the market has spoken
FreedomWorks Is Closing — And Blaming Trump https://t.co/Z4RdevE2pH via @politico
— John Cole (@Johngcole) May 8, 2024
Politico says “The libertarian organization couldn’t survive the populist shift in the Republican Party”:
FreedomWorks, the once-swaggering conservative organization that helped turn tea party protesters into a national political force, is shutting down, according to its president, a casualty of the ideological split in a Republican Party dominated by former President Donald Trump.
“We’re dissolved,” said the group’s president, Adam Brandon. “It’s effective immediately.”
FreedomWorks’ board of directors voted unanimously on Tuesday to dissolve the organization, Brandon said. Wednesday will be the last workday for the group’s roughly 25 employees, though staffers will continue to receive paychecks and health care benefits for the next few months.
The development brings to a close a period of turmoil for the organization. FreedomWorks laid off 40 percent of its staff in March of 2023, and as a result of a drop in fundraising, its total revenue has declined by roughly half, to about $8 million, since 2022, Brandon said…
After Trump took control of the conservative movement, Brandon said, a “huge gap” opened up between the libertarian principles of FreedomWorks leadership and the MAGA-style populism of its members. FreedomWorks leaders, for example, still believed in free trade, small government and a robust merit-based immigration system. Increasingly, however, those positions clashed with a Trump-aligned membership who called for tariffs on imported goods and a wall to keep immigrants out but were willing, in Brandon’s view, to remain silent as Trump’s administration added $8 trillion to the national debt.
This same split was creating headaches in other parts of the organization as well. “Our staff became divided into MAGA and Never Trump factions,” Brandon said in an internal document reviewed by POLITICO Magazine. It also impacted fundraising.
“Now I think donors are saying, ‘What are you doing for Trump today?’” said Paul Beckner, a member of FreedomWorks’ board. “And we’re not for or against Trump. We’re for Trump if he’s doing what we agree with, and we’re against him if he’s not. And so I think we’ve seen an erosion of conservative donors.”…
In an interview with POLITICO Magazine last September, an ex-FreedomWorks employee claimed that the organization under Brandon’s leadership had turned its back on its values while Trump was in office; during this period, for example, the organization issued tweets spreading election conspiracies and deflecting criticism of the Florida legislation that came to be known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. “He let a bunch of right-wing nutjobs turn FreedomWorks into a MAGA mouthpiece,” the former FreedomWorks staffer said...
In the midst of this turmoil, FreedomWorks launched an effort last fall to rebrand itself as a more centrist organization, one that could target the independent voters that its leaders believe would be more receptive to libertarian ideals. But the effort failed to get traction, Brandon said, largely because the independent voters viewed FreedomWorks as a right-wing group. As a result, Brandon and the board began discussing the possibility of shutting down FreedomWorks altogether…
Brandon said he has plans to launch a new organization focused on politically independent members of the millennial and Gen Z generations, whom he thinks will be receptive to libertarian policies. “If we started something new, you could build it from the ground up,” Brandon said. “You could build a brand that matches what these folks want, and you could get away around all the baggage [associated with the FreedomWorks brand].”
There will always be a market for artfully rewritten exegeses of ‘I got mine, forget you‘, said the professional Libertarian marketeer, hopefully…
Math Guy
First?
Ken
Has anyone ever seen Alan Brandon and Dark Brandon in the same room?
JaySinWA
Ding dong, the witch is dead.
Baud
@JaySinWA:
The witch is reincarnated as a more wicked witch.
JaySinWA
@Baud: Well that’s the plan, but for now this witch is dead. We should celebrate the small victories and not channel Obi Wan. Besides, that I’ll come back even more powerful line was bravado, and didn’t really manifest itself after all as far as I know.
SpaceUnit
TFG sucking up all the Republican donors’ money in a failing bid to stay out of jail and win back the White House is a feel-good story.
Got a little tear in my eye.
