Wednesday Morning Rant [Joe Mannix]

During the 2020 campaign, I made a prediction that turned out very wrong. I asserted that, regardless of Trump's success, the NeverTrump "conservative" media was kaput after the election. If Trump won, they were now demonstrably useless and thus the subsidies from the left would dry up. If Trump lost, their mission was concluded and they had no further purpose as the left would then consolidate power. They would be unnecessary and the subsidies from the left would dry up.

Well, the latter happened and yet the "conservative" punditry is still here, still bloviating and still subsidized by the left. The question now is why. They're useless, now more than ever. Everyone knows it. So why are the subsidies and column-inches still flowing?

I was chatting about their curious continued existence with a fellow Moron recently, and he had an explanation that I think might be correct. They continue to exist for bragging rights. The legacy "conservative" pundits are to the moneyed left as race horses are to English noblemen. There is no reason for an English aristocrat to own a race or dressage horse, let alone multiples of them. Yet they do. The horses are an exorbitant expense with no practical purpose whatsoever. Their value as a status symbol in their elite pecking order, however, is very high.

So it is with "conservative" pundits. They're useless in every dimension. Real conservatives ignore, jeer or dismiss them. Non-conservatives don't believe them and those in the know understand that it's all a stupid and pointless show. There is zero point to them or their indifferently-crafted articles. Virtually no one recognizes their names and of those who do, no one cares and no one listens beyond making fun of them. But to those who pay to keep their Asness Chairs filled, the pundits represent bragging rights. They get to laugh with each other about their stable of c*cks that abase themselves on command.

At first, I rejected this idea because I couldn't see why one would blow money for such a purpose. Then I asked myself what I would do if I could. If I hit the mega lotto, would I be tempted to buy a pundit? It hit me that I would. I would acquire the one for whom I feel the greatest contempt and then make him dance. I would purchase Kevin Williamson and make him write nothing but Salena Zito-style working class hagiographies. Perhaps I do get it after all.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:00 AM

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