The Weekly Standard, the neocon conservative periodical that went all kind of anti-Trump crazy, has closed up shop for good.
The rumors has circulated for at least a week, and then Bill Kristol had to drop the news:
All good things come to an end. And so, after 23 years, does The Weekly Standard. I want to express my gratitude to our readers and my admiration for my colleagues. We worked hard to put out a quality magazine, and we had a good time doing so. And we have much more to do. Onward!
There are a few problems, however, with this tweet (although there is plenty to find in Kristol's tweets that should lead us to question his sanity or his hold on reality.
The Weekly Standard used to be good. When they focused on domestic policy, they did a great job. When they focused on Republican wins in blue states, such as Larry Hogan's victory in Maryland, they wrote pretty decent work.
When it came to Trump, however, the derangement was too much to take. One contact told me that he had subscribed to the Standard for decades. But the Anti-Trump rants were too much for him. He ended up cancelling his subscription.
Why would anyone want to pay for a small-time conservative publication when they can get all kinds of anti-Trump animus from just about any other broadcast for free!
Yet one has to ask. What triggered Kristol to relentless attack President Trump, and to do so in the most puerile fashion? Just to show the level of immaturity:
It would be interesting to hear reactions from James Mattis and John Kelly. https://t.co/5NWAWeT4Ed
Kristol is a militant neocon. He has liberal tendencies on other issues, no doubt, but when it comes to military force and exposure, he wants the United States everywhere doing everything they can.
Donald Trump ran on the exact opposite platform. He wanted to pull our troops out of their committments in other countries. He recognized that the United States had been picking up the tab on protecting everyone else. To the best of my knowledge, Trump is the only President who has expresssly questioned why American forces are still stationed in ... Germany! Yes indeed, these more isolationist/realist leanings are a much-needed tonic in Washington DC.
Here's more from Kristol, just today!
By the way, dogs don't get fired. Presidents get fired after one failed and embarrassing term. Unless they're impeached and convicted first. https://t.co/5NWAWeT4Ed
Imagine these tweets broadened into larger published broadsides in a monthly overpriced magazine?
We get the idea--and we get why the Weekly Standard went down the tubes really quickly. Another irony comes to mind: these anti-Trump neocons have marked President Trump for his lack of rhetorical flair. Then there's Kristol's manic tweets ...
So ...
Why did Kristol lose it over Donald Trump?
The political/foreign policy intelligentsia had been running Washington DC for decades, at least since George H.W. Bush came to power in 1988. The Big Government Globalists pretty much maintained their big foreign policy chokehold over Washington DC, and they did so ably no matter which party was in power.
Then came President Trump. A full-on populist outsider, he took over the Republican Party, and then took it back to its pro-American, pro-worker roots. The Neocon Cloud of intellectuals had their foreign policy fantasies put on hold, to say the least.
Now that President Trump has pledged to remove troops from Syria, and now that he has intimated that he is drawing down the United States extended forces in Afghanistan. Trump is moving on that draw-down promise now.
But Kristol has hated Trump for much longer than that. When the President announced his decision to break a pledge and keep troops in Afghanistan, Kristol still hated Trump. So, it's more than the foreign policy disputes.
The fact is that Trump is not "one of them." He is not like the political establishment elite. Trump betrays concern for the common man, especially Americans at home. Trump went to college, but he didn't go to the hoity-toity Ivy League Schools. His manners are boorish to some. He doesn't worry about what people think of him. Unlike much of the political class, he is not interested in what the press thinks of him, but rather he delights in torturing their lack of standards and ethics.
And speaking of standards ...
The Weekly Standard went from advocating a clear set of views to attacking one man. They gave up objectivity and started letting their subjective hatred for Trump peer through the pages and throughout the editorials. There is nothing wrong with reasoned, seasoned disagreement. With Kristol and his editorial coterie, however, they didn't simply disagree with President Trump's differing foreign policy or even domestic policy views. They found the man himself to be disagreeable. They chose to write, condemn, despise the man in such a disagreeable fashion, too.
Anti-Trumpism has become tedious, low-grade, unimportant, and no one wants to pay big money to read it. The Weekly Standard gave up its standards in the hopes that they could hoist President Trump on their own military standard. They ended up shivving themselves on their own pétard!
