Posted On: Thursday - July 25th 2024 11:46AM MST
In Topics: Websites Pundits
(Continued from this post.)
There has been a long-term business/political relationship between the "most reasonable guy in America" Steve Sailer and the soon-to-be lost VDare.com website. VDare published Mr. Sailer's writings and supported him (at least) since the latter got fired from The Natural Review.*
I don't write this post today because of this relationship, though. It's one of these deals in which I REALLY DON'T want to drop promised post continuations for months**, as much as it might seem like it to the Peak Stupidity reader. So, anyway, more on the future punditry of Steve Sailer continues here, with more on VDare soon.
Steve Sailer has got his new substack site, as we noteed couple of weeks back. We provided a quick review of the place.
I can see that Mr.Sailer has concentrated on his new site, which said he had 3,000 subscribers (only precise to the nearest thousand)*** recently. Were he to get 1/2 that many paying - and pay you WILL, soon, if you want to read much - that'd be over $12 1/2 thousand coming in monthly before whatever cut substack takes and the IRS, California, LA... Even so, that's a very reasonable living.
I don't know what VDare paid writers. I know it couldn't have been THAT much just from crunching some numbers. I also have no idea what kind of arrangement Ron Unz had with Mr. Sailer for hosting his (same) posts on The Unz Review and supporting him with the web's best commenting system and the best commenters around.
How was Mr. Sailer's relationship with proprietor Ron Unz? Well, Mr. Unz is a strange bird. I greatly respect his support for free speech. Lots of it on the UR is not only outside the Overton Window, it's outside the whole Overton living room, and not even within the Overton's property lines! Good on 'em for that. Also, I've not run into a guy with a business like this before who hosts writers he not only doesn't agree with but argues with and calls nasty names in the comments section under their articles! It's pretty hilarious.
I don't recall that behavior within the "iSteve blog", but Mr. Unz has recently commented that this blog has gone down in (at least) relative views, compared to, say, Andrew Anglin (enough said about him here - Andrew Anglin and Anti-Social Media. That's too bad. At this point, not all of the SteveSailer.net posts appear on TUR, nor did they all on VDare before yesterday.**** So, he is migrating his work over to substack, as he clearly states on his "Subscribe" page.
I took a look, and I see that Mr. Sailer's UR posts now are really just phoning it in. RNC Speechs (Whaddya' think?), Dog Cologne (Whaaa? Still will be interesting...), Biden Drops Out ("What do you think the impact will be?"), Vp? (32 words), etc... Without the great commenters, he may as well have already left The Unz Review. Perhaps, as with those old rock stars, he's got a contract to fulfill.
Let me write something about the content on the new site. With his writings on the Deep State, or lack thereof, and new disdain (with some truth behind it) of the "low-brow" MAGA people, I see that he's trying to go more mainstream. Now, that doesn't mean I don't think this pundit is doing anything but laying out the truth as he sees it, as always. I just agree a little less. On the racial business - the big 'un - Mr. Sailer is a stalwart truth-teller still. There's no backing out of that stance, and he would not back out even if they'd let him. It is what it is. (However, where I differ is with Mr. Sailer's idea of solutions to our problems - that's another post ...)
Steve Sailer has apparently done better than expected with his book. (It's not his first book, actually, as he'd written one about Øb☭ma back in '12 -it's a real shame more people didn't read that one.) He's been interviewed by Tucker and been on all sorts of podcasts and whatever. His writing eggs will be all in one basket soon, unless somehow the wokeness lightens way, way up. I don't think it will until we "get to the other side".
I have reasons not to get sucked into another blog, but I hope Steve Sailer will get the support on his new site that he deserves. He's surely been a force for good.
* Being fired from NR seems to have been an important qualification for getting hired by VDare - 3 of the writers that I know of there have this important qualification.
VDare HR Dept: "From our background check, it sounds like you got fired from National Review. Tell me more about that." "No, that's wrong. I quit on my own to spend more time with my family. I am on good terms with the National Review staff." "Ohhhh, well, OK, listen, thanks for coming in... we'll... don't call us, we'll call you ...."
