Patriots Leave Fox After Patriot Purge

Two NeverTrump Republicans have had enough.

Dispatch co-founders Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg explain “Why We Are Leaving Fox News.”

We joined Fox News as contributors in early 2009. Combined, that’s more than 20 years of experience, relationships, and friendships. For most of that time, we were proud to be associated with the network, if not necessarily with every program, opinion, or scandal that aroused controversy. We believed, sincerely, that the country needed Fox News. Whether you call it liberal media bias or simply a form of groupthink around certain narratives, having a news network that brought different assumptions and asked different questions—while still providing real reporting and insightful conservative analysis and opinion—was good for the country and journalism. 

Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis. But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible. 

A case in point: Patriot Purge, a three-part series hosted by Tucker Carlson. 

The special—which ran on Fox’s subscription streaming service earlier this month and was promoted on Fox News—is presented in the style of an exposé, a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. In reality, it is a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery, and damning omissions. And its message is clear: The U.S. government is targeting patriotic Americans in the same manner —and with the same tools—that it used to target al Qaeda. 

There’s more but that’s the gist. NYT media reporter Ben Smith expounds:

In some ways, their departures should not be surprising: It’s simply part of the new right’s mopping up operation in the corners of conservative institutions that still house pockets of resistance to Donald J. Trump’s control of the Republican Party. Mr. Goldberg, a former National Review writer, and Mr. Hayes, a former Weekly Standard writer, were stars of the pre-Trump conservative movement. They clearly staked out their positions in 2019 when they founded The Dispatch, an online publication that they described as “a place that thoughtful readers can come for conservative, fact-based news and commentary.” It now has nearly 30,000 paying subscribers.

Their departures also mark the end of a lingering hope among some at Fox News — strange as this is for outsiders to understand — that the channel would at some point return to a pre-Trump reality that was also often hyperpartisan, but that kept some distance from Republican officials. Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, recently deplored Trumpism while acting as though — as Bloomberg’s Tim O’Brien noted — he didn’t run the company.

The reality of Fox and similar institutions is that many of their leaders feel that the tight bond between Mr. Trump and their audiences or constituents leaves them little choice but to go along, whatever they believe. Fox employees often speak of this in terms of “respecting the audience.” And in a polarized age, the greatest opportunities for ratings, money and attention, as politicians and media outlets left and right have demonstrated, are on the extreme edges of American politics.

Mr. Carlson became the network’s most-watched prime-time host by playing explicitly to that fringe, and “Patriot Purge” — through insinuations and imagery — explored an alternate history of Jan. 6 in which the violence was a “false flag” and the consequence has been the persecution of conservatives.

Mr. Goldberg said that he and Mr. Hayes stayed on at Fox News as long they did because of a sense from conversations at Fox that, after Mr. Trump’s defeat, the network would try to recover some of its independence and, as he put it, “right the ship.”

“Patriot Purge” was “a sign that people have made peace with this direction of things, and there is no plan, at least, that anyone made me aware of for a course correction,” Mr. Goldberg said.

[…]

They now find themselves in a group of Americans who think the threat that Mr. Trump poses to America’s democratic system outweighs many other political differences. Mr. Hayes said that he was particularly concerned about Fox lending support to the idea “that there’s a domestic war on terror and it’s coming for half of the country,” he said. “That’s not true. Particularly disturbing in “Patriot Purge,” he added, ”was the imagery of waterboarding and suggestions that half the country is going to be subject to this kind of treatment, that’s the same kind of treatment that the federal government used when it went after Al Qaeda.”

Mr. Carlson “pumped that stuff out into society, and all you need is one person out of every 50,000 people who watch it to believe it’s literally the story about what happened, that it’s true in all of its particulars and all of its insinuations. And that’s truly dangerous in a way that the usual hyperbole that you get on a lot of cable news isn’t.”

Mr. Hayes said he’d been particularly disturbed recently when a man at a conference of the pro-Trump group Turning Point USA asked its leader, “When do we get to use the guns?”

