Even before Donald J. Trump won the presidential election in 2016, he achieved one of the most amazing victories in recent U.S. political party history. Trump made the portion of the Political Establishment’s den of snakes, who were pretending to be on the conservative side, reveal who they really were – just more feminists, liberals, and socialists. (There will always be more snakes to uncover wherever there is politics, money, and power. Proof? World history.)

 

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” Marcus Cicero from over 2,000 years ago.

 

Candidate Trump forced those who were pretending to be on the conservative side of the Political Establishment to concede that they were actually grifters, incompetent consultants, liberal feminists, and even Democratic Party voters. Here are a few of their names with a lot more to be named further below: Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson, Nicolle Wallace, and Steve Schmidt.

 

The following is a case study of this type of snake in the form of Sarah Elizabeth “S.E.” Cupp:

 

Cupp is registered as a Republican.

 

According to the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) website entry about S.E. Cupp, “At the top of her website after her name, it says ‘Conservative. Columnist. Commentator.’” On the Wikipedia page about “S.E. Cupp”, it says, “Throughout her career, Cupp has described herself as a ‘mainstream conservative’”.

 

Cupp is an atheist, but in 2010, she wrote a book entitled, Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity. It was a paint-by-numbers subject even by 2010, still, it was a defense of Christianity. I guess we were supposed to find it charming that an atheist like Cupp would defend our religion.

 

Cupp supports the Second Amendment.

 

Deep, down-home, Southern roots? Yup. Cupp was born in Oceanside, California, and grew up in Andover, Taxachusetts. She graduated from Cornell in Ithaca, New York, earned a master’s degree from New York University, and now resides in Darien, Connecticut. Huh? Cupp once said she would, “be perfectly happy living anonymously on a ranch in Kentucky, where the only time someone mentioned me was to discuss the crazy lady up the road with all the taxidermy and jerky.”

Cupp is a very glib girl.

 

Nominally pro-life, Cupp has even written a few pro-life articles. However, Cupp also supports gay and lesbian marriage.

 

Okay, so, Cupp is a self-described, “mainstream conservative”, registered Republican. She is a pro-life atheist who supports the Second Amendment, but who also supports gay and lesbian marriage.

 

***

 

But, those were Cupp’s political positions before Trump won the presidency in 2016. As it turns out, Cupp was a liberal feminist all along. She tried to deceive us and she succeeded for a while. She put a lot of effort into trying to appear non-liberal. Look at how she schemed her way through issue-by-issue to fool us:

 

Cupp is a Republican in the George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, John McCain, Willard Mitt Romney, and John Ellis “Jeb” Bush, sense. Which is to say, a Republican In Name Only – a RINO. RINOs make little attempt to achieve anything in the Republican Party platform because they are frauds, they are feminists, they might as well be registered as Democrats.

Cupp is a RINO.

 

Cupp is venomously anti-Trump as are all of the other snakes and RINOs listed below. And, these fake “mainstream conservatives” and RINOs are known, collectively, as anti-Trumpers, never Trumpers, and the like. All of these factions within the Political Establishment expected us to vote for Bush (in 2000 and 2004), McCain (in 2008), Romney (in 2012), and Jeb Bush (in 2016), and, excluding Jeb’s run for president, tens of millions of us did.

Cupp is an anti-Trumper.

 

As for Cupp’s support for the Second Amendment, I will let her speak for herself in an article she wrote June 23, 2022, on Oprahdailydotcom, “I’m a gun owner who left the NRA years ago, frustrated with its cede-no-ground approach to commonsense gun restrictions.” This reminds me of when, in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama said Hillary Clinton talks about, “how she values the second amendment. She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley. Hillary Clinton is out there like she’s out in the duck blind every Sunday.” Everyone knows that a feminist’s support for the NRA, or even the Second Amendment, is a joke.

 

And, Cupp’s love for huntin’ reminds me of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry’s ulterior hunting trips to the crucial swing state of Ohio just prior to the 2004 presidential election. She does seem to genuinely enjoy hunting and fishing, but Cupp is so duplicitous that it is hard to believe that she has even one honest thought.

Cupp has more in common with Democrats Obama, Clinton, and Kerry, than with center-right Americans.

 

But, at least Cupp is nominally pro-life, right? Abortion is such an important issue that her pro-life views should count for a lot on the conservative side. Here are some quotes from an article she wrote in 2015:

 

[“I am pro-life. I’m not religious, but I believe that killing babies for convenience is morally wrong, and a society that condones, and in many cases celebrates, the practice has lost its way.”

“The legality and the ethics of what Planned Parenthood is doing certainly merits scrutiny and a national debate. But the more important conversation that we likely won’t have is about the morality of abortion in general, and whether the explicit nature of this video will make us question our embrace of such a grotesque institution.”

“The Democratic Party has moved so far to the left on abortion that it no longer represents mainstream opinion.”

“Planned Parenthood denies that your taxes fund abortions – and they perform hundreds of thousands of them every year – but they receive hundreds of millions every year in taxpayer grants and reimbursements. That any of your money supports an organization that treats human life, and specifically the most vulnerable among us, with such little regard should disgust us all.”

(“Planned Parenthood and the abortion debate we won’t have”. S.E. Cupp. Jewish World Review. July 17, 2015.)]

