WhatFinger


Because conservative media figures aren't essential cultural figures to anyone but other conservative media figures

We're pretty sure it's not a crisis that Tomi Lahren strayed from conservative orthodoxy on abortion



I've waited until now to comment on this mainly because there have been much more important things to comment on, which is sort of the point I'm trying to make even in the course of weighing in on it. Tomi Lahren is a 24-year-old woman who somehow got herself a show on The Blaze and has a knack for conservative commentary so blunt that it goes viral with impressive regularity. That's fine, I guess, but once a person gains status in the "conservative movement," we tend to see said movement demonstrate that it still hasn't learned not to take itself so damn seriously. Because once our star disappoints the "movement," it is treated as a crisis of almost biblical proportions.
So it was last week when Lahren inexplicably went on The View and declared herself pro-choice, which is a direct contradiction to statements she had made only months earlier. OK. So what? A 24-year-old with an online talk show changed her position on abortion? Big whoop. She's certainly not the first media figure to do so. At her age she's probably not finished forming all kinds of opinions about things. The "movement" is surely not going to wet itself because someone this green strayed from the orthodoxy, is it? Er . . . Now let's talk about Matt Walsh. When I like Matt Walsh, which is probably about 90 percent of the time, I really like him. He's especially good when he's offering biblical arguments, and he knows how to cut to the chase on matters of culture and morality. He's great when he stays in this territory. When he becomes Mr. Conservative Movement Protector, he can be unbearably absurd, and so it was when Tomi had her moment of apostasy:
As you've probably heard, Tomi Lahren went on The View this past Friday and announced that she's "pro-choice." She argued that pro-life conservatives are "hypocrites" for wanting the government to "tell a woman what to do with her body." She made a couple of other points that were equally as weak and plucked straight from a Planned Parenthood brochure.

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It's an EXTREMELY damaging thing for a famous, self-appointed spokeswoman of conservatism to stand in front of a mainstream audience and wave the "conservative" flag while arguing in favor of legalized infanticide. I can't explain why Tomi decided to do this. As recently as this past December she was blasting liberals for believing in "baby killing" and for denying "rights to the unborn." Suddenly, after some attention from the mainstream media, she's decided that the unborn really don't have any rights. And she decided to have her pro-abortion coming out party on The View, throwing pro-lifers under the bus in the process.
Wait wait. It's EXTREMELY damaging (I realize Facebook doesn't offer italics for emphasis) for Tomi Lahren to say she's OK with legalized abortion? Why? She's a 24-year-old with a show on Glenn Beck's web site? What makes her capable of doing extreme damage to anything? To the extent Lahren was able to damage the pro-life cause, it is only because people assigned outsized importance to her and her opinions. She is not a national leader. She has not accomplished anything in her life that should make her influential. No one who is trying to make up their mind about abortion or any other serious issue sits there saying, "You know what? I need to find out what Tomi Lahren thinks about this!" So why are Matt Walsh and others having meltdowns about this?

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Conservative media figures themselves, have assigned massively overblown importance to crucial societal role of conservative media figure.

They are doing so because they, as conservative media figures themselves, have assigned massively overblown importance to crucial societal role of conservative media figure. They think it's very very very very important what "famous, self-appointed spokespeople of conservatism" say because so very many people are hanging on their every word and ready to follow in lockstep with whatever they say. Breaking news: They're not. In this respect they're acting very similar to the mainstream media, who also have a way-more-than-healthy respect for their own importance and tend to think that whenever they're saying something, it's news that they're saying it. You see how that works? You can always make headlines just by making headlines. Because what you have to say is so important! By the way, it's hardly a first-time-in-the-world development that a conservative commentator disagrees with the movement orthodoxy on a given issue, even if it is one that's considered quite important. I don't know how old Matt Walsh is, but there was a time when the commentariat included pro-choice conservatives and pro-life liberals. Every writer was a little different, and you could never be totally sure what anyone's take on anything would be, unless it was someone like Pat Buchanan who was an activist first and a columnist second.

Conservative movement needs to be reminded that while its media stars talk amongst themselves and are very impressed with themselves, the rest of the world is not hanging on their every word.

And that's kind of the problem with media today on both the conservative and liberal side. Everyone is both a commentator and an activist, so everyone's views are determined in advance by their activist status. Everyone is supposed to be a good soldier in the movement, and if one person strays - even on only one issue - it's a huge crisis for the movement in general. It should not be this way. Tomi Lahren's switch on abortion demonstrated little in understanding of the issue, and I agree with Walsh that it seemed a little attention from the MSM was enough to demonstrate her lack of depth on this issue - and, I suspect, many others as well. But so what? A person so lacking in depth should not throw an entire political movement into a meltdown by getting something wrong. It sounds as though Lahren is done at The Blaze, which I guess means ideological conformity is mandatory there. So let's see if she lands anywhere else, or can make something happen on her own. But in the meantime, maybe the conservative movement needs to be reminded that while its media stars talk amongst themselves and are very impressed with themselves, the rest of the world is not hanging on their every word. And maybe they should give some thought to just who it is that they turn into stars. And why.


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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