Friday, April 06, 2018

So Many Hot Takes

Conservatives seem to really believe that conservative writers have a 1st amendment right to not be criticized and to not have their lucrative sinecures threatened by anything. Or, at least, that to have opinions about what a magazine that aims for "respectability," which roughly means lands in the Overton Zone somewhere between The Old New Republic and...ooh God, I admit that in the age of Trump it's hard to know where the right flank is, should publish threatens the majesty of our noble discourse or some shit. How dare you not hire/fire a man who called for the execution of a quarter of US women and then (apparently) was less than forthcoming about it to the guy who hired him?

More what's going on is that in the age of Trump there's a hiring spree for conservatives, but weirdly conservatives who claim not to like Trump. Publications *have to* (?) hire conservatives, but the respectable ones can't hire Trump loving conservatives because they're just corrupt racist hacks without exception, so the Never Trumpers want to get on this gravy train while they can. Once they "get respectable" those News Hour gigs and Aspen Ideas Festival invites can't be far behind.

As for the "Never Trumpers" - their dislike is 60% because he's vulgar, 35% because he doesn't say he likes war enough (though don't worry there is still plenty of war!), and 5% because his trade stuff is dumb. The racism and all the rest don't really bother them! The neocons and the paleocons and the socialcons and the crunchycons and the reformacons and all the, well, cons, are still bad!

Conservatives actually have a right to be mad at publications who claim (none of them have to) to publish a diversity of opinions. Basically none of them publish people who admit to liking Trump, or who openly represent the 35% or so who are Trump's "base."