Now that the Death Cultists are feeling their oats over slaying their orange bogeyman, they’re planning an unprecedented sacrificial orgy to appease their gods. In their primitive cosmology the only explanation for their 2016 defeat is infidels angering the spirits with their -isms, so atonement must be made by offering up the unbelievers.
NO BOOK DEALS FOR TRAITORSTHIS IS A LETTER OF INTENT FROM PUBLISHING PROFESSIONALS OF THE UNITED STATES.We all love book publishing, but we have to be honest — our country is where it is in part because publishing has chased the money and notoriety of some pretty sketchy people, and has granted those same people both the imprimatur of respectability and a lot of money through sweetheart book deals.As members of the writing and publishing community of the United States, we affirm that participation in the administration of Donald Trump must be considered a uniquely mitigating criterion for publishing houses when considering book deals.Consequently, we believe: No participant in an administration that caged children, performed involuntary surgeries on captive women, and scoffed at science as millions were infected with a deadly virus should be enriched by the almost rote largesse of a big book deal. And no one who incited, suborned, instigated, or otherwise supported the January 6, 2021 coup attempt should have their philosophies remunerated and disseminated through our beloved publishing houses.“Son of Sam” laws exist to prevent criminals from benefiting financially from writing about their crimes. In that spirit, those who enabled, promulgated, and covered up crimes against the American people should not be enriched through the coffers of publishing.We are writers, editors, journalists, agents, and professionals in multiple forms of publishing. We believe in the power of words and we are tired of the industry we love enriching the monsters among us, and we will do whatever is in our power to stop it.
The first thing that jumps out is the ridiculously inflated sense of self-importance. Oldpub can’t even sell people on their cult leaders’ books. The idea that they’re in any way responsible for elevating Trump to the White House is pants-on-head absurd.
Like the rest of the tract, the mea culpas for empowering Trump supporters aren’t meant to convey factual information. Instead, they’re self-flagellation intended to atone for the communal sins that called down their four-year chastisement.
But even that humiliating display of cargo cultism pales before the letter’s overall implications. Here we have a coven of misfits clinging to sinecures in a dead industry condemning half the country for treason against democracy. The only way that pronouncement makes anything akin to sense is when you look past the words’ literal meanings and parse the Cult’s ritual cant.
What the letter spells out in as close to plain English as cultists can manage is what they’ve been trying to tell us for years: They are not us. We are not them. They are our sworn enemies.
Here’s where somebody points out that oldpub apparatchiks vehemently denied gatekeeping based on ideological litmus tests. They still claimed to be a pure meritocracy as recently as the Sad Puppies days.
It’s vital to understand that such an apparent heel turn is not hypocrisy. The cultists do not hold the same standards as normal people. They don’t even pretend to anymore. And it’s not hypocrisy to harm your enemies and protect your friends. That’s been the Cult’s viewpoint for years, and that’s why they’ve been winning.
That’s also why smart authors who care more about money than validation now avoid oldpub like the plague. Note that the letter says nothing about how these publishers plan to reach more readers and sell more books. That’s what sane people in an industry on the verge of collapse would do. Instead, they’re purposefully alienating 160 million people.
No Titanic tickets for traitors.
Some people still think that Cult-coopted industries are out to make money. A glance at the signatures on that letter should disabuse you of that fiction. Guys like Wendig and Anders have no organic readership. They’ll go back to the D list the second the Cult’s influencers stop boosting their signal.
If you’re still an oldpub author at this point, your whole career is a humiliation ritual.
The Big Four have declared ordinary Americans the enemy. Don’t give money or your manuscript to people who hate you.
