Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Useless Useful Idiots: Whither The Bulwark and The Dispatch After Trump?
Ever since Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign began to look like it was more than a promotional stunt for his reality show and began to take on the shape of a real run at the White House, there were voices on the Right condemning the whole idea of a Trump presidency. The Right’s most concerted effort took the form of National Review’s “Against Trump” issue, and most on the Right remain critical of the President’s failings even if they support him generally. (This is a marked difference from the last Democrat president, who received virtually no significant criticism from members of his party while in office.) But a sizable group of Republicans (excuse me, “former Republicans”) abandoned their party and became “Never Trumpers” – they were so exorcized by the idea of Donald Trump personally that they could no longer support their party. Some, like Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin, completely altered their beliefs and values because they hated Trump so much.
And from this sprang a whole new cottage industry of Republican-hating Conservatives. A niche craft that once belonged only to David Brooks and David Frum suddenly burst open with a whole field of carpetbaggers toting elephant guns: Charles Sykes, Mona Charen, Jonah Goldberg, George Will, Noah Rothman, Joe Scarborough, just to name a few. And with it has come two political websites to challenge the likes of NationalReview.com, CommentaryMagazine.com, and Ricochet.com: TheBulwark.com and TheDispatch.com.
The Bulwark clearly is staffed by people who have been marinating in the full-bore culture of the Coastal Left far too long. Even the graphics have that overprocessed, graphic design school sheen to them that looks like something off early 2000s Slate.com. As of this writing, there is a graphic of Trump with a crown that is clearly inspired by the works of 1980s neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat – an artist whose works were explicitly political in their examination of wealth, class, and colonialism. This is not something one would see in, say, The Weekly Standard, but it is something the Lefties who buy New York magazine would lap up. It instantly transmits the message, “Hey, we’re worldly Coastal Elites just like you. We go to the Whitney and the Guggenheim. We’re down with Bob Iger and Margaret Atwood and Oprah Winfrey. We’re one of you!” Honestly, it reeks of a desperation to be accepted by the cool kids.
That likely also explains why the columns go overboard in their criticism of Trump:
“The president of the United States, ladies and gentlemen, was in full Mad King mode, rambling, confused, disjointed, parading his grievances with barely a wave from afar at coherence.”
Of course, one could just go to the “trending” article, “100 Reasons Trump Is Unfit to Be President.” Written just on June 26, 2020, one would think this would have been the first article produced by the site. Finding any criticism of Democrats on TheBulwark.com is pretty much impossible: Currently, the home page of the site lionizes Alexander Vindman, an army officer who was insubordinate because his partisan beliefs ran counter to the Commander-in-Chief’s. But by in large, the majority of the articles just seem stale:
“Trump is not interested in the actual job of the presidency. He’s interested in the attention the presidency affords him.”
Really? This is a new insight? I seem to recall Never Trumpers harping on this in 2016. Why would anyone subscribe to The Bulwark if the contributors are so low on fresh material?
Just the article titles alone on The Bulwark are enough to make one’s eyes pop when one considers this site is supposed to cater to “Conservatives”:
Actually, Virtue Signaling Is Good
We could use less celebration of vice and more signaling of virtue.
Racial Injustice Remains the Great Weakness of American Democracy
If America is to lead the free world, first it must lead itself.
Crises and Competence (complete with a graphic of Ronald Reagan)
How the decades-long gutting of government—worsened by Trump’s failings—exacerbated the pandemic, the protests, and more.
America’s Underlying Injustice Won’t Just Disappear
We have all failed. Now we have to fix it.
Now is the Time to Stand with Dreamers
Evangelicals want Dreamers to be allowed to stay lawfully in the United States. The President should listen to them.
Florida’s Idiocracy
Come and witness the wisdom of The People.
(One usually has to tune into Last Week Tonight or The Daily Show to find the kind of snarling, sneering condescension and gleeful ridicule for non-elite types in which shamelessly Charles Sykes wallows in that last article.)
What’s most glaringly missing for the site? Any critique whatsoever for the behavior of any Democrat lawmaker. Andrew Cuomo’s killing thousands of people by ordering COVID patients into nursing homes? Not a peep. Gretchen Whitmer’s high-handed assaults on liberty in Michigan? Never heard of it. Anything Nancy Pelosi has done ever? Nancy who?
