{"id":2647412,"date":"2026-08-20T13:45:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T17:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignjames-lindsay-is-an-op-who-should-be-mocked-into-oblivion\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T13:48:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T17:48:34","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignjames-lindsay-is-an-op-who-should-be-mocked-into-oblivion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignjames-lindsay-is-an-op-who-should-be-mocked-into-oblivion\/","title":{"rendered":"James Lindsay Is An Op Who Should Be Mocked Into Oblivion"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignjames-lindsay-is-an-op-who-should-be-mocked-into-oblivion%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2647412&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Teh article criticizes ongoing attacks against Vice President J.D. Vance&#8217;s potential 2028 presidential bid, suggesting these are motivated by traditionalists and NeverTrumpers seeking to restore pre-Trump conservative ideals. Central to this opposition is james Lindsay, a controversial figure who has evolved from an anti-woke critic to a persistent antagonist of Vance, employing slander and ideological rhetoric. Lindsay previously revealed his history of supporting democrats and opposing customary Christian views, and now positions himself as a conservative moral authority, despite often engaging in provocations and trolling. The author argues Lindsay&#8217;s campaign against Vance and other conservatives is largely performative,driven by ego and political calculation,and has little real impact in the broader political arena. Ultimately, Lindsay is portrayed as an opportunist and gadfly whose influence is insubstantial and who deserves marginalization rather than serious discourse.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>You may have noticed the waging of a not-so-secret campaign against President Donald Trump\u2019s most likely successor in 2028: Vice President J.D. Vance.<\/p>\n<p>The heralds of this crusade comprise the usual suspects: neocons, NeverTrumpers, and leftists in conservatives\u2019 clothing. Altogether, those who desperately wish to turn back the clock to the golden age of loser conservatism before Trump arrived on the scene in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>As my colleague John Daniel Davidson <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2026\/08\/19\/the-nevertrumpers-are-back-this-time-their-target-is-j-d-vance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pointed out<\/a> this week, Vance\u2019s would-be character assassins don\u2019t have an actual argument to make against him, and in truth they have no intention of making actual, reasoned arguments about why he shouldn\u2019t be the nominee in \u201928. \u201cThe only way to make sense of these garbled lines of attack on Vance is to keep in mind that the overarching motivation here is to return the GOP to its pre-Trump state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the tip of the spear of the anti-Vance cause in the Twitterverse is the terminally online, terminally braindead has-been James Lindsay.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay, who styles himself as \u201cchief anti-totalitarianism officer\u201d in his X profile, has evolved from a relatively innocuous role as an anti-woke \u201cex-liberal\u201d in convenient alliance with the right in the late 2010s and early 2020s into a full-blown cancer on the conservative movement.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay has been on the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/2002854402915291481\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cutting edge<\/a> of the anti-Vance movement, but his war of slander against the vice president has ramped up in recent weeks. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy does Democrat radical Ro Khanna\u2019s \u2018progressive capitalism\u2019 sound exactly like the post-liberal (and \u2018traditional conservative\u2019) Right, like JD Vance, down to explicitly basing it on Catholic social teaching? Like line for line the same?\u201d<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Why does Democrat radical Ro Khanna&#8217;s &#8220;progressive capitalism&#8221; sound exactly like the post-liberal (and &#8220;traditional conservative&#8221;) Right, like JD Vance, down to explicitly basing it on Catholic social teaching? Like line for line the same? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EnXusYOqJT\">pic.twitter.com\/EnXusYOqJT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/2086894009738301949?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 10, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cEverything about the rotten movement around Vance stinks to high hell, and if we let him become president, this nasty movement will fill every inch of the federal bureaucracy and will abuse all that power as hard as they can.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Everything about the rotten movement around Vance stinks to high hell, and if we let him become president, this nasty movement will fill every inch of the federal bureaucracy and will abuse all that power as hard as they can. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fVNyolkU8Y\">pic.twitter.com\/fVNyolkU8Y<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/2088242591934411144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 14, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cVance is a problem. Everyone sees it now, or almost everyone. The dam already broke. I was just really early, like usual.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Vance is a problem. Everyone sees it now, or almost everyone. The dam already broke. I was just really early, like usual. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/azaSuE2IYc\">https:\/\/t.co\/azaSuE2IYc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/2087992447519363349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 13, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>These kinds of smug attacks continue on for \u2026 probably hundreds of posts at this point.<\/p>\n<p>We really should have seen this coming. During his time supposedly aiding the right against the woke lunatics of the far left, Lindsay has made some, well, interesting statements about his past and his intentions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI volunteered for Obama, voted for him and all blue both times, voted for Clinton and all blue, encouraged people openly and publicly (on video and in writing) to vote ALL BLUE without thinking in both 2016 and 2018,\u201d reads a post from 2020.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<div lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>Ppl: James was always going to vote for Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Fact check: I volunteered for Obama, voted for him and all blue both times, voted for Clinton and all blue, encouraged people openly and publicly (on video and in writing) to vote ALL BLUE without thinking in both 2016 and 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2014 James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/1319352125240102913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 22, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s no secret and everyone knows I voted for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama twice, respected the Never Trumpers, initially thought we should take the pandemic seriously, and was a New Atheist,\u201d he posted in 2021. (Notice how, despite the post supposedly being a refutation of people accusing him of never admitting he\u2019s wrong, he actually doesn\u2019t admit he was wrong about any of that.)