The Sad Saga of Max Boot

 

I worked with Max Boot at Commentary Magazine for a few years, not in the office and not directly, but I would promote his work when it appeared on our blog. I would always joke (but not really joke) that there was never a war that Max Boot didn’t want to start. Boot’s work was the only material on the blog I consistently disagreed with and disliked, in large part because it was so trigger-happy.

It’s been strange watching Boot’s evolution into just another “woke” newspaper columnist; his shtick is so tired by now, what exactly does he offer?

The cadre of “woke” former “conservatives” is growing larger, and each has less and less intellectual honesty than the last.

It’s so profoundly dishonest, it’s still somewhat surprising to see a newspaper as large and as storied as the Washington Post would run such a screed by a man who clearly didn’t read the entire column he’s responding to,

And not only did the Post run Boot’s piece, but CNN’s Anderson Cooper even had him on his show to whine about it too,

National Review’s editor Rich Lowry responded,

My husband commented:

And on this, I’m going to have to disagree.

Proof that National Review hasn’t been “Trumpified” is evidenced by NR’s response to what amounts to Boot’s slander; if it had been truly “Trumpified” NR would be hitting back. Hard. And they should. Trump’s election for many on the Right was proof that the base is sick of being abused by those in the mainstream media and left (but I repeat myself). And we should be sick of it. Being polite in the face of being called white supremacists is how we got Trump, and on this front, maybe we needed him. It’s time to stop being polite.

The left calls the President a white supremacist until they’re blue in the face, and they are astounded that the accusations don’t resonate with a majority of Americans. If they had learned any lessons from Trump’s election, Boot wouldn’t be smearing National Review and John Hirschauer and Dan McLaughlin (the authors of the pieces Boot is criticizing).

Published in General
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 132 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    Annefy (View Comment):
    Heck, I’d wager that a huge percentage of Reagan voters are dead (and voting the straight D ticket).

    Annefy (View Comment):

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):

    Annefy (View Comment):

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):

    Two things can be true at the same time. I agree Boot and Jen Rubin have gone completely off the rails. I’ll even concede that Bill Kristol and Charlie Sykes sometimes let their purblind hatred of Trump cloud their judgment. If you’ve been a persecuted Trump supporter I understand why you would indulge in some chest pounding on these issues. But I still feel there is a Remnant of sincere Republicans that are NeverTrump for the right reasons. A generation from now our children will ask us why we capitulated to supporting a man with less integrity, character or trustworthiness than Jussie Smolett. I’d love to read or hear Bethany [one of my favorite commentators] address that question. If she has written a response to Trump’s character issues that amounts to more than a “meh” I haven’t seen it.

    I voted different from my parents for at least two election cycles (possibly more).

    as an adult child I would have never dreamed of asking my parents such a ridiculous question.

    Were my children ever to ask me (which I doubt) the CoC prevents me from writing what my answer would be

     

    I wasn’t referring to adult children – I was referring to the very common question children ask their parents: what did you do during the war daddy? what did you do during the depression? etc. I think the Trump era is going to be regarded as something similar to The McCarthy Era. He will be portrayed as a demagogue that appealed to racist tropes to hijack the nomination and the election. Children will ask why didn’t you stand up for what you believed when he was doing this.

    That’s even worse. As a child, had I the audacity to question one moment of how my father spent his life or the choices he made I would have gotten, at a minimum, a verbal back hand.

    And rightly so.

    I always wonder about all of these precocious children who are asking their stupid elders such insightful, penetrating, political/economic/scientific questions. What planet do they inhabit?

    • #91
  2. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    OldPhil (View Comment):
    What planet do they inhabit?

    The one solely inhabited by lefty teachers.

    • #92
  3. rgbact Inactive
    rgbact
    @romanblichar

    filmklassik (View Comment):

    Thus “coded racism” = GOP votes.

    And that’s a very “woke” idea, wouldn’t you say?

    Not really. Its gross to insult voters like that, but I can understand someone not comprehending why people voted for Trump. Trump is very lean on policy, but talks real tough against brown people. So, that draws Boot to certain conclusions. I think that conclusion is wrong (and his smearing of every previous Republican that was nothing like Trump and often didn’t even appeal to the same voters…..is fact free nonsense)….but it doesn’t make him a liberal.

