I haven’t published many newsletters in recent weeks because I’ve been putting a lot of time into a new rush project, which I will tell you about in the next edition.
In the meantime, I have a new and final article in Discourse magazine—which as of today is no more.
I mentioned at the beginning of this year that one of the publications I write for was probably going under, and that’s the one. Its fate was uncertain for a while as they looked for a new backer to replace the Mercatus Center, but it didn’t pan out.
It is normal in the media business for old outlets to go under and new ones to pop up, but this particular case is directly related to America’s swerve into authoritarianism. Discourse did not respond terribly well to Donald Trump’s return to office and tried hard to straddle the fence, posting my stuff alongside a lot of earnest advice to an administration that is never going to use it, as well as some pieces by conservatives who have really drunk the Trump Kool-Aid.
This reflects a dilemma faced by Mercatus more broadly. In recent years, they have put a lot of effort (from which I benefitted) into a “pluralism” agenda, which was supposed to encourage people to find common ground and have productive conversations across the usual partisan divides. It’s not a bad idea, but at a Mercatus pluralism event about this time last year, the looming unreality of it began to sink in. Much of the discussion seemed useful and appropriate—in a world where Donald Trump had no chance of being elected again. And if Kamala Harris were president right now, it would still seem that way. But in a world where the political divide is between democracy and authoritarianism, between freedom and dictatorship, finding “common ground” with authoritarians just becomes a form of surrender.
So it’s no surprise that Mercatus has now dropped its “pluralism” programs. But I don’t really have a lot of insider information there, and I’m not sure what they will be doing that will address our current political crisis.
They are facing the dilemma of all intellectual organizations who used to think of themselves as being on “the right,” which is something I describe in my last Discourse article.
The strange thing I noticed about Trump, by contrast, is that he was bad for conservative magazines. Why? Because he didn’t read them, he didn’t care about them, he didn’t need them, and he viewed them as a threat. After all, National Review had attempted to circle the wagons against him in the 2016 primaries. Magazines are full of people who care about facts and ideas and logic and consistency, and that makes them dangerous for someone as mercurial as Trump, who can declare a policy one day and reverse it the next. Ideas don’t follow his whims.
Donald Trump doesn’t need intellectuals with ideas. He needs sycophants. He needs people willing to spin a rationalization for whatever he did this morning, then spin a totally contradictory rationalization for whatever he decides to do in the evening.
The rest of my article addresses the state of the ideas business and particularly the magazine, “a format that allowed for timely commentary on the news of the day, but also for some degree of intellectual depth.”
Partly, we’re still dealing with the shattering impact of the internet.
My career as a writer, spanning from the mid-1990s to today, coincides neatly with the impact of the internet on the ideas business. I’ve found that it had two positive impacts and two negative ones.
On the positive side, the internet knocked flat the barriers to entry. The old world of newspapers and magazines contained many strong institutions—but to get a foot in the door, you had to get past a lot of gatekeepers, and if you were like me and a little bit outside the mainstream or the usual political categories, that could be difficult. Now anyone with a cheap laptop can go online and publish. And if you have any talent, there’s a good chance you will get noticed.
The internet also made the ideas business more open to those who live outside the big media centers….
These advantages are counteracted by two big costs. The first is that everyone got used to getting all their information for free—and they lost the habit of paying for the words they read….
But perhaps the worst impact is that people became used to hearing only what they want to hear. The audience became slaves of the algorithm, which would make sure to feed back to them a steady stream of affirmation of whatever they already believed. Many writers became the algorithm’s slaves, too, chasing after whatever seemed like it would give them greater reach in Google searches or on social media.
By the way, I saw some pushback on this recently from Daniel Drezner, who argued this can’t be the internet, because then we would have seen it starting in the 1990s. Here is my response:
The internet in the 1990s was still kind of niche. I was a running a small publication then that was starting to move into the online space, but I didn’t dare make the move all the way because the majority of people still didn't get their information online. I didn’t fully make that jump until 2008.
