This Guy Isn't Sold On the "New" Hayes-Goldberg Newsletter

Read the whole thing. It's a scorcher.

Okay, the idea that the leftwing Washington Post is a "center-right" outfit is the sort of absurd thing that only a communist could possibly believe, but look past that for the moment.

What if we had a center-right publication, broadly in favor of globalized free trade and deregulation and hawkish on foreign policy, whose columnists really hated President Trump, even when he does things they otherwise agree with, like spit in Vladimir Putin's face?

But The Washington Post already exists, you say. Exactly. Which is why I cannot figure who the audience for Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg's new journalism project is supposed to be. According to Axios, the former editor of The Weekly Standard and the founder of National Review Online are "seeking investors" for "a reporting-driven, Trump-skeptical" conservative periodical.

Of course they are. "Generic white #NeverTrump conservative" is already the most overrepresented type in American media. There are approximately 200 of these people in the United States, and every single one of them has a column in a major newspaper and a book about why Drumpf is the logical and polar opposite of certain ideals supposedly embodied in whatever Tocqueville quotes their research assistants have just pulled up for them. They are the same people who have spent the last two decades insisting that all the things that actually keep people voting for the GOP against their own economics interests -- opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage -- are yucky. They are often referred to as "neocons," but this appellation is insulting to the legacy of Irving Kristol and Christopher Lasch. A better one is "metro-conservatives," i.e., think-tank grifters.

#NeverTrump types are desperate to convince readers that clichés about "entrepreneurship," endless war, and moaning about the Founding Fathers are still cool. But nobody listens. They had their shot with roughly 15 other candidates in 2016, and the American people rejected all of them, one by one. If your ideas are so bad that social conservatives would rather vote for a twice-divorced serial philanderer than pull the lever for any of the indistinguishable blue-blazered frat boys who are mouthpieces for them, maybe you should rethink what you're doing. If the Never Trumpers had gotten the candidate they wanted, Hillary Clinton would have won Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

They know this. They also couldn't care less. Why should they, when the paychecks continue to cash? They have been insulated from the badness of their ideas for decades; this isn't going to change, probably ever.

There's more, too. It keeps going like that.

By the way, a little bonus. Turn down the volume -- her voice is very unpleasant -- and just enjoy the visual.

posted by Ace of Spades at 02:12 PM

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