    Keep in mind, Bethany referred to a “cadre” of “woke” “conservatives”.  So, you don’t have to write what Boot wrote to be woke, per Bethany.

    • #93
  4. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    Sadly, I won’t be able to tell my innocent-yet-discerning grandchild(ren…please God) that I voted for Trump the first time around, but I’ll have no trouble whatever explaining my vote in 2020.

    “Darling Doodlebugs, your old granny voted for President Obama two times, because I truly thought he was a smart, good man who would do good things for the country.  Obama was…disappointing.  As I was getting ready to vote in 2016, I realized that, for the whole of my life, I always cared most deeply about two issues: the well-being of black Americans* and the well-being of American police officers. These are (as you will know well,  my sweeties!) overlapping groups. Under President Obama, the well-being of both declined markedly, in just about every respect, and Hilary Clinton was going to keep things going in that direction.

    But Donald Trump seemed like a very strange man, and not a particularly good or sensible one. So GrannyDude did not cast a vote for anybody for president!

    “Under President Trump, the well being of both groups I cared about improved… A lot.  President Trump was doing good things for people I love and care about.  And so I voted for Trump in 2020.”

    *Won’t it be nice if I am forced to explain to my young descendants why the well-being of black Americans was even a “thing” in 2020?

    P.S. I hope I don’t have to explain to these little tykes why their elderly relatives still aren’t speaking to me?

    • #94
  5. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    PPS: For all his faults, Donald Trump does not have less integrity, character or trustworthiness than Jussie Smollett.

    By  the way, does anyone else here think DJT has…grown in office? 

    • #95
  6. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    rgbact (View Comment):

    (..his smearing of every previous Republican that was nothing like Trump and often didn’t even appeal to the same voters…..is fact free nonsense)….but it doesn’t make him a liberal.

    It doesn’t??  So the whole idea that “coded racist appeals” is primarily what brought right wing voters out to the polls for 50 years and allowed the GOP to grow is not, in your view, a left wing meme?

    A very, very left wing meme?  A Berkeley-freshman/MSNBC-type of left wing meme?

    • #96
  7. rgbact Inactive
    rgbact
    @romanblichar

    filmklassik (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):

     

    It doesn’t?? So the whole idea that “coded racist appeals” is primarily what brought right wing voters out to the polls and allowed the GOP to grow is not, in your view, a left wing meme?

    A very, very left wing meme? A Berkeley-freshman/MSNBC-type left wing meme?

    Meme? Seems like we’ve moved the goalposts massively in this thread from “Cadre of woke conservatives” and “ascribing everything that opposes a leftist/statist agenda as white supremacy” to…..”oh noes, Max Boot used a meme that liberals use”

    IDK about memes. Its more just a lame theory for why people would vote for the candidate with the least policy knowledge, the least experience, the shortest time as a Republican…..but the one spewing the nastiest, divisive rhetoric. Its not an easy question, and Boot just grabs the easiest answer….and then paints the last 50 years with it. That doesn’t make him a Berkleyite SJW. Just dumb.

    • #97
  8. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    PPS: For all his faults, Donald Trump does not have less integrity, character or trustworthiness than Jussie Smollett.

    By the way, does anyone else here think DJT has…grown in office?

    Adapted more than grown. But that he has done.

    • #98
  9. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    rgbact (View Comment):

    Its not an easy question, and Boot just grabs the easiest answer….and then paints the last 50 years with it. That doesn’t make him a Berkleyite SJW. Just dumb.

    If Boot is promoting the lie (in his book, mind you!) that the history of the Republican party in the last 50 years is one of “coded racist appeals” being the primary reason for the party’s growth — I’d say that meets the popular definition of “woke,” wouldn’t you?

     

    • #99
  10. Jeff Hawkins Inactive
    Jeff Hawkins
    @JeffHawkins

    Tom Nichols also wonders why we need a Caddy Day at Bushwood, noting “Don’t they work for us?”

    • #100
  11. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    filmklassik (View Comment):
    I’d say that meets the popular definition of “woke,” wouldn’t you?

    I don’t think he actually knows what “woke” means.

