What's Happening to Conservative Websites?

vanity | 3-7-07 | Bob J

[Bob J]

I have diligently watched the rise in size and influence of conservative websites, including Free Republic, over the last 7-8 years. I have been shocked and concerned over the drop in traffic at the most popular ones over the last year or so. There was good growth up until 2006 but since then there has been a steady downtrend that would crash any other market.

Anyone have any ideas as to what is happening? I'm out of explanations. The deficiencies in alexa.com are noted, but even if the numbers aren't accurate you're still comparing off numbers to off numbers so the decline is consistent.

[Jeff Chandler]

Once the liberals succeeded in getting us to fight amongst ourselves, instead of against them, things changed.

Them's fightin' words!

[MaryFromMichigan]

Excellent point.

[new cruelty]

Let's not leave out the fact that people are not wearing enough hats.

Can I ask with reference to your second point, when you say souls don't develop because people become distracted...

...has anyone noticed that building there before?

[mike_9958]

What MESS ???

[eeevil conservative]

BTW-- CC is only a few months old and our traffic is BOOMING!- but it is not a partisan site....

the truth is that even conservative talk show ratings are starting to go flat.....I think most Americans are truly sick of partisan bickering while nothing gets done....the borders are a perfect example...Iraq is another...

[Anti-Bubba182]

Take a look at other news forums. That is the relevant comparison.

[EternalHope]

My bookmark goes right to the forum so Alexa doesn't even see me.

So does mine.

However, I thought Alexa caught a lot more than hits on a site's "home" page.

Are you sure going straight to the forum gets missed? Because if you're right, then FR needs to modify things to fix this. The more traffic that gets counted here the more influence FR will have.

[carolinalivin]

When I started here in 98 there was a wider range of views and more "dissent" from the owner's point of view was allowed. We even had conspiracy theorists, many of whom were debunked because of the exchanges here. I would like to see newbies given a better shot before they are run off with the juvenile zots and kitties. We're big enough to handle it.

Now, if you don't toe the party line and show proper suckage, you are run out of here as a troll.

My husband was banned for indicating the poor research some link to on the anti-homosexual threads. When they attacked him, he attacked back and was banned for it and supporting the "homosexual agenda" or as the owner calls it homosexualization. You cannot say anything positive about 1 homosexual without being suspect and called a troll. Many who agreed with my husband have left the site. Zealots are welcome and objective thinking people who support human rights are kicked out. When truth is less valuable than blind support, some will not stay.

When Bush was running, there was a major theme of support him or you're for the democrats. The owner seemed to support that theme and many who wanted third party more conservative candidates left.

There's a more religious theme here than before. The catholics run threads almost daily. On other threads you can see religious themes where people claim the conservative mantle and secular views are ridiculed. There was a proposal once to provide a chat room for religious threads, but that was a few years ago. Many people lurking here will see a fundamentalist religious anti-homosexual, republican site and not sign on because of fear of being overwhelmed by the "regulars."

I've seen many come and go looking over my husbands shoulder. The irony is, now it's the other way around. He has to look over mine.

[Seruzawa]

Some people just get tired of being accused of helping Democrats win because they have the audacity to criticize Republican liberals like W, McCain, Giuliani, Schwartzeneger, etc.....

[KStorm]

It's an non-election year.

[somemoreequalthanothers]

I don't suppose it could possibly be the increase in gratuitous insults.

I think all the debate amongst ourselves is a good thing if we could remove that element of it.

[elkfersupper]

They are being inundated by statists from both ends of the political spectrum, especially in those places where the two meet; power and control.

Some of us don't care for that regardless of where it originates.

[Enosh]

"Rudy's fault"

That's what I said.

[chasio649]

I will be totally honest...and i'm pretty sure i speak for a few folks on FR....I think the conservative movement has lost it's way and i for one get depressed with too much news these days....i scan a few sites here and there and then get off and don't look for a few days...i'm getting older, life is short and a lot of people i know are unaware and really don't give a damn...i've worried and bloviated about this stuff to everyone i know and it just doesn't seem that Washington listens...i've written many letters and such...i will still keep informed but i'm not going to let it depress me anymore...there are many good things in my life that i need to focus on...sorry if that sounds selfish....just MHO.

[Bob J]

Can't be, look at those numbers. Those don't indicate home page hits they indicate latest posts page, etc. hits.

[airborne]

Same as government,unions, public schools, the media, and even churches.

The systematic infiltration of society by liberals, elitists, and socialists, using tolerance and diversity as politically correct tools to attack morality and decency.

[chasio649]

excellent points...you see it the same way i do...there are a lot of us i'm afraid.

[PGalt]

Although I spend 90% of my time online on FR, I've been reading (not signed up) a lot at http://www.jihadwatch.org/ in the last 5 months. Robert Spencer's site is outstanding. What an education!

[68 grunt]

<>... Anyone have any ideas as to what is happening? I'm out of explanations. ...

Obviously you are unfamiliar with my posting history.

We are fully infiltrated with fifth columnists whose intent is to neutralized this, and all, conservative websites, They do this by pretending to be one of us. Like Norman Lear did with Archie Bunker. The intention of these phonies is to frustrate anyone who would like to participate, frustrate them to the point of ambivalence, or resentment. We're filthy with these scumbags.

I request that people judge posters by what they post, not what they claim. If they post negative blather, just attribute it to a disruptive voice and try to get the blatherer to see the error of his ways.

[ZULU]

George Bush II.

George Bush II ran as a "compassionate conservative."
(Given the alternatives I'd still have voted for him, but as the lesser of two evils, not as a second coming of Ronald Reagan).

Bush II betrayed the conservative movement and screwed up the Republican Party on the National Level.

After an apparent good start in the 9-11 incident (although there were disquieting things there too - like referring constantly to Islam as a "religion of peace", trying to pander to the Palestinian butchers as though they were a legitimate state, etc.) he started to go downhill.

We are faced with the Iraqi "Insurgency" - a problem an intelligent man would never have gotten us into in the first place. After taking out the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Sadddam bunch in Iraq, we should have moved immediately to support the student insurrectionists in Iran and wiped out Saddam's fellow Baathists in Syria. Then LEFT. Afghanistan is sufficiently isolated to create a decent government there and the people aren't Arab Muslims.

Iraq is surrounded by Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, Shiite Iran, etc. and is a politically unstable area. At best we could have divided it up between the Kurds, an ayatollah free Iran and the Jordanians and probably have stabilized the area.

But we didn't. We decided to tie ourselves down in an impossible experiment to bring democracy to a part of the world which never saw it, had a long history of instability of its own, no real sense of nationhood and was surrounded by undefeated enemies of ours.

Very very stupid move. But to criticize Bush's policies there leads some people to think you are criticizing the war itself or our military. Enough of that has gone on by the fruitcakes leftists in Democrat Party.

Domestically, Bush II betrayed us again. He tried twice to pull a fast one - the Dubai Port Deal and Harriet Miers.

Then he appointed Gonzales as his Ag and we are facing the specter of greater and greater invasions of southern borders by illegals and a scheme concocted by the Bush administration and the Dems with the help of selected RINOs to give amnesty to illegals - something most Americans and certainly most conservatives oppose. I won't even mention McCain-Feingold and other Bush problems - there are too many of them.

Now, facing Hillery or Obama Osama we apparenlty have a northeastern big city liberal Rudy Giuliani leading some polls which indicate he may be the Republican Party standard bearer - a man who is a Democrat philosophically with a long history of supporting Democrats and a viable opposition waiting to make an appearance.

Its no wonder Americans in general and conservatives in particular are disturbed, confused, angry and fed up with the system.