Chet Murthy
@JaySinWA: I never liked that plot line: the idea that somehow Darth makes up for a lifetime of sin and crimes by one good act at the end of his life, and that’s enough to restore him to the Light Side of the Force ….. yeah right. I mean sure, whatever, it’s a sci-fi story. But it makes for terrible mythos.
Sure Lurkalot
Where be this populist shift? Trump, man of the people with his $400,000,000 inheritance, lifelong, blinding need to be accepted by the Manhattan elite, tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, country club with $200,000 initiation fees…
Baud
@JaySinWA:
To be honest, I don’t even remember this organization. Now if Heritage Foundation fell, I would be pleased.
StringOnAStick
Didn’t the libertoonian party tweet yesterday that they want to overturn the Civil Rights Act? Gee, such a bunch of high ideals these people hold.
Shalimar
I am not sure there are people to reach who have a “fuck me, I am happy you got everything” philosophy, but good luck with that.
Chet Murthy
@StringOnAStick: Apparently there’s a (somewhat) big ruckus over at the
LibertarianRepubs-who-like-ganja Party over inviting TFG to speak at their convention. Ha. Ha. The other Presidential contenders for the Party nomination are all het up and gosh, I’m here for it!Baud
@StringOnAStick:
I linked to that, and I believe it was the Libertarians of NH. Not that I think that the national libertarians think differently.
Suzanne
LAAAAAAAWL.
Credibility, it may be worth having!
Chet Murthy
@Baud: I’m sorry to have to jog your memory on this (I mean, who wants to remember these jamokes?), but …. perhaps you remember Dick Armey? He created this FreedomWorks thingie as an astroturf (remember when that was a new term in the lingo?) org to spread the Tea Party protests. Sigh. He’s still alive, so I see.
Baud
@Chet Murthy:
I do remember him. Haven’t heard his name in a long time.
Citizen Alan
@Chet Murthy: So does Christianity, then, because the idea of a sincere deathbed conversion allowing even the most wicked people into heaven is pretty much part of the core of the Christian faith.
Martin
@Sure Lurkalot: For right wing populists, the people are white christians and are inherently virtuous. The elite are anyone who undermines that from Jews to poor non-white immigrants.
Trump didn’t violently put down a BLM protest for a photo op which consisted of nothing except holding a Bible for nothing, you know. It doesn’t matter what Trumps inheritance is so long as he’s picked the right enemies.
Baud
Via reddit, Roger Stone is lying again.
Baud
Always be closing.
JML
They will not be missed. If we could kill off Heritage and the Federalist Society…which are two of the most destructive forces out there. They are brutal indoctrination facilities and they have infected far too much of our political society, and the fact that they’re still considered acceptable by the DC intelligentsia is proof that maybe we need to start over with those clowns too. FreedomWorks was always bad, but also a bit more fringe.
They do serve as a show of just about much ideological incoherence the modern GOP has. As much as clowns like MTG and Gaetz are disgusting jokes of representatives…it was sort of inevitable that clowns like them would rise up eventually and chuck bombs. They were always there, they just stayed quiet under the leadership for a long time. With the collection of losers and incompetents that are in charge of the GOP these days (pathetic leadership in the House, and McConnell is barely hanging on in the Senate and no longer has the vise-grip he used to) there are no controls left and the incoherence is playing out more and more. Sadly they still seem to have a unifier: get behind any autocratic figure with an “R” by their name for president.
Another Scott
@Baud: Pfft.
Yes, Roger. Easily.
Crowd pictures.*
Roger isn’t even trying any more.
Cheers,
Scott.
—
* – From Madonna’s free concert in Rio.
Baud
@Another Scott:
I saw that Madonna pic and was impressed.
Another Scott
@Baud: Supposedly over 1M people there. It was a genuinely big crowd.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Baud: Ah yes. The famous mountains of South Jersey, immortalized in the bossa-nova hit, “The Girl From Cape May.”
different-church-lady
Defining fascism as “populism” is really quite… well, I don’t know what it is.
