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| A New New Republican |
Like all saprophytes, Rod Dreher once again finds opportunity in the demise of others, in this case in the fall of The New Republic.
Yes, Rod, you're still there, and where he? He still there, too.
The New Republicans were there—in the canal—reflected in the water.... The New Republicans stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water....
UPDATE (as they say): I thought this evaluation by Judith deserved its own update, if only so we could savor it:
Robin Abrahams at 6:45 AM on Dec 5th spoke for me.
Rod Dreher, your blog has gone from being a thoughtful, and well written source of inspiration for me, to being a copied pastiche of other people’s nasty and inferior expressions, (basically their failures), thrown together and titled with deformed and sensationalist headlines, followed by superior and snide commentary (as if that in and of itself constitutes a contribution), while you sit back under a canopy of highbrow religiosity as your readers walk into the traps you have set, laughing gleefully at their exaggerated, angry, and one sided statements. This, alternating with an embarrassingly exhibitionistic over sharing of personal information, shows that underneath the trappings of symbol, there is nothing conservative about your agenda, and your style. Since you appear to be immune to any sense of personal hypocrisy, I can understand that you would criticize Sully and Coates for deteriorating into mass appeal, and would refer to everything you don’t agree with using that trite expression “the mainstream media.” My version of Robin’s second sentence is: “I’m a great follower of tabloid reading, my favorites being Salon, HuffingtonPost, Gawker, and Rod Dreher’s blog.”
This could have been predicted four weeks ago, when Hughes found out he couldn't buy his "husband" a congressional seat from upstate NY by buying a manor house there and the two of them acting like they were the benevolent patroons come to give their beneficence to the benighted locals. His rage must be such that, for him, it's time to burn this b**** down.
ReplyDeleteLiberals used to scoff at people like Buchanan who pointed out that once an institution becomes part of the Lavender Mafia's megaphone, pretty soon that will be all that institution is about. So now TNR will be a clone of Nick Denton's porn site-subsidized clickbait empire. But they'd been flirting with this ever since the Andrew Sullivan days. It's the same old story: they want to invite the Devil up to play with them, then act all surprised when suddenly he doesn't behave?
-The Man From K Street
Keith, I'm slow on the uptake today maybe. Are you suggesting that TAC is the new TNR? That they are now the standard-bearer for thoughtful, traditional, liberal American conservatism in the same way that TNR was thoughtful, traditional, not-so-conservative American liberalism?
ReplyDeleteExactly
DeleteEither that or Wick Allison = Chris Hughes.
DeleteThen this little RIP piece is going in the digital file drawer to be parodied when TAC goes t*ts up.
DeletePik, I would say and, not either.
DeleteNotice in the fundraising pitch they're using the same tactic NPR and probably others use: wealthy donors/the BOD will match contributions (score additional tax deductions for themselves) to prime the pump.
And, face it, Dreher has 100% more openly gay regular commenters than Sullivan does.
Yeah, TAC is the same digital bouillabaisse for progressive hipsters as his Dallas properties, just in a differently named wrapper. I was going to say flavor, but of course the flavor isn't what's different.
And the same tactic of holding themselves hostage, save for your ransom. To wit, this bit from Dreher's piece:
DeleteI’m honestly not sure if the magazine that died today is the same magazine whose demise I mourn, because I haven’t read it other than the occasional web piece for years now. I do wonder, though, what responsibility I and people like me have for the collapse of magazines like TNR. If enough people had subscribed to it, perhaps it wouldn’t have fallen into the hands of the rich young boob who destroyed it. It’s too late now, but there are plenty more of us not-for-profit opinion magazines out there who would very much appreciate your subscription — or your tax-deductible donation. (links to TAC paysite omitted) ....
But supporting little magazines is important for reasons beyond the information you find in their pages or pixels. The world without The New Republic shows why.
Reminds me of this not-politically-correct clip from Blazing Saddles.
LOL! Yes, precisely! That's worth a post in itself.
DeleteAnd there's really only one logical corollary: how much will Wick Allison accept to drop Rod Dreher? Because the history of his properties is littered with the remains of people he had no qualms about replacing the moment he thought he'd found a more efficient angle.
Maybe a Kickstarter campaign...
When Ron Unz was publisher of TAC, he sent a memo to Daniel McCarthy complaining that the magazine's contributors were receiving compensation which bore no relation to their draw. He specifically mentioned Dreher as the most undercompensated. Like it or lump it, the man can provoke a discussion, so it's a reasonable wager he's the last one Wick Allison will chuck overboard.
DeleteYeah.
DeleteWell no one is thinking that they'd dump Dreher, but the whole magazine might go in the dumper or get sold. It really depends whether Allison sees himself as a serial entrepreneur or an empire builder.
You cannot really sell that sort of enterprise. You can sell its assets. The good-will is negative.
DeleteWhatever Pat Buchanan intended, the publication has turned into a strange jumble demarcated more by psychological and biographical factors than social, political, or philosophical ones. Much moreso than Chronicles, the major contributors appear to be people with issues of one sort or another or people who have suffered major career crashes or people who have biographical anomalies (McConnell, McCarthy, Larison, Dreher, Millman, Giraldi, and Bacevich all fit into one of those categories).
Since Rolling Stone has retracted their UVA story; anyone taking odds at Wick making Dreher retract his column about a "Fraternity of Rape" Jonathan Carpenterhttp://www.cnn.com/2014/12/05/us/rolling-stone-uva-apology/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
ReplyDeleteFat chance. Allison himself is notorious for being for things before he is against them, depending on which way the winds blowing in subscriptions and page hits are coming from.
DeleteIf whirling Sufi dervishes were somehow to become the rage in the right demographic, the hookah crowd, maybe, you can be sure he'd see to it that poodle Dreher examined the virtues of twirling for sedentary writers, posed in a fez if possible.
As a rule, Dreher will retract. However, he never reconsiders general critiques until he abandons a perspective and begins attacking its adherents wholesale.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to put this in the sidebar, an UPDATE to savor.
ReplyDeleteThat comment by Judith was masterful.
ReplyDelete