Where do the "Barstool conservatives" go from here?

But it’s undeniably true that many Americans are moderately pro-choice and that barstool-conservative types — who may share the Right’s distaste for wokeness but emphatically break with the social-conservative view of sexual mores — are likely to share Portnoy’s attitudes on abortion. The simple fact is that Roe’s overturn — and the state abortion bans that have gone or will go into effect in its wake — will remind many Portnoy-style conservatives of why they disliked the Right in the first place. Barstool conservatism was always its own kind of libertinism, with its adherents shunning what they perceive as puritanism of any stripe.

Still, to McGrew’s point, it would be premature to declare that barstool conservatism is dead. While Portnoy may resolve to vote for Democrats, many other like-minded voters might be more put off by the Left’s abortion radicalism. Others might find that they hate wokeness more than