In short, almost the entire output of TheBulwark.com can be summed up in one line from the 1996 film Waiting for Guffman:
The Dispatch is somewhat better – in the way that being shot in the arm is better than being shot in the face. At least there is an acknowledgement that the real final boss at the end of the game is, in fact, the Democrats and not just more Bad, Nasty Republicans as The Bulwark now crew seems to believe. The problem with The Dispatch mostly seems to lie in the idea that the rules of political discourse have remained roughly the same as they were in 1985, where all politicians understood there was a balance of power and respected the fundamental layout of the system of checks and balances laid out in the Constitution. Anyone paying a lick of attention over the last decade will know that one party long ago abandoned anything like partisan comity when they rammed through ObamaCare with budget reconciliation and abandoned the filibuster in the Senate. And that party was not the Republicans. And yet Conservatives should still play by gentlemanly rules and the most prim and proper of etiquette and morality according to the thinker who most represents The Dispatch’s ethos, David French. French is the sort of man who would insist on fighting a duel with a flintlock pistol according to the rules, even when he clearly sees his opponent is carrying an AK-47. As the Democrats make loud noises about court packing and move to create an unconstitutional fifty-first state simply to consolidate a permanent hold on the Senate, French and The Dispatch gang seem less and less like standard bearers for old guard Conservatism than a gang of fusty old Don Quixotes tilting at windmills.
If TheDispatch.com folks were a Waiting for Guffman line, they would be this:
It’s difficult not to look at these sites – especially The Bulwark – and not think of the old phrase “useful idiots”: As defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, “useful idiot” is “a derogatory term for a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically used by the cause’s leaders.” If there was ever a group of people spouting the propaganda of a group (the Democrats) whose goals they cannot fully comprehend, it must be the Never Trumpers. After all, the best recompense people like George Will and Steve Hayes could hope to get from the Left is (metaphorically) getting shot last.
So what if Trump is disposed of in this election? What do these groups do next? When Trump is gone, what is the purpose of the Never Trump brand? Are they just going to become Never Republican? There’s a name for that: Democrats. And there are plenty of those around: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, PBS, NPR, HBO, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Vox, HuffPo, BuzzFeed, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Deutsche Welle, The Economist, etc. When there’s no longer a need for a supposed “inside” voice to undermine the Right, why would the Left continue to give these Useful Idiots succor? And why would the Right want to have anything to do with speakers who will be seen as having happily played a role in their downfall from power? Pundits like William Kristol, Mona Charen, and Charles Sykes are more likely to be viewed as treasonous Clytemnestras than tragic Cassandras.
So with that said, then, what will the Useful Idiots who have been bolstering the Democrat cause against Trump do if Joe Biden becomes president and the Democrats take control? Who will be their audience? If Trump is gone, can they sustain more than just a small echo chamber of Inside-the-Beltway types congratulating themselves on how smart they were while everything goes to hell?
For the future of their investments and careers, I suspect there are actually quite a few people working at both sites secretly praying Trump pulls out a win this November…
Published in General
Well, good Job G making it look like R is stealing work. You must be so proud
I don’t even understand what she’s whining about.
Um, I never said I “hated” the art, nor did I call it “trash.” This furthers my belief that Bulwarkers are more and more knee-jerk reactivists who simply want to lash out than rational thinkers. I simply stated that I can recognize the highly-stylized design as the sort of stuff that appeals to Coastal Elite types (I live in L.A. and know what such people go for), so as the image that steals the iconic crown motif, as seen below in one of Basquiat’s best-known works.
Whether or not that art style was or was not prevalent in recent editions of The Weekly Standard may be a fair critique as it has been a while since I read a copy, so that might be a fair cop, fine.
Oh, that was clear from the start of the site, and speaks to what Lileks was saying before about “the automatic gainsaying standing in for reasoned thought.”
Ditto ….
Which is probably the most important part of whining
I am sorry for the confusion, I am not questioning anyone’s fidelity to conservatism. I am questioning the notion that there are people who want back in the gang. It is strange to view losing the House, Senate and Presidency in two short years as proof of someone else’s problem. Those wascally nevertrumpers never had that much influence.
I urge my fellow Ricochetti to check both The Bulwark and The Dispatch out. The Bulwark is free, as are their podcasts. Some of the Dispatch is free as are some of its podcasts. It may or may not be your cup of tea. It may be the best thing you’ve ever read. But you won’t know unless you check it out for yourself.
