David Horowitz, Conservative Stalwart Dead At 86

Conservative American writer David Horowitz lost his battle with cancer, passing away Monday at 86 years old, according to an announcement on his X account.

For over 40 years, Horowitz was a strong advocate and defender of conservatives, founding the David Horowitz Freedom Center in 1988, among his various accomplishments in politics. A six-minute video was posted on his X account by the Freedom Center, detailing the conservative’s life.

“On behalf of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, we are very saddened to announce the passing of the Center’s founder, David Horowitz. After a lengthy battle with cancer, David passed yesterday at the age of 86. David Horowitz, 1939-2025. Requiescat in pace,” the post stated.

Horowitz was born in New York on Jan. 10, 1939 and raised by schoolteacher parents who “remained steadfast in their commitment to” the “progressive left” and “its Marxist version of a liberated society,” according to the Freedom Center’s video. While continuing in his Marxist ideology through college, Horowitz became editor of a magazine called “Root & Branch,” which published essays embodying the political vision of the new left.

By 1969, Horowitz had become “disturbed at the direction” of the movement he had long supported, saying he had “realized, even at that time, you couldn’t really remake the world as the left intended without totalitarian coercion,” the Freedom Center said. After growing close to Black Panther leader Huey Newton, it was the 1975 death of bookkeeper Betty Van Patter that triggered Horowitz’s transformation toward conservatism.

“In a vignette that Horowitz wrote at the request of the New York Times Magazine, Horowitz recounted the stages of his metamorphosis. Being at the center of a heroic myth inspired passions that informed my youthful passage and guided me to the middle of my adult life, but then I was confronted by a reality so inescapable and harsh that it shattered the romance for good,” the Freedom Center said.

After casting his first Republican ballot in 1984 for former President Ronald Reagan, Horowitz went on to author books on riots and American political culture, as well as create the Freedom Center’s online journal, “FrontPage Magazine.” Horowitz had written several op-eds for the Daily Caller over the years, with some calling out American universities and their pushback against free speech.