The Bulwark: Making a Business of Trump Derangement

The Bulwark: Profiting from Never Trump Media (full series)
Birth of The Bulwark | From Nonprofit to Profits
Making a Business of Trump Derangement | Take Away Trump

---

Making a Business of Trump Derangement

According to its mission statement: “The Bulwark was founded to provide analysis and reporting in defense of America’s liberal democracy. That’s it. That’s the mission” (emphasis omitted).

But in practice, according to the New York profile, “the Never-Trump ethos is crucial to the whole enterprise, especially at a time when liberal media outlets feel snakebit by the perceived overreach of resistance-style journalism.”

The Bulwark clearly does not fear those snakebites or overdoing resistance-style journalism.

Here are some examples:

• “We’re All His Enemies”—A podcast in which Bulwark leaders Longwell, Last and Miller discussed what they hate about Trump. This topic is also covered in roughly 6 trillion other podcast discussions involving one or more of the three. (Any skeptics of this estimate, particularly those who have way too much time on their hands, are encouraged to come up with their own figures.)
• “No More Nice—We Must Hold Trump and Musk Accountable (with Rick Wilson)”—Another one of the 11 Bulwark-branded podcasts, this one was hosted by Michael Steele, a Never Trumper former chair of the Republican National Committee. The guest was former Republican political consultant Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project. Those clinging to the delusion that Wilson has ever been “nice” to Trump should read the Lincoln Project profile in this issue.
• “Pete Hegseth’s Climate Change ‘Crap’”—This was an analysis from former Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a regular Bulwark contributor, in which he criticized the new secretary of defense for saying that a war against carbon dioxide was no longer an American military concern. “Climate change is not a distant future threat—it’s shaping tomorrow’s battlefields, on land, sea and in the air, right now,” concluded Hertling. “To ignore it—or worse, dismiss it as “crap”—is not conservatism. It’s strategic malpractice.”

These examples were not cherry-picked for dramatic purposes. All three were posted on March 13, 2025. On that day, which was randomly selected, The Bulwark’s cover page had 25 features. All of them were about the Trump administration, and at least 11 either mentioned Trump specifically in the headline or showed him in the thumbnail image.

Trump Derangement Syndrome locates layers of insanity that would never occur to the non-afflicted. The Bulwark business model is to normalize the disease, not cure it.

Of course, they argue the opposite.

“The No. 1 comment we hear from people is, ‘You help me stay sane,’” claimed Longwell to New York magazine.

But the true road to sanity in the Age of Trump was paved in 2016 by journalist Salena Zito, who quoted a Republican consultant with this analysis: “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

Taking Trump literally to the point of absurdity has been The Bulwark’s bread and butter. Consider as an example Jonathan V. Last’s mania for keeping his audience in a state of perma-panic over the notion of Trump seeking a third term.

While the president has joked about running again, he will be 82 years old in January 2029, at the end of the second and final term he is permitted to have under the U.S. Constitution. Legality aside, that’s already seven years beyond the average American male’s life expectancy.

Trump. Is. Joking. Only the Last person without a sense of humor would take Trump literally on this point. But that Last person has done this repeatedly.

JVL, as Jonathan V. Last is known, appears to have begun this obsession way back in April 2023, in an essay titled “Trump is Forever.” He returned to the claim on May 20, 2024, in podcast titled “Of Course Trump Will Seek a Third Term.”

The very next day he was back at it with “12 Years a President.”

On November 6, the day before the election, JVL made this prediction: “When the time comes, the 22nd Amendment will prove to be as iron-clad as the 14th Amendment.” (The 22nd Amendment imposes the two-term limit on presidents.)

A podcast with JVL, Longwell and Miller titled “Trump 2028?” posted on November 13, 2024, just a week after Trump’s second victory.

Nine days later on November 22, JVL must have misplaced his crazymaking torch, because it was picked up by Bulwark contributor Berin Szóka.

The analysis was titled: “Think Trump Can’t Run Again in 2028? Don’t Be So Sure: The loophole that could give him a third term.” Szóka’s supposed loophole was the theory that Trump could run as a vice president in 2028, and then the person hypothetically at the top of the ticket would resign and hand over the White House.

JVL was back at it on December 16 with “Weakness Is a Provocation: ABC News, billionaires, media orgs, and CEOs are surrendering to Trump because they think he’s a lame duck. They’re making a terrible mistake.” This was a rehash of Szóka’s claim about gaming the vice presidency for a third term.

It takes a lot of lunacy like this to take Trump literally, but the people of the The Bulwark are up to the challenge.

On January 3, 2025, JVL posted “Will He or Won’t He? Donald Trump is term-limited by the 22nd Amendment, right? RIGHT?!?”

Exhale. All of that appeared before Trump was even sworn in the second time.

---

In the next installment, The Bulwark owes Donald Trump for everything they have accomplished.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-bulwark-part-3/