The Weekly Standard thought that they had published a perfect hit piece going after Marco Rubio for taking on more of President Trump's talking points and policy goals.
On the contrary, Rubio is getting in line with the political and moral proposals that will Make America Great Again and Keep America Great!
In June 2016, Marco Rubio changed his mind and announced that he would
not be retiring from the Senate as he had planned. A major reason he was
seeking a second term, Rubio said, was to help the Senate exercise what “could
end up being its most important [role] in the years to come: the constitutional
power to act as a check and balance on the excesses of a president”—whether
that would be President Clinton or President Trump.
Yes indeed. If Rubio had not run for re-election, a Democrat would have very likely scooped up the US Senate seat, and we would be in an even worse position today than we are now. Can anyone imagine the United States Senate reduced to another 50-50 split just like in 2001?
Let's not forget that there are two waffly RINOs who have derailed crucial nominations and confirmations in the past.
After rattling off his concerns about Hillary Clinton, Rubio said: “The
prospect of a Trump presidency is also worrisome to me. It is no secret that I
have significant disagreements with Donald Trump. His positions on many key
issues are still unknown. And some of his statements, especially about women
and minorities, I find not just offensive but unacceptable. If he is elected,
we will need senators willing to encourage him in the right direction, and if
necessary, stand up to him. I’ve proven a willingness to do both.”
Rubio, like many politicos, needed to distance himself from President Trump for whatever reason. Not sure what to make of that, but at least Rubio won the seat and has voted to confirm President Trump's excellent nominees to the Supreme Court and other agencies.
Rubio then defeated a populist, Trumpian primary challenger that August
by 54 percentage points. He went on to win by 8 points in the general election
that November, while Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Florida by 1
point. Other conservative GOP senators outperformed Trump in the key
battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And Trump’s approval
rating today is mired in the 40s despite a roaring economy. Yet the lesson of
2016 for many Republicans is that they need to be more like Trump.
What's happening much of the time is that legislative candidates, whether state or federal, will do better when they focus on serving, doing the best for their states and their constituents. That's what matters the most.
And yes, Republicans need to be more like Trump, in that they must embrace his pro-American, pro-worker, anti-globalist policies. They need to listen to the voters, not the donors. What is the problem with any of this?
One of those Republicans appears to be Marco Rubio. The Florida senator
fully backs Trump’s trade war with China. “The most catastrophic thing that
could happen is not a trade war, but that we lose one, or that we back down
from one,” Rubio tells me in an interview.
Exactly. The tariff schemes forced on the United States need to go away, or the United States should fight back to protect our industries and workers. These are new concepts to me, in the sense that I had always believed that tariffs are bad, but doing nothing has not worked for us.
Earlier this summer, Rubio delivered a speech in Washington calling for
a “new nationalism” in which he decried an “economic elitism that has replaced
a commitment to the dignity of work with a blind faith in financial markets and
that views America simply as an economy instead of a nation.”
That statement is one of the best I have heard, and coming out of the mouth of a former Presidential competitor, that is even better news. Indeed, a country is more than an economy. This should not be a noteworthy revelation. Even Milton Friedman declared that economic freedom is a necessary but not sufficient condition for freedom.
A free, constitutional republic is more than a corporate interest.
“I saw the devastating impact of this kind of thinking firsthand during
my campaign for president,” Rubio told the Faith and Freedom Conference. “I saw
it in the factory towns hollowed out by the companies who shipped those jobs
overseas to turn a bigger profit—and where the dignity of work has been
replaced by food stamps and disability checks and opioids.” You just might say
that Rubio painted a picture of “American carnage,” to borrow a phrase from the
Trump inaugural address.
Yes, and I am on the Trump train with Marco Rubio. Good for him. Of course, the Weekly Standard will go to every length possible to denounce anyone gets off the Bill Kristol-backed globalist plantation.
Whereas big tech companies were once featured in his speeches as
examples of American innovation, Rubio now warns of a lack of corporate
morality and patriotism: “When right and wrong is based entirely and solely on
profitability, then there is nothing immoral about shipping jobs overseas or
surrendering key American technology and innovation to China.” He singled out
Google for refusing to work with the Department of Defense but contemplating a
return to China.
