This week, I was amusingly reminded that The Bulwark is an ongoing concern. The use of "ongoing" should not be read as "vital," or "influential," or even simply "interesting." It is still delivering its brand of corrupted condescension, but as a political outlet, it is not something that is being regarded in the broader national discourse. This is a reality affecting the entirety of its class of former Republicans.
To get a sense of how far these cranks have fallen, consider all the outrage generated in the press regarding the president over just the past few weeks. President Trump has been in the crosshairs over the government shutdown, "invading" cities, the ongoing deportation melodramas, an impotent "No Kings" protest, and now the current mewling over his "destruction" of the White House. Now note, with all of that hectoring taking place, these once self-sainted True Conservatives have not been noteworthy or roundly referenced.
The Bulwark pinged on my media radar for a feature it offered, where a supposedly brave Republican was now defecting from the party. You can sense the excited frisson felt by the staff of the Bad Ship Bulwark when another turncoat would be joining its ranks! If you missed this breaking news, you can be calmed; you missed nothing.
The column was written by a low-level GOP fundraising operative (what may have been described as a "wonk" in a past generation), who was primarily upset that Roe v. Wade was overturned. Yes, seriously. This supposed entrenched conservative was upset that abortion law was sent to the states, all while repeating the lie that Trump called white supremacists "wonderful people."
The Dobbs decision was handed down in the Biden era, and Trump was misquoted in Charlottesville eight years ago, but these only now affect this stalwart conservative?! He sounds as conservative as a trans-vegan, goat milk farmer volunteering for Gavin Newsom's Prop 50 effort. In other words, he will fit in perfectly with the dyspeptic crew at The Bulwark.
It is a sign of the inconsequential waters where they have drifted, along with the other members of the Trump-hating cadre of Never Trumpers. Their obsolescence has arrived. The list of the once proud warriors of the Right looks neutered today. The primary reason behind their fading into the background is not a mystery. Their grift was long apparent, and their announced goals have led to abject failure. For a group intent on ending Trump's career, the very fact that he resides in the White House is a rebuke of everything they stood for.
But their demise quickened in 2020. While the January 6 riot seemed to be their high-water mark, it was a short-lived time. Joe Biden was the start of their downfall. Having to defend/deflect from his Afghanistan fiasco was the cracks emerging in their foundations. His economy was abysmal, his spending profligate, and his diminishing faculties were something in need of being denied. After last year's presidential debate sank Biden's fortunes, he took the defensive press down with him. Those affected the worst? The Never Trump gang.
These allegedly politically superior minds foisted Biden on the country. They backed him enthusiastically, all to bring down their target, but it meant they were then yoked to the mentally bereft man for four years. As Biden got worse, it became far worse for his once-right-of-center backers. These were the people who cloaked themselves as the elevated moralists and high-minded conservatives, and they were complicit in the morass the country endured.
After ten years of passionate opposition, these are names adrift and cast out on the political reefs. The Lincoln Project persists, but only for the die-hard purists for whom denial is a comfort food. Bill Kristol has completely abandoned his past and is now an avowed Democrat. He attempts to start viable projects, and recently was pathetically attempting to ride the coattails of the "No Kings" protest.
Writers like Jen Rubin or Max Boot of the Washington Post have outlived their usefulness. The paper used their "conservative" label to appear balanced, while their leftist dogma was happily published. Rubin devolved into a harpy who today delivers bromides opposing all views she previously held, oblivious to her own history. Jen now plies her trade at the overlooked The Contrarian. Boot has paused his practice of reprinting the same "I hate Trump" columns after he was caught playing foreign actor games on behalf of his wife's Korean interests.
Charlie Sykes fled The Bulwark, falling under the weight of his own obsessive coverage of his avowed target. His flight timed with Pierre Omidyar no longer backing the site financially, and it has to subsist on its own. Former head of the RNC, Michael Steele, is now indistinguishable from any other hyper-leftist on MSNBC. He is on a panel show that now has lower ratings than the insufferable hostess they replaced, Joy Reid. Onetime Tea Party fixture Joe Walsh continues to bleat and moan about anything and anyone on the Right, all while managing to impress nobody on the Left.
There is one primary reason all of these "True Con" figures are uniformly failing: they are collapsing under their own fraud. When they initially emerged around 2015, railing and raising their fists in noble opposition to the interloper Donald Trump, these voices shared the chorus of being true to their conservative roots. They have yet to actually deliver on that empty promise.
Consider this harsh fact: In the ten years since they rose up, show one example of when these brave warriors ever supported conservative candidates for office. Not in the content at the sinking Bulwark, not seen in the advertising from The Lincoln Project grifters, and not read in a single column from Rubin, Boot, or others. They have only backed Democrats, Biden, and left-wing names, all to oppose Trump.
Bill Kristol was monetarily supporting Virginia's late-term abortion-loving governor, Ralph Northam. David French wrote a full column on how he was voting for Kamala Harris – in order to save conservatism. Kristl, Rubin, Walsh, and more are either avowed Democrats or de facto. All pretense of conservative concern has not vanished – it has never been entertained.
They are reading from the same script, but people have stopped buying tickets to the show. Actual conservatives have long tired of their rote attacks. Leftists and liberals have no interest in their carpet-bagging "we hate him too!" routine. They are self-extracted political pariahs. All they have left is their simmering resentment over the president.
As Charlie Sykes told a Milwaukee reporter, "I'm looking forward to assessing that part of my brain that is not Trump-Trump-Trump." It is high time that the rest of the Never Trump cabal takes on that same mindset.