Who will Rod Dreher's Benedict Option corrupt next?

It has already corrupted his employer, The American Conservative. Who or what will it corrupt next?

Just so you know, like Spain's Francisco Franco TAC blogger Noah Millman's "Three More Benedict Option Questions", thoughtfully critical of TAC star Rod Dreher's so-called "Benedict Option", is still dead. As I already wrote here, one can still read the Google cached version here, and Pauli has also archived it on EQE here.

What I want to recap for those innocents not fully up on the story, however, is how we got to this point, and what that journey implies for those choosing to involve themselves on anything Rod Dreher might consider the wrong side of his Benedict Option.

On July 7, while Rod Dreher was vacationing in Italy with his male comrades, his TAC colleague Noah Millman wrote and published "Three More Benedict Option Questions", in so doing linking several times to New York Times Catholic columnist Ross Douthat, a name Rod Dreher drops at every opportunity he gets. One might therefore think Douthat himself would be as interested in the twists and turns of this tale as anyone.

Shortly thereafter, Millman's piece vanished as if it had never been. The next day, July 8, Rod Dreher published in its place "Critics of the Benedict Option", a post in which, by interviewing himself, he and he alone picked the questions, the criticisms, and the answers. As recently as today, Dreher still describes himself as a professional journalist.

So what happened to Millman's piece?

Rod Dreher, professional journalist, first claimed no knowledge of how a post by a colleague critiquing the subject he hopes to write his next book about got spiked between the day it was written and the day Dreher himself wrote a post replacing it, then claimed he never realized that Millman's post had just been written, then pointed his readers to the same dead link.

As Pauli first posted here, commenter Virgil T. Morant alerted us to this statement from TAC implicitly referring to the missing Millman piece critical of Dreher's Benedict Option:

United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Wall Street Journal aren’t the only organizations that have encountered technical turbulence lately: on Tuesday an item was incorrectly published on Noah Millman’s blog due to an error in our system. The problem has now been fixed, and we apologize to Noah and to our readers for the mix-up

You can find Noah’s latest posts here at: The Necessity of Greece’s Separation and Obergefell and the Pursuit of Happiness.

In the process of explaining why the Millman piece disappeared forever, TAC also deleted it from its own explanation. The Millman piece critical of Dreher's Benedict Option - did I mention you can read it here and here? - had officially been scrubbed from ever officially having existed at TAC at all.

Why?

TAC is run by long time publisher Wick Allison, someone who knows quite well what draws in readers' interest. A discussion of his star blogger Rod Dreher's current signature theme, the Benedict Option, between that star and another masthead blogger within the same organization would deliver all of the readers possibly interested in either person's opinions and arguments directly to the TAC bottom line.

There was no rational publishing reason, therefore, to spike the Millman piece in the first place and, even if the Millman piece had mysteriously become unpublished because of "technical turbulence", not to republish it as soon as possible, preferably with a response from Rod Dreher.

This is what The American Conservative does with the money it solicits on a tax-deductible basis from its contributors: it publishes interactive thought pieces between its masthead bloggers that engage thought.

Until now. Now it serves as Rod Dreher's personal publicist.

Why?

From the time Ron Unz was driven out of TAC, it has been common knowledge that Rod Dreher has been TAC's only real lifeline to the daily online views necessary to sustain it as a going concern. Now the power Dreher apparently wields at TAC has become great enough to get the views of anyone who disagrees with him peremptorily deleted.

This is neither American, nor Conservative. This is Hollywood-diva-throwing-a-fit journalism, Hillary Clinton journalism. True Politburo journalism or Mafia journalism would of course require a subject of more weight and substance than Rod Dreher's Benedict Option, but the thuggish reflex is identical to all, including Dreher himself.

Nevertheless, like a baker finding out the consequences of not baking a gay marriage cake, if you are a small enough religious blogger or outfit and you do not sufficiently suck up to Rod Dreher in your discussion of his Benedict Option, you have every right to be apprehensive that he or those he is able to influence, like TAC, will attempt to roll over you the way they rolled over Noah Millman in order to unilaterally control the Benedict Option narrative, the way Dreher himself just tightened the allowable narrative within his own blog at the end here.