 

Really good points, but that was written in 2015. That was before Trump was elected president. It wasn’t long before Cupp revealed her real thoughts about abortion. (“I’m Pro-Life and I Believe Roe V. Wade Should Not Have Been Overturned”. S. E. Cupp. Oprahdailydotcom. June 23, 2022.) Here she writes in 2022:

 

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve considered myself pro-life. I’m a center-right conservative.”

 

As recently as 2022, she was still trying to portray herself as a “center-right conservative.”

 

“Twenty-five years ago, I was drawn to the conservative movement and a Republican Party that seemed empowering, even and especially for women.”

 

Cupp’s view is just the other side of the same Political Establishment slug coin. Feminists, liberals, socialists, and the Democratic Party, see women as permanent “victims” in constant need of constant help. Cupp wants the conservative movement and Republican Party to see women to be in constant need of constant “empowering”.

 

“I’d always supported gay rights, and found that to be conservative, too. If we want the government out of our private lives and to promote the institution of marriage, this only made sense to me.”

 

That makes sense to only her. After thousands of years of heterosexual marriage, the idea that homosexual marriage, circa 2015, does anything to promote the institution of marriage is a joke. As far as conservatism, Cupp is just making it up as she goes and using careless rhetoric to support her solipsism.

 

“Importantly, my version of pro-life accepted fully that Roe v. Wade was settled law. It indeed appeared to be, as Supreme Court justices over many administrations upheld it. I was comfortable settling on the Clintonian bargain that abortion should be ‘legal, safe, and rare.’”

 

To me, Cupp fully accepting Roe v. Wade (1973) as settled law and being comfortable with liberal feminist Clinton’s false bargain means that she was always pro-choice. Pro-Roe v. Wade equals pro-choice. Cupp is pro-legalized abortion. Cupp faked a pro-life position on abortion because if she had clearly stated that she was actually in favor of legalized abortion, she never would have been accepted as even a fake “mainstream conservative”. Supporting gay marriage and abortion makes you an out-and-out liberal feminist.

 

Try to remember the circumstances when she wrote the pro-life article in 2015. She thought she could afford to fake a pro-life position because pro-choice Obama was president, pro-choice Hillary Clinton was running for the Democratic nomination, and she thought the pro-choice Political Establishment’s predestined Republican candidate, Jeb Bush, would win the nomination to run as a RINO. Abortion looked rock solid. So, before Trump, Cupp – and all of the Political Establishment’s fake conservatives – could afford to continue with the ruse that they were pro-life because Jeb needed pro-lifer votes and they were certain nothing would ever happen to Roe v. Wade.

 

But, after Trump and his victories, look at how Cupp and all of the fake conservative, anti-Trump, snakes reacted. It was all-hands-on-deck for the feminist, liberal, and socialist, part of the Political Establishment. Which is to say, The Establishment. After 1973, abortion was supposed to be “settled” and set in stone. Nothing was supposed to change and had Clinton or Jeb won in 2016, nothing would have changed.

 

“Overturning Roe doesn’t seem to solve an actual problem most Americans have.”

“And a federal ban on abortion doesn’t really protect the unborn. It would still allow individual states to decide whether abortions can be performed and with what restrictions, which would presumably drive abortion seekers to those states in which it were legal. To the contrary, overturning Roe would likely add problems, like limiting access to abortion for women in rural and poor communities, where healthcare is already scarce or too expensive.”

 

“I opposed capital punishment – it didn’t seem just or conservative to support government-sponsored killing, especially when the government could falsely convict someone.”

 

Can you believe she wrote all of this in the same one article? You can’t make this stuff up.

 

P. J. O’Rourke has a great explanation for this phenomenon in his book, Give War a Chance. I am going to paraphrase it: You can understand a Christian’s morality and thought process for opposing abortion while supporting the death penalty for a criminal who kidnaps, rapes, and murders, a ten-year-old. You can at least see some consistency in the callous pragmatist who might favor both, abortion and capital punishment. But, how much do you have to hate free will to come up with the liberal feminist position that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers.

 

Okay, so, after Trump won the 2016 election, Cupp is an atheist, anti-Trump, anti-capital punishment, pro-“commonsense gun restrictions”, pro-homosexual marriage, pro-legalized abortion, feminist. What part of any of this makes Cupp a “conservative”, or a “mainstream conservative”, or a “center-right conservative”?

 

“Since my early entry into conservative politics those many years ago, the Republican Party has long left me. No longer empowering, it is oppressive, cruel, punishing, and regressive.”

 

Did you catch that? “No longer empowering”, “oppressive”. If there is one thing that feminists believe, it is that all women are “victims” of “oppression”. “Regressive”? Does Cupp want the Republican Party to be pro-legalized abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, and, in other words, progressive, just like her and the Democratic Party? Yes, that’s exactly what she wants. Then, what is the point of two political parties? Exactly. The Establishment figured it out a long time ago – control both parties. Either way the Establishment wins. The result is what is sometimes called the uni-party. (See Guideline 2a: Omni-”Oppression” and 4a: Omni-”Sexism”).