** That's the case with that series on the Depopulocalypse business, Part 4 being the most recent - 4 months ago - and with nothing but the intro. to Globalists in political peril: Europe v America.
*** That number was on the home page, but I don't see it now.
**** Mr. Sailer's latest TakiMag post, i.e., an intro. excerpt linking to the article,was the 2nd-to-last VDare post. However, that article was honestly not a very good one at all.
Comments:
Mr. Anon
Sunday - July 28th 2024 7:50PM MST
PS
"I also have no idea what kind of arrangement Ron Unz had with Mr. Sailer for hosting his (same) posts on The Unz Review and supporting him with the web's best commenting system and the best commenters around."
One regular poster at unz.com/isteve - I forget who - would seomtimes mention that he had some inside knowledge of the arrangement that Steve Sailer had with his patron and claimed that Steve was handsomely paid by Mr. Unz. I don't know if this is true, but for a long time, isteve seemed to be the anchor of unz.com. I believe it drew the most traffic. Although, pace Ron Unz himself, that changed over the last few years (a lot of it, I think, COVID related).
Meanwhile, Unz broadened his stable of contributors. A few of them are worth reading: John Derbyshire, Phillip Giraldi. Most of them were not, like Andrew Anglin, or the small army of idiot conspiratards that Unz platformed, like the ridiculous Johanthan Revusky.
Mr. Unz's writings themselves are actually some of the more interesting and thought-provoking pieces at that site, although I don't always agree with him.
"I also have no idea what kind of arrangement Ron Unz had with Mr. Sailer for hosting his (same) posts on The Unz Review and supporting him with the web's best commenting system and the best commenters around."
One regular poster at unz.com/isteve - I forget who - would seomtimes mention that he had some inside knowledge of the arrangement that Steve Sailer had with his patron and claimed that Steve was handsomely paid by Mr. Unz. I don't know if this is true, but for a long time, isteve seemed to be the anchor of unz.com. I believe it drew the most traffic. Although, pace Ron Unz himself, that changed over the last few years (a lot of it, I think, COVID related).
Meanwhile, Unz broadened his stable of contributors. A few of them are worth reading: John Derbyshire, Phillip Giraldi. Most of them were not, like Andrew Anglin, or the small army of idiot conspiratards that Unz platformed, like the ridiculous Johanthan Revusky.
Mr. Unz's writings themselves are actually some of the more interesting and thought-provoking pieces at that site, although I don't always agree with him.
Adam Smith
Friday - July 26th 2024 10:47AM MST
PS: Always happy to help, Mr. Moderator! ☮️
Moderator
Thursday - July 25th 2024 12:53PM MST
PS: That's the one. Thank you, Adam Smith.
Peak Stupidity Book Club
Thursday - July 25th 2024 12:04PM MST
PS: Greetings, Mr. Moderator!
America's Half-Blood Prince (1.8mb .pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/2mx5xc7y
Enjoy! ☮️
America's Half-Blood Prince (1.8mb .pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/2mx5xc7y
Enjoy! ☮️
Yes, I agree with you most especially about Revulsky and I think Romanoff too, IIRC. To top any of them, at one point, maybe '17 or earlier, the admitted Mao-sackhanging Communist Godfrey Roberts was on there. (That was just too long ago - I know the guy had a light-yellow box at that point but can't recall for sure if he was listed on there. Mr. Unz could clear that up, if he'd reply - sometimes he's pretty good about answering quick questions.)
"Mr. Unz's writings themselves are actually some of the more interesting and thought-provoking pieces at that site, although I don't always agree with him."
I agree, but sometimes they'd just be overly long. For a while there, he'd somehow connect totally different subjects with his theory about the Kung Flu being deliberately spread by the US in China in mid-'19 at the end. He finally quit that. Maybe he quit writing about his theory too. I told him multiple times it was pure speculation and that the obvious explanation is right out there in front of us.