If you are truly having trouble with our contemporary culture and the modern age and for some unfathomable reason cannot already find all the resources you need within your own faith and church, why would you ever think of yoking your trust and faith to the Christian blogosphere's version of Hillary Clinton?

Why?

Je suis

For those times you want to be sure your moral courage covers every clickable possibility.

How the faux-conservative marketplace works

 At the risk of inducing Dreher Fatigue™, my little mini-series on TAC's year-end fundraising would be incomplete without this little gem courtesy of one of the rubes herself. A commenter calling herself grumpy realist tells us:

Rod, even though I’m totally on the other side from you I just donated as well. If I had more available would donate more. Mainly because I’m a cranky old bitch that appreciates great writing and thinks that we need to have good thinkers on all sides.

 I’m skeptical about conservatism because I see it used far too often as justification used by privileged people to keep themselves on top and not share the goodies. But if I argue with conservatives, I’d rather argue with conservatives who use reason and logic, rather than some screaming talk-show host who flails around and calls me a “feminazi”.

How iconoclastic! A dedicated liberal donates to a "conservative" blog! And what does she get for her donation?

Why, the faux-conservative Dreher immediately sells the watch she has just paid him to take right back to her again:

Best motivation for a TAC donor ever! From a reader of this here blog:

Rod, even though I’m totally on the other side from you I just donated as well. If I had more available would donate more. Mainly because I’m a cranky old bitch that appreciates great writing and thinks that we need to have good thinkers on all sides.

I’m skeptical about conservatism because I see it used far too often as justification used by privileged people to keep themselves on top and not share the goodies. But if I argue with conservatives, I’d rather argue with conservatives who use reason and logic, rather than some screaming talk-show host who flails around and calls me a “feminazi”.

Bless you, COB. You complete me. I know this was Beatrice Arthur from beyond the grave.

Oh - she does get an additional gift: he characterizes her as the dead Bea Arthur.

So let's break down the mechanics of the ideological daisy chain we've just witnessed:

• A liberal - here grumpy realist - wants to feel she is being diverse by engaging with conservatives.

• But the porridge served at true conservative sites is too hot and burns her lips.

• So she searches until she finds a site with the word "conservative" in it that conforms perfectly to her liberal needs and sensibilities - TAC, "The" "American" "Conservative".

• And gives them money, thus validating her perceptions with meaningful action. Certainly grumpy realist wouldn't donate money to a counterfeit conservative site, now would she. Of course not. As a critically discerning liberal she's just too smart for that.

• And as if her own donation were not proof enough for her, her "conservative" host further legitimizes her decision by selling her comment right back to her. Diversity and reason in action, head to tail!

So, here's how to make money online as a faux-conservative:

• Find out what your liberal and fellow faux-conservative marks want to hear - maybe something about "the arrogance of Seth Rogen" in not being sensitive enough to Sony Corp.'s potential bullying by Kim Jong-un. All good liberals and faux-conservatives always appreciate a bullying narrative anyway.

• Give them some resistance to overcome: in addition to making their commenting a hard-won privilege, frequently say stupid things deliberately so they will feel compelled to correct you. Let them comment, but shoot a Jew behind them in the field from your balcony every now and then both to keep them on their toes and to further validate their experience.

• Regularly sell their comments back to them as posts they or someone else has to pay for. As we've already noted, this has the mutually useful effect of making them feel their time has been well spent and validating your faux-conservative credentials as genuine - because you made them feel their time had been well spent, and only a fool would feel that way if the site were not genuinely conservative to begin with.

• Finally, urinate on their heads a little bit when you're finished - compare them to Bea Arthur - to keep them in their place. Because their whole underlying impulse to begin with is actually to serve you, they will never fell properly satisfied if they themselves are the finally or completely victorious parties in the engagement.

That's the way you do it: money for nothing and your clicks for free.

This Way to the Egress! =>

"The" "American" "Conservative": Cultural Hot Mess Drag Revue

What else is one to make of

Run, Elizabeth Warren, Run?

What else is one to make of slobberingly sanctimonious sexually Orthodox Rod Dreher, TAC's premier headliner, cheekily offering the now-uncloseted fellow patrons at Club TAC an image of one woman pertly whipping another woman sexually? Oooh, la-lah!

