Posted on 12/15/2018 9:47:09 AM PST by Kaslin
Going all in on attacking President Trump isn’t proving to be a particularly effective business strategy for media outlets.
The Weekly Standard, a 28-year old neoconservative institution, is reportedly headed towards dissolution after its founder, Bill Kristol, devoted almost three years of work to attacking the President and his supporters.
It’s not just Kristol. The entire world of clickbait Trump-hate seems to be in jeopardy, including sites that cater to the liberal base.
The same week that The Weekly Standard’s troubles broke, Vanity Fair dropped a bombshell report about the struggles faced by those hip, millennial-targeted left-wing rags with the cool names and rabidly anti-Trump headlines strewn across your social media feed. Vice, Vox, Mic, Buzzfeed, Mashable — they’re all either looking for buyers or seriously reevaluating their strategies in hopes of becoming profitable. Mic laid off most of its workers. Vice and Vox are firing staff left and right.
On cable TV, one network in particular has abandoned decades of journalistic tradition and ethics, devoting its resources to a relentless, nakedly partisan crusade to savage President Trump: CNN. Its ratings, predictably, are in the tank — in October, CNN fell behind both the Hallmark Channel and Home and Garden Television.
The “resistance” media strategy is not only corrosive to the country; it seems to be a loser business model. Kristol’s descent into fringe irrelevance and the possible end of his once-illustrious magazine is a perfect illustration.
Kristol was a neocon hero, especially during the George W. Bush administration, when The Weekly Standard was one of the most important conservative outlets, read by serious people making serious policy decisions. Then the 2016 campaign happened, and Kristol seemed determined to make “Never Trump” his — and his magazine’s — raison d’etre.
While most of the Republican Party, no matter which candidate they backed in the primary, came together to get Donald Trump elected, Kristol just couldn’t seem to let it go. After promising a major, serious third-party candidate to defeat both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, he put forward a politically obscure friend — embarrassing them both.
As President Trump delivered victory after victory on issues Kristol long claimed to care about, Kristol and The Weekly Standard’s desperate anti-Trump crusade, looked increasingly like ego, then obsession, and then farce.
Kristol tried to primary pro-Trump Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz with a Never Trump challenger. It ended in another embarrassingly lopsided defeat, but that didn’t stop Kristol from continuing to lead a campaign to unseat President Trump in 2020. He even published a campaign announcement speech for a fantasy Never Trump savior, but as usual, no one cared apart from the Trump-hating left.
Unmoored to reality, Kristol continues to threaten Trump, prophesying that “the Trump presidency crumbles” in the face of his 2020 primary challenge.
What’s actually crumbling are Kristol’s reputation and legacy. Happily, it appears that the bulk of the late Standard’s funding will be reassigned to its thus far fair-to-Trump sister publication, The Washington Examiner.
It turns out that trying to build resistance credentials by demonizing President Trump isn’t just lousy for journalism, it’s terrible for business.
Sniff.
who owns CNN and how much longer will they stay the course? Their ratings tanked a few years ago.
Time Warner. It, incredibly, gave Jeff Zucker a contract extension in June.
That ain't swamp water
suicidal
Neoconservatism used to be taken seriously as an intellectual movement on the Right.
Today its plumbed down to complete irrelevance. All because it couldn’t get behind our President.
Hating Trump doesn’t win over people and the American people are sick
and tired of it.
Hate and rage isn’t good for business.
Sweet. Who would have guessed there is a limited audience for endless hate-filled diatribe.
For a year or two, I subscribed to it. Maybe thirty percent of the articles were worth reading. Every since the spring of 2016...primary season...they ‘tanked’ and went south. They just couldn’t accept Trump and were all fired up to get some insider. I bet they lost one-third of their subscribers in the six months after the election.
Conservatives didn’t want to hear it. You could already get it every day on CNN and MSNBC. Having the same current of opinion on the Right seemed redundant.
The WS ceased to talk about things of interest to conservatives. Its demise showed how not to appeal to them.
Kristy is one of those “pie-in-the-face” types you’d just love to unload on
Wipe that condescending smirk off pronto
I grew up on neo conservatism and I largely found myself in agreement with its basic world view.
Its intellectual street cred made conservatism hip, cool and approachable.
All that’s been decimated because Bill Kristol couldn’t stand Trump and decided resisting him was more important than influencing him to achieve conservative goals.
It lost its way and died. And the funny thing is I don’t really feel sad about the WS being gone.
Michelle Malkin quit CRTV soon after these plants invited the Beck disaster. Townhall is not far behind.
the tense is wrong
not is crumbling but has crumbled
“Sweet. Who would have guessed there is a limited audience for endless hate-filled diatribe.”
Somebody needs to point that out to Stephen Colbert. He literally looks possessed when he is ranting about Trump. Just a few seconds of that before I can get the channel changed is quite disturbing.
I don’t think there is a significant Never Trump constituency on the Right. It was always a fringe movement.
Trump enjoys 90-95% approval among Republicans. That’s why his ratings have remained rock solid.
And his achievements in the face of adverse mid term winds speak for themselves.
Do I like everything about Trump? Most people don’t.
When all said and done, I prefer him to Milhous Felonious Pantsuit.
She would have been a disaster for America.
AT&T. But CNN makes half their money from carriage fees paid by every cable and satellite provider, which aren’t dependent on ratings. Money for just being there.
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