Fundraiser Day Two: They Made a Desert and Called It Journalism*

In the grand tradition of Mr. David Brooks. ace professional journalist person, Ron Fournier, is busy, busy, busy rewriting history (again) to comport with how he wishes things to have been.  Sure he has blocked me on Twitter, but I'm clever that way:

you've spent years saying issue after issue had two perfectly equal sides. you helped build this. https://t.co/e2SVhp8fuN

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) October 15, 2016

Nothing equal about the incompetence, arrogance and corruption of both parties. https://t.co/5m6edN0pRv

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) October 15, 2016

and yet you've written thousands of words based on that flawed premise. https://t.co/t35PbXyLpm

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) October 15, 2016

@ron_fournier @AriCostello ron all you do is name call. you can't ever be honest and take a critical look at your work. be. honest.

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) October 15, 2016

In the grand tradition of Bloody Bill Kristol, noted Conservative Cabbage Patch Idiot, Erick Erickson is -- for no explicable reason -- suddnely respectable enough to be invited to the Serious People's Table.  In this case, we find Ewick Son of Ewick opining piously in the New York Times (about which much more later.)

Erick Erickson: The G.O.P. After Donald Trump

And in the grand tradition of Michael Gerson, Mr. Charlie Sykes of Milwaukee Conservative talk radio is quitting his job to spend more time with with hi family appearing on MSNBC panels saying things with Breathless Five-Alarm Shock which Liberals have been saying for 25 years:

Charlie Sykes on 'darker forces' and his own complicity in the GOP's unraveling

When Charlie Sykes announced that he was stepping down from conservative talk radio after 23 years, he said that his decision wasn’t driven by the bizarre political season that gave rise to Donald Trump.

But in an interview with Sean Illing published on Wednesday on Vox, the 62-year-old talk radio mainstay conceded that the “dark forces” unleashed by Trump’s candidacy had a lot to do with his departure.

“Well, it made it a lot easier,” Sykes said. “You basically feel the world kind of shifting under your feet and you look around and say, OK, I’m a conservative talk radio host in a world in which the conservative media is basically setting itself on fire. Do I really want to still be part of this?”

The mid-day host on WTMJ radio in Milwaukee, Sykes was a leading voice in the #NeverTrump movement, which culminated in Ted Cruz’ victory over Trump in the Wisconsin primary. But now Sykes is questioning the support his more traditional brand of conservatism has from listeners.

...

In the Vox interview, Sykes admitted being surprised by Trump’s rise, something he thought unthinkable a year ago, even though conservative talk radio for years has been voicing many of the same views that have mobilized Trump’s base.

Illing noted, “Conservative media has been flirting with these darker forces for decades. Trump is the culmination of something, not the beginning.”

...

Sykes’ response: “If you and I had this conversation a year ago, I would’ve disagreed with you vigorously. I would’ve said, ‘There you go again with the darker forces garbage.’ Conservatives have been accused of this for years. But obviously there’s some truth to what you’ve just said.”

And he conceded his complicity in the conservative movement’s embrace of those darker forces.

“I’m different than Rush Limbaugh, but there’s no question that we got caught up in certain word salad, certain narratives that perhaps we did not fully understand how they were playing among our base"...

When you have been so flagrantly and toxically wrong for so long -- when your professional accomplishments amount to either setting the fire or shredding the fire-hoses and kneecapping people who have been trying to sound the alarm -- the only honorable thing for you to do now that the blaze has consumed everything you once claimed to care about is to go away.

Put down the microphone, back away from the keyboard, delete your Twitter account and go away,

But people like this are not going to go away are they?

In fact, after Trump, people like this -- the "Wrong All Along" caucus -- will be the future of political journalism.

Just you wait and see,

* (h/t Publius Tacitus, "To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.")