“That’s a scary moment,” Mr. Hayes said. “And I think we’d do well to have people who, at the very least, are not putting stuff out that would encourage that kind of thing.”

So, first off, good on Hayes and Goldberg for giving up a lucrative platform on principle. They’ve clashed with Carlson and other Fox prime-time hosts for years, while clinging to the hope that the network would somehow steer toward sanity. While its direction has been clear from the outside for quite some time, it’s harder to see when you have friends there, many of whom are decent folks dismayed at what’s going on around them. As Upton Sinclair famously observed, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

I would note, however, the irony especially of Goldberg, who first came to national prominence with the January 2008 publication of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Change, finally coming around to the perils of incendiary language and demonization of one’s political opponents. Indeed, it was in the immediate aftermath of that book that he got hired on at Fox. Goldberg was never a bomb-thrower in the Ann Coulter-Rush Limbaugh vein but he made a good living telling Republicans what they wanted to hear.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. MarkedMan says:

    To me, “Patriot Purge” gives away the Fox News game perfectly. It appears to be complete nonsense, appealing only to the most gullible or paranoid, i.e. angry foolish people without much intellectual firepower. And, being released only on the streaming service, they know every household that watches it. The pure and distilled Fox Viewer, an anxious idiot with a credit card. What is that mailing list worth? Or the one with people who watched it multiple times?

    The cynic in me wants to say that given Goldberg’s past work, he would be there still if only he had been cut into the looting of his audience. It doesn’t make sense though, given that he more or less cut himself out of it, so I’ll give him credit.

    8
  2. Sleeping Dog says:

    …an anxious idiot with a credit cardgun.

    Fixed that for you, that’s the danger.

    Do we dare say that Goldberg has matured?

    1
  3. gVOR08 says:

    I’ve never heard of the other guy, but it’s really galling to have to give a grifting idiot like Goldberg any credit. But that’s the world we find ourselves in.

    6
  4. CSK says:

    It’s amusing reading the comments about this over at Lucianne.com. They’ve despised Jonah Goldberg for years, ever since he expressed doubts about Sarah Palin. The funny thing is, he’s Lucianne Goldberg’s son.

    9
  5. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    I would note, however, the irony especially of Goldberg, who first came to national prominence with the January 2008 publication of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Change, finally coming around to the perils of incendiary language and demonization of one’s political opponents. Indeed, it was in the immediate aftermath of that book that he got hired on at Fox. Goldberg was never a bomb-thrower in the Ann Coulter-Rush Limbaugh vein but he made a good living telling Republicans what they wanted to hear.

    But it’s only since FG that it’s become a problem. Good to know.

  6. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    …having a news network that brought different assumptions and asked different questions—while still providing real reporting and insightful conservative analysis and opinion—was good for the country and journalism.

    In what parallel universe is this?

    5
  7. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    So, first off, good on Hayes and Goldberg for giving up a lucrative platform on principle.

    I’m sorry…but if they had principles, they would have quit long ago. It’s not like Fox News has suddenly taken a turn towards extremism. You yourself note this. Far more likely is that they see some way to profit from leaving the mother ship.

    3
  8. Scott F. says:

    They were fine with Fox News being hyperpartisan for Republicanism, but not for Trumpism. Their exit is premised on Trumpism being too much, but Republicanism and Trumpism are inseparable now. Goldberg and Hayes are still trying to have it both ways.

    Far too little; Far too late.

    13
  9. Kathy says:

    Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, recently deplored Trumpism while acting as though — as Bloomberg’s Tim O’Brien noted — he didn’t run the company.

    We should all know by now Republicans have no agency, and it’s up to the Democrats to solve this problem.

    13
  10. Jim Brown 32 says:

    Im not being hyperbolic when I say Fox New is RTLM-lite (The radio station in Rwanda that stired up genocide)

    Literally every commons TV in my neck of DeSantistan is turned to it. Every. Single. One.

