John Derbyshire may have been fired by the National Review for his most recent racist screed, but the white supremacists at VDARE have hired him and they’re raising money so they can pay him really well to write more things like that.
I always hate closing VDARE.com during appeals. And it’s particularly frustrating now, with the continuing Two-Minute hate of John Derbyshire. Note that, as far as I can see, not one Establishment Conservative voice has been raised in his defense—indeed, many are joining in the Hate. These cowards are practically begging Obama to play the race card against them in this fall’s election. But our Spring Appeal is always critical to getting us through the cash drought in the summer. And it’s now more obvious that ever that VDARE.com must survive if voices like Derbyshire’s are to be heard. I was delighted to see that, in his remarkable Gawker interview posted last night, Derbyshire named VDARE.com as one of the sites he hopes to write for—if his health permits. […]
John Derbyshire is merely the latest victim.
Without betraying confidences, I hope that John Derbyshire will resume writing for us—he was prevented from doing so by NR’s current degenerate (and fearful) management.
But we will need to pay him. We need to pay all our writers.
This was written by Peter Brimelow, who was himself fired from the National Review by William F. Buckley in 1998.
17 comments
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raven
April 16, 2012 at 1:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I really think they should have left Derbyshire at the National Review. He’s been a ranting and raving white supremacist for years. Nothing new about that.
Same thing with Pat Buchanan at MSNBC. He’s been a wingnut, a white supremacist, anti-Jewish bigot, and a Nazi sympathizer for decades.
Let the Tea Party show its true colors.
Modusoperandi
April 16, 2012 at 1:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
raven “Let the Tea Party show its true colors.”
All one of them?
d cwilson
April 16, 2012 at 1:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As I said last week, Derbyshire lost his job at NRO because he failed to obscure the racism in enough code words and dog whistles. That’s against NRO editorial policy.
dingojack
April 16, 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
MO (#2) – Teabaggers have rainbow of colours – How gay!*
Dingo
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* actually they have only one tone: gray-white (no coloreds need apply).
Raging Bee
April 16, 2012 at 2:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Barely Legal Derb” is a “victim?” Did someone shoot him or something?
raven
April 16, 2012 at 2:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
LOL. Sure. All their colors as long as they are all white.
fifthdentist
April 16, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, it’s good to know that if I ever need a job there are career opportunities in writing racist rants. Apparently the field is pretty crowded, though, three years into the first black president’s term. It does seem the market for such material has grown correspondingly.
Area Man
April 16, 2012 at 2:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I swear I’m in the wrong racket. I’m often surprised that people get paid anything all to write, but when people actually get paid good money to write awful shit, it makes me wonder why I don’t whore myself out like that. Or does the Derb has someone’s young daughter held hostage somewhere?
dingojack
April 16, 2012 at 3:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Unfortunely for Derb – Mr. Bek murdered and raped her in the 80′s (or so they say)*
;) Dingo
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* Add to ‘Mitt Uncertainty Principle’ and ‘Ron Paul Exclusion Principle’ – ‘Bek’s Cat’ (and ‘santorum’s Demon’)
eric
April 16, 2012 at 3:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Derbyshire lost his job at NRO because he failed to obscure the racism in enough code words and dog whistles. That’s against NRO editorial policy.
I think what’s against NRO policy is causing a dip in advertising or sales funding. Anything else is secondary.
Trying to say it was fewer code words or too transparent or whatever is, I think, trying to find a pattern where there is none. This post got negative press coverage. The others didn’t. So this post is the one that got him fired.
harold
April 16, 2012 at 4:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fifth Dentist and Area Man –
It’s called Wingnut Welfare.
If you have a bachelor’s degree and can write passably grammatical prose, and pass for an “intellectual”, and you are willing to write material that is racist against the correct people (no wrongly directed racism, though!), and/or material that parrots Republican/Fox News/Limbaugh talking points, you can make good money.
As I pointed out last time I mentioned this, the highest tier is to be a token “conservative” (and they make up half or so of the editorial staffs) at some place like NY Times or Washington Post or one of the weeklies, or to be a Fox News star. Next best is something like National Review, a job at at “think tank”, or Fox News supporting role. Below that are the things like WND and VDare.
There is one stringent requirement, though, and it’s consistency.
Derbyshire has been imperfect from time to time, but he’s consistently on message, just sometimes fails to get the nuances needed to sustain a career at the top Wingnut Welfare level. He’s openly stated that he “believes” in evolution – but it’s okay, because he actually “believes” in the circa 1880 racist anthropology version of evolution. He lost his job over failing to code racism – but the racism was still directed at the appropriate people. You won’t catch David Brooks messing up the details, but Derbyshire is still Wingnut enough for Welfare.
Now, if Derbyshire were to crack up and actually stop being racist, or stop denying global warming, or some such thing, THEN he’d be unemployable.
Ichthyic
April 16, 2012 at 4:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sure. All their colors as long as they are all white.
Ironically, “white” is of course what we perceive when all colors are reflected at the same time.
F
April 16, 2012 at 6:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Buckley hired that twerp? How disappointing.
harold
April 16, 2012 at 7:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s disappointing if you’re living in a fantasy world, I guess.
Buckley was one of the inventors and first recipients of Wingnut Welfare.
Post-civil rights era right wing politics consists of selling a bunch of extremely harmful long term ideas, which benefit a tiny minority of people in the short term, to a majority. This is accomplished by tricking middle and working class people with coded or overt appeals to their lowest prejudices.
The people who are tricked are not necessarily stupid – they may be clever enough in an academic sense; they’re just ordinary not-terribly-good people who can be tricked into screwing themselves and their descendants by arguments that make them think that it’s the “minorities” and “homosexuals” who are going to get screwed.
For some reason, it is believed (and this may well be correct) that for this process to work, “educated sounding” propaganda shills must be part of the team.
There was absolutely nothing terribly special about William Buckley, except that perhaps he was an especially nasty human being. His career was entirely based on the fact that he was willing to pompously spout right wing propaganda in an “educated” sounding style.
dan4
April 16, 2012 at 9:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“These cowards are practically begging Obama to play the race card against them in this fall’s election.”
Huh? By NOT defending Derbyshire, “Establishment Conservatives” are “practically begging Obama to play the race card against them?!” Did I seriously read that correctly?
Raging Bee
April 17, 2012 at 9:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hey, maybe the Nazis can form a posse and patrol Derb’s neighborhood, just like they (maybe) did for Zimmerman. I’m sure they’d be happy to procure him all the teenage booty he could want as well…
kermit.
April 17, 2012 at 11:20 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
modusoperandi:
raven “Let the Tea Party show its true colors.”
All one of them?
From a Firesign Theater album circa 1970…
Richard Nixon, on acid, in jail:
“Look at the colors! The blues! The grays!”
dan4:
Yes, that was my thought. Surely by being openly racist, they would make it more likely that the race card would be played. In fact, the only explanation I have for their hiding it behind dog whistles is that they are trying to make it difficult to be called a racist.
Simple-minded people can understand that “N**** are bad!” is racist, but not necessarily that “Those people should stick to their own kind; they’d be happier” is just as racist (in appropriate context).