 

The translation of “the Republican Party has long left me”, is, President Trump is not a member of the pro-choice feminist Establishment and the entire Establishment hates him for it. Additionally, because of Trump’s leadership, some Republican Party politicians are now, at least temporarily, representing true, right-of-center, conservative voters. Cupp might still be technically registered as a Republican, but she has more in common with feminists, liberals, socialists, and Democrats.

 

After thoroughly revealing her feminist positions on the issues, Cupp libels exactly the type of people and ideology she always pretended to be – Republicans, the Right, and conservatism. She burns all of her bridges. This one article of hers thoroughly exposes her previous 25 years of pretending to be conservative as fraudulent.

 

Cupp hisses about, “Donald Trump’s assault on democratic institutions, the Republican Party’s corrosive white nationalism, the propagation of racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and sexist rhetoric, and the Right’s embrace of dangerous and baseless conspiracy theories – some of which have resulted in actual violence. The modern Right’s perversion of conservatism has been disorienting, to say the least.”

 

Why is Cupp this angry? Because, abortion is everything to feminists! Cupp’s incantation is exactly the same as each and every pro-choice liberal feminist’s in the media: Sexist! Racist! Blah, Blah, Blah! “Trump’s assault on democratic institutions”? It is socialist feminists who are anti-democracy in that they are socialist feminists. It is pro-choice socialist feminists who want to abolish everything – including, but not limited to:

“The goal of socialist feminism is to abolish the social relations that constitute humans not only as workers and capitalists but also as women and men.”

“Socialist feminism makes an explicit commitment to the abolition of both class and gender.”

“Just as socialist feminists are committed to abolishing workerhood and womanhood as social categories, so their political values and their conception of human nature may require them also to abolish childhood.”

“Without feminism there can be no socialism; and without socialism, feminism cannot achieve the goals it espouses.”

(See entry: “Feminism Is Liberalism Is Socialism (Part 1)” in The Daily Vos archive.)

 

It is feminists who are corrosive national socialists. Feminists are ideologically anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American. Feminists see everyone as “oppressor” and “oppressed”. They see Israel and the U.S. as “oppressors” to be abolished. I speak for the majority, and probably the vast majority, of Christians when I say we like Jewish people and are pro-Israel. We disagree with Jewish people who are politically liberal. Do I need to point out to you that the Left treats Israel and the U.S. the same way feminists treat men and Christians? The national socialist feminists want to abolish Israel, democracy, the U.S., and all of Western Civilization in between.

 

Can Cupp think of any “actual violence” such as rioting, looting, and burning, incited by Marxists – such as Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi – on the Left? Or, by James T. Hodgkinson?

 

“Baseless conspiracy theories”? Feminists are full of baseless conspiracy theories. The biggest being, all women are “victims” of “oppression”.

 

Cupp writes and talks so much that I can’t cover it all, so you will have to observe for yourselves, but, to me, it seems she never uses this type of inflammatory language against the Left. She doesn’t want to insult herself or her left-wing friends. Even in her nominally pro-life article above, she writes, “I believe that killing babies for convenience is morally wrong”, and, “the more important conversation that we likely won’t have is about the morality of abortion in general”. She questions the morality of the issue, which is fine, but she never personifies and describes any left-wing groups, such as pro-choice feminists, as immoral. She could easily recite the entire riot act that it is pro-choice feminists who are immoral, evil, racist, and bigoted, but she doesn’t because she doesn’t want to implicate herself or any of her pro-choice feminist friends.

 

Cupp’s angry rant against all of us on the Right is typical for a pro-choice liberal feminist, but it is the very opposite of what you would expect coming from a partisan (albeit in this case fake) Republican and a partisan (albeit in this case fake) conservative. There is no difference in Cupp’s anti-conservative rhetoric and that of left-wing extremists and the worst that Hollywood has to offer. You can now add hateful feminist rhetoric to Cupp’s list of politics.

 

From the “S.E. Cupp” Wikipedia page:

[In March 2013, Cupp pulled out of a CPAC appearance because of its stances on homosexuality and gay marriage, saying she “became increasingly uncomfortable [aligning] with an event, a great event in many ways, that had nonetheless attempted to marginalize a significant group of conservatives working on our behalf.” She has since joined Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry. She has said that Republicans should be “natural allies” for same-sex marriage.]

 

A “significant group of conservatives[?] working on our behalf”? Greatly outweighed not only by the number of homosexuals working against us but their viciousness against us. And, do you think the gays and lesbians supposedly “working on our behalf” are pro-life or pro-choice? Do you know who is working on our behalf? A lot of pro-life Christians. “Natural allies”? She can’t be that stupid. The only conclusion is that atheist Cupp is undermining conservatives and advocating that Republicans just surrender on matters of morality.

 

Christians consider homosexuality and abortion to be immoral. Conservatives advocate for virtue and the traditional family. The Republican Party supposedly represents our point-of-view. So, it is Cupp’s “perversion of conservatism”. To her, gay marriage is conservatism and abortion is democracy.

 

From FFRF’s website, “Cupp identifies as a Log Cabin Republican who supports equal rights for gays. Although she said in 2013 that she had never voted for a Democrat, she announced in August 2020 that she would be voting for Joe Biden for president.”