    Hotels. Airports, Restaurants, Businesses. Ive never seen one tuned to so much as the weather channel. Drip….drip….drip…drip. All day every day–Dems suck, Biden Sucks, Pelosi, Sucks, Liberals hate America.

    I find myself looking at headlines (forgetting Im watching Fox) and thinking: Liberals are effin crazy! There is no way for it to not effect you..and Im resistant to Propaganda techniques.

    There is no counter-voice in this area…indeed almost every deep red area. Fox is the only bullhorn–and they arent going to stop.

    Every culture has a weakness….America’s is proactivity. We never change until a crisis forces us. It would be less of a threat if this were about ideas. Its not, and hasn’t been, its personal to Democrats and Liberals. Do you know why Gosar had no qualms about his video and only 2 GOPers agreed he was wrong? Because these people actually and deeply believe that AOC, Pelosi, Democrats, Liberals, and Rinos are existential threats to the America they know. And that its being taken from them. To hear them describe it…they ALWAYS lose to the Liberals.

    As Ive said before, Democrats are fighting the wrong war. This is not about policy ideas. On their side, its frankly about You. They’ve thoroughly impeached your humanity…no one cares about Dem ideas because of–Dems. Everything is a plot to destroy them and the America they know. If BBB were passed in 2017 by Trump and the R Congress…he’d be their Eisenhower.

    It YOU.

    There is still time to counter message in these areas….but it probably won’t happen (at least not before the boldest nutcases blowup or shoot something) because of profit incentives. Theres no funds to be raised in Deep red areas (or frankly Deep Blue areas) by the opposition party so they dont do it. They keep rallying the base. And after people get hurt, theyll say no one could have predicted this would happen.

    22
  11. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Scott F.:

    but Republicanism and Trumpism are inseparable now.

    Republicanism and Trumpism were inseparable THEN, too.

    3
  12. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jim Brown 32: On the other hand, if “the problem is YOU,” there’s probably no counter message. “YOU” should still look for one, but I’m not optimistic.

    3
  13. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Meh. “IT’S NOT MY FAULT!” is not a statement that makes one sympathetic towards exoneration of these two.

    2
  14. CSK says:

    Does Carlson really believe this stuff, or is he just an extremely malevolent prankster?

  15. Mister Bluster says:

    @CSK:..Does Carlson really believe this stuff, or is he just an extremely malevolent prankster?

    It doesn’t matter if Liar Tuck believes it. As long as his disciples do that’s all that matters.
    I suspect that you know this.

    2
  16. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @CSK: Does Carlson really believe this stuff,

    Is he a rational person?

  17. CSK says:

    @Mister Bluster:
    Oh, I do. I was curious as to whether he himself does, or if he’s just found a great way to feed the beast.

    Carlson was sued for slander last year. A federal judge dismissed the suit on the grounds that one couldn’t take seriously (or literally) anything Carlson said.

  18. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    If he coolly calculates the effect what he says is going to have on his audience, then yes, he’s rational. Evil, but rational.

  19. EddieInCA says:

    I think Goldberg and Hayes deserve some credit. Like Dr. Joyner, and Dr. Taylor, they have. reached their breaking point. It’s different for everyone. Yes, they stuck around too long for my tastes, but if they want to join my side in the fight against disinformation and bullsh1t, I’ll take their help. They could have quietly just gone way, but by making their resignation so public, they’re trying to bring some people with them, and shining more light on it. Additionally, by making it so public, they know MAGAworld is going to come after them – hard. I’d be worried about my physical safety if I were either of them.

    The only thing that would create any real change at Fox is if Baier or Wallace were to leave. I’ve read a few reports that they are pissed about Carlson’s “documentary”, and complained to Sr. Management. But they’re still there, so…. In other words, they did the equivalent of “writing a strongly worded letter.” Cowards. Cowards all.

    18
  20. gVOR08 says:

    @EddieInCA:

    but if they want to join my side in the fight against disinformation and bullsh1t, I’ll take their help.

