A leading #NeverTrump radio host is pulling the plug on his Wisconsin show, citing age and retirement plans to explain his departure from the airwaves by end of the year.
“This morning, I announced that I am stepping down from my daily radio show on WTMJ at the end of this year,” Charlie Sykes said on his website.
I know that lot of people will assume that my decision has something to do with this current campaign and the rise of Trumpism. But, the reality (as my friends and family know) is that I made this decision a long time ago. Twenty-three years is a long time to do a radio show and most hosts don’t get to go out on their own terms. So I’m lucky to have had that chance.
But he’s not quitting politics, or his opposition to Donald Trump.
It would also be fair to say that this campaign has made the decision easier. The conservative movement has been badly damaged; obviously the conservative media is broken as well. So this is a good time for step back, sit down for a while, and ask “What the hell just happened here?” … I plan to spend much of the next year working on a book about the crackup of the conservative movement. My working title is “How the Right Lost Its Mind.”
A liberal when young, and recently a strong support of GOP Gov. Scott Walker amid a furious backlash from Democratic alliance, Sykes has lost much support from Wisconsinites who are backing Trump in 2016.
The Christian Science Monitor cited some of that criticism;
At a Trump rally in Waukesha, a Milwaukee exurb and Republican stronghold, few show much sympathy for Sykes’ position.
“He’s the establishment Republican,” says Jim Reifenrath, the manager of a car dealership, shaking his head. Another supporter, Michael Barnes, a self-employed builder, says he listened regularly to Sykes’ show but was tired of his finger-wagging toward Trump. “He’s raw. He’s not a politician. We need an agent of change,” Mr. Barnes says of Trump.
Kris Eastman, a paralegal, says she is hopeful that Sykes will come around. “He’s moving. You can tell. His tone is getting softer” on Trump, she says.
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