Jeffro
L to the OL
Jackie
OT:
If she gets banned by all nine tribes, she’ll be a shoo-in for TIFG’s VP.
ascap_scab
Don’t worry, they will all become MSNBC Analysts.
grumbles
Yeah, but ChatGPT will do it cheaper. Hell, I think the Xitter autocomplete robot is already making up fake news.
But if any of them are really dedicated to the cause, it cannot yet stand around outside congress wearing a clapboard.
lowtechcyclist
@Citizen Alan:
I’d have to disagree with that. It’s part of the core of the faith of the “suppose you get hit by a bus tonight without accepting Jesus” crowd. That crowd may be all too numerous these days, but there’s still plenty of us Christians who don’t buy into that way of looking at things.
Sister Golden Bear
@Chet Murthy: Star Wars OG was never a sci-fi story, it was a fairytale with spaceships and robots.
Mapaghimagsik
Just enough time for the grift to rename itself.
Mapaghimagsik
What? why didn’t I hear about the goat before. Why does the goat bug me more than the dog?
ColoradoGuy
My guess: within two months they will find a new scam.
Ian
@Baud: He spawned more jokes than most politicians, all without being even remotely funny.
We need more characters like that.
Geminid
@Mapaghimagsik: The goat story was reported early on, but the dog got more attention.
Geminid
@different-church-lady: Sometimes “populism” is used to describe the intra-party dynamic and not the policies in question.
In the case of the Republican party, the “Tea Party” movement that Trump turbocharged was an insurgency aimed at displacing establishment Republicans like Romney and the Bushes. Or in Virginia, displacing what could be called a “Chamber of Commerce” type like Eric Cantor with Dave Brat in the 2014 7th CD primary. I think that’s why the radicals are called “populists” even though the policies advanced in effect favor elites.
RaflW
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Their version of ‘freedom’ was permission to be low-taxed rich people, and let the peons struggle. LGBTQ freedom? Hah, what? Always a glaring area of omission by allegedly small gov’t types, that they wanted marriage to not be extended to us.
Surel they’d couch it in bullshit about how gov’t shouldn’t be the arbiter, but that’s playing fantasy games, not living in reality.
Betsy
Hallelujah!!! I’ve watched these vicious fakers/fuckers wreak damage in my state and many others.
Fakers because one of their favorite tricks is astro-turfing using the oldest, sickest, stupidest people they can hoodwink into a setup.
And they started with the tobacco lobby, so that’s the fucker part.
Mapaghimagsik
@Geminid:
I feel from a farmer standpoint the goat makes no sense. The dog endangered livestock, so, at the very least put them up for adoption where they can’t do damage.
But the goat was just being a goat for fucks sake? Any goat owner will kind of say “Yeah, that’s what goats do” And you laugh at it when goats chase children — they’re kind of like geese that way.
Jay
@Mapaghimagsik:
The Construction workers reported that “she was raging”, left the work site before she shot them too, and reported her actions to her Dad.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Citizen Alan: Well, how else would most of the population get into heaven, if it weren’t for a last-second chance? Someone who ought to have known better suggested that if he asked for forgiveness as he pulled the trigger, Hitler could’ve been saved.
As you may have gathered, I’m a bit cynical about this.
SectionH
@different-church-lady: Typical? Maybe I’m just NYT’ing that but damn.
Uncle Cosmo
IIRC the first few Roman Emperors who became Christians did so only on their deathbeds, in order to maximize the chances of reaching the Pearly Gates in a state of grace.
Put me down as more than just a bit cynical about the practice.
Tony Jay
@Mapaghimagsik:
It was Mickey Kaus’ goat, so most people just assumed it was some kind of mercy kill.
NorthLeft
I got mine, FORGET YOU? Really?
The RWNJs only crave politicians and organizations that tell it like it is.
”I got mine, Fuck You!” or bust baby.
O. Felix Culpa
@Tony Jay: I had mercifully forgotten about Mr. Kaus and his goat, so thank you for the reminder…I guess.