    I’ll wait and see if they do that. I don’t recall ever being aware of the other guy, but Goldberg’s spent his whole career dispensing “disinformation and bullsh1t”. The problem with GOPs was never just Trump, and the problem with FOX isn’t just Hann1ty* and Carls0n*. Let’s see if these two actually abandon the dark side.

    * Adopting your convention for not typing out obscenities.

    2
  21. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: I really think what I outlined in the first post in this comment thread is correct: Carlson and the other Fox News Mafioso are preying upon their viewers. I would be absolutely astounded if they didn’t have their fingers in the many of the ripoff schemes geared towards their audience, ala Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck.

    I once heard an interview with an FBI agent about the Nigerian scams. The interviewer wondered why, in all the years, the scam letters/emails hadn’t gotten better. They were still full of spelling errors and obviously fake. The agent pointed out that they only wanted stupid people to respond. If they made them more convincing they might initially get smarter marks on the hook, but after investing a lot time those would see through the scam. He actually felt the emails were brilliantly constructed to ensure only the most gullible would respond to them. That’s what Fox News is all about, ensuring a steady supply of the gullible and impulsive.

    11
  22. MarkedMan says:

    @EddieInCA:

    The only thing that would create any real change at Fox is if Baier or Wallace were to leave.

    That may be true, but if they were the type of people to walk away from the fame and fortune available to them at Fox, they would have left long, long ago.

    2
  23. Andy says:

    I read The Dispatch to get a sense of what the anti-Trump right is thinking. I’m surprised it took this long. Goldberg and Hayes, in particular, have long been anti-Trump and against the movement he spawned.

    3
  24. grumpy realist says:

    I sneered at Goldberg for the pseudo-research that went into Liberal Fascism, but I have to give him two thumbs up here for his very public resignation from Fox. I think he realises the dark road that we’re starting to go down.

    3
  25. CSK says:

    @MarkedMan:
    That’s fascinating about the Nigerian scam emails.

    Tucker Carlson sells merchandise on his website: golf balls, t-shirts, drink coolers, etc.

    1
  26. MarkedMan says:

    @MarkedMan: Just remembered another example of the amoral con artists looking for the most gullible. Years ago NPR had a piece on the scam artists that prey on the elderly. There was a recording of a call whose vicious inhumanity left me depressed for days. They were talking to someone who used to be involved in that world and he pointed out that part of the business was the buying and selling of lists of potential victims. The most expensive lists were those of people who had already lost their retirement savings to such scammers. No, they didn’t have ready cash but they usually still had social security or a home. And they could be duped into applying for all sorts of shady loans and credit cards.

    Again, if you look at Fox News that way, their programming makes perfect sense.

    6
  27. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: I suspect he is in way beyond goofy merch. From the little I can gather Fox News advertising is fairly full of scams, and you can bet the most toxic stuff is shilled directly to the viewership, cross referenced with income, savings level, and other signs of gullibility.

    1
  28. Michael Reynolds says:

    “That’s it, I’ve had it! I am no longer able to support the goals of the Nazi Party!”

    “Excellent! When did you figure this out?”

    “In late 1945.”

    I agree with @EddieinCA, all are welcome, but the amount of credit these two deserve can only be measured in Planck lengths.

    10
  29. Scott F. says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    I agree that Trumpism and Republicanism is a distinction without a difference and has been for some time.

    Even as they exit, Goldberg and Hayes are still trying to redeem broader Republicanism. They pretend that Fox wasn’t a propaganda organ for the GOP before Trump. (“Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis.”) That statement is their version of Trump’s “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides” regarding Charlottesville.

    We are past that point now – you’re either for the American experiment in democracy or you are against it. The situation is dire enough right now that there should be no place straddlers.

    Fox explicitly (or tacitly) approving Tucker Carlson indicts them all. GOP party leadership explicitly (or tacitly) approving Reps. Gosar, Taylor Greene, & Gaetz or Senator Hawley indicts all Republican politicians. The Republican Party explicitly (or tacitly) promoting The Big Lie or underplaying January 6th indicts everyone with an R behind their name.