Rubio had every right to slam Google for blowing off President Trump's request. Shame on them. I can't wait for the future to pass Google by!
Asked how Trump has changed the Republican party, for good or ill,
Rubio has only positive things to say. “One of the things the president was
able to do through his election is reconnect the Republican party to working
Americans. It was probably a needed correction. It was the party that was
heavily focused on the employer’s side, which is still very important, but not
enough on the employee’s side,” Rubio tells me. “The early inklings of that
were the Huckabee campaign and Santorum in 2012. All of them sort of nibbled at
the edges of it. The president was able to truly embrace it, and I think that’s
a very positive thing.”
YES INDEED!
Rubio now speaks with President Trump “I would say twice, three times a
month.” He worked closely with Ivanka Trump on developing a paid-family-leave
bill that would give Americans the option of taking some of their Social
Security for family leave in exchange for delaying retirement by three to six
months. “Ivanka views her role as sort of the host of a competition of ideas,”
Rubio says. “She’s trying to encourage people to come forward, so we’re going
to be the first entrant into this competition on the Republican side.” After
Rubio unveiled his bill, Utah senator Mike Lee announced he intends to
introduce his own paid-family-leave bill soon with Iowa senator Joni Ernst.
Welcome to “Celebrity Apprentice: Paid Family Leave Edition.”
What's not too like? More elected officials in Washington DC want to work with the President and go along with his ideas that put American interests and American citizens first.
While Rubio called for a “new nationalism” in June, the speech focused heavily
on the need to strengthen families and civil society. It was the kind of
nationalism admired more by David Brooks than Steve Bannon. (“This is one of
the best and most unifying Republican speeches in years,” the New York Times
columnist tweeted.) Rubio steeped his new nationalism in the language of the
Declaration of Independence. “Nothing is more American than the belief that all
men are created equal. Nothing is more American than the belief that every
human being is endowed by God with the inalienable right to life and liberty
and to pursue happiness,” Rubio said. “This is the kind of new nationalism we
need. And this is the kind of new nationalism we should insist new immigrants
embrace.” After the speech, Rubio told me he doesn’t see a distinction between
the kind of nationalism he was calling for and patriotism. He acknowledged the
nationalist label is “often used to describe people who believe that they
should only do things that are good for their country and at the expense of
other countries” but said he rejects that view.
I LOVE THIS!
But let's not forget that the Weekly Standard is very, very angry with "Little Marco" going along with Trump.
Let's also not forget that fewer people are reading the Weekly Standard, and more likely than not the editors, including Bill Kristol but also Fred Barnes, are simply not interested in recognizing that their perverse push for their ivory tower conservatism simply isn't a winner with anyone!
It all started with a tweet shared by Dinesh D'Souza.
Bill Kristol, Editor in chief at the Weekly Standard was convinced that tax reform would never happen during the Trump Administration, and especially not this year:
Tax reform won't even get a vote in Congress this year. I'd be surprised if it made it through committee in either house. https://t.co/WMJBpwKrmZ
Kristol sounded off on this unlikelihood in August.
Here were are two days before Christmas, and tax reform has been signed into law. The biggest win is the lowered corporate tax rate, which has alarmed other countries who had induced business investment with their lower tax rates compared to the United States. Until the tax reform bill had been signed into law, the highest corporate tax rate stood at 39%! Ireland's tax rate is 15%, which explains why so many American businesses expatriated to the Celtic Tiger.
Yet Kristol's aminus for Trump goes deep. His flagship publication routinely belittles Trump, attacks his presidency, hounds him as illegitimate. Friends of mine on the East Coast informed me that they canceled their subscription to The Weekly Standard, because of his Trump Derangement Syndrome.
What's going on here?
Dinesh D'Souza offered his take on this deep disdain for the President:
Again Bill proves to be spectacularly wrong, qualifying him for a perch at mainstream media outlets where such ignorance is highly valued https://t.co/JI0tDGuXFL
Spectacular" is the word, since Kristol has displayed his opposition so frequently about the President. He even spoke on a key guest panel at the 2017 Politicon in Pasadena, CA, where I dressed him and his fellow panelists on their anti-Trump bias:
My immediate take on Bill Kristol's dislike for Trump:
@BillKristol is an arrogant snob who can't handle the fact that a non-intellectual (yet very intelligent) real estate broker and reality TV star is now President and his establishing conservative victories like no one else.#SheLost#HeWon Get over it, Billy boy!
