RedState, the influential conservative media outlet, has dismissed many of its writers in a “mass firing” that some site contributors say was a purge of anti-Trump sentiment on the site.
Conservative media outlet RedState just fired a lot of its anti-Trump bloggers
The company didn’t give an explicit reason for the firings — or any warning.
Salem Media, which owns RedState, froze site tools Friday morning, blocking access to all contributors and bloggers. Management informed those who would keep their positions that the company was going through a transition period, while others were told their contracts had been terminated, Jay Caruso, a RedState contributor and editorial writer with the Dallas Morning News, told Vox.
The company didn’t give an explicit reason for the firings, but many at the company got a sense that it was tamping down on voices critical of President Donald Trump and his administration.
“When you look at the writers that were cut off and let go versus the ones that are there, the writers that are there are pro-Trump or agnostic,” Caruso said.
Caruso was let go alongside Susan Wright and Caleb Howe, and others. None of the bloggers — almost all of whom are contract employees who get paid based on traffic — who were fired were given earlier notice. Caruso said he never got a sense from management or his editors that anti-Trump sentiments would not be tolerated.
The site’s former editor, Erick Erickson, who left in 2015 and now runs the conservative outlet the Resurgent, tweeted he was “sad to see” the company let go of many of its bloggers but wasn’t surprised. Erickson, who has also been critical of Trump, was also locked out of his account.
“Very sad to see, but not really surprising given Salem’s direction,” he wrote. “And, finally, after all these years, they’ve turned off my account.”
Trump and Trumpism have posed a unique challenge for conservative media outlets, many of which have split between toeing the president’s line and sticking with longstanding conservative values.
In an op-ed for the Washington Post this January, Erickson wrote that celebrating Trump now will only hurt conservatism in the long run:
Conservatives are reveling in their successes and increasing their immorality concurrently. The conservatives who 20 years ago wanted to chase President Bill Clinton out of town for having sex in the Oval Office are now trying to ignore the current president reportedly cheating on his current wife with a porn star. It has become far easier for conservatives to believe lies than believe truths, and it has become far easier for conservatives to turn a blind eye to injustices than speak up. More and more conservatives are modeling Trump’s bad behaviors. His vulgarity, his thin skin, his willingness to insult and demean, and his willingness to degrade his office are now reflected in conservative political leaders who increasingly see their goal as beating the other side instead of advancing ideas and sound public policy.
It appears, however, that the site Erickson edited from 2005 through 2015 has made a different calculation.
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