    The country can get back to our very real and reasonable ideological disagreements on foreign policy, fiscal structures, immigration, social safety net, etc. after we resolve the very real disagreement we are now facing on whether authoritarianism is better than democracy. In that unreasonable debate, no quarter can be given to those opposed to democracy.

    4
  30. CSK says:

    I mentioned this in the Open Forum, but sine we’re discussing scams…Donald Trump reports that his self-published picture book has sold a million dollars’ worth of copies in 24 hours.

  31. Joe says:

    @Jim Brown 32:

    Because these people actually and deeply believe that AOC, Pelosi, Democrats, Liberals, and Rinos are existential threats to the America they know.

    While I agree with your post, I can’t get away from the feeling that most of us here believe that Republicans, FG, McConnell, Gosar etc. are “existential threats to the America we know.” I am not trying to pull a bothsiderism here, I am just trying to wrap my head around how our concern about them is different from their concern about us.

    3
  32. wr says:

    @grumpy realist: ” I think he realises the dark road that we’re starting to go down.”

    Since his entire career up until now has been trying to steer us in this direction, it’s nice that he’s decided he’s against it.

    3
  33. Gustopher says:

    I’ll welcome the rats fleeing the sinking ship, but remember that they are rats.

    Mr. Liberal-Fascism has done as much damage as anyone else at Fox, and we will see if he is truly a covert or whether he is just trying to sell his new book Conservative-Socialism: Random Words I Stitched Together To a new audience.

    Mr. Nobody-Ever-Heard-Of-Me will presumably continue to be a nonentity.

    7
  34. MarkedMan says:

    It just occurred to me that we are taking these two at their word. They are claiming to have quit. Perhaps they were pushed and this is just a face saving charade?

    3
  35. Gustopher says:

    @Jim Brown 32:

    There is still time to counter message in these areas….but it probably won’t happen

    What is the appropriate response when someone is actively dehumanizing you? Putting up lawn signs with a declaration of principles — those annoying “In this house we believe… trans rights are human rights / Black Lives Matter / water is life / octopuses have no bones” or whatever?

    The Tutsi would have been better off if they were able to knock RTLM off the air. I don’t see how to do that to Fox without violence at this point, and frankly, I’m lazy.

    3
  36. Gustopher says:

    @MarkedMan: Perhaps they are still employed by Fox, and this is a false flag operation?

    3
  37. Jay L Gischer says:

    @Jim Brown 32: I think your comment is well-observed and spot-on. The counter messaging (and I’ll bet Jim Brown 32 knows this, so it’s for the rest of y’all) would be to have a face show up that is 1) Liberal, 2) shows concern for the concerns of listeners, and 3) does things that benefit the local community. Show, not tell.

    This will be challenging, because the powers in those parts don’t want that message to get out. But we live in the time of the internet. Somebody can figure this out.

    2
  38. Kathy says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    I agree with @EddieinCA, all are welcome, but the amount of credit these two deserve can only be measured in Planck lengths.

    You say that only because there’s no smaller measure of length.

    2
  39. gVOR08 says:

    @Gustopher:

    I don’t see how to do that (knock it off the air) to Fox without violence at this point, and frankly, I’m lazy.

    Somebody years ago had a campaign to ask bars and restaurants and such to take down FOX. Obviously didn’t work and I looked awhile ago and couldn’t find it. But problems don’t get solved until they’re recognized. I don’t know what to do except point out wherever possible their obvious biases and hostility toward much of the country.

  40. just nutha says:

    @wr: I’m not sure they’re as much against the dark path we’re going down as they’ve decided that they can’t benefit from it. There’s no higher in that ecosphere that they can go, so now they want to start capitalizing on something else.

  41. Mister Bluster says:

    no smaller measure of length.

    trumpenis

    8
  42. just nutha says:

    @Gustopher: You just need the authority to call in a missile strike on 1211 6th Ave, New York, as somebody noted a few days back. It’s not laziness, it’s lack of logistics to accomplish the task.