 

So, there you have it. Rock-ribbed Republican and stalwart pro-life conservative S.E. Cupp voting for pro-choice Democrat Joe Biden. At this point, she is not even a RINO who at least votes for Republicans. You can now add Democratic Party voter to the list: Cupp is an atheist, anti-Trump, anti-capital punishment, pro-“commonsense gun restrictions”, pro-homosexual marriage, pro-legalized abortion, hateful feminist, Democrat voter. Am I making my point clear?

 

But, at least Cupp wrote a book defending Christianity, right? An entire book in defense of Christianity should count for a lot on the conservative side. Here are some quotes from her book, Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity:

 

[“This revolution, already in full throttle around the country, is being waged against you and me and every other American, and its goal is simple: to overthrow God, and silence Christian America for good.”

“The revolutionaries are not in the White House, nor are they in the state house, though they often work in concert and toward similar goals.”

“The revolutionaries are in the media.”

“Targeting faith is targeting Democracy, and that’s something that should make every American deeply concerned for the future.”

“The revolution to overthrow Christian America, to marginalize it to the fringes, to force it out of the mainstream to the far corners of the earth, is being led by reporters, writers, columnists, editors, pundits, producers, critics, and publishers all over the country—people who are, laughably and totally inaccurately, still referred to as the ‘mainstream media.’”

“But the liberalism of the press is only half the story. Less often discussed is its secularism, but in recent years the mainstream media has begun to reveal its particular antipathy for Christianity with more and more confidence.”

“All of this means that the mainstream press no longer deserves the privilege of controlling the conversation.”

“…the media is telegraphing the following: The Judeo-Christian values that form the basis of American democracy should be overthrown entirely…”

“It’s time Christian America woke up to the cold reality that the liberal media is waging war on you—and it’s winning.”

“…Christian America needs to get wise to this attack before Judeo-Christian values, which is to say American values, are relegated to a hush-hush subculture unable to operate in the open without fear of retribution and censorship.”

“After spending eight years railing against the Bush administration for Bush’s Christianity, and, by proxy, against all Christians, the media abandoned any pretense of objectivity to help usher in a new ideological era under Barack Obama, who represented not only a chance for the kind of radical liberalism most of the media elite espouses, but also a chance for the kind of secularism it regularly promotes. Raised by atheists, uncomfortable with Christ, disconnected from evangelical America, and perceived as “too smart” to be “too religious,” Obama offered an easy, convenient, anemic Christianity that was just what the liberal media wanted: totally opportunistic and entirely insincere. Working in tandem, the Obama administration and the liberal media are strategically and surgically singling out American Christianity for extinction.”]

 

Really good points, but do you think Cupp is being sincere?

 

From FFRF’s website entry about S.E. Cupp:

[“The insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was in many ways a Christian nationalist event. Crosses, Christian banners and signs reading ‘Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president,’ were unavoidable. … “All of this – the rise in Christian nationalism and the literal and metaphorical weaponizing of faith to intimidate opponents – while the country grows less and less religious.”

“Surely, there are atheists in Congress and running for Congress, just as there are atheists everywhere else in America, even if they remain closeted. With the right using God to coax the party into regressive, punitive and at times increasingly scary places, here’s hoping they finally have the courage to come out of the shadows.” (Column, N.Y. Daily News, June 22, 2022)]

 

This is yet another embarrassingly naked total flip-flop on Cupp’s part. Christianity went from being singled out for extinction by the liberal media in 2010, to being an almighty force by 2022. To top it off, now she is trying to summon hordes of atheists to defeat Christians, if not to single them out for extinction.

 

“I wasn’t religious – in fact, I was a devout atheist. I supported religious freedom, and defended Christian America, but was also highly suspicious of its undercurrents and motivations.” (“I’m Pro-Life and I Believe Roe V. Wade Should Not Have Been Overturned”. S. E. Cupp. Oprahdailydotcom. June 23, 2022.)

 

How to explain this? Cupp was willing to tolerate Christians as long as they kept their moral undercurrents and religious motivations out of politics. Cupp’s deal for Christians was, vote for the RINOs, but you won’t get any victories on moral issues, or on any issues, for that matter. I will let you decide just how much difference you think there is between Bush’s Christianity and Obama’s “anemic Christianity” and Cupp’s devout atheism.

 

And, for the last time, Cupp is an atheist, anti-Trump, anti-capital punishment, pro-“commonsense gun restrictions”, pro-homosexual marriage, pro-legalized abortion, hateful feminist, Democrat voter, anti-Christian, snake.

 

***

 

Here is the list of RINOs, fake conservatives, and snakes, in no particular order. This is not a comprehensive list. I may add names to, or delete names from, this list. What they all have in common is that they all pretended to be Republicans and/or conservatives. Some even pretended to be Christians. All of these people are anti-Trump.

 

Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson, Nicolle Wallace, Steve Schmidt, S.E. Cupp, Charlie Sykes, David French, Ana Navarro, Al Cardenas, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, Bret Stephens, David Evan McMullin, Mindy Finn, Stephen Hayes, Joe Scarborough, Matthew Dowd, David Frum, Cheri Jacobus, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez. David Brooks, Seth Mandel. Mike Murphy, Mark McKinnon, Dan Senor, Michael Steele, John Weaver, Tim Miller, Jennifer Horn, Tom Nichols, Eliot A. Cohen, Frank Luntz, Seth Klarman, Robert Kagan, Reed Galen, George Conway, Jeff Timmer, Carly Fiorina, Ron Steslow, Mike Madrid, Stuart Stevens, Sarah Longwell, George Will, Jonah Goldberg.

