Meet the “American Thinker” Behind Thousands of Conservative Posts

By Michael Lovito, August 2, 2022

Lots of people try their hand at writing or blogging, but the end result is typically a hastily made WordPress site that they enthusiastically update for a month or two before quickly losing interest.

Thomas Lifson is not one of those people. American Thinker, the conservative online magazine that he co-founded, edits, and publishes, has been going strong for nearly two decades, and is home to thousands of posts meant to skewer the left and boost conservatives. Even more remarkable than the site’s longevity has been Lifson’s ability to maintain the site’s prolific output without the benefit of a fulltime staff or any outside media appearances – quibble with the tone and content of the site all you like, but there’s no questioning Lifson’s dedication to his craft.

A Long Legacy, a Whole Lot of Articles

Lifson, 75, co-founded American Thinker in 2003 with Richard Baehr and Ed Lasky, friends he regularly shared political opinions and analysis with via email. Acquiring the software and server capacity to publish your own website was more complicated in those days than it is today, so after posting a few test articles at the end of that year, the trio began publishing daily in January of 2004. In the 19 years since, American Thinker has gone on to publish articles from dozens of contributors at a torrid pace.

“We normally publish five or usually six original articles (essays addressing a topic of interest) and 15 blogs (commentary on current events and on material published elsewhere) a day,” Lifson told me via email. “On a weekly basis, that would mean more than 140 items and on a monthly basis more than 600.”

Except for Lifson himself and five part time editors, none of American Thinker’s contributors are paid. Lifson clarifies that the site isn’t a profit-seeking venture, but a “platform for people who feel they have something important to share with a national and global audience.” However, the site does generate revenue from advertising, donations, and subscriptions; readers who purchase the latter are rewarded with an ad-free reading experience and the ability to comment on articles.

Far Right Click Bait

Lifson, a former faculty member at Harvard Business School, writes in a measured and scholarly manner (in our email exchange, he quoted both philosopher Karl Popper and screenwriter William Goldman) but American Thinker’s content is frequently provocative, featuring headlines like “Cannibal Communists Crave Kids” and “Black Lives Matter: Black Supremacists.” On July 15, American Thinker published an article by conservative documentarian Joel Gilbert titled “Michelle Obama’s Changing Sexually Identity” that, contrary to the article’s headline, refutes unfounded rumors that Michelle Obama is a transsexual but speculated about Barack Obama’s sexual orientation (and criticized Michelle’s “lifelong aspiration to whiteness”). When I asked Lifson if he was concerned that the title was misleading, he said he thought it was “playful” and that “the article was very clear” in disagreeing with the rumors. Regarding Gilbert’s speculation about Barack Obama’s sexuality, Lifson said that he doesn’t “rule out addressing questions which have been the subject of extensive public discussion.”

In at least one instance, that openness to discuss anything and everything has gotten American Thinker into hot water. In January 2021, after receiving a letter from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawyers, Lifson posted a retraction of stories that the site had published claiming that the company’s voting machines switched votes during the 2020 presidential election. When asked if the Dominion episode had caused American Thinker to reconsider its editorial standards and methods, Lifson simply said “we do not publish stories on voting machines.”

A Low Profile in a Left-Leaning Town

Whatever controversy American Thinker may court, it hasn’t seemed to affect its readership at all, which Lifson says includes one million unique monthly visitors. But don’t expect him to take a victory lap anytime soon – a resident of Berkeley, California, Lifson keeps an intentionally low profile, avoiding television appearances and public-facing photographs to protect himself from what he considers a “highly intolerant and increasingly violent” left.

“Political disagreement is deemed evil by many people on the left, and physical attacks on people they regard as evil are justified in their minds,” he said. “I’d have to be stupid to believe that there is no threat to a publicly visible conservative where I live.”

THE FINAL FOUR (QUESTIONS)

1.    Are you fully vaxxed?

No. I follow the FLCCC protocol and have not been infected with Covid, unlike so many fully vaccinated and repeatedly boosted people like Biden and Fauci. This protocol uses pharmaceuticals and supplements that have been employed by millions of people for many years and which have proven very safe. The experimental drugs approved on an emergency use basis do not have a comparable safety record, and there are very disturbing reports, such as the VAERS data, which suggest caution is the preferred option with experimental drugs that have not been tested the way normal new pharmaceuticals are.

2.    Do you think the 2020 presidential election was stolen?

 I think it is an open question and would like to see the evidence fully investigated.

3.    Would you support Trump for president in 2024?

He is not my first choice for the Republican nominee, but I would support him if he were on   the ballot as matters now stand. At the moment, Governor Ron DeSantis looks good to me, but a lot of things can happen between now and 2024. The GOP bench is deep and impressive.

4.    Do you believe in climate change?

Theories of anthropogenic climate change are based on computer models that do not account for clouds and other important factors. We have seen repeated predictions of imminent or near-term catastrophe by advocates of the anthropogenic global warming theory that have not panned out. I keep an open mind on open questions, but so far, the advocates of catastrophic global warming (now rebranded as “climate change”) have not proven their case.

Michael Lovito is a Brooklyn-based reporter and critic whose work has appeared in Salon, Brooklyn Magazine, Pavement Pieces, and The District. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the politics and pop culture website The Postrider.  @MLovito

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