Interesting article about Roger Stone becoming Roger Stone.
I’m posting this article here because of this tiny excerpt about Paul Weyrich’s opinion on Stone, but I also worte a pretty detailed analysis below, about why this brief bit of information is so important for understanding the normalization of “friendly fascism” and the evolution of the modern Republican party.
In 1974 Sen. Robert Dole fired Stone, who was working in his office, after Jack Anderson wrote a column detailing Stone’s Watergate involvement. Unwilling or unable to work for elected officials, Stone worked on campaigns. In 1975, frustrated by how difficult it was for Republican candidates to raise money, Stone founded the National Conservative Political Action Committee with a friend from high school, Terry Dolan, and a future partner, Charlie Black. In 1977 he left NCPAC to become president of the Young Republicans. The next year Stone got his first taste of political consulting working for pollster Arthur Finkelstein (who actually does advise Jeane Kirkpatrick). Reagan’s 1980 campaign director, John Sears, hired Stone for the campaign in 1979.
Reagan fired Sears and Charlie Black on the day of the New Hampshire primary in February 1980. Stone stayed on for the rest of the campaign and joined Black’s new consulting/lobbying form after the election.
It was then, according to Dolan, that Stone moved closer to the political center, becoming more flexible on controversial social issues. “You’ve got to be less ideological or it costs you money in that business,” Dolan says. But Stone’s moderation has cost him points with the far right. Paul Weyrich calls him a “yuppie libertarian” and claims he is responsible for Kemp’s shunning of the religious right.
I wrote an analysis about this, because this tiny little excerpt tells a much bigger and important story about the modern day Republican party for quite a few reasons:
A. How the Republican party changed from the fiscal conservatism/small government party to a party of radical National socialists/Fascists.
Before I came across this excerpt, I was never really able to understand how the Weyrich/Heritage faction of Reagan’s administration fit in with the Stone/Nixonian faction. That’s probably because they didn’t fit in, they were opposing factions within the same administration, and Weyrich viewed establishment Republicans as disgusting moderates.
During Reagan’s first administration, you had the pre-existing members of the Republican party who had been holdovers involved in the last Republican cabinet to come before them (Nixon). Then you had radicals from Heritage clawing their way into the party, and trying to get rid of the old moderates they believed were holding the party back.
The fact that Weyrich calls Stone a “yuppie libertarian,” is actually (kinda hilarious) and a perfect example of the difference between the two factions. From the very beginning of Heritage, Weyrich always pushed for policies that seemed misaligned with the traditional fiscally conservative values of the Republican party. He hated dealing with economic policies because he felt it was his calling to address the social issues.
It may seem a little surprising, given his burn it all down and destroy the government from the inside out ideology, but despite trying to destroy all existing government departments and social programs, Weyrich never opposed social programs “for the right people.” In other words, it would be accurate to call Weyrich a socialist, as long as you include the word national beforehand. He was a fascist in just about every imaginable way, and his advocacy for social issues over economic often caused him to butt heads with establishment Republicans.
B. The extremist behavior of modern day Republicans. Never willing to compromise or back down as a strategy to defeat the opposition.
When you see modern day Republicans act as a united front, even on issues that seem misaligned or even opposed to their own values, it’s not just that they’re hypocrites. They usually are, but politicians have always been hypocrites.
Republicans repeatedly blocking the Epstein files would be a good example of a baffling united front, but even in cases where a pro-vaccine republican has the chance to block someone like RFK from receiving Senate approval, and instead allows him to sail through the process, you can see shades of Weyrich’s direct influence on the party.
The extremism. The cult mentality. The refusal to compromise even when it would still benefit you to do so, because it always has to be “us versus them.” This might also be hard to believe, but that behavior wasn’t always the default for Republicans.
As baffling as it is for establishment Democrats to somehow not pick up on this fact, the norms they may have been accustomed to during their younger days in congress no longer exist because Weyrich beat them out of the party.
Weyrich was famous for his extreme opposition to anything he saw as moderation or compromise. One article about him that was written during the mid 90s, describes him in typical wannabe strongman fashion (oh, hey Stephen Miller) as screaming at House Republicans for caving on an issue until his face turned red and spittle flew from his mouth.
Keep in mind, Weyrich never even held office. He was always a Republican strategist. Similar to Miller, his entire job was to tell other people what they should be doing, and then scream at them like middle manager of a pyramid scheme when things didn’t work out.
C. I know a lot of you guys view me as less than human and a plague on society, but at least we can all agree on taxes AMIRITE!?!"
One of the other interesting people mentioned in the excerpt is Terry Dolan. Dolan, (who I just learned knew Stone all the way back in their high school days) was also part of Reagan’s cabinet and a member of the establishment Republican faction.
When you think of people like Bari Weiss or Peter Thiel who spout bullshit claims like “it doesn’t matter how we’re different because we all want lower taxes,” Dolan is the often forgotten history of the Republican party that exemplifies exactly why, “If I play nice and throw others like me under the bus, the fascist hyenas won’t eat me,” line of thinking is blatantly false.
Remember those “yuppie libertarians?” Dolan was one of those. His sexuality was a bit of an open secret in 1980s D.C. Some of his Republican friends recall him spending the day in a suit and tie dazzling ultra conservative members of the party with his savvy speeches on fiscal responsibility and small government, only to leave those same conservatives speechless as he passed them later in the hotel lobby dressed in leather cuffs and flannel, ready for a night out.
As you can imagine, despite being “one of the good ones,” Weyrich never tried to hide his contempt for Dolan. During the AIDs crisis, he seems to have made some calculated maneuvers in order to get many in the party to distance themselves from Dolan. He likely despised Dolan for many reasons in addition to his sexual orientation, but as history seems to prove over and over, fascists will always stoop to the lowest common denominator to manipulate groups for their own personal gain.
Sadly, Dolan contracted HIV and eventually passed away from AIDs. Although many in the party had intentionally distanced themselves from him by the end of his life, they were still charitable enough to show up to the funeral his brother and mother arranged for him. It was apparently an event packed with famous D.C. conservatives, even Weyrich. How kind of him to pay his respects.
Let’s close by re-examining the very end of the excerpt from the main article:
It was then, according to Dolan, that Stone moved closer to the political center, becoming more flexible on controversial social issues. “You’ve got to be less ideological or it costs you money in that business,” Dolan says. But Stone’s moderation has cost him points with the far right.
Putting all of this together, and understanding the context of what this really means for Dolan, to mention that about Stone, it seems to indicate that Stone may have been one of the few Republicans unwilling to turn his back (yes, the one with that weird ass creepy Nixon tattoo) on his old friend and view him as less than human for his own political gain.
I don’t point this out in defense of Stone. I point it out for anyone who might question if someone like Bari Weiss is perhaps correct about her assessment of the modern conservative movement. Maybe none of that other stuff really matters as long as you can agree on taxes?
Please try to really take the time to imagine the kind of person who can make Roger fucking Stone look like a sympathetic character by comparison. That person is the political mechanic who created the Frankenstein’s monster of the modern day Republican party. The god father of the Christian Nationalist movement. Fascist political strategist, Paul Weyrich.