At this point, it’s neither here nor there to me, but I wonder if editors at The New York Times realize that their once-upon-a-time putative conservative Bret Stephens is stuck on the top of a Coney Island roller coaster and no one hears his screams for help. Or respect. Stupid question, as non-liberals who read the Times know, since that paper meanders along in 2026 without a care in the world. The company’s rolling in dough (fine by me; innovation, especially in the media business, deserves its rewards) and if the 11,191 employees there are too busy trading opinions on five options for summer lobster bisque found on the paywalled recipe page, and don’t even read their opinion or front-page stories, no blame is assessed.
Stephens, at the start of his Times tenure in 2017, after defecting from The Wall Street Journal, was “controversial” at, as Maureen Dowd might say, TimesWorld, for his blasphemous questioning of climate change. But Stephens has recognized that his own climate has shifted, and now he writes as if he’s a professor at some university that isn’t blatantly anti-Semitic. On June 23rd, under the headline “If You Love America, Cringe for it,” Stephens employs one of the worst internet clichés—I swear he wasn’t cognizant of that—to tell readers while they might have to “buckle up” for a “perfect mother of all storms” that wasn’t on your “grandfather’s bingo card,” the country can still be saved. You must, however, listen to Bret as he describes the meaning of the word “cringe.”
This is the key paragraph: “To exist as a sentient American in the age of Trump is to live in a perpetual cringe—morally, aesthetically, politically. If the administration were a play or film script, it would be neither farce nor tragedy but instead a kind of absurdist travesty, ‘Waiting for Godot’ meets ‘Pulp Fiction’ meets ‘Dumb and Dumber.’”
Two sentences worthy of a senior correspondent at the you-can’t-ever-believe-it Politico.
And, from the top of that roller coaster, Stephens praises two members of his “former party” for refusing to swallow Trump’s “mental goo.” The first is the late John McCain, the lousy and corrupt senator from Arizona, who shamelessly played to the media, “his base,” as he called it. The second prize goes to Mitt Romney, the ineffective 2012 GOP presidential nominee who had dinner with Trump after the latter’s victory in 2016, an interview for Secretary of State. He didn’t get the job, and then impersonated Liz Cheney—not in a trans way, I think that’s outlawed for Mormons—but voting to impeach Trump and then declaring, like “a good German” (am I allowed to say that, with the heavy association with the now-ostracized, but not forgotten, oyster fisherman from Maine), joined the herd in calling J6 an “existential threat to democracy.”
Then, on July 7th, Stephens switched hats (because Israel’s involved, which is fine by me, although Bibi has to go) and warned Democrats to fight back against the DSA and their daily “populist” proclamations. Bret warns about the bankruptcy of socialism (“We’ve Seen This Movie Before” and it’s “cringe”!) and yearns for a moderate Democrat to stand before the nation (and his or her fundraising officials) and say that “utopianism is no substitute for pragmatism, and that purity is not superior to pragmatism. That Democrat needs to stand up now, before his party gets swept away by the flood it vainly believes will recede.”
But Stephens, a columnist for the second- largest circulation daily in the United States (that’s print, which is a slippery metric now) offers not a single suggestion of who that savior might be. I don’t make the rules at the Times, but you’d think an editor (one that at least puts in a six-hour day) would say, recalling Clara Peller in the Age of Reagan, “Where’s the beef, Bret, who exactly are you suggesting make that speech?”
Not that the Times editorial board is any less passive than Stephens. In a July 8th editorial, “The Democrats Can’t Go On Like This,” a hardly damning assessment of the Graham Platner deception, it’s said that more than big rallies are necessary for their party to succeed. From the editorial: “Democrats do need fresh, charismatic, younger contenders, and they should stop treating the next name in line as an entitlement. A party is strongest when it is a genuinely big tent, willing to host real disagreement rather than enforce a single approved script.”
Never mind that the paper endorsed Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, all “next names in line.” As a voice of the Democratic Party, the Times is expected to counsel its readers, but like Stephens, they offer not one Democrat who’s a “fresh, charismatic, younger contender.” They just can’t think of one. Or, they fear backlash by promoting AOC for 2028.
The photo above (which definitely isn’t “cringe”) is one of my favorites. My Uncle Joe and Aunt Winnie are flanked by my mom and dad out on a double-date at Coney Island. As a kid, my family went to Coney once or twice, probably for nostalgia’s sake from my parents, but it was run-down and crime-ridden, so it wasn’t all-day excursion, and Jones Beach was the preferred destination for summer day-long getaways.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: The Reds were swept in the World Series; The St. Louis Browns (43-111) had the worst record in baseball; Johnny Mize led the National League with 28 homers; students at Harvard University school reporters on the art of swallowing goldfish; Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”; the first World Science Fiction Convention is held in New York City; La Guardia Airport opens; Marvin Gaye is born and Zane Grey dies; John Ford’s Stagecoach premieres in New York and L.A.; Kate Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America” is a chart-buster; The Kenyon Review is founded; and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep is published.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023