The Consolation of the Grift

How to exculpate a party gone mad.

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Sean Hannity at Fox News Channel Studios on September 13, 2023, in New York City. (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)

In Wednesday’s G-File, Jonah Goldberg quoted an especially bleak take on the Taylor Swift kerfuffle that had been shared in the Dispatch Slack channel. He didn’t name the colleague who posted it.

But he didn’t need to, did he? The words “especially bleak” will be on my tombstone.

The quote had to do with the universal belief among sensible conservatives that hysteria about a “psy op” involving Swift and Travis Kelce is fundamentally a grift. Radio host Erick Erickson made the point forcefully:

Whenever populist influencers are behaving in an especially freaky way, “it’s a grift” is usually the correct explanation. Their hero, Donald Trump, is a grifter of rare talent and expertise, after all. And social media has democratized opportunities for political grifting such that even the lowest of lowbrow randos can build an enormous online following by being willing to say the stupidest things right-wing activists yearn to hear.

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  1. Tom Johnson

    "Even some who didn’t blame Democrats directly for DeSantis’ failure complained after he dropped out that the left desperately wanted to face Trump in November, and thus foolish Republicans in Iowa had unwittingly done their bidding. A year ago, when the governor looked strong in early primary polling, I’d concede that there might be something to that but the evidence has evaporated over time. Non-Republicans who turned out to vote in New Hampshire’s GOP primary broke heavily for Nikki Haley, not Trump."

    How many of those non-Republicans were Democrats, though?

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    Bill Nelson

    I hold onto to my identification as a member of the conservative tribe. And I will continue to hold the identity, even define the identity (which I do anyway) even if is a tribe of one. And any candidate I vote for must meet my definition of a conservative by meeting 83.7 of my criteria.

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  3. Scianti7

    It has been a quirky realization these last years that the "party of self-resposibility" can't take any responsibility for their own choices, can't see why requiring leaders to be responsible for their choices is important, & has come to embrace & celebrate a victim mentality to the point that the leader they see as power is a constant cosmic victim in virtually all things. Victims aren't powerful. People who take responsibility for themselves are.

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  4. GeoinGA

    Not trying to be a jerk but..... The Dispatch is becoming more like the Grifters being called out but in a different way. At The Distach now money is being made, subscriptions are being added from those in the market for Anit-Trump (or it's adjacent anti- new right) fodder. It is becoming more and more like The Bulwark crowd every day- Welcome Kevin Williamson with editorial guidance by Stephen Hayes.
    Giving perspective and insight is one thing but marching in a crusade while making money off critizing those on a crusade is puzzling. Disapointing how far this has drifted.
    But on the other hand..... And I am not saying......

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      Bill Nelson

      By that definition everything that makes money would be a grift. The first two tests to determine if ideas are not grift are: is the position well reasoned, and are the people proposing it concepts sincere believers. I for one am tired of the mention of Trump’s name but the man does command attention. And even without Trump, the Republican Party seems to be in trouble. I like the podcasts.

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    Ed

    Interesting.

    "Don’t take them [Trump's comments] seriously or literally."

    This demonstrates something of Trump's cunning. He has accomplished something unprecedented: He can utter something that 80% of the nation finds utterly unacceptable, and his defenders will assert it is not what he meant. If Biden were defended in such a way (and he is), they would call him senile (and they do), but with Trump, there is a shrug, as we all just think, "well, that is Trump, and he does not really mean it."

    The man is horrible, and he says so, but his defenders just ignore it. I cannot fathom the logic.

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      Bill Nelson

      The logic is simple. Most real trumpers are not politically well informed, they judge Trump by what the media says about him, and the media has talked the same way about every republican.

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    2. Scianti7

      They have failed to remember that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Of course he means it. He doesn't have a real sense of humor, just cruelty & cynicism, so he is not joking.

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  6. Dnels

    "A party of grifters is still basically a normal party and sensible conservatives can support a normal party in good conscience. And, perhaps, the man who leads it."