    1
  43. JohnMcC says:

    The numerous commenters who do not know Steve Hayes are hereby sentenced to reading Paul Krugman’s NYT column. Hayes is a conservative pretend economist who Dr K sets up and smashes from time to time. Something about him not being good at arithmetic.

    1
  44. John430 says:

    So the Trump segment of the GOP is ascendant. So What? Is that any different than left wing “progressives” ( a misnomer if there ever was one) being embraced by CNN and MSNBC? Or in the embrace of “Outside the Beltway”, for that matter?

  45. Stormy Dragon says:

    @CSK:

    Does Carlson really believe this stuff, or is he just an extremely malevolent prankster?

    “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

    1
  46. Kathy says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    Do imaginary units count as real units, as imaginary numbers count as real numbers?

  47. Gustopher says:

    @Stormy Dragon: That’s clearly happening to my brothers.

    Trolling with right wing memes leads to believing the right wing memes… sometimes literally. I do not come from smart stock.

    2
  48. Gustopher says:

    @John430: Do the progressives want to end democracy if they don’t get their way?

    If anything, they want to increase small-d democracy to get their way (Senor Trump did lose the popular vote, after all…)

    1
  49. Mister Bluster says:

    @Gustopher:..(Senor Trump did lose the popular vote, after all…)

    Twice

    4
  50. Unsympathetic says:

    Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is pseudo-intellectual drivel. He should be shunned from every self-respecting profession.

    2
  51. mattbernius says:

    @John430:

    So the Trump segment of the GOP is ascendant. So What? Is that any different than left wing “progressives” ( a misnomer if there ever was one) being embraced by CNN and MSNBC?

    Considering that the Trump segment of the GOP rioted and stormed the capital building when their candidate lost a free and fair election (and also attempted to legislatively overturn the results of said election), yes, yes there are definitely key differences.

    (Of course, you might have missed all that because you never seem to comment on it or any of the posts here dedicated to the topic.)

    But other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln.

    8
  52. a country lawyer says:

    @Kathy: Well, there’s the distance between Cruz’ nose and Trumps rear.

    2
  53. Kathy says:

    @mattbernius:

    Don’t sell the Cheeto segment short. They also put children in cages after tearing them from their parents, strained relations with allies, conferred legitimacy to the Kim dynasty, regressed diplomacy, hardly even tried to handle the worst pandemic in a century, sowed more partisan division.

    And those are just the highlights.

    There was so much malice, it’s hard to even remember it all.

    3
  54. Kathy says:

    @a country lawyer:

    That’s definitely not imaginary.

  55. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: Not so fast Cracka…. (God I’d love to say that in a team meeting but the MIB neutralizer isn’t available to the public yet 😉

    You are correct, there’s no direct counter available from Dems because they have no credibility and uber negative sentiment. However,
    if I were getting paid to offer advice, the play here is a 3rd party attack on R motives from the Right. You have to increase negative sentiment against the Republicans so that their voters are apathetic and not likely to turn out and vote.

    This is actually what Trump overtly did in Georgia–as a show of Force against the GOP. Q is a alt-right attack platform–on Republicans.
    There’s no waythey’d cross Trump after he got 2 Democrat senators elected in GA.

    Remember, these people are highly susceptible to Propaganda and suggestion. They can be influenced…but it must come from the right mouthpiece, and from the right direction. THEN would be the time for a rural Democrat branding to be rolled out. Not going whole hog mind you. But the R+40 victories in Cleetus-stan needs to be shaved to R+20.

    2
  56. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Joe: They are not different perceptually. Look, both Parties are essentially giant fundraising media marketing schemes…they are using the same techniques and branding concepts. They appear different because they are tailored for different audiences. The same ad firm would use the same formulas to sell F-150s as they would Teslas.

    HOWEVER, there is a marginal cutoff for the Democrats where the game takes a back seat to our country’s governance. Sure, they’re only going to barely fix something so they dont lose a turnout or wedge issue. But if you’re in a boat, would you rather a crew that would patch a hole and run the bilge? Or the crew that would let the boat sink so to drown certain passengers they dont like?