 

These 50 people (I’m going to round up to 50) could be seen as belonging to their own cliques, within groups, within the RINO and fake conservative clubs, within the Political Establishment.

 

• Lincoln Project members who endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024: Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, George Conway, John Weaver, Jennifer Horn, Ron Steslow, Reed Galen, Mike Madrid.
• Voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, or Biden in 2020, or Kamala Harris in 2024: Mona Charen, Michael Steele, Tom Nichols, Robert Kagan, among many others.
• Writers: Bill Kristol, George Will, David Frum.
• Consultants – Advisors – Strategists: Nicolle Wallace, Matthew Dowd.
• And S.E. Cupp’s favorite club: John Weaver, Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell.

 

 

***

 

Before I get cranked up again uncovering snakes to be crushed, I want to do a few things.

 

I want to credit this John Nolte article on Breitbartdotcom as a source for some of the names on the list. (“Trump’s wildly successful first year again exposes #nevertrump as amoral saboteurs”. John Nolte. Breitbartdotcom. December 21, 2017.)

 

I want to make it clear that this is an expose about people who were pretending to be Republicans, conservatives, and Christians. So, I’m not going to spend any time explaining people in other areas of the Establishment, such as the deep state, for example, because some of them, and maybe most of them, were never Republicans or conservatives in the first place. It is true that the deep state is a powerful part of the Establishment. Some examples are people in the CIA (John Brennan voted for a communist for president in 1976), FBI (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok), IRS (Lois Lerner involved in stonewalling tea party groups), James Clapper, and other high-ranking bureaucrats in government departments.

 

RINOs are national and state-level politicians, but can also include high-ranking non-politicians such as the anti-Trumpers listed above. I’m not going to spend much time on RINO politicians. Each individual RINO would need to be researched, who his donors are, his rhetoric analyzed, and how he voted on legislation. Examples include Michael Steele, former leader of the Republican National Committee, and former congressman Adam Kinzinger.

 

I am focusing on the strategists, consultants, and rhetoricians, who pretended to be conservative. There is no need to do a case study on each one because they are all exactly the same, but if you would like to do that, I encourage you to do so. I am going to cover just a few more to drive the point home that they all hold exactly the same liberal feminist political views.

 

Here is a great description of what is meant by the phrase “The Establishment” from Wikipedia: “The term the establishment describes the dominant social group, the elite who control a polity, an organization, or an institution. In the praxis of wealth and power, the Establishment usually is a self-selecting, closed elite entrenched within specific institutions – hence, a relatively small class can exercise all socio-political control.”

 

***

 

Charlie Sykes wrote a book in 2017, entitled, How the Right Lost Its Mind. The best way to make any sense of this book is to understand that Sykes’ political views are exactly the same as Cupp’s. So, it should come as no surprise that his political attitude follows exactly the same trajectory as hers. When it was Bush-McCain-Romney-Obama, almost every issue was under almost total control and the grifting was good, but as soon as Trump came along, all hope was gone.

 

It will also help you to understand Sykes, his book, and the rest of the fakes, if you read this article by Michael Anton: “The Flight 93 Election”. Written on September 5, 2016, you can find it on Claremont Review of Books website. I strongly recommend that you read Anton’s article. If you’ve already read it, re-read it. Sykes wrote his book a year later and inadvertently proved that everything Anton wrote is accurate and correct.

 

If Cupp writes like a glib girl, Sykes writes like an out of touch old coot. If you’ve read any books or articles by fake conservatives over the years, Sykes’ book will be familiar to you. He does all of the things typical of a garden-variety political hack. He tries to make himself look smart. He fancies himself a “thought leader” along with the other fakes. He spots hypocrisy within large groups of people he disagrees with. He conspicuously shows his feelings of smug superiority over others.

 

On page one, Sykes simply lists standard concepts that define the conservative movement, “individual liberty, respect for the constitution, free markets, personal responsibility, traditional values, and civility.” Yes, we like all of those things. We like freedom, baseball, and apple pie, too. But, we also want – in the words of Michael “Savage” Weiner – a nation with borders, language, and culture.

 

On another level, Sykes is setting up an obvious trap. Disagree with him on any specific issue and he will portray you as anti-all-of-the-above concepts. For example, if you want borders, the implication is that you are anti-Constitution, anti-free markets, etc., and have lost your mind.

 

The main purpose of the book is to attack and insult real conservatives who disagree with Sykes. Tellingly, he quotes favorably from out-and-out liberals. For example, he quotes from an almost demonic Stephen King to find support. Sykes has more in common with the worst Hollywood has to offer than with us.

 

Sykes actually names some real conservatives that he doesn’t like: Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sarah Palin, and several others. This alone tells you everything you need to know about Sykes. It is another proof of who Sykes really is. He is as bitterly anti-Trump as Cupp. If you like Trump, then Sykes hates you.