Plus the social media era was different from what came before. Until Twitter came along, politics news online was still largely mediated through the websites of big newspapers and magazines. Blogs were secondary and mostly dependent on those other sources.
Again, professional experience here. At the time, I was occasionally writing for, then directly working for RealClearPolitics, which made its name as a news aggregator, mostly aggregating politics news from the big sites. Then it got wrecked by social media.
Starting in the 1990s, sure, you could see the prospect of a new internet media environment developing, you could get some idea of how it would work. (Remember when a handful of bloggers got Dan Rather fired?) But it wasn’t quite there. It arrived fully in the 2010s. And then we got this.
I piled a bunch of other interesting observations into this piece, including how “Silicon Valley moguls…helped create the internet in the first place—then promptly poisoned their brains on it.” And the story of a man who literally poisoned his brain on the internet.
The launching point for my article, though, was a link to an important article by Zack Beauchamp describing a very serious problem.
Last week, two young liberals asked for help finding a job in the ideas industry. And I didn’t have a great answer.
It made sense that they were asking: We were at a conference for liberals, dedicated to building a version of the doctrine that works in the 21st century. They were interested in studying ideas professionally, and I was there to moderate a panel about political philosophy.
Yet I found myself struggling to give good advice. Sure, they could try for an internship at a liberal publication or think tank, but those are fiercely competitive and don’t pay much. They could apply for a PhD program, but teaching jobs were scarce even before President Donald Trump took a hammer to American academia.
What’s really missing are programs of a specific kind—ones that help college students and recent grads engage with Big Ideas and connect with Important People.
I was at the same conference, and at the beginning of my article, I relate having a similar experience.
This is all more evidence for the case I’ve been making about the need for more liberal institution-building. The old systems have been torn down, and we desperately need new ones in their place.
We built up a marvelous civilization and all the institutions of a free society. We don’t dare let it go.
"Much of the discussion seemed useful and appropriate—in a world where Donald Trump had no chance of being elected again. And if Kamala Harris were president right now, it would still seem that way. But in a world where the political divide is between democracy and authoritarianism, between freedom and dictatorship, finding “common ground” with authoritarians just becomes a form of surrender."
I don't have any particular problem with you bashing Trump - even if I do think you do seem to skirt around / ignore the real problems that are out there that the administration are trying to address. Absolutely, many of the actions being taken are worthy of great criticism and likely illegal, but they are being taken to address problems that have been festering and getting worse for quite some time - and accelerated during the clown show that was the "Biden" administration. There are certainly parallels between Trump and how both Jackson and FDR behaved during their presidencies so Trump is nowhere near as "unprecedented" as you and many others claim him to be.
I do, however, have a problem with your repeated claims that if Harris had been elected that everything would be OK ("And if Kamala Harris were president right now, it would still seem that way." Really? Based on what evidence given her policy records and history?). And, it is worth asking how whatever "Biden" was doing and what Harris would have done could possibly be described as "democracy" given the underhanded nature of the suppression of Free Speech, the embracing of cancel culture and "mostly peaceful" riots, the subjugation of women to some biological men who claim to be women and the utter charade of a POTUS who was a puppet (who was actually in control or does that not matter to you - especially as Harris must have known of Biden's incapacity?).
I have read and known you long enough to say that you are not necessarily suffering from TDS. But I continue to shake my head at your lack of critical review of Biden / Harris both during Biden's (or whoever was in charge) time or what Harris might have done had she been elected (especially as the Ds implode, are utterly incapable of introspection and continue to fight battles like men in women's sports that are simply wrong). That is mind boggling.
Dear Bob: FYI - I kid, I KID, with all do disrespect to one of your paying subscribers, your critics Trump sicko fancy does make me laugh, not think a second time…which, whether you laugh out loud, or not, is what I always endeavor to do when I leave a comment, I mean run on sentences, I mean sentiments.
