I’ve just been reading on Breitbart a tirade against Bill Kristol, which features a comparison between this supposedly falling neocon star and the author’s friend Tony, who landed in jail after stabbing his ex-wife’s lover. Just like Tony, who unsuccessfully tried to attract his divorced wife’s attention, Bill, we are told, is going nuts in expressing his contempt for Donald Trump. But like Tony, who in a fit of frustration destroyed his own life, Bill may be self-destructing as he disses a transformed conservative establishment.
I’m not sure that this labored comparison works since I’ve no idea what the equivalent is in Bill’s case to Tony “being sent to jail.” Anyhow I’ve seen other more forceful recent attacks on Kristol from Trump-supporters and even vanilla conservatives, and while I fully share their distaste for their target, I doubt that any of them is entirely correct. If my own understanding of the conservative movement is accurate, then Kristol’s critics assume a degree of flexibility in their movement that’s not really there. The current conservative movement came to be what it is because of those interests that shaped it. Its donor base is made up noticeably of supporters of weapon procurement and foreign policy hawks. These benefactors are very much in line with Kristol’s Weekly Standard and the Washington Free Beacon, run by Bill’s son-in-law, Matthew Continetti. Paul Singer, Rupert Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson, and other backers of neoconservative enterprises and Washington “conservative” think-tanks are unlikely to abandon Bill Kristol simply because he’s taken whacks at The Donald, whom most of these donors also hate – or barely tolerate. Nor has Kristol…