Scott Tibbs
The Bulwark's wasted potential
By Scott Tibbs, October 10, 2022
I started listening to the September 30 Bulwark podcast and turned it off immediately. I simply could not take the flagrant lies. The hosts were addressing the fact that conservatives have been criticizing Lizzo's performance playing James Madison's classic flute. The Bulwark played a short clip and said there was nothing to be upset about, and that conservative critics are manufacturing outrage.
Lizzo is a talented flute player. From a musical standpoint there is nothing wrong with what I heard of her performance at the museum. But being an audio podcast, The Bulwark did not include and intentionally ignored the visual aspect of her performance at her concert later on. That is what people criticized, not the music or the fact that she played Madison's flute. The Bulwark knows this, so pretending otherwise is credibility-shredding dishonesty.
Lizzo was extremely scantily clad, and sexualized the performance. The point was to degrade the history of the flute and to insult its former owner by sexualizing it. Lizzo's body type is irrelevant. Whether someone is fat, thin or anywhere in between, sexualizing the performance is intentionally demeaning the artifact, history and one of our founding fathers.
I want to like The Bulwark. There is certainly room within the conservative movement for an anti-Trump element. We need principled conservatives to stand up against the elements of the Republican Party that have abandoned traditional conservatism, are wholly invested in "owning the libs" over actual policy wins, and/or are actual conspiracy theory wackos. I want the Bulwark to have the credibility to speak to the conscience of Republicans and conservatives.
But when The Bulwark just openly lies about conservatives in order to "dunk" on them or earn applause from the Left, they prove they are not actually serious about reforming the conservative movement. When you are turning off sympathetic listeners, how can you possibly expect to convert "MAGA Republicans" and turn them back to traditional Reagan conservatism? Simple: You cannot.
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