Every day I listen to the Daily Bulwark and the Three Martini Lunch. Every week listen to the Ricochet Flagship Podcast, the Dispatch Weekly Podcast and The Editors Weekly Podcast over at National Review. All of them are based in the conservative universe; some are more Trump Skeptic than others. For example, the Bulwark is more “Trump Skeptic”than the Dispatch which is more Trump Skeptic than Ricochet.
I believe that Trump’s election was a fluke, and that he won’t be re-elected. I also believe that as long as the Republican Party is a Trumpcentric party, the Republican Party will wander in the wilderness. Hence, it would make sense to check out other conservative websites which are Trump Skeptic and are not Trumpcentric.
The election is in 110 days.
She’s not whining; she’s snarking. Snark is the primary tool of the Left – it’s a mixture of condescension and ridicule, and it’s a tradition that comes from the jostling for power amongst the nobility in royal courts (as oppposed to making reason arguments). It’s very Louis XIV-at-Versailles: Just belittle your opponents rather than attempt to best them with logic.
Ah, I got you. My apologies for the misunderstanding. It seems like some NeverTrumpers – perhaps Kristol? – seem to think they will be welcomed back as visionary prophets after The Fall, but I believe their behavior during the Trump years disqualifies them from that. Again, I feel like they have a blind spot regarding what the repercussions of the Democrats’ getting full control of the levers of power will be, which is why their advocacy for things like having Biden win the presidency and/or the Democrats’ taking control of Congress seem bonkers for anyone who considers themselves Conservative.
I agree with you that Conservatives should have a broad base of knowledge, and that means knowing what all sides think. I would never discourage anyone from going to The Bulwark or The Dispatch. The hallmark of the Left is their refusal to read or listen to anything other than sources that validate their preconceived beliefs. As many (the most recent I can recall being John Podhoretz, as well as Rob Long) have said, Conservatives have to speak both languages, Liberal and Conservative.
That said, I would feel like there is more honesty in a straight-out Leftist arguing for Biden and AOC and all the ruinous nonsense the Democrats want to impose on America than in a BulPatch type who basically calls for voting the same way simply because he or she just hates that darn Orange Man so very, very much.
It seemed pretty clear. There’s a line in the OP:
But the artwork in question was done by an artist who worked for the Weekly Standard.
Now, I suppose one could argue that the editorial standards of TWS would have prevented the usage of this particular illustration. Otherwise it’s a fair cop.
I said as much to the The Weekly Standard line; I even used the same “fair cop” phrase in my reply (#63 above).
But again, her inference that I “hated” the art and called it “trash” – that’s total bull… wark. (￢_￢)
[Deleted]
We’re not them, and I hope that your concern is misplaced. Bari Weiss was canceled. She was forced to leave her job because she held dissenting views.
Neither the people at The Bulwark nor those at The Dispatch are in any danger of significant consequences based on their opinions–at least not from this group. They are in danger of having their views discussed and criticized.
In fact, it’s at least arguable that those among us who do not support Joe Biden are more in danger of being cancelled by The Bulwark’s radical thinking than any threat of cancellation directed at them
If they cancel you, do you get a coffee mug? A tee-shirt?
J.K.Simmonds is great. Not sure where the clip came from.
There’s a point where it’s just unwise to accept certain people or factions to your ‘side’. If they are traitorous, if they slander your faction or your causes. If they side with the opposition or the enemy. Or if you diverge significantly on strategy and tactics.
This has been brewing a long time. I’d say since 2006 or earlier. At least for me.
Bush won, and then didn’t advance the ball. Never defended himself or his supporters. Never really acted on illegal immigration. This faction has been allowing and in many cases abetting rampant media calumny against conservatives. They nominated McCain. McCain’s entire political life can be seen as acting as a double-agent within the GOP. If he wasn’t, it sure had that effect. Everything comes out with some rudimentary forensics. Look at Romney, a multi millionaire has-been loser who inexplicably ran for the Senate and then voting for impeachment. The only Republican to to do so. Did he even try to win in 2012?