<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Somebody mischaracterized me as someone who refuses to admit that he&#8217;s wrong, but it&#8217;s no secret and everyone knows I voted for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama twice, respected the Never Trumpers, initially thought we should take the pandemic seriously, and was a New Atheist.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/1467158614133641218?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 4, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>And for all of his scolding of \u201cChristian nationalists\u201d (i.e. anyone with an actually Biblical worldview), he sure did give away the game with <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/1793014151641510379\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this post<\/a> in 2024: \u201cThinking about pretending to be Christian so I can tell Christians how bad they are at being Christian and they\u2019ll have to listen to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course, after being rightfully dragged for that comment, Lindsay went on a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/1926104229996835068\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hysterical screed<\/a> about how the \u201cWoke Right\u201d twisted his words and how it was just a big joke, man, and if you take it seriously you\u2019re just a big dumb idiot because you can\u2019t, like, understand the multiple layers of clever irony in that post, or something like that. Spoiler: he has consistently since then tried to dictate to actual Christians what they should believe.<\/p>\n<p>This is the person who wants all conservatives to bow down to his searing intellect and moral rectitude, and then thank him for the privilege of basking in the glow of his genius.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s clear even to casual observers that Lindsay is extremely bitter about not being crowned (or perhaps not being allowed to crown himself, Napoleon-style) the preeminent conservative thought leader during Woke 1.0. This is despite the fact that the sum total of his work during that area amounts to little more than a slightly more sophisticated form of trolling (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grievance_studies_affair\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">targeting<\/a> almost cartoonishly idiotic academics). This seems to be the only work to which Lindsay is suited, because it has now become his all-consuming fixation, as his more than 360,000 (!) tweets can attest.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is, James Lindsay is an op. He openly admits to being a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat up until five minutes ago and bragged about his plan to deceive Christians. He exists solely to gatekeep the right with Nazi slurs, further neuter conservatism with infighting and distractions, and bully the faithful out of public life by pretending to care about Christianity. And after infecting the conservative discourse with his tedious drivel and receiving the lightest pushback on his dumb prognostications? He retreats like a petulant child behind an air of academic superiority and ironic detachment.<\/p>\n<p>I would say he\u2019s bought and paid for, but I have no idea who would actually pay for such an inept operative. I mean, in his quest to smear Vance supporters, he created <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/2089087231487086986\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">one of the coolest images<\/a> of the year, and even afterward <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConceptualJames\/status\/2090463815771083019\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">can\u2019t help himself<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Good faith argument with Lindsay, like most of his ilk, is pointless. Not that he could argue his way out of a cardboard box, anyway. He, like his delusional attempts to take the reins of the conservative movement, deserves mockery, plain and simple. Constant, withering derision until he crawls back into whatever hole of obscurity he scuttled out of a few years ago when the right was far too welcoming of \u201cformer\u201d liberals.<\/p>\n<p>We never should have let that cohort of liberals who claimed \u201cI didn\u2019t leave the left, it was the left who left me\u201d into the movement, much less given them power and influence. Almost to a man, they\u2019ve proven to be nothing more than duplicitous Trojan horses that turn on us as soon as it becomes convenient or they receive the slightest pushback.<\/p>\n<p>James Lindsay\u2019s campaign against Vance, much like his campaign against everything else conservative, isn\u2019t having much of an effect in the real world. Vance stands comfortably as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2026\/08\/18\/who-is-leading-2028-presidential-race\/91360340007\/\">frontrunner<\/a> to succeed Trump as the nominee in 2028. But Lindsay does remain a blight on X, constantly picking at the scabs of old internal disputes that once plagued the conservative movement in the pre-Trump era. And he will likely continue to do so at the behest of whichever master he serves, whether that be some as-yet-unidentified benefactor or his own ego \u2014 so bruised and battered by the conservatives he now pompously scorns. After all, narcissism is a hell of a drug.<\/p>\n<p>But he doesn\u2019t deserve to be challenged in the open field of discourse; he\u2019s proven himself too craven to be given the honor of an actual debate in the \u201cmarketplace of ideas.\u201d He deserves the same fate as every other two-bit provocateur \u2014 to be relegated to the oblivion of complete and utter irrelevancy.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Hayden Daniel is a staff editor at The Federalist. He previously worked as an editor at The Daily Wire and as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pride-madness-wont-stop-until-conservatives-use-govt-force\/\" title=\"&#039;Pride&#039; Madness Won&#039;t Stop Until ...s Use Govt. Force\">deputy editor\/opinion editor<\/a> at The Daily Caller. He received his B.A. in European History from Washington and Lee University with minors in Philosophy and Classics. Follow him on Twitter at @HaydenWDaniel<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anti-Vance campaign driven by neocons, NeverTrumpers, and leftists<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1548,"featured_media":2647413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-228.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4803,84454,84453,84455],"class_list":["post-2647412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-controversial","tag-hot-takes-2","tag-jameslindsay","tag-socialcritique"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-228.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2647412"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2647416,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647412\/revisions\/2647416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2647413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2647412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2647412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2647412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}