Clearly, TAC is a place for formerly closeted, self-loathing conservatives to gather with others of their kind and to boldly throw off the religious, political, and other cultural yokes that nature and nurtue have so cruelly bent and broken them under previously. And doesn't the red of Elizabeth's jacket just make a stunning conservative statement to those ends?

At TAC, you, too, can free yourself of the principles and other benchmarks of political, religious, moral and other cultural gender that have kept your Fauxcahontas parts chafing under conventional conservative bindings so cruel, so hateful, so wrong, for far too many years.

Why suffer any longer the slings and arrows a "conservative" conservative must endure at the hands of the mainstream media, not to mention at holiday office parties? Instead, as your eyes meet theirs between sips of your Pink Squirrel across that crowded room, you can sensuously mouthe "The" "American" "Conservative" and from now on their own twinkling eyes will understand everything.

So as the year end fast approaches, won't you consider again a contribution to "The" "American" "Conservative", the one place where you can safely reveal yourself to be the sort of Elizabeth Warren conservative you were born to be, among others just like you?

And, as a bonus, your contributions will go directly to funding one of Rod Dreher's frequent getaways to New Orleans' mysterious, anonymously exotic French Quarter, a realm where anything is possible and where one day, if you're lucky, your eyes could even meet his, twinkling, across a Manhattan and in unison you could both mouthe "The" "American" "Conservative".

UPDATE (as they say): Apparently, in the cold light of later this morning, headliner Dreher regretted the popper-fueled personal enthusiasm yesterday's choice of dancing chaps revealed.

Yesterday: the personally exhortative Run, Elizabeth Warren, Run

Sobered up later this morning: the now-standoffish The Value of an Elizabeth Warren Run

Frankly, this is why I can't believe anything this little coquette says, about his sister Ruthie, about his faith, about his sexuality, about his parents, about his finances, about his political beliefs, anything: everything, everything he says is a malleable deception in progress, constantly being recalculated and revised according to how he believes it can best be sold in the marketplace of the moment.

I just donated $18,000 to The American Conservative

And it was matched by a donor even wealthier than me.

Or maybe I didn't. How would I know? They certainly won't open their books for me. Maybe I intended to, but actually only misplaced that $18,000 instead. And was it really matched? Beats me.

Whatever. Like most of our Working Boy's writing there, the important thing is the narrative of someone like me giving to support what commenter Aaron Gross triumphantly reminds us

“The American Conservative: We Are The Alt-Right Base”

and that narrative of the giving of mine immediately turning into bread cast upon the waters because of the generosity of narratively saying two additional anonymous wealthy donors would match it.

For those like you who may be "skeptical of the market and of Wall Street" as Rod puts it, this sort of narrative matching is the very best thing short of the certainty of government wage and price controls.

Forget nay-sayers like allenkopf, who cavil "The market and Wall Street are two very different things often opposing each other" - that's the whole problem in a nutshell, isn't it? Two nihilistic systems in opposition to each other, both going up and down, driven by nothing but the sheer caprice of the average uninformed American, not systematically supported by the thoughtfully credulous average American with money to spend like you.

Compare that sort of quibbling with my narratives and those I support at The American Conservative with my generous narrative donations, narratives which can always be counted on to faithfully follow the prevailing media wind, as we have just seen there in those addressing the shooting of Michael Brown, the arrest of Eric Garner, the UVA-"Jackie" horror, and now the Democratic Senate torture report.

In fact, if you give now, directly to me, your generous contribution will be multiplied, not two, but three ways: first, I'll receive it; second, I'll donate it to TAC - honest; and then, third, it will be matched in kind by unknown wealthy donors up to a maximum of $20,000.

I don't need to point out to someone with an advanced degree like you that donating the maximum $20,000 to me directly will wring the most result out of this compound triple multiplier effect I just described.

Donate to me now, and generously, and defend the Alt-Right Base from all of her enemies, internal and external, domestic and foreign.

And as a token of my respect for the generous person who donates the most, I'll let you, yes, you, decide what "Alt-Right" and "Alt-Conservatism" is supposed to mean in ordinary everyday English for all of taxable year 2015 to come.

Thank you for your generous support of my support and generosity , and may God bless you.

"Well, we’re still here; where he?"

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.”