President Trump is not polished enough, not "graceful" enough for the country-club conservative set.
Trump talks in near monosyllables, at least in the opinions of his critics. He is boorish, unintellectual, not interested in the finer points of debating policy. But Trump has not only won over voters, but he enacted the very policies which Kristol and company have bandied about for decades. They could only accomplish writing monographs. Kristol comes from a stories literary and political tradition because of his father Irving. Yet Trump just showed up on the scene without a long-standing conservative pedigree.
And yet Trump has been the paragon of conservative virtue and success. Fundamentally, conservative intellectuals and talking heads don't like Trump because he is not "one of them."
Thomas Sowell
Ironically, the one who called the blinding snobbery of the political writing and chatting classes missed out what a success Trump would become.
First, he established her intellectual profile as far exceeding the degradation from conservatives:
The conservative intelligentsia who react against her have
remarkably little to say that will stand up to scrutiny. People who actually
dealt with her, before she became a national figure, have expressed how much
they were impressed by her intelligence.
Sowell outlines in one phrase first why the conservative chatterati did not like Palin:
Perhaps the best way to try to understand these reactions is
to recall what Eleanor Roosevelt said when she first saw Whittaker Chambers,
who had accused Alger Hiss of being a spy for the Soviet Union. Upon seeing the
slouching, overweight and disheveled Chambers, she said, "He's not one of
us."
Not one of us", but not just because he was not as well-dressed, as well-bred as the rest of the political elites in Washington DC at that time. He didn't belong to the Ivy League school pedigree. He wasn't one of the "cool kids" and he didn't get to sit at the "cool kids' table".
That pretty describes President Trump, but ironically enough describes George Washington and even our first stand-out Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. Some reports indicated that Marshall still ate predominantly with his hands, and Washington hated the fawning celebrity which party guests would place on him. The attitude and self-involved bearing of elitism didn't drag down Washington, Marshall, Palin, or Trump.
Sowell's last remark is particularly telling:
Whether Governor Palin runs for national office again is
something that only time will tell. But the Republicans need some candidate who
is neither one of the country club Republicans nor-- worse yet-- the sort of
person who appeals to the intelligentsia.
That candidate ended up being Donald Trump, and yet Sowell savagely rejected the New York City real estate mogul and reality TV star. As far back as 2011. when Trump first appeared on the scene, Sowell worried that such a candidate would have ensured Obama's re-election.
What Trump has that so many other Republicans are so
painfully lacking is the ability and the willingness to articulate his
positions clearly, forcefully and in plain English. Too many Republicans talk
like the actor of whom a critic once said, "he played the king like he was
afraid that someone else was going to play the ace."
In other words, Trump was not an intellectual, but a down-to-earth pragmatist responding to people's individual needs. Sowell even drew a comparison between Trump and Palin, whom he had praised two years prior:
What electrified so many Republicans about Sarah Palin in
the 2008 election campaign was that she was such a contrast to the usual
mealy-mouth talk that was more common among other Republican candidates,
including Senator John McCain. Whether you agreed or disagreed with her
position on the issues, you didn't have to wave your hand in front of her eyes
to see if she was awake.
Trump and Palin were real, visceral, in your face, and spoke to the heart not just the head of voters. And Palin endorsed Trump, but not Sowell.
The African-American conservative intellectual from Stanford University outlined a long series of concerns which weighed on his mind. The chief concern was the Supreme Court, especially following the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia in early February 2016. Foreign policy concerns had long worried Sowell, too, especially a nuclear Iran.
For him, the best choice was an intellectual with some political as well as government experience: Ted Cruz.
Isn't that strange, though, that for all of Sowell's protestations that Republicans needed to avoid another glib intellectual, he settled for one as the best Presidential pick?
Against this background, the frivolous rhetoric and childish
antics in the televised political "debates" are painful to watch. If
ever there was a time to choose a president with depth, rather than glitter or
glibness, this is it.
