8 Thoughts on the New York Times Article about the
Demise of The Weekly Standard.
So Jim Rutenberg wrote this article in the New York Times. In that article you will not find out that:
1. I think most casual readers of The Weekly Standard [TWS] would agree it has been going downhill since, at least, Bush 43’s second term.
2. For a time TWS was a strong voice of neoconservatism–which itself emerged in the 1970s as a theory, but only matured into an applied political praxis during a post-Clinton presidency–and even then–only after September 10, 2001.
3. When Clinton lost to Trump, TWS lost a lot of its original enemies, hence its original purpose.
4. For most non-Jewish observers, Commentary is the nation’s premier conservative, political Jewish magazine–something TWS might’ve been at one point (that’s neither here nor there)–and it appears this country has room for only one commercially viable publication for such a niche market.
5. Sometime during the Obama administration, TWS put up a great paywall to keep out invaders. This was Chinese-esque in its ambitions: TWS’s RSS feed was minimized, while giant pop-ups to “subscribe now” began to bombard any would-be reader on any subject–carnival-barker style. Basically TWS’s online presence became as technically unreader-friendly as a MySpace page.
6. With regard to topics TWS covered and the writers it chose to publish, all of the above adds up to it being an insular institution that seemed less than interested in outsiders’ opinions, submissions (I never did), and subscriptions (ditto).
7. When was the last time TWS had an article at the top of Memeorandum?
8. None of Much to none of the above is mentioned or considered in the New York Times‘ article by Jim Rutenberg.
Conclusion: Even a casual reader of TWS would know it is much more plausible to use the trope that Trump’s election was a “final nail in the coffin” for TWS than to say the Donald is the reason for TWS’s demise, as the NYT’s headline implies.Â