 

As an example of incivility, Sykes uses this, “Rush Limbaugh called a young female law student a ‘slut.’” Limbaugh’s show was on the air for over 30 years. It is amazing he used so few such words. But, Sykes feels scorned and is reaching for any club in the corner. I love Coulter. I have read most of her books. I listened to Limbaugh and Levin (and Michael Savage) for many, many, years. Occasionally, Limbaugh would talk about how the type of person like Sykes (a fake, but not necessarily Sykes) would try to flip him to support open borders and surrender on abortion. Sykes hates these people because even though the Establishment had almost total control these people stayed consistently patriotic and supported Trump. Deservedly, Limbaugh received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was awarded to him by President Trump.

 

Limbaugh was not accepted into the Establishment. He wasn’t even accepted into the Establishment’s fake conservatives’ cliques and clubs. How can I be so sure? Because Sykes and the fakes hated him. It is like an equation. If you know two of the variables, you can easily figure out the third variable. Sykes is an anti-Trump snake, that variable is known. Now, if I told you there is a Republican politician or conservative activist, and all you know is that Sykes hates him, then you can be sure the third variable is that the politician or activist supports Trump and is genuinely conservative. And, if I told you there is a politician or activist that is anti-Trump, you can be sure the third variable is that Sykes will like him even if they never met. This equation works with each and every one of the fakes. It is that simple and predictable.

 

The Establishment is “self-selecting” and a closed-shop. You must be in agreement with them about almost everything at all times or you don’t get in. Some people have the quaint notion that there is vigorous intellectual debate and disagreement among these people. That would only complicate matters for them. Fake conservatives hate real conservatives like Coulter, Limbaugh, et al., because there is real disagreement between these two groups. They fakes want agreement on everything in advance (“self-selecting”) and to keep everyone else out (“closed elite”). This is how the Establishment maintains control over everything.

 

Sykes describes the atmosphere surrounding the Trump campaign in 2016, “In this environment, conformity was demanded – on language, attitudes, and even tactics. Since even the mildest of dissent was punished by withering fire on air and through social media – “RINO!” – it was not surprising that original, fresh thinking was discouraged.”

 

The opposite is true. The Establishment’s RINOs and fake conservatives had almost total control over the right side of politics for several decades and conformity was demanded on language, attitudes, and tactics. Original, fresh thinking from people like Coulter and Limbaugh was discouraged by the frauds and fakes.

 

In politics, everyone is trying to work together as a team to achieve goals. For someone who has been in politics for so long and who describes himself in the book as a “thought leader”, it is bemusing to watch Sykes pout like a child the first time he is on the losing team. Sykes was 61-years-old when Trump won in 2016. You would think a man of Sykes’ maturity and stature would be more statesman-like if he were anywhere close to being an actual conservative and just say, Trump isn’t the Republican candidate that I wanted and I disagree with him on some things but I wish him well…

 

Sykes writes, “Over decades, conservative thought leaders had sought to knit together those various interpretations of conservatism, carefully balancing culture, individual responsibility, and politics though the concept of ordered liberty. [italics in original] This was the essential equilibrium of modern conservatism that was shattered by the rise of Donald Trump.”

 

So, over the ages, these geniuses tenderly knitted ancient parchments of wisdom, through careful titration and alchemy, to balance culture, individual responsibility, and generally politics through ordered liberty. Which somehow all boiled down to open borders, legalized abortion, and gay marriage – essentially matching the Democrats, the Left, and modern liberal feminism.

 

Sykes writes, “After years of carefully building an impressive intellectual infrastructure, conservatives thought they were poised to move ahead with a coherent philosophy of governing, only to have principled conservative ideas drowned out in a tsunami of misinformation and demagoguery.”

 

They thought “they were poised to move ahead”? What were they waiting for? Sykes ran for the Wisconsin Legislature all the way back in 1974. George Will was already 33-years-old by that time. They thought they had a coherent philosophy and principled ideas but why did they have to be such total surrender monkeys on every concrete political issue?

 

Just like Cupp, Sykes has nothing but endless contempt for the Right. He calls them “charlatans”, “grifters”, and, “How did it [the Right] create an alternative-reality silo that indulged every manner of crackpot, wing-nut conspiracy theory?” And, “A movement once driven by ideas found itself dominated by Kardashian-like talking point reciters, intellectually dishonest shills, cynical careerists…”.

 

Sykes mentions “small government”, “fiscal restraint”, and “budget issues”, and, yes, we still want all of those things, but the RINOs and fakes failed to accomplish any of those things for the last several decades.

 

It could very well be that the RINOs and fakes were never sincere about fiscal and budgetary issues. For example, on the Wikipedia page for “S.E. Cupp”, she is quoted as supporting “limited government” and “lower taxes”. What else could she say? She couldn’t say she wanted to tax and spend for bigger government because she was pretending to be conservative at the time.

 

From the Wikipedia page about “Charlie Sykes”, he is quoted out of an article he wrote for The New York Times in 2016, “as we learned this year, we [fake conservatives] had succeeded in persuading our audiences to ignore and discount any information from the mainstream media. Over time, we’d succeeded in delegitimizing the media altogether – all the normal guideposts were down, the referees discredited.”

 

This is as close to an admission that it was all kayfabe as it gets. Sykes liked it better when a strong Establishment and its media had almost total control with the fakes pretending to oppose them. The stronger the Establishment, the stronger the fakes could pretend to oppose them with no risk of any victories by real Republicans and conservatives. A strong Establishment makes for better kayfabe. Just like the rest of the fakes, as soon as Trump started winning, Sykes went running to help the Establishment oppose Trump.