    • #101
  12. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    Stina (View Comment):

    filmklassik (View Comment):
    I’d say that meets the popular definition of “woke,” wouldn’t you?

    I don’t think he actually knows what “woke” means.

    I agree.  

    • #102
  13. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    “Now @maxboot is portraying this analysis by @baseballcrank as some sort of white nationalist screed—how completely dishonest and thoroughly pathetic” — Rich Lowry, August 13, 2019

    I remember that Dan McGlaughlin (@baseballcrank) is the person who prompted me to write the post “National Review’s racist president”.

    http://ricochet.com/488087/archives/national-reviews-racist-president/

    “This was in response to listening to the most recent (January 2018) episode of the National Review podcast The Editors which stated the following around the 14-minute mark: “I really don’t have any problem defining Donald Trump as a racist.” Want to guess how many of the good folks at National Review tackled and confronted that comment and stood up for our Republican president? That’s right. Zero.”

    I also remember in February 2019 when Charles C. W. Cooke stated that Governor Ralph Northam is a good guy and thinking, “Well, as long as you make it home from the hospital…”

    None of the good folks at National Review stood up and tackled and confronted that comment  either.

    Once again, the words of Dan McGlaughlin and Max Boot’s racist president…

    • #103
  14. rgbact Inactive
    rgbact
    @romanblichar

    filmklassik (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):

    Its not an easy question, and Boot just grabs the easiest answer….and then paints the last 50 years with it. That doesn’t make him a Berkleyite SJW. Just dumb.

    If Boot is promoting the lie (in his book, mind you!) that the history of the Republican party in the last 50 years is one of “coded racist appeals” being the primary reason for the party’s growth — I’d say that meets the popular definition of “woke,” wouldn’t you?

     

    I don’t even know what woke means. I assume it means far left whackjob.I don’t think Boot’s theory makes him that. It just makes him elitist and historically ignorant, which are his way to make sense of complex things. Even being woke would take more thought.

    But again, I doubt any of the “woke conservatives” that Bethany was referring to, agree with this wacky theory of Boot’s. He is out there on an island.  Theres a big sea between his crackpot theory and “ascribing everything that opposes a leftist/statist agenda as white supremacy”, like James Lileks thinks.

    • #104
  15. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    rgbact (View Comment)

     

    I don’t even know what woke means. I assume it means far left whackjob.

    Oh boy.  Okay, things are starting to make sense now.  

    • #105
  16. Petty Boozswha Inactive
    Petty Boozswha
    @PettyBoozswha

    Annefy (View Comment):

    I’ve had a few hours to ruminate … How we answer to our children? Ridiculous on its face. Big dif between “what did you do in the war daddy” and … good Lord. You voted for Trump??…

    But … I’ve got four grandkids (and I’m nice to them). Say … 10 years from now, one of them inquires as to my thinking. You know, along the lines of “what were you doing during the war daddy”, becomes: “Why in the name of God did you vote for Trump?”

    My answer will be simple. And because they are my grand children they would not get the back of my (verbal) hand.

    Because your two uncles were in the military and Trump’s opponent had long proved a disdain for such people. I had no assurances that they wouldn’t die, but I felt their chances of dying abandoned were less.

    Your grandad and I are business owners and long suffered over regulation. We didn’t know Trump would make it better, but we had hope.

    We witnessed beloved relatives leaving California due to high crime related to foolish leftist policies, and believed a wall would be a very good thing for the people we loved.

    Because we have always believed in America, and, no matter his faults, we believed Trump did too…

    I understand the reasons folks voted for Trump v Hillary – I have no problem with that. But the tribal identification with this man I cannot comprehend. I live here in NC, our Senator, Thom Tillis, is in real danger of losing to a Dem because he’s being primaried by the remnants of the old Jesse Helms machine. The reason? He dared to question Trump for about 12 hours on some Trump outrage before he capitulated. I know we will never agree on the weight I put on personal character, but I appreciate you taking the time to reconsider. 

    • #106
  17. Petty Boozswha Inactive
    Petty Boozswha
    @PettyBoozswha

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    PPS: For all his faults, Donald Trump does not have less integrity, character or trustworthiness than Jussie Smollett.

    By the way, does anyone else here think DJT has…grown in office?