Then the Bushes, not content to have two of their family members occupying the Oval Office as the last two Republican Presidents, go for the hat-trick with Jeb! who said with a straight face it wasn’t his fault he was burdened with the same last name as his sibling and father, saying also he was his “own man”, when the political reality was such that even Trump was forced to take in Bushies as the only non-Democrat’s in DC with experience after a whopping 12 years of appointments. As though Bush with his 100 million dollar war-chest from the usual suspects would have had any chance versus Hillary, but who cares, Jebby is entitled to give it the old Connecticut heave-ho jolly good try.
Nope. I don’t want these people in the fight with me. I’ll take a smaller group who want to win.
The debate is over. The first problem this faction has is they think they are debating. They lost. And with them in our midst, we will lose, just like before. Good Riddance.
One of the Spider-Man movies. I don’t remember which one.
I have an excellent bridge moving from Manhattan to Brooklyn at a severely discounted price available to those who believe The Bulwark is conservative. Make me an offer. We’ll talk.
Man, forget the OP question. Whither Gary Robbins after the election?
(via customink.com)
Well said Franco. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” – I swear the Left sizes up too many of the GOPe Senate, House and “Conservative Luminaries” and think, no problem – this won’t take much to get through.
This is nuts. You don’t think that McCain wanted to win? Have you ever met McCain? He is very driven. And after the Republicans had held the Presidency for eight years, the American people were ready to give the other side a chance. Since the 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, in seven elections where the party had held the Presidency for two or more years, only once, namely in 1988 did that party win for an extra term.
How about Romney? In eight elections since 1951 where a party had held the presidency for one term, the American people gave that party a second term in all but one election, namely in 1976 when Jimmy Carter was defeated. Usually, a President will win a second term by a greater margin than the first election. It was to Romney’s credit, he lowered Obama’s margin of victory.
Almost any Republican would have been favored to beat any Democrat in 2016. It was amazing that Trump did so poorly.
You are free to hate on the Bushies and non-Populist Conservatives. However, if, in 110 days, Trump is beaten and does not win a second term and loses the Senate in the process, maybe you might want to not be so hasty to condemn Trump Skeptic Republicans. That is if you want to win elections.
Let’s talk after the election. Trump drove away women, the young and the suburbs in 2018. He is now driving away the elderly. Would you like those voters back? I suggest that you not start the road back with being Never-Never-Trump.
60 million + voted for Trump in ’16 despite the identical charges against him that are being levied now. He’s too crude, blah, blah blah . . .
It’s a remarkable sign of the utter cluelessness of the N/T universe that anyone would think that the “road back” involves stomping on those people to vote for a far-left Democrat. It’s actually amazingly stupid, but not if you’re a Democrat at heart.
Just before turning to this post, I saw the following on Drudge:
SHOCK POLL: TRUMP APPROVAL 36%
Let’s talk after the election.
There is a still a Drudge?
VISITS TO DRUDGE 7/16/2020
028,422,001 PAST 24 HOURS
850,277,989 PAST 31 DAYS
11,071,890,691 PAST YEAR
Why? If the Republican Party was so great, and McCain was so awesome, why did the American people choose to elect the socialist Democrat? You seem to envision this sort of automatic hand-off, where first this party gets the White House for a couple terms, then the other party, then it goes back like some kind of aristocratic gentlemen’s agreement.
McCain drove away everyone in 2008. Romney drove away everyone in 2012. Yet these two are your models for the sort of Republican who can get elected. That doesn’t add up.
Because only the most intelligent among us pay attention to this from Drudge
And, needless to say, it has nothing to do with the alienation of 60 million voters, an alienation that you endorse.
We’re good to go.
Let’s talk about winning elections. How about the 2016 election? You are already on record not wanting to win that election. Why should anyone trust your analysis?
Talk about nuts. I understand there are natural cycles in politics but you are way to invested in your petty abstract theories and very obviously cannot understand anomalies and outliers. How we got here. Just like every Never Trumper, of course. This is why Trump won the primary!
And hating Bushes isn’t my preference, but they and their faction are begging me to disown them entirely, along with their very questionable legacy.
As to McCain and his need to win, I disagree entirely, unless it’s a need to win against conservatives and “wackobirds”. There he showed resolve. But no guts. It’s so easy to be a Republican “maverick” and have 90% of the media on your side.
Oh, remember how he sincerely contemplated running with Socialist warmonger Joe Lieberman as his VP?
With friends like these…