Sowell basically feared that Trump could not win the general election, and the fact that he was only picking up a plurality of the votes in key primaries confirmed his fears.
But the fact that Trump leads in the polls does not mean
that he is electable in the general election this fall. He is ahead only
because the majority vote among Republicans has been split among so many other
candidates.
How could an intellectual have gotten it so wrong about Trump? Because even conservative intellectuals, and even when they understand the mechanics and metrics for someone to win an election, it does not mean they understand the incredible impact that the candidate has with voters, or that they understand the dire concerns facing Middle America voters.
Palin understood those needs, and so did Trump. What happened over the last 8 years, ultimately, is that the outstanding, outspoken conservatives could not see past their own intellect. I wasn't thrilled with Trump at the outset, either, since he had a long record of liberal statements and positions in the public eye.
But Trump has exceeded expectations. It's astonishing to me how smart Trump really is, that he he not only doubled down against the corrupt media, but that he fooled Thomas Sowell, who for all of his opposition to Trump didn't recognize how well he measured up to the needed skill set to win as a Republican.
What's going on here? Is it that Trump is not "one of us" in Thomas Sowell's club, even though he clearly slammed the corrupt, out-of-touch elitism of the political class which overlooked Whitaker Chambers as an honest man and a true American?
Ben Shapiro
There's another conservative intellectual who actually lauded Trump, but ended up rejecting him when he became the Presidential candidate (then the winner) in 2016: Ben Shapiro.
Shapiros's glowing article of the New York real estate mogul appeared in April 2011, around the same time when Sowell, who praised Trump's ability to articulate major issues into plain English. For Shapiro, the winning PResidential candidate to challenge the abortive and abysmal Barack Obama needed strong name ID and lots of money:
In the last several weeks, that ideal Republican candidate has
materialized.
His name is Donald Trump. His slogan is ready-made: "You're
Fired." He does not give a damn what the media thinks of him -- he
steamrolled Meredith Vieira during his NBC interview with her last week. He can
self-fund to the tune of $1 billion.
Shapiro even predicted how strong his rise in the polls would be once he jumped into the race. The only problem was that Shapiro wrote about this four years earlier:
Pay no attention to the recent polls showing Obama crushing
Trump by 20 points in a head-to-head matchup. That disparity is attributable to
the public perception that Trump is a loudmouth with no true interest in
running. The moment he declares in earnest and gets on the campaign stump, his
numbers will rise dramatically.
Yes indeed. Here are other remarks about Trump's appeal, which are particularly revealing in their accuracy:
Trump has across-the-board appeal.
Check.
His show, "The
Apprentice," routinely draws nearly 9 million viewers per episode.
Check again.
Blue-collar workers identify with Trump's rough-and-tumble attitude.
This factor was absolutely crucial to Trump's victory and Republicans' ongoing chances to retain majorities not just in Washington DC but throughout the country. Working Americans had been ignored, neglected, and decimated. Once a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, they found themselves in a political wilderness, where leaders in both parties had fallen into the clutches of corporate donors begging for easy tax cuts, corporate weflare, and cheap labor.
He even
has union support -- he's made a political mint bashing outsourcing, and he
recently told Human Events that he has made "many billions of dollars
working with the unions," though he does not disagree that public sector
unions bilk taxpayers.
Yes indeed. The union aspect is key not because of organized labor per se, since Trump praised right-to-work policies, but rather Trump's capacity to appeal to working-class, blue collar Americans on their terms and in their time.
He also talked about his contour and character as a candidate:
Obama directly. He's big enough to stand toe-to-toe with
Obama and slug it out.
That's exactly what I liked about Trump before I liked Trump as the general election Presidential candidate. He also slugged it out with the corrupt media, which had created and propped up Barack Obama. Shapiro even called Trump Obama's "worst nightmare", and deemed him as someone who could win.
Because, in Shapiro's estimation, Trump was not conservative, and he would cause the Republican Party to drift further to the Left. Really.
Here are some of his remarks:
I stand with conservatism. Donald Trump stands against it.
I stand with #NeverTrump.
