On December 17, 2018, the Weekly Standard published its final issue. The brand had been damaged beyond salvation; its anti-Trump gambit had failed, and spectacularly so. According to one report, the Standard’s print circulation dropped 30 percent between 2013 and 2017.
For the first two years of Trump’s presidency, the Weekly Standard was far from an independent voice — it served as an organ for the Resistance. The publication did little to advance ‘conservative’ ideas or offer conservative alternatives to Trump’s policy agenda; in fact, the magazine and its top editors, including editor Steve Hayes and editor-at-large Bill Kristol, repeatedly took cheap shots not only at Trump and his administration but at Republican lawmakers who supported the president.
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