    5
  57. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Gustopher: There is a counter for everything. The difference is Republicans are a highly motivated, mostly monolithic group, with a pretty simple objective: Defeat the Democratic Party.

    Democrats are… well, Democrats. They have many (policy) objectives and cant even agree on those.

    Frankly, when we did some analysis on why ISIS was able to beat the shit out of superior forces supported by the US, the decisive factor was the attributes I gave about the GOP. The forces they beat? Organized and behaved a lot like Democrats. The only exception was when ISIS encountered Kurdish forces…who had attributes similar to the GOP. They kicked the shit out of ISIS consistently. The Kurds didn’t have extraneous goals. They viewed ISIS as an existential threat and were motivated to destroy them. Period.

    2
  58. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Jay L Gischer: Agreed, but that, IMO would be after running an unattributal campaign against the credibility of the right as guardians of capitalism and freedom. And this is key: It has to come from the right

    You have to convince a girl her Pimp is no good for her before she’s receptive to joining your team.

    (Yes that was inappropriate imagery but the supply chain is causing delays of my healthy masculinity pills)

    2
  59. john430 says:

    @mattbernius: @mattbernius: But other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln.

    Dunno. Ask yo mama!

  60. Matt Bernius says:

    @john430:
    Oh man. What a sick burn!

    Well now that’s it of the way, how about responding to the other part of my argument… Perhaps you missed it:

    Considering that the Trump segment of the GOP rioted and stormed the capital building when their candidate lost a free and fair election (and also attempted to legislatively overturn the results of said election), yes, yes there are definitely key differences [between them and the progressive wing of the Democratic party].

    2
  61. Dude Kembro says:

    @Matt Bernius: Trump-Carlson-Bannonism is an existential threat because it embraces violent overthrow of the people’s goverment to establish authoritatian, white nationalist minority rule.

    AOC and Cori Bush are existential threats…because…because, um…

    …because they’re often annoying and exasperating in their pursuit of getting poor people healthcare, fixing climate change, and stopping biased policing? Or something?

    I don’t get the comparison either, but I cheer all Republicans who now recognize that having water thrown in your face is probably less bad than being drowned. What difference, at this point, does their belatedness or lack of self-awareness make? It reminds me of Judge Danforth in The Crucible: “No court can wait for saints to provide evidence.”

    Anti-Putinism can’t wait for saints to join the cause, when there’s barbarians at the gate right now. We can point fingers and find fault after the radical right thugs and terrorists are defeated.

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  62. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jim Brown 32: Okay, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for THAT to happen. But hypothetically it would work. Probably pretty well.

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  63. DrDaveT says:

    Mr. Carlson “pumped that stuff out into society, and all you need is one person out of every 50,000 people who watch it to believe it’s literally the story about what happened, that it’s true in all of its particulars and all of its insinuations. And that’s truly dangerous in a way that the usual hyperbole that you get on a lot of cable news isn’t.”

    Wait, so conservatives now believe in stochastic terrorism? When did that happen, and isn’t that much cognitive dissonance fatal?

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  64. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Dude Kembro:

    AOC and Cori Bush are existential threats…because…because, um…

    THEY’RE SOCIALISTS WHO WANT TO DESTROY MURKA!!!! (Try to stay focused for Pete’s sake.) Additionally, they’re part of the tin-eared Progressive bloc who are alienating all of the moderates with their SJW-ing and alienating all of the liberals with their posturing ego trips about things that don’t matter.

  65. Corlyss says:

    I won’t miss Goldberg a bit. His hostility to Trump was visceral and comprehensive, regardless of how good Trump’s ideas about running America for the benefit of Americans were. Steve Hayes I will miss. He was measured and patient. Both of them will probably be spared being fatally ambushed like Ashli Babbitt and Aaron “Jay” Danielson were simply for protesting, something we were told all summer and fall was an unalloyed good. Scott Adams, no flaming conservative, predicted that conservatives would be hunted and killed if the BLM/Antifa madness continued. Criminal conspiracies took to the streets from Floyd’s ambiguous death until Biden was elected. It’s hard not to draw inferences from what happened last year.