    This breaks my heart. Even I am susceptible to some of the arguments for Trump that other former NeverTrumpers have accepted. Just like Max Boot a large, large portion of the Democrat/media complex has gone off the rails – America is a white supremacist evil empire, we need to atone by abolishing borders and supporting fourth trimester abortions…     

    But I don’t think Trump is any different than the man who was elected in 2016.  We used to be the party that admired character and integrity before ostentatious wealth and the “strength” to bully and lie like our opponents. The founders believed in an old-fashioned word, rectitude. Today we think of that as “up-tightness” but it meant more than that. It’s something I don’t think we will ever recover. Can you imagine Dwight Eisenhower asking someone to fabricate documents to present to a special counsel? To promise to release his income taxes a dozen times when it might have mattered and then refuse after he won the nomination? Someone who would go on national TV and say his former staff cooperating with federal investigators are rats and snitches?

    I probably will leave the President line on my ballot blank in 2020, and vote for Republicans in the other races.

    • #107
  18. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):
    The founders believed in an old-fashioned word, rectitude.

    We have been tearing their system apart for 100 years. It’s accelerated over the last 3o. We are just another democracy going down the drain.

    Idealizing like that is just going to hand everything to the left. There are plenty of people way smarter than me that’s think like that. David Horwitz. Angelo Codivilla.

    The left keeps taking ground by lying and with  Alyinsky tactics. The people that make money off of government keep winning, not the productive. They lie about the insurance system, guns, and in Minnesota, light rail. They either shove of socialism Down our throats with lies and Alinsky tactics or they get all kinds of graft like with teachers unions.

    Now we are supposed to tolerate cross-dressers teaching children how to “twerk” at the children’s story time in the public library. Everything is moving towards statism and cultural Marxism.

    Look at what we are finding out about the FBI, Justice and the CIA. They completely cooperated with Obama spying on Trump and Hillary Clinton’s dirty tricks with Fusion GPS. 

    Of course Devon Nunes has to be destroyed. 

    You will tell me there was “rectitude” in the Mueller investigation. There are plenty of smart people that say otherwise.

    “RUSSIA CONTROLS TRUMP!”

    Have you heard the latest about Clinton’s private server? Incredible.

    It would help if the media, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the education system  actually worked as they are supposed to. The problem is they aren’t even close to that.

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):
    Can you imagine Dwight Eisenhower asking someone to fabricate documents to present to a special counsel? To promise to release his income taxes a dozen times when it might have mattered and then refuse after he won the nomination? Someone who would go on national TV and say his former staff cooperating with federal investigators are rats and snitches?

    Fair enough, but I just don’t see this as a big deal given everything.

    If the GOP would have repealed the ACA, this whole term would’ve been 100% success from my point of view. The ACA is a system of lies to force single payer by Cloward and Piven tactics and its working.

    One of the guys it turned me around on this is Rich Weinstein. He is the guy that uncovered the Jonathan Gruber tapes. Follow him on Twitter. 

    Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™

    • #108
  19. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    But civics! But rectitude! But The Founders!

     

    Several high-profile Senate Democrats warned the Supreme Court in pointed terms this week that it could face a fundamental restructuring if justices do not take steps to “heal” the court in the near future.

    The ominous and unusual warning was delivered as part of a brief filed Monday in a case related to a New York City gun law. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., referenced rulings by the court’s conservative majority in claiming it is suffering from some sort of affliction which must be remedied.

    link They are going to lose this case and they know it. Time for 1917. 

    • #109
  20. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    One other thing just because I don’t know where else to put it on the Internet.

    Are any of you guys familiar with Heath Mayo and the #PriciplesFirst movement? These guys are so judgmental about Trump and people that support Trump. The ones I know on Twitter strike me as really stupid and uninformed, but man oh man they feel entitled to jump all over me. I mean these are upright people, what everyone would think of as educated citizens. God help us if that bunch grows.

    • #110
  21. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

     

    • #111
  22. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Wonder if Boot’s going to go after McLaughlin again over Trump-skeptic Dan being even more skeptical of this new anti-Trump alliance:

    • #112
  23. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

     

    • #113
  24. rgbact Inactive
    rgbact
    @romanblichar

    .

