The newsroom leaders, tech oligarchs, law firm chairs, university presidents, and others who helped Trump coerce and capture large swathes of the media, the legal profession, and academia.
Anyone else find it funny that Bari Weiss is basically an IRL version of Olivia Nuzzi's TV show pitch main character? Gay former liberal journalist who becomes a de facto regime media censor out of a pure fascination and obsession with power... It's too perfect.
You know, Ryan, I really enjoy your writing and even pay for it (although I wish you'd get back to the Olivia chronicles) and I'm … gasp … totally MAGA. All it takes to cave in to Trump is to live in my small coastal California City amid houses with “in this house” lawn signs and out in our channel Katy Perry cavorting with Justin Trudeau on her Caravelle yacht and you look at Bari Weiss and think “she never looked this happy working at NYT and hey, she's even showing her rack now.” Happy New Year, Ryan. I hope you sell the Olivia story as a series. It's too good a guilty pleasure for it to stop.
Thanks Ryan. Great post. You nailed it. It’s basically protection money/racket, and it will never stop until we take back this country. They all need to crawl back under their rocks. Hoping for a better 2026.
Anyone else find it funny that Bari Weiss is basically an IRL version of Olivia Nuzzi's TV show pitch main character? Gay former liberal journalist who becomes a de facto regime media censor out of a pure fascination and obsession with power... It's too perfect.
You know, Ryan, I really enjoy your writing and even pay for it (although I wish you'd get back to the Olivia chronicles) and I'm … gasp … totally MAGA. All it takes to cave in to Trump is to live in my small coastal California City amid houses with “in this house” lawn signs and out in our channel Katy Perry cavorting with Justin Trudeau on her Caravelle yacht and you look at Bari Weiss and think “she never looked this happy working at NYT and hey, she's even showing her rack now.” Happy New Year, Ryan. I hope you sell the Olivia story as a series. It's too good a guilty pleasure for it to stop.
Btw, my husband just asked ChatGPT about me calling your Substack a “guilty pleasure” to which ChatGPT says:
Why shouldn’t your wife enjoy this?
• It reveals something real about media culture.
• It punctures self-importance.
• It exposes the gap between public authority and private judgment.
Like many classic guilty pleasures, it’s enjoyable because it’s instructive—and because it strips away a layer of pretense.
Some day we’ll be very glad to have this list of quillings to help guide what kind of people to make critical decisions.
Thanks Ryan. Great post. You nailed it. It’s basically protection money/racket, and it will never stop until we take back this country. They all need to crawl back under their rocks. Hoping for a better 2026.
They all stand to gain by appeasing, so is that appealing, or just self interest? Certainly not noble, community (exception: shareholders) interest.