Ross Douthat got paid by The New York Times to write that:
Why We Miss the WASPs
Their more meritocratic, diverse and secular successors rule us neither as wisely nor as well.
Maybe a couple months ago I would have liked to join in on dunking on Ross Douthat but now I’m just dead to my core and mad that he gets paid for shitting out monarchist opinions every week while most of us have to scrape together to pay rent
— zooey béchamel (@floozyesq) December 5, 2018
Also fun fact: Mr. Douthat's column is such a near-carbon copy of this David Brooks column from 2010 --
...
Sixty years ago, the upper echelons were dominated by what E. Digby Baltzell called The Protestant Establishment and C. Wright Mills called The Power Elite.
…
Since then, we have opened up opportunities for women, African-Americans, Jews, Italians, Poles, Hispanics and members of many other groups. Moreover, we’ve changed the criteria for success. It is less necessary to be clubbable. It is more important to be smart and hard-working.
Yet here’s the funny thing. As we’ve made our institutions more meritocratic, their public standing has plummeted. We’ve increased the diversity and talent level of people at the top of society, yet trust in elites has never been lower.
-- which I extensively vivisected back in 2010 here --
Monster
"What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds."
-- Eric Hoffer
As the Republic burns and the New Conservative Barbarians caper in the firelight screaming for blood and tax cuts, America’s Greatest Conservative Public Intellectual sits in an empty lot at the edge of the conflagration, desperately sifting the Sands of Derelict Nostalgia, looking for something other than the complete failure of everything he has ever believed in to write about.
Which is a tough beat.
Because no matter where one pokes one’s pen these days, out oozes a radioactive stream of Conservative fraud and failure, and unluckily for him, for all of David Brooks’ stature and influence, in the end he really only knows three or four card tricks. There is the Barely Humorous Anecdote. The 800-word essay on The Last Book I Read. The “Ain’t Modern Life Kooky?” chestnut.
And, most often these days, there is the Ahistorically Nostalgic Melodrama starring nonspecific groups of People...
-- that if I were I still teaching writing, and Mr. Douthat was my student, I'd have a strongly-worded chat with him to make sure he understood that plagiarism has consequences.
Which is why no one should lose any sleep over the apparently imminent demise of The Weekly Standard. Because, kids, there will always be huge piles of stupid money burning holes in the pockets of rich idiots who are ready and eager to underwrite the True Conservative fan fiction that flatters the rituals and dogmas of their caste.
And as long as there are fat stacks to be made selling toxic drivel to wealthy cretins, it doesn't matter if one distribution node for their narcotic of choice is shut down. Another will rise up to try and meet the market demand. From The Hill:
Michelle Malkin departs CRTV one day after Blaze merger announced
...“I am so proud of the investigative journalism I did for CRTV,” Malkin said to her 2.14 million followers. “So many heroes, so many compelling stories. I will not be continuing with the company, but wish my colleagues all the best.”
Honestly, so far CRTV has been so effective at concealing their existence that I had almost forgotten Michelle Malkin exists at all.
The Hill continues:
The Blaze and CRTV announced on Monday that they were merging to create Blaze Media. Both say the move will allow the new conservative entity to reach 165 million people via television, online and on social media. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Blaze was founded by former Fox News host Glenn Beck in 2011, not long after he parted ways with the network, while CRTV was founded in 2014 by current Fox News host Mark Levin, who also hosts a nationally syndicated radio program.
In addition to Levin, hosts at CRTV include co-founder of Vice Media Gavin McInnes, Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty,” former Fox News host Eric Bolling and Deneen Borelli.
So, this new powerhouse is staffing up with..
Neo-nazi and Proud Goys founder, Gavin McInnes.
The Duck Dynasty goof that Andrew Sullivan used to find so adorably atavistic back when he believed such people weren't really a threat ( from me back in 2013):
...given that Mr. Sullivan spends most of his life firmly cocooned in the Washington D.C./NYC elite media bubble, I tend to believe that his venomous contempt for Alec Baldwin and his detached bemusement with Mr. Robertson --
... I’d much rather have dinner with Phil Robertson than Alec Baldwin. Engaging fundamentalists on this subject is one of my favorite activities. And I’d much sooner engage than condemn.
-- come less from the details and context of either incident, and much more from Mr. Sullivan's hardwired Tory elitism. When he looks at Alec Baldwin, the Conservative Mr. Sullivan sees a successful member of the rival, Liberal upper class who must needs be brought to book in the harshest manner available. When the Conservative Mr. Sullivan looks at Mr. Robertson, Mr. Sullivan does not -- dare not -- see a fellow, card-carrying member of his Conservatism: instead, Tory to the core, Mr. Sullivan merely sees a harmless aboriginal tribesman from the furthest reaches of Darkest Louisiana, brought before him to poop adorably in his teevee cage and say outré things for Mr. Sullivan's amusement.
Eric Bolling: Another right-wing troll who got drummed out of Roger Ailes' Fox News sexual predator petting zoo once the employees started ratting each other out.
And some person named Deneen Borelli who has clearly decided that hitching a ride on the same wingnut welfare train that brought Dinesh D'Souza to national attention is easier than honest work.
And based on arc of True Conservatism over the last half century, I would not be terribly surprised to find that within two or three years, most of the The Weekly Standard's loyal readers crowd happily snorting Gavin McInnes' ass hair off Glenn Beck's dick using rolled up pages from Mein Kampf and calling it True Conservatism.
Because as William Burroughs once noted --
"The junk [heroin] merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client."
-- and right now in American politics there are no more reckless, helpless, desperate junkies than the True Conservative and the Both Siderist, joined at the hip. shaking, down on their knees, both begging for a hit of anything that will let them pretend for just one more day that the Left hasn't been right about the Right all along.
And for the right price -- a terrible price -- eventually the free market will always provide.
Editor's note: Updated!
