Former Village Voice and New York Observer firebrand’s new book looks at US conservatism’s swindle of its own constituency
  • cheeseandrice@lemm.ee
    41·
    9 days ago

    “They didn’t own the liberals. They owned the conservatives. They stole this money from their own constituency. And Bannon, having promised that he would not take any money, did the same thing.“

    And that’s the reptilian genius of these guys. It’s much easier to fool someone than to convince someone they’ve been fooled. By taking fools’ money, the fools now have skin in the game. It will eventually turn around on them though, because it always does. I just hope it happens soon enough.

    • Nobody@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      9 days ago

      It will eventually turn around on them though, because it always does

      I wish I shared your optimism. These extremist movements have a way of calcifying into basically a new religion. The warning signs are already plentiful.

      The real issue for the MAGA cult is going to be succession. Trump can’t live forever, and it’s unclear whether his supporters can rally behind someone else.

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
    14·
    9 days ago

    I would find it funny if the vast majority of my family weren’t conservatives, who I just know donated to these scammers.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    6·
    9 days ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    So said Joe Conason, veteran reporter and author of a lacerating new book, The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism.

    On the page, Conason charts 75 years of rightwing rip-off merchants attacking liberals and making money.

    Asked to name prominent conservatives unstained by grift and swindle, he points to the Never Trumpers, “a bunch who I was once very critical of and vice versa.

    Conason said: “You know they’re good people because they’ve made really big sacrifices to take a stand against this dishonesty and this threat to constitutional order.

    Conason “exposed Conway on the front page of the [New York] Observer when he was acting as a secret lawyer for [Clinton accuser] Paula Jones in 1998.

    And I believe I embarrassed him because he was a lawyer at a Democratic law firm in New York but they didn’t know he was secretly working to take down Bill Clinton.

    The original article contains 1,009 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!