Max Boot: Conservatism needs a new Weekly Standard untainted by Trump

(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune) Conservative pundit Bill Kristol takes the stage to deliver the keynote address at the Sutherland Institute's Annual Gala, Friday, November 3, 2017.The standard, so to speak, interpretation of the demise of the Weekly Standard is that it is symbolic of the fate of non-Trumpian conservatism. There is something to this analysis, but it is too neat by half.

The Standard did not shutter its doors on Friday because it was rejected in the marketplace of ideas. Like most publications, it had lost print circulation in recent years but gained online readership. It did not make a penny of profit, but then magazines of ideas seldom do. They depend on wealthy…