WORST ARTICLE OF THE YEAR: Dead Last at The Bulwark.

The end of the year is often time for “best of the year” and “worst of the year” lists, but most “best of” lists are merely catalogues of one’s preferences and favorite moments, which is fine.

But it’s another case with “worst of the year” lists, and by far the worst article of the year appearing in a supposedly conservative media outlet is Jonathan Last’s October article in The Bulwark, “Roger Scruton and the Fascists Who Love Him.” I had this article on my read-to-comment-later pile when it came out, but then I went away on my long European excursion and fell behind on the pile.

I have tried to maintain cordial relations with my old Weekly Standard friends who have gone on to their successor media outlets, especially The Bulwark. I’ve even placed an article or two there. I have acknowledged the reasonable case at the core of The Bulwark’s outlook that Donald Trump and the broader populist current he galvanized have exerted some negative forces in the Republican Party, though my own balance sheet concludes that Trump was much more sinned-against than sinning, and think the populist turn among conservatives is long overdue and largely healthy. (By the way, someone who thought this a long time ago was . . . Irving Kristol. See below.*)

But it became clear a while ago now that the “Never Trump” disposition has become fanatical to the point that Bulwarkers and others in the same camp have gone nuts, throwing every conservative principle over the side simply because Trump embraced them. But Last—tempting to call him “the Last Man”—really scraped bottom with his clubfooted treatment of Scruton. Much of Last’s article consists of classic “ventriloquist journalism,” citing in a faux-questioning way an article by Alan Elrod (I’ve never heard of him either) in Arc Digital, most of which doesn’t deserve the dignity of a response.

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