I won’t let go my polite and repeated request that could you please stop referring to anyone base enough to be a part of Trumps base “conservative”. They are “Trumpers”, or “Rightists” as I prefer to black label MAGA hat true believers. Leave aside there is nothing in Trumps “authoritarianism” that seeks to preserve anything in the Republican platform that you and I grew up with being at the top of The Trump crime family agenda…Just as when I heard Jon Gabriel was at Discourse, with all respect and praise for you, I would not just liken him to a Jim Jones fanatic, but, because, first and foremost, my Roman, Catholic and military honor code upbringing informs me to have zero tolerance for professing Christians, let alone ex military officers condoning, placating, or defending the monstrosity in the Bada Bing, I mean Oval Office. If I had Gabriel as a colleague, what I would not say to Jon on the same stage would be the question…but first and foremost, like the Trump Bible Publisher himself, I would swear to him, and I do mean, mean swear “Jon, you are not ‘Christian’…and when you Jon can publicly admit that…then we can have a discourse about ideas”. Oh, and the magazine business is as dead as the printing press, but that most certainly does not mean we are living in a world lacking in ideas. If only the loyal opposition party had run the best man…or woman for President of the United States and not a candidate based purely on race, gender and upper class luxury beliefs…Discourse probably would have still gone down under, but our Democracy would still be hanging by a thread, because I am sorry to have to remind you, but the side that is oddly referred to the color blue on the political world map is as red on the inside as it is green on the outside…in other words, authoritarian by other means, not Orangeman Cult of personality, but the Democratic Party just as bad news for our Republic. Anyway, did not you used to be anti statist. I get being anti Trump means you have to defend his viable opponents, but in no way would a Harris/Waltz administration be good for America….less bad, okay, just say it then.
And I cry for what has happened to my formerly beloved magazine National Review, and if W.F.B. could rise from the grave there is no doubt in my mind he would make like Bobby Knight and grab that autographed copy Preppy Handbook carrying Rich white trash Lowry by his throat and tell him just how much he would like to ring his neck. Of all the moral compasses Heat Miser has broke…speaking of magazines…love me some The Dispatch, where all my favorite Republican cowboys have gone. If only Jon Gabriel had an ounce still left for integrity…When is someone in Washington going to finally confront this prep schoolyard bully for a Presidential and make the Orangeman’s conscience turn him death white…without fear of God, anything’s possible…Thanks Trumpers, thanks Democrats…God help U.S.
Not that my observations on your column interest you at all, but when it comes to the Silcon billionaire bros club going all in and out of their collective minds for The Don, I have two theories you have never seemed to entertain. Number One is A.I. is big business now, and and the other Number One reason is The Don endorses their crypto habits…”habits” being a deliberate word choice. I still cannot fing be lie ve it, for I have been mocking true believers in Bitcon since it was worth less than a Benjy (in my youth, when I liked to play cards, that was code for a lot of money). Not only does Satoshi Nakamoto make Bernie Madoff look like a petty white collar criminal, the history of the world’s most successful Ponzi scheme inventor now has the “freaking President” (O.M.G. South Park “Sermon on the Mount” was wet your shirt collar and your pants funny) endorsement, taking my correct assertion all along that Bitcoin is literally making it so the cyber criminals currency is now literally backed up by the Almighty Dollar, I mean The Man in Washington (not even Jesus could have predicted that fifteen years ago)…and like Social Security, dollars that come into the system, after you bought into it…
And last lament, about your calling it an “important article” (what was the funny line Jonah Goldberg always had about Vox…I thought that liberal porn mag had long ago suffered the fate of Discourse). If two kids, with, or without MAGA hats could ask Zach about how to find “jobs” [?] in the “idea” [!?] “industry” [!?]….to Witt, I did not know there was such a thing, just as Beauchamp could have been a real man of industry and advices the kids to think about getting real jobs and opining about anything and everything you want online after doing an honest days real work. Just as, speaking of liberals and institution building it is safe to say that the reason why 90 % of liberal arts and so called scientist professors across the nation voted for Harris is because…don’t call it a pushback, but there are plenty of no good reasons Trump got elected and We the Living in Idiocracy. God HELP U.S. Gotta run on. Thanks for taking my rant R.T. Peace through superior mental firepower