  66. Dude Kembro says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: Yeah, I just think the “tin-earned progressive bloc” is just a convenient scapegoat for people who don’t want to admit many Americans either have no principles or have bad/indefensible principles they need an excuse to publicly embrace.

    Like, how can other people “alienate” you from your own beliefs? I don’t get it. I think the rich should pay more taxes like they used to, that women should not be enslaved by forced birth, that climate disaster should be mitigated, and that America must invest in healthcare, education, and infrastructure to grow and compete.

    There’s literally nothing AOC and her ilk could say or do to make me not vote to make those things happen, and I simply don’t believe people who try to claim random tweets and sloganeering from congresspersons who don’t represent them decide their vote. Because that doesn’t make sense. Principles just don’t budge that easily (if you have them). Maybe Americans are just unprincipled and chaotic.

    Scratch that, Americans are unprincipled and chaotic.

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  67. John430 says:

    @Matt Bernius: Yes, there certainly are differences between the Trump Republicans and the totalitarian progressives of the Democrat Party. Republicans didn’t destroy downtown Portland, didn’t control Seattle in its ruination, ditto San Francisco and Chicago, which incidentally hasn’t been governed by Republicans since the 1930s. Not to be mentioned are most other blue-governed cities, and, oh yes, let’s not forget uber-idiot-progressive Ocasio-Cortez, who single-handedly stopped Amazon’s few thousand jobs from coming to her district. I could list the stupid moves by Leftists Democrats, ad nauseum but you get the point.

  68. mattbernius says:

    @John430:
    Can you point to one national Democrat of note who participated in or specifically endorsed the riots? Or endorsed, let alone voted for, overturning a presidential election? Because I can name a whole bunch of Republican Legislators and other sitting politicians who did exactly that.

    let’s not forget uber-idiot-progressive Ocasio-Cortez, who single-handedly stopped Amazon’s few thousand jobs from coming to her district. I could list the stupid moves by Leftists Democrats, ad nauseum but you get the point.

    Got it, so that’s the same as trying to steal a national election and encouraging a riot at the Capital? Glad to see your morality sensors are so finely tuned.

    Bothsiderism much?! Because all I’m seeing from you is tactic support for storming the capital and attempting to move the country in a fundamentally undemocratic direction by stealing an election (without ever admitting to either thing). But hey, keep supporting those behaviors and convincing yourself your the real patriot here. It’s not unlike your constant work to convince yourself that the democrats are the real racists.

    Fox News and all those conservative outlets love making bank fleecing free thinkers like you. Dinesh D’souza has another movie to sell you that tells you how right you always are. And Tucker’s going to be on a bit to give you sweet comfort that you’re the real victim as an older white dude.

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  69. Unsympathetic says:

    Ocasio-Cortez, who single-handedly stopped Amazon’s few thousand jobs from coming to her district

    Yes, because the company wanted more in tax breaks than those jobs would generate in tax revenues. AOC… was 100% correct.

    And.. note, of course, that Amazon is today in her district… except that now their deal is nowhere near as “sweet” as the one that AOC stopped.

    To repeat: Unlike the Fox propaganda, AOC’s district DOES have those jobs.. and the deal is MUCH better for her constituents than before AOC intervened.

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  70. Matt Bernius says:

    @Unsympathetic:

    And.. note, of course, that Amazon is today in her district… except that now their deal is nowhere near as “sweet” as the one that AOC stopped.

    @John430 is not known for sweating the details. Not do I expect that finding his opinion isn’t backed up by facts will change his perspective. For example, as far as we can tell he still supports former President Trump and his, and the Trumpist side of theRepublican party’s attempts attempts to undo the 2020 election. Of course, he is also apparently too embarrassed about that position to actually affirmatively take that position. Hence the whataboutism.

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