As a site, we’re in an unusual place heading into an election season. Always before, since the site’s inception, we’ve had a definite rooting interest in the Presidential election, and that rooting interest has always been Republican. This year, all that has changed.
We have about 15 active front page contributors on the site. I imagine one or two will either vote for Trump or at least are open to voting for Trump. We have one or two who will either vote for Hillary or are at least considering it. By far the largest majority of us cannot conceive of pulling the lever for either, and thus will either not vote or will vote for some third party option.
It’s actually a somewhat liberating place to be. Often during the last few weeks I’ve thought of listening to Rush Limbaugh the day after the 2006 Congressional elections – elections in which Congressional Republicans were routed out of their majorities in both the House and Senate. Although the defeats were crushing in a partisan sense, Rush spoke for a lot of people that day when he spoke of a feeling of relief – relief that he no longer felt an obligation to defend people who were not worth defending.
That’s exactly how I feel heading into this Presidential election. For a long time, I’ve either worked directly in communications for campaigns (or officeholders) or felt an indirect obligation to run communications interference for some pretty crappy Republicans. People who did stuff that was embarrassing and difficult to spin on a regular basis. Now, I have no obligation to do any such thing for anyone and I have to tell you, it’s not the worst feeling in the world.
So no, to answer a question I get asked by a few illiterate emailers a day,we are not going to spend the next six months 24/7 bashing Trump. In fact, we haven’t been doing it for some time. If you look at the front page over the last few days, about half of the coverage is dedicated to Trump (most of which is negative, but some of which is positive), and about half to Democrats of various kinds (all of which is negative).
People notice the anti-Trump stuff more because the anti-Trump stuff gets FAR more traffic than anti-Hillary stuff or even pro-Trump stuff. We are, in fact, giving our readers less anti-Trump material than the marketplace would suggest is optimal, but we do that for an important reason: and that reason is because Hillary is a crappy candidate who would not be good for America, either.
I would expect that we are going to continue to do much of the same over the next six months. When Trump does something that’s good, we will point it out. When Trump screws up – which will be often – we will point that out, too, and we’ll do so without trying to put any of the BS positive spin on it that we might do for anyone who was even marginally conservative or fit from the office. And when Hillary, Bernie and the rest of the Democrats say and do stupid things, we’ll be there to point that out, too. And if a third party candidate makes news, well, we’ll be here to point that out, too.
In the meantime, we’ll also focus on the issues and news conservatives care about, and on Congressional races that matter to conservatives. On the whole, we’ll have a lot to talk about that’s not associated with Trump, although ignoring Trump is simply not a feasible option, as everyone in this business has already learned. Neither, for that matter, is treating him like something he’s not, which is a person who is either qualified or fit to hold the office of President.
That’s where we’ll be, and we hope you’ll come along for the ride.
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