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):

    I understand the reasons folks voted for Trump v Hillary – I have no problem with that. But the tribal identification with this man I cannot comprehend. I live here in NC, our Senator, Thom Tillis, is in real danger of losing to a Dem

    Sounds like a primary to keep updated on. I’m not sure of Tillis’s conservative record,but it would be a shame if people disregard it for the tribalism of “but he was mean to our Orange god”.

    Keep in mind……24 Senate Republicans opposed Trump’s last budget disaster. Tillis was one of them. Sounds like Tillis’s opponent would be a Trumpian big spender.

    • #114
  25. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    rgbact (View Comment):
    Keep in mind……24 Senate Republicans opposed Trump’s last budget disaster.

    What we need is a deep recession before 2020. 

    • #115
  26. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    rgbact (View Comment):
    I don’t even know what woke means. I assume it means far left whackjob.I don’t think Boot’s theory makes him that.

    When someone asks how “woke” you are, they are asking how aware are you of systemic micro aggressions and implicit “isms”.

    Being “woke” implies a certain sympathetic worldview to various  victim groups and can also include sophisticated (in the most derogatory use of that word) navigation of intersectionality.

    What makes Boot “woke” is his acceptance of a worldview that southern whites are implicitly and obviously racist and that the only way they would align themselves with the R party is because the R party courts them with micro-aggression bromides (i.e. dog whistles).

    He is not, however, VERY woke. I don’t think he has accepted the full realm of intersectionality and victimology, however I’m pretty sure he is fully on board with labeling people with “-ists” and “-isms” for the slightest transgressions against the left’s victim classes.

    • #116
  27. Weeping Inactive
    Weeping
    @Weeping

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):
    Keep in mind……24 Senate Republicans opposed Trump’s last budget disaster.

    What we need is a deep recession before 2020.

    Why do we need that? That sounds like a definite way to be sure the Democrat nominee (whoever he or she may be) wins. 

    • #117
  28. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Weeping (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):
    Keep in mind……24 Senate Republicans opposed Trump’s last budget disaster.

    What we need is a deep recession before 2020.

    Why do we need that? That sounds like a definite way to be sure the Democrat nominee (whoever he or she may be) wins.

    I’m making a joke. Bubble management has been more important than anything else to retain political power since either 1991 or 2008 depending on how are you look at it. 

    Janet Yellen should have raised rates a ton starting in about 2011, but Valerie Jarrett ragged her not to do it. Now it’s Trump’s turn. 

    Great system, isn’t it?

    • #118
  29. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Weeping (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):
    Keep in mind……24 Senate Republicans opposed Trump’s last budget disaster.

    What we need is a deep recession before 2020.

    Why do we need that? That sounds like a definite way to be sure the Democrat nominee (whoever he or she may be) wins.

    Eh. I kinda agree with Rufus that the economy is supposed to operate in cycles of inflation and deflation. The more we rig the system to avoid recession, the bigger and more likely devastating it will be.

    From what I got out of Rufus University is that inflation benefits asset holders, as they can exchange assets for more cash. However, that cash has less buying power. Deflation benefits cash rich, as cash has more purchase power and and is more easily usable in purchasing assets.

    Like a controlled burn prevents devastating forest fires, a controlled regression may forestall a depression.

    Regardless, the limited purchasing power of millenials and the dying out of asset-wealthy boomers is going to lead to a regression as assets flood the market at prices the only available purchasers can’t afford.

    The preference for wealthy immigrants, open border and foreign asset purchase among the wealthy (I understand China is a huge purchaser of American assets) might be meant to offset that recession, at the expense of millenials and our country, in order to maintain the inflationary market.

    • #119
  30. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    I hate saying this, but Fed policy and how the financial system is set up is more important than elections right now. It makes people do dumb things. It makes people want free stuff from the government. Populism and socialism are a problem for good reason.

    It started with Alan Greenspan in 1996 at least. Probably more accurately with LBJ and Nixon.

    Ronald Reagan was the last leader to have any guts about this stuff. I forget all of the details but Ronald Reagan had a bunch of evil staffers that were the impetus behind getting rid of Paul Volker. It was a huge mistake.

    • #120
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.