I was watching conservative commentator Matt Walsh make his little speech outside the Supreme Court after arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti about how “we” are going to continue to fight against transgender people. As the old joke goes, I was like, “Who is this ‘we’?”
Conservative-majority court is expected to rule in the late spring
But, like, it’s William Lamberth all over again. And other Tennessee politicians. Think about this — just take a minute to let it soak in. Two years ago, Matt Walsh gets all these Tennessee politicians to speak at an ostensibly anti-trans rally that ends up essentially being a Proud Boys rally, and as I’ve hammered on before, not a single politician there had the balls to say “Hey, wait, no — I’m not headlining a Nazi rally."
You’d think once bitten, twice shy — that Republican leaders would not hang out with Matt Walsh again, lest he surprise them with another photo op with proud racists. But no. Off they go again to be by his side.
That’s quite a bit of pull. I mean it. You stick a bunch of politicians in front of the Proud Boys, and those politicians are still kissing your ass? Years later? It means they’ll tolerate a little public humiliation to be seen with Matt Walsh.
Interesting.
Who else in the state do you think could do that?
Like most people, I’d just been assuming former pro wrestler and current Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs was going to be our next governor. After all, as my brother put it, he’s the Undertaker’s "brother." Of course Tennessee is going to vote for him. But watching Matt Walsh ... I don’t know. Y’all, I just got a bad feeling.
We’re grading on a curve here, and I’m tossing Clint Eastwood out, since he’s still too good-looking to make it fair to other Republicans, but Matt Walsh is passably handsome. He’s as attractive as Bill Lee and doesn’t have those empty eyes. He’s right in there with Jody Barrett, Clark Boyd, Kip Capley, and Kevin Vaughan in terms of conservative cutie-patootie-ness.
Blackburn, Lamberth and other powerful Republicans were at Friday's 'Rally to End Child Mutilation.' So were the Proud Boys.
He’s comfortable in front of cameras. He has a wife and kids and is religious. Or at least he presents himself as religious. He has a huge platform and Daily Wire money. Plus he has a clear agenda (that I obviously disagree with) that he communicates well.
Back in the summer, Axios was speculating about who might run for governor: Damon Hininger, CEO of CoreCivic; Joe Baker, a liquor magnate; “public officials such as Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, U.S. Rep. John Rose, U.S. Rep. Mark Green [ha ha], House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Secretary of State Tre Hargett.”
I invite you to imagine each of these men debating Matt Walsh. Imagine any one of them giving a public speech. Who would you bother paying attention to?
And at least from the outside, it looks like Matt Walsh has accomplished all he’s going to accomplish at the Daily Wire. He’s written books. He makes movies. He’s perhaps their best-known media personality who isn’t either a raging, obviously unhinged lunatic, or trying to clean up the platform's extremist viewpoints so that they’re palatable to a bigger audience on their way to greener pastures, or a has-been trying to remain at least a little relevant on their way down. Is he really going to hang around waiting to ... what? Age into Jordan Peterson?
If the Supreme Court rules Walsh's way in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which it likely will, then what? He’s won. Sure, he can continue to try to make trans people miserable, but that’s boring clean-up work that has the potential to make him look weak if he can’t accomplish it. He’s worked hard and achieved his goal. It doesn’t look like a win if you keep fighting, right?
Walsh is on an upward trajectory right now, but he needs someplace for all this momentum to carry him. Even if he wanted a mainstream news career, what channel can offer him an audience bigger than what he already has? He could continue to press his way into entertainment, but to what end? To have a Hollywood hit? The whole point of the Daily Wire’s push into entertainment is to provide an alternative to Hollywood that centers conservatives. If Walsh can make a Hollywood hit, it disproves the basic premise of the whole Daily Wire ethos.
Guided by his faith in God and markets, Tennessee’s deeply conservative top executive heads into his second term as governor
Up for Walsh is politics. And with Gov. Lee halfway through his second and final term, Tennessee is about to need a governor.
I figure that if I'm realizing this now, some Republican rainmaker must have realized this six months ago. But I asked around, and absolutely no one has heard any speculation about Walsh running, or anyone pushing for Walsh to run. (A message to a couple of Daily Wire press addresses on Friday has not been returned as of this writing.) But whenever I replied with, “Imagine him and John Rose in a debate,” there was a pause. It seemed to dawn on them that Walsh had some things going in his favor that other names floated around did not.
I’m prepared to be wrong about this. I’m hoping I’m wrong on this. I hope you all are laughing at me about this in two years, and I will gracefully take the digs. Well, I’ll try to gracefully take the digs. But this doesn’t seem as unlikely to me after this week as it did before.
