The New Republic is put up for sale

My subscription notice for The New Republic came yesterday.

I promptly decided to ignore it.  Recently, more often than not, I haven't been reading it.  Sure, it's slicker than ever, but content wise, it just hasn't been what it once was, although the last issue had, oddly enough, a really good article on the evolution of dogs and wolves.

When the magazine turned 100 years old I posted about it and included this summation on  my views at that time:

Since that time the magazine has sold, and it's now a monthly.  It's thicker, and its resumed some of its eclectic nature.  However, perhaps reflective of my own evolution in political thinking, or perhaps reflective of the fact that many who were once regarded as "Liberals", perhaps inaccurately, in the past no longer are, as they have no home in current Liberalism, or perhaps because the magazine seems so solidly Democratic Party Liberal, rather than Progressive Party Progressive, or whatever, I don't like it nearly as much as I once did, and I never read it cover to cover anymore.  Indeed, I haven't for quite some time, probably since the mid to late 1990s.  Some issues I'll hardly read a single article from, and  in the last decade I've found at least a couple of the articles so offensive to certain views I hold, that I've thought about dropping my subscription.  It sure doesn't interest me the way it once did.

My thoughts have continued to evolve in that direction.  I pretty much decided to give my subscription up, and really at this point the reason that I hesitate to do that is that I've subscribed to it since 1986, a long time.

As noted then, the magazine sold to a Facebook some time back.  Originally he apparently claimed that he was not going to really remake the magazine so much as work towards rescuing it.  And it was already in trouble.  But he soon took to remaking it and actually sparked a staff revolt, although I wasn't aware of that until learning that it was now for sale. Writers actually walked out.  Now he's given up.

The magazine, influential though it has been (and it truly has been) has never been a money maker and, given the  mindset of the original founders of the magazine, that can hardly be regarded as a surprise.  As noted earlier, it's had its ups and downs, but the recent diversions, in my view, took it away from whatever chance it had of being cutting edge in its field.  I frankly don't think it will survive, and at this point, I really think it probably ought to have died off about a decade or so ago.

I don't think I'm going to bother to renew my subscription.