Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward: The Leftwing Media's Idea of a Tolerable Conservative is Me, and I'm Not a Conservative

Praiseworthy admission-against-interest because Katherine Mangu-Ward admits she's the "beneficiary" of the media's let's-find-a-non-conservative-to-pretend-to-include-conservatives sham.

So by admitting this, she's decreasing her opportunities as far as being commissioned to write pieces for the leftist media.

But she notes it anyway:

[T]he reader outcry against [Kevin Williamson] (and [Bari Weiss] at The New York Times) is a sign of a market that has grown increasingly squeamish about a genuinely inclusive journalistic vision.

I have personally been the beneficiary of this doublethink on ideological diversity for years. When institutions recognize the need to have a nonliberal somewhere in their midst, they look across the landscape and discover that the closest thing to conservatism that they can tolerate is a relatively mild-mannered, young(ish), female, pro-choice libertarian. Which is to say, not a conservative at all.

SE Cupp wrote last week about the kind of "conservative" many media outlets prefer:

There is also a thing in political media, wherein a liberal outlet hires a token conservative to represent all of conservatism, but really doesn't want that conservative to be muscular in his or her beliefs. It's a kind of conservatism that feels microwaved, warmed over and anodyne, the kind of conservatism that is safe for the left to ingest in bite-sized morsels.

Of course, that's hardly a service to readers or viewers, who will come to believe through this person -- a Bret Stephens at The New York Times or a Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post, for example -- that they are all of conservatism, or at least what they want conservatism to be. When, really, a reliable conservative would never pen an essay calling for repeal of the Second Amendment, as Stephens has done in The Times. Twice. But it satisfies the Times' left-leaning editorial board and readers who tell themselves, "Now this is our kind of conservative." (Yes -- the kind that sounds like a liberal.)

Now, to be honest, I think S.E. Cupp is also that kind of a conservative -- that is, a liberals' idea of a housebroken conservative; she does work for CNN, after all, and i'm pretty sure she's careful to say she's a libertarian and not one of those Garbage People conservatives.

But that makes her own observation stronger, rather than weaker. This too is an admission against interest, even if she doesn't see it as such.

I'm not backing away from my conviction that the "conservative media" is giving this story way too much play and failing to connect it to the pernicious corporate censorship campaign conducted against every day Americans who are not part of the Conservatism, Inc. commentariat -- I still say that the conservative commentariat should be more invested in liberating the average Enterprise Rent-A-Car worker to be free to speak his mind in the break room without fear of punishment or termination than vindicating the non-right of one of their friends to work for a leftwing magazine -- but there is also room to point out that the media is leftwing and relentlessly dishonest about their politics, agenda, and commitment to viewpoint neutrality.

Conservatives who care about free expression and not just their own job prospects should be outraged by the censorship campaign being waged by the left, the corporations, and government functionaries pressuring the corporations to clamp down on the speech rights of all Americans, and should not just focus on this issue when it nips the career opportunities of their twitter pals.

By the way, Ben Domenech has a very good point about this:

When such a mob forms, it is important to understand you cannot escape them. You can only face them. It is a moment that demands courage in the face of the braying of Social Justice Warriors on the internet and within your own offices. But that is in short supply.

those with views placing them on the right, the only way to win is not to play this game anymore. The only way to win is to build up our own platforms and institutions --our own Hillsdales, our own TV shows, our own Atlantics. And that's why The Federalist exists.

The pressure surrounding the American public square is building. It is steadily destroying the standing of institution after institution and bringing a certain frantic tension to every aspect of life. It will, eventually, explode. What that explosion looks like, I cannot tell you. But I can tell you that if you think Trump was the explosion, you are wrong. You haven't even seen it yet.

I have long been saddened by the self-hatred of the conservative movement, a movement which frequently views acceptance by their enemies as the ultimate accolade, and a Token Hiring by a leftist magazine as the crowning achievement of their careers.

What is it among the allegedly individualist conservatives that makes them so smitten with leftist collectives? What is about allegedly can-do, future-friendly conservatives that makes them so giddy about opportunities in the already-built-by-other-hands legacy media and so disdainful of DIY garage-band success stories like the Federalist?

A friend of mine noted that the left hates The Federalist so much precisely because they don't see any way to get them fired or compel them to play nice by threatening to no longer invite them on to CNN -- most of them have internalized that that ship has sailed, so no veiled threat from a CNN stooge that "you're burning bridges" can bring them to heel.

And that's probably why allies of Fusion GPS are pushing their stupid "Who funds The Federalist?" hashtag campaign, suggesting -- absurdly -- that THE RUSSIANS are funding it.

And amidst this -- still the whining about The Atlantic and the New York Times, because, I guess, they matter, and they're worthy.

Have you guys seen the alleged prestige media lately? The clickbait? The #FakeNews? The utter lack of professionalism, proofreading, and talent?

When you think about the "Prestige Media," are you seeing them in Current Year, or are you trapped in amber (as many conservatives are perpetually trapped in 1997) and seeing the ghosts of what they once were?

I wish conservatives would believe more in themselves and less in the leftist tyrants who would rule them.

And I wish conservatives would stop viewing other conservatives and conservative endeavors as second-rate compared to the clickbait clown orgies of the leftist media.

Confidence in one's own worthiness is a survival skill. A movement without it will, like any living thing, roll over and die.

If you think your enemies deserve to beat you, well, they will.

Rather easily,

You either accept that your own survival and your own success are worthy things, or you perish.

posted by Ace of Spades at 06:24 PM

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