Erick Erickson: RedState Is No More

Source: The Resurgent | April 27, 2018 | Erick Erickson

RedState’s owners have engaged in a mass purge of talent.

I’ve told the RedState writers that I am happy to take them and put them on the writer stipend here. It isn’t much, but can help. That said, if you haven’t donated to keep us afloat, now would be a really good time. Thanks.

The site name will linger, but RedState is all but dead now. I have invited the fired writers here.

When RedState started in 2004, it was about collaborating between all sides of the GOP and, after I took over, had a real grassroots focus. Since the Salem purchase of Eagle Publishing, the grassroots focus went away as did the community building aspect in favor of clickbait with analysis.

Thankfully, Salem is retaining some very good writers who have long been at RedState, but today engaged in a mass purge of most of the writers.

My understanding from the writers is that there were two contracts, one more expensive than the other. Most of those on the expensive contracts were tossed, though some very good ones will stay. Of those under the cheaper contracts, it seems the dividing line was loyalty to the President. In fact, among those under the expensive contracts, I’m aware of some writers having near equal traffic generation, and those insufficiently loyal to the President were fired.

This is not a surprise as the same thing appears to have happened in Salem’s radio properties and one of its hosts has told me he felt he had to be quiet about his Trump criticisms on his national radio show.

It is unfortunate, but the reality is that Salem never had any idea what to do with RedState and it was very obvious. It is one of the many reasons I chose to retire from the site after a ten year run as editor. They’ve really stopped driving a conversation among conservatives in the past few years as they turned to clickbait and now will really just be a clickbait site it seems.

That is unfortunate. It is also one reason I wanted to start rebuilding a community here. Readers are welcome, and the RedState community is welcome. Anyone can create an account and start writing, and we hope our focus will be less on clickbait stories and more on a resurgent conservatism not tied to cults of personality.

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    “The site name will linger, but RedState is all but dead now. I have invited the fired writers here,” Erick Erickson, a RedState founder who left the site in 2015, wrote in a blog post.

    Fired staffers said the cuts focused on writers who have been critical of President Trump. RedState had often distinguished itself since 2016 as a home for Trump critics within the GOP.

    RedState staffers were reportedly locked out of their accounts on a temporary or permanent basis, depending on job status, while the firings were being carried out.

    Patrick Frey, a RedState blogger who goes by the name of “Patterico” online, wrote on Twitter that “those let go are all Trump critics” while “his supporters remain.”


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    A memo to staff obtained by CNN by a general manager of Salem-owned Townhall.com confirmed the “tough changes” made at RedState.
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    ConservativeGranny #23333

    Trump must be the mountain Red State wants to die on. What are they going to do when Trump is done in 2020? True conservatives won’t forget.

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