 

This isn’t a complete book review. I wanted to show that Sykes’ book is an insult to all of us and that he is exactly like Cupp except with a thicker smokescreen of concepts repeated ad nauseam.

 

***

 

Let me tell you what all of this anti-Trump rhetoric isn’t about. It isn’t about Trump’s personality, temperament, or character. It isn’t about “personal responsibility, traditional values, and civility.” But the fakes can’t just come out and say they are a bunch of pro-choice, homosexual, liberal feminists, so they have to make it about savoir-faire.

 

However, the incivility among the fakes is plain to see. Here is a paragraph from Sykes’ substack page on October 8, 2025. Sykes quotes Rick Wilson’s comments about Pam Bondi. “Rick Wilson compares her [Bondi’s] stuttering evasions, insults, and faux bursts of performative outrage to a fake orgasm – ‘loud, theatrical, sweaty, and meant to trick just one man into keeping her around by flattering his ego.’ Unfortunately, this makes her performance seem far more entertaining than it actually was; and is unfair to orgasms.” [italics in original].

 

Too many digressions make for ugly articles, but this website is intended to be educational. So, I want to explain that the fakes will always have ready excuses for their incivility. They will say there wasn’t any incivility in politics, or in the world, until Trump came along. They will say Trump started it all so you can’t blame them for their incivility because they are just trying to keep things balanced. They will say that they aren’t the president so the rules don’t apply to them. They will say that it was just a joke, etc.

 

There are only two reasons that explain all of this anti-Trump rhetoric: money and deep-seated political views. This isn’t about civility or even lower-tier issues like the death penalty.

 

***

 

Bernard Goldberg wrote in his book Bias, “The old argument that the networks and other ‘media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it is hardly worth discussing anymore. No, we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.”

 

It is also true that the fakes and RINOs don’t have to plan strategies to maintain control for the Establishment. The consultants, advisors, and strategists, control the candidates from the outset. An example of this is Nicolle Wallace who was an advisor for the McCain and Palin ticket in 2008. According to the Wikipedia page “Nicolle Wallace”, she later admitted that she didn’t even vote for her own candidate for president that year – McCain – because she didn’t like Palin. Wallace works for the MS NOW network. There is no way she works for MS NOW unless she is (and probably always was) a committed liberal feminist just like Cupp.

 

Now – when you look back on it – if, in the past, you saw the type of fake like Cupp or Wallace on CNN or MSNBC debating the type of person like Gloria Borger or Eleanor Clift (not necessarily any of these women specifically) you realize that it was all kayfabe. If they (Cupp and Clift, for example) were debating abortion, it was two liberal feminists for legalized abortion on both sides.

 

The fakes also control congressional candidates and after they are elected the RINOs. The legislative process is controlled this way. The RINOs are the choke point and the fakes are the gatekeepers. It doesn’t matter what the voters want as long as the fakes control the choke point. In any given year, the Establishment’s fake conservatives only need to control around 240 to 290 RINOs – around 50 senators and the rest representatives.

 

What about all of the conservative-concept articles the fakes wrote for magazines such as National Review and The Weekly Standard? That was all part of the bluff. They can say and write whatever they want, but as long as the fakes control the choke point, nothing will get done.

 

The writers and RINOs don’t have to plan strategies, but if they did, it would go something like this. The type of fake like Bill Kristol would contact some of the top RINOs and let them know to expect more angry calls from constituents than usual because Kristol and some fakes wrote articles criticizing open borders. They all enjoy a good laugh because none of them care what their constituents and subscribers think. And, the RINOs already know full-well that they and the fakes want to keep the borders open. Then, come election time, the fakes continue with the kayfabe and plead with everybody to vote for the RINOs to save us from open borders.

 

Big donors support the fake conservative media too, not just RINO politicians. National Review used to send out fundraising letters to their subscribers. This is the other reason that explains the fakes’ anti-Trump rhetoric. Money!

 

Of course, big donors funding these fakes, RINOs, and organizations, expect something in return. Big donors exert a lot of control over the process. They want legislation to go their way. They want to win on the issues that are important to them. The big donors, fakes, and RINOS, – all a part of the Establishment – the praxis of wealth and power, have almost total control over the process.

 

Here are some excerpts from this article: (“Bill Kristol Was the Standard”. Austin Ruse. Crisismagazinedotcom. August 5, 2022.)

“Kristol seemed willing to have the Standard shuttered over his hatred of Donald Trump. Editors from those days say the atmosphere at the Standard was dark, even suicidal. Clearly, the Standard committed suicide by turning on its readers and donors.”

“With the death of the Standard, Kristol and colleagues cashed whopping checks from a leftist billionaire to start something called The Bulwark, which is a sometimes-vulgar nearly-always hate-fest on all things Republican. Kristol seems to want the Republican Party destroyed.”

“I believed he was pro-life and pro-marriage and stood against the sexual revolution, including its sodomy caucus.” “Kristol has not explained how and why he has changed so profoundly on the social issues. Maybe he never cared in the first place.” “Maybe he lied to us all along.”

 

Here is a quote from this article: (“Nolte: Bill Kristol reminds me of a guy I knew who went to prison”. John Nolte. Breitbartdotcom. 30 January, 2018.)

