The Patriot Post® · About George Will's Columns

When we launched The Patriot Post in 1996, it was with sage advice of two conservative protagonists — William F. Buckley Jr. (National Review, Emeritus) and Ed Feulner (Heritage Foundation, Emeritus). In no small measure, our grassroots leadership outreach today remains heavily influenced by the erudite perspective of those two men, and in the years since, the guidance of our outstanding National Advisory Committee.

When William Buckley died in 2008, his heir-apparent at National Review was Jonah Goldberg, and we have carried his columns since then.

However, Mr. Buckley’s heir-apparent in the universe of conservative columnists was The Washington Post’s George Will, and we have also carried his columns since Buckley’s death.

In recent years, both Goldberg and Will have challenged some manifestations of conservative orthodoxy, and both have been critical of Donald Trump. But Goldberg’s criticism has been measured, and in most cases his critical commentary is well earned.

Will, on the other hand, has progressively descended into the Beltway epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome, unwilling to acknowledge the Trump administration’s substantial domestic and foreign policy successes. There is a windfall of political columnists at Leftmedia outlets espousing their hatred for Trump, and by extension, their disdain for the grassroots American Patriots who elected him. But for reasons that defy explanation, other than arrogance and Beltway echo-chamber group think, Will frequently repeats their leftist rhetoric, albeit with a writing style that is still as engaging as his Pulitzer Prize-winning prose always has been.

Will’s antipathy toward our nation’s foundational heritage of faith, our Constitution’s assurance of Second Amendment rights, and the inestimable worth of the life of children before birth, has, from his earliest days, been apparent. This has been a challenge for us, but his analytical writing on other topics was cause for retaining him as a columnist — until now.

In 2013, The Washington Post was purchased by billionaire leftist Jeff Bezos, one of the big four archenemies of Liberty. Before that purchase, despite its left-of-center editorials, we held The Washington Post in high esteem as the last big print bastion of good investigative journalism. But since Bezos decided to back Hillary Clinton in 2015, the Post devolved into a political hack tabloid — as did much of George Will’s writing.

Over the years we have attempted to maintain a range of conservative perspective at The Patriot Post, including some writers with whom, because they occasionally get too far off the reservation, we don’t agree. But as our Managing Editor Nate Jackson observed, we call our outstanding columnist lineup “Right Opinion” for a reason. “While conservatives can have reasonable disagreements and different perspectives,” notes Jackson, “George Will has been flat-out wrong far too often since Donald Trump’s election — to the point that he has literally advised conservatives to cast their votes Left. There has always been a range of perspective in our Right Opinion section — from hawkish conservative to libertarian. But we can’t in good conscience continue to categorize Will’s opinion as ‘Right.’”

Our editor Jordan Candler concurs: “There’s constructive disagreement, and then there’s completely meritless fulminating. Unfortunately, Will increasingly has exemplified the latter. His current trajectory can’t be ignored; it’s neither helpful nor constructive. We take umbrage with some of Trump’s tendencies. But we also strive to provide strategic perspective, and it seems that Will has lost that angle.”

The Patriot Post is, first and foremost, a journal of American Liberty, but, too often now, George Will’s perspective is contrary to what George Washington called, at the dawn of our nation, “The Cause.” For that reason, we will no longer use the support and good will extended to us by our readers to pay for George Will’s perspective.