The media’s new favorite conservativce, recently retired Milwaukee political talk show host Charlie Sykes, was predictably lauded in an interview in the August 27 edition of the New York Times Magazine.
Sykes spoke to Ana Marie Cox, a liberal journalist who has a regular slot on the Talk page at the back of the paper’s Sunday magazine, where she talks to personalities from various fields, but often she focuses on fawning over liberal guests and challenging conservatives.
Sykes’ vocal criticism of Trump has made him a favorite on MSNBC and liberal outlets like the Times, who quote him often. Certainly his talk of conservative “xenophobes," describing Trump staff as "the worst people in the world," and his criticism of fellow hosts Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham have made him popular with the opportunistic likes of Cox. That's obvious in her eagerness to set up Sykes to bash conservatives in “Charlie Sykes Is Unsure About The Future Of the G.O.P.” She prefers politicians like left-wing Rep. Maxine Waters, whom she fawned over last month.
Cox used Sykes as a conduit for her own liberal pokes at the party. Below is an edited sample of the interview. A selection of Cox's questions are in bold; Sykes’ responses (some truncated) are in normal type.
You came to national attention during the Wisconsin primaries as part of the Never Trump movement, when you used your conservative-talk-show perch to help along one of Donald Trump’s few primary losses. What were you trying to do? I was hoping Wisconsin was going to be a firewall of rationality. Turns out that we were simply a speed bump.
Why do you think the success of Trump’s platform surprised so many people? ....But I’m less upset with Trump himself than watching all the other conservatives who decided to roll over and support him. The real horror for me is watching people who I thought were principled conservatives become sycophantic propagandists for this guy.
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How do you think the elevation of hard-liners has affected the party? ....It’s that he has empowered the worst people in the world: people who would’ve been regarded as misfits and crackpots just a few years ago....
Cox eagerly followed up:
Is the Republican Party done for? It’s a moral, intellectual and political defining moment for the party. I just don’t see any long-term future if they don’t confront this....
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I’m assuming you’re not surprised by Trump’s inability to condemn the white-supremacist march. I’m shocked but not surprised....