Strangely enough, Shapiro's remarks are not erudite or thorough. He does not provide information or cite reasons for rejecting President Trump. When I slammed Trump as a closet Democrat, I provided statements and records of his actions in the past.
Shapiro just blurts out some talking points and pouts with "Never Trump."
Charles Johnson outlined two articles that Shapiro tumbled into financial conflicts of interest, especially since Shapiro had written glowing statements about Trump even five months before the 2016 primaries.
I find the above information to be particularly credible.
Shapiro stopped liking Trump because his "The Daily Wire" donors didn't like him. UGH!
With Sowell, he was the victim of his intellectual blindness, an honest reason nonetheless.
Peggy Noonan
Then there's Peggy Noon, who urged Republicans to get tough, "It's pirate time" following their unexpected defeat in 2012:
Now is the time to fight and be fearless, to be surprising,
to break out of lockstep, to be the one thing Republicans aren’t supposed to
be, and that is interesting.
Sounds like Donald Trump.
In political terms this means: Reorient yourselves. Declare for Main
Street over Wall Street, stand for the little guy against the big interests.
And move. Don’t wait for the bill, declare the sentiments of your corner..
Really, it’s pirate time.
People think the GOP is for the bankers. The GOP should upend this
assumption. In this case good policy is good politics.
Republicans make too much of order and discipline. Sometimes a little
anarchy is a good thing, a little disorder a sign of creativity and
independence of thought.
Fight back with a renewed, populist conservatism. Show a strong stance with working people and not the rich". Be a little chaotic, a little disheveled and have some fun.
Again, that's Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, Noonan's suggestions in the rest of her article stressed that Republicans needed to the move to the left on key issues, like gun control and amnesty. Not winning issues at all. Once again, the intellectual Peggy Noonan, the former speech writer for Ronald Reagan, didn't get it. She would later confess:
"Republicans can't win with Trump, but they can't win without Trump's voters."
How wrong she was, just like Thomas Sowell. The intellectuals missed the intelligence of Ronald Reagan and his populist outreach. Perhaps like many journalists on the left and the right, they have become convinced that changing demographics made the all-American conservative of Ronald Reagan impractical and unwinnable.
They didn't realize, however, that Reagan is dead, and that the issues affecting this country are widely different from the early 1980s. They were still living in the past, not paying attention to the present, and completely out of touch with the hopes and dreams, the concerns and fears of working Americans.
Noonan expressed shock that Hispanic Americans were voting for Trump!
Final Reflection
Right now, I know that I have written an extensive if obtuse and rambling analysis of conservative intellects and writers who had either praised Trump, or praised his skills, or raised the importance of his kind of skill set--yet ultimately rejected him as a candidate.
I think that their stark inability to see him as a winning candidate and a winner President is pretty stark and profound, considering that they have been the conservative conscience for the reading American public for a number of years.
This kind of intellectual elitism has not only been a Democratic problem, but in other ways a very Republican issue, in that the desiccated governing class and the writing class had become more invested in political and intellectual talking points rather than winning elections, and winning those elections with a blunt conviction and confrontation.
No wonder Breitbart Editor John Nolte's latest article was so direct and refreshing about these Never Trump types:
Bill Kristol has become more irritating by the minute.
He was an outspoken Never-Trumper during Election 2016.
Even now, his flagship magazine "The Weekly Standard" is non-stop in its criticism of the President.
One friend of mine was so disgusted with the magazine's anti-Trump derangement, he canceled his subscription.
Then check out this tweet:
The GOP tax bill's bringing out my inner socialist. The sex scandals are bringing out my inner feminist. Donald Trump and Roy Moore are bringing out my inner liberal.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
The neoconservative intelligentsia have found their worldview checked into marginal status. That's a big problem for them.
So many of these conservative talkers and writers can't deal with the fact that Trump has done more than they could have ever imagined, and has done so quite effectively. They don't like that he tweets, I suppose, and they do not care for some of his uncouth choices.
So what? He is Making America Great Again, and there is nothing wrong with the way he's doing it, as long as he has continued enacting unprecedented reforms and growth in our country.
As for Bill Kristol, I called him out publicly at the 2017 Politicon Convention in Pasadena.
Check out the video below:
To say the least, I was disgusted with Kristol's anti-Trump animus!
