Ned Ryun at American Greatness cites Michael Anton’s Caveat Emptor for conservatives:
[Michael] Anton says,
Now I’ll name names. If you’re at National Review, AEI or Heritage
Foundation, your job is to pretend to oppose but really support; your whole
business model as staff and management collapses if you don’t do that. It’s an
open question why the donors donate to these places. I actually believe they’re
deceiving their donors for the most part; that is I’d like to believe most
donors to Conservatism, Inc. (NRO,
AEI, Heritage) are writing checks because they believe these guys are fighting
bad leftists, socialists, Communists, America-haters, critical race theory.
They’re standing athwart yelling ‘Stop!’ They really think this. They don’t
think, ‘I’m writing this check so that Rich Lowry, Ramesh Ponnoru, Jonah
Goldberg and other fat useless grifters can have six-figure jobs to do nothing
but sell out my country and pretend that they’re saving it.’ I don’t think
they’re doing that, but to be completely clear, that’s what they’re doing.
There’s a lot to unpack just in
that one 60-second statement, but Anton is absolutely correct: The overwhelming
majority of “conservative” donors, knowingly or unknowingly, are getting played
by Conservatism, Inc., which is really about 90 percent of the so-called
“conservative” think tanks in D.C. but, quite frankly, it happens even in the
smaller ones across the country.
. . .
If, as Anton says, donors think they’re funding these entities to actually fight the leftists, the question should be very simple: proof please of your work. Strongly worded statements and white papers don’t count, for the record. Show us the action items. . . .
If you contribute to conservative organizations or
individuals, make sure the recipient(s) really is/are conservative. Full article is here.
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