According to reports, the fate of the Weekly Standard is "uncertain". How sad. What America needs at the moment is a conservative Republican magazine that is stridently anti-Trump and also mostly anti-Republican. Of course, I'm joking.
The Weekly Standard used to be owned by News Corp. in the days before that company split into News Corp and Fox. It was a reliable and sane voice for conservative ideas. It's editors used their positions to garner places on many news shows on TV. Then things changed. The magazine was sold by News Corp. It was ultimately purchased by the company that publishes the Washington Examiner. The editors (who by now considered themselves very important and influential people) decided that Donald Trump was a bad leader for conservatism. They became never-Trumpers.
During the 2016 primary season, it was one thing to be against Trump, but after he was nominated by the party, the editors of the Weekly Standard continued in that position. After Trump won, he turned out to be the most conservative president in his policies since Ronald Reagan. That didn't seem to matter to the Weekly Standard. Trump got rid of huge numbers of job-killing regulations foisted on the American people under the Obama administration. That's very conservative, but it didn't matter to the Weekly Standard because it was Trump. Trump and the GOP Congress managed to pass a tax cut legislation that let people keep more of their own money, again a very conservative triumph. It didn't matter to the editors of the Weekly Standard because it was Trump. The President unleashed the American energy industry and he let the market control oil and gas production rather than the bureaucrats in DC. It was conservative, but for the Weekly Standard, it was no good because it was Trump. We got two extraordinary new conservative Justices of the Supreme Court. The Weekly Standard liked the Justices but they still hated Trump who picked them. I could go on, but the point is clear. America finally has a president who is following conservative policies of the sort that the Weekly Standard has always said it supported, but the editors of that magazine have fought the President non-stop because, well because, hey, I'm not sure why. They just don't like Donald Trump. Maybe it's because he tweets. Maybe it's because they think he isn't "presidential" (as if they are the arbiters of what is "presidential".) In any event, the editors of the Weekly Standard have made clear that it's much more important to them to have a president whose style they like instead of the substance of his policies that actually affect the American people. In other words, for a long time, these editors have just been mouthing platitudes and not really supporting policies.
Perhaps the best example of all this is Bill Kristol who was the editor in chief of the Weekly Standard for a long time. Kristol has gone from being a voice for conservatism to being stridently anti-Trump no matter what the subject. He criticizes everything that Trump does, and I mean everything. He jumps into each new debate on the side of the anti-Trump forces. That means that frequently when Trump makes a move, Kristol opposes it even if it is something that conservatives have wanted to accomplish for years. Kristol has morphed into a person who is used by the mainstream media as a "conservative Republican". That title is phony, though, these days. The Weekly Standard, like that supposedly conservative blogger at the Washington Post Jennifer Rubin, has only one guiding principle these days. It is anti-Trump and only anti-Trump.
This is a rather long way of saying that I will be glad to see the Weekly Standard closed. My guess is that it won't be long before the editors of that rag find someone to finance a new effort by them, someone like Tom Steyer or George Soros or even Jeff Bezos. These liberal billionaires do not want to lose a group of phony conservative Republicans who can voice criticisms of President Trump. The new magazine won't be able to use the old name though. My suggestion for the new effort: "Pravda West".
The Weekly Standard used to be owned by News Corp. in the days before that company split into News Corp and Fox. It was a reliable and sane voice for conservative ideas. It's editors used their positions to garner places on many news shows on TV. Then things changed. The magazine was sold by News Corp. It was ultimately purchased by the company that publishes the Washington Examiner. The editors (who by now considered themselves very important and influential people) decided that Donald Trump was a bad leader for conservatism. They became never-Trumpers.
During the 2016 primary season, it was one thing to be against Trump, but after he was nominated by the party, the editors of the Weekly Standard continued in that position. After Trump won, he turned out to be the most conservative president in his policies since Ronald Reagan. That didn't seem to matter to the Weekly Standard. Trump got rid of huge numbers of job-killing regulations foisted on the American people under the Obama administration. That's very conservative, but it didn't matter to the Weekly Standard because it was Trump. Trump and the GOP Congress managed to pass a tax cut legislation that let people keep more of their own money, again a very conservative triumph. It didn't matter to the editors of the Weekly Standard because it was Trump. The President unleashed the American energy industry and he let the market control oil and gas production rather than the bureaucrats in DC. It was conservative, but for the Weekly Standard, it was no good because it was Trump. We got two extraordinary new conservative Justices of the Supreme Court. The Weekly Standard liked the Justices but they still hated Trump who picked them. I could go on, but the point is clear. America finally has a president who is following conservative policies of the sort that the Weekly Standard has always said it supported, but the editors of that magazine have fought the President non-stop because, well because, hey, I'm not sure why. They just don't like Donald Trump. Maybe it's because he tweets. Maybe it's because they think he isn't "presidential" (as if they are the arbiters of what is "presidential".) In any event, the editors of the Weekly Standard have made clear that it's much more important to them to have a president whose style they like instead of the substance of his policies that actually affect the American people. In other words, for a long time, these editors have just been mouthing platitudes and not really supporting policies.
Perhaps the best example of all this is Bill Kristol who was the editor in chief of the Weekly Standard for a long time. Kristol has gone from being a voice for conservatism to being stridently anti-Trump no matter what the subject. He criticizes everything that Trump does, and I mean everything. He jumps into each new debate on the side of the anti-Trump forces. That means that frequently when Trump makes a move, Kristol opposes it even if it is something that conservatives have wanted to accomplish for years. Kristol has morphed into a person who is used by the mainstream media as a "conservative Republican". That title is phony, though, these days. The Weekly Standard, like that supposedly conservative blogger at the Washington Post Jennifer Rubin, has only one guiding principle these days. It is anti-Trump and only anti-Trump.
This is a rather long way of saying that I will be glad to see the Weekly Standard closed. My guess is that it won't be long before the editors of that rag find someone to finance a new effort by them, someone like Tom Steyer or George Soros or even Jeff Bezos. These liberal billionaires do not want to lose a group of phony conservative Republicans who can voice criticisms of President Trump. The new magazine won't be able to use the old name though. My suggestion for the new effort: "Pravda West".
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