    This may have been true at one point, but now everyone knows what to expect from a MAGA administration. More importantly, they know who their aligning themselves with and are making a conscious choice to do so. They should know there is no rationalization strong enough to remove the stain of supporting a movement that sends armed "patriots" to a border town to help with enforcement.

    Additionally, anyone who gives money to the GOP or to MAGA also know by now that they are not supporting a political campaign, they are paying the legal fees of a "Billionaire" entrepreneur. The fact that Trump knifed Romney McDaniel in the back this weekend, after 1) agreeing to help pay his legal freight, and 2) shutting down the 2020 primaries should make obvious to any fence sitters that there is never enough loyalty or sycophancy to appease him. Anyone who supports him, no matter how completely, is just waiting in line to go under the bus.

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    1. Scianti7

      Exactly.

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  7. Justin Della-Moretta

    I appreciate your point on “Tayloring your views” ;)

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  8. DALE Nathan SWITZER

    Going through history, I think this all started in the evangelical community in 1978 with Accelerated Christian Education making a cheap way for small churches to run their own schools and then eventually homeschools.

    The first grift was selling history and political books to the parents. Peter Marshall's "The light and the glory" Francis Schaefer "How should we then live". Jerry Falwell rebranded the failing Lynchburg University as "Liberty University".

    This became acute when the young Earth creationists cast out Believers of any alternative explanation of Genesis 1 from the Evangelical movement.

    Evangelicals got used to accepting weak historical and political arguments without criticism and without listening to anyone who found fault with their illogic.

    This was made even worse when prominent liberals like Richard Dawkins would debate only the weirdest and strangest Christian apologists. Dawkins loved strawman. The problem is that the evangelicals then found that the strawmen should be their strong men. It was a repeat of William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes monkey trial.

    Now, having rejected logic since are any commitment to obvious truth, the evangelicals are undefended from any grifter. In fact, they demand and only grifters. Honesty is the enemy

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    1. Scianti7

      Yet if these Evangelicals studied & believed when Jesus said beware of wolves in shheps clothing, or when John said test the spirits, or any of proverbs, they would have already identified how far from what they are called to all this is. This is lack of faith in the correct place & all sorts of misplaced faith (which their book sternly warns about) in the worst places/people. Their idolatry of Trump has been distressing at best.

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    2. Hikingguy

      If you're interested, Frank Schaefer Jr can tell you a LOT about how his dad made abortion into a very big deal for evangelicals. He can also give you inside information on Oafs For Jesus like the Rev Jerry Falwell-"the meanest man I ever met". He's an Orthodox Christian these days. He saw enough of American evangelicalism up close and personal to bail.

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      1. DALE Nathan SWITZER

        I am reading about that now. Thank you

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  9. Brett

    "If the right is so broken that it can be “manipulated” into rallying around an accused criminal simply by making him an accused criminal, then again, conservatives’ quarrel is properly with the right, not with the left."

    The problem is a bit deeper than that. This is lazy writing. If indicting Trump had led to retaliatory indictments, we could debate about that. But it led to the Right supporting Trump for President, which is a non-sequitur and not even an effective way to address the indictments of Trump (if one believes they're all frivolous).

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    Stephanie

    Just coming here to say that this is an exceptional column. It seems to address all the rationalizations and coping mechanisms I’ve noticed that the Republican Party have espoused. I recognize Ross Douthat (always condescending, always telling people to just calm down because Trump is harmless), the Wall Street Journal, editorial page, and National Review.

    It’s brave to point out that the various flavors of blaming the Democrats are not based in objective reality.

    I’m glad that it’s been finally pointed out that the DCCC strategists who “supported” crazy MAGA candidates in primaries were only speaking the truth about those candidates in a straightforward way, and if I’m not much mistaken, did not put out negative ads about their non-MAGA competitors. Voters could decide they did, or did not want someone who espoused all of Trump’s ideas. And the voters decided.

    Eventually, I hope some people who obligingly hate the Democrats because of these ploys will come to realize that they are being manipulated. And the people who are manipulating them with these ideas don’t have any idea what to do about Trump. At the same time they want the Republicans to have as much political power as possible even though it’s empowering Trump.

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