ideological terrain we now fight on. His final book was published in 2023—at the age of 84. He worked until his last breath.

David Horowitz was a lion. A fighter. A father of modern conservatism. He was a teacher to me, a mentor, and a friend. Turning Point USA will continue its successful movement in your honor, and thanks to your help. We miss you David, God bless you. Thank you.

Near the end of Destructive Generation Horowitz and Collier said this: “The final struggle in this generation will not be between Communists and ex-Communists, as Silone said of his time, but between those who have had second thoughts about their experiences in the Sixties, and those who have not.”

I am certainly glad that he had second thoughts – as did I and so many others. You will be missed David Horowitz.

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