Kristol reminds Nolte of an “aging hustler who will never grow up, never admit he wronged us, never have the decency to wish us luck and move on, and whose entire identity revolves only around his sniveling and unbalanced need to redeem his manhood through childish retribution.”

 

Here are some excerpts from this article: (“Who Killed The Weekly Standard”. Benjamin Wallace-Wells. January 3, 2019. The New Yorker.)

The last few years of its life the magazine was losing, “some three million dollars per year.”

“Many journalists spend their careers at the mercy of one billionaire or another.”

The magazine had “a prestige that guarantees both its influence in Republican administrations and congressional offices and its access to important sources.”

Trump’s candidacy was “an evolution that the Standard opposed so vociferously that for a long time it has been hard to separate Bill Kristol’s public persona from the anti-Trump cause. (As the 2016 Republican Convention neared, Kristol had frantically tried to recruit a challenger to Trump, a somewhat quixotic effort in which he was turned down by James Mattis, Mitt Romney, and eventually a National Review columnist named David French.)”

 

***

 

So, who can you trust? Here are a few ways to tell who you can trust. People who share your positions on a wide-range of issues. People who share your positions on the issues that are most important to you. People who show consistency on those issues over time. Their clarity on the issues. Who they admire and who they oppose.

 

I want to explain what I mean by clarity on the issues. Cupp is a feminist so it was all lies, dissembling, and temporizing. For the entire time she said she was pro-life, she was actually for legalized abortion and Roe v. Wade (1973) all the way. She could, and should, have made that clear from the very beginning of her career.

 

Here are some excerpts from this article: (“Charlie Kirk Succeeded Where I Failed.” S.E. Cupp. Substack. September 11. 2025.) This covers a period in Cupp’s life from around 2000 to 2015.

“I found a home in a party I would quickly help shape.” “I used my writing and my broadcast appearances, college speeches and events like CPAC, and activism to influence the party in any way I could.” “That meant fighting for more tolerance of LGBTQ issues through work with Log Cabin Republicans, GOProud, and other groups.” “At the RNC, [Republican National Committee] I worked with leadership on our messaging and policies in an effort to bring more young people, women, minorities and LGBTQ voters into the party.” “I regularly met with Republican leadership.”

 

“Charlie Kirk did what I couldn’t.”

“His [Charlie Kirk’s] Turning Point USA quickly became a major platform for a different kind of young conservative than I was clearly reaching. We had totally different messages, priorities, and values, it seemed, and yet we were all supposedly under the same tent.”

“It’s clear that I was a failure at my project, where Kirk was a success at his.”

“His version was far more appealing to young Americans than mine was.”

“He did in a very short time what I’d spent years trying to do – bring more voters into the movement, and inject it with an unstoppable energy that would see it expand into new frontiers.”

 

Shouldn’t the consultants, advisors, and strategists, to the Republicans have known this all along? Shouldn’t they have been saying, what you really need are more people like Trump, Coulter, and Limbaugh, and maybe in the future a young Christian man with a lot of charisma who can reach college students and young people.

 

Kirk was killed the day before she wrote that, but “actual violence” on the Left never alienates Cupp. “Charlatans” and stupid conspiracy theories on the Left never alienate Sykes. Incivility on the Left never alienates Wilson. Pro-choice feminists and homosexuals on the Left never alienate David French. No amount of violence, stupidity, incivility, or immorality, ever alienates any of the fakes to abandon the Left to support Trump.

 

I haven’t ever met any of these fakes and they could be the nicest people in the world to their families and friends, but I think my criticisms are accurate and correct.

 

We owe Trump a huge debt of gratitude for showing us that winning against the entire Establishment is possible.

 

I will conclude with a summary of an episode from the science-fiction TV show The X-Files, titled “Signs and Wonders”. Reverend Mackey is a minister at a middle-of-the-road, mainline, community church. He is mild-mannered, lukewarm, and takes a moderate tone of voice. Reverend O’Connor is a fundamentalist, pentecostal-style, snake-handling, minister who has a southern, zealous, carnival barker-style, delivery.

 

In a small town, a young man named Jared was killed by rattlesnakes in his car and the roguish O’Connor is the prime suspect. A woman is also killed by rattlesnakes which adds to the suspicion the murderer is O’Connor. A young, pregnant, woman named Gracie is O’Connor’s daughter (who was not attending her father’s church for a time) and Mackey informs the FBI agents that it was O’Connor who impregnated his own daughter. Add incest to the indictment. The show is science-fiction and Gracie gives birth to live snakes further fueling suspicions that O’Connor is responsible for all of the immorality and snake-related murders.

 

O’Connor eventually learns from Gracie that it was Mackey who impregnated her. O’Connor goes and confronts him, but Mackey is able to escape. With Gracie and O’Connor’s additional information the FBI agents correctly conclude that it was the demonic Mackey and his army of snakes who committed all of the murders in an attempt to cover-up his affair with Gracie. O’Connor was completely innocent. The agents are unable to find Mackey who makes a new life for himself as a minister in Connecticut. In the last scene, Mackey sits in his new office, removes a live mouse from a box, then holds it over his head and leans back as a snake strikes out from his throat and swallows the mouse.

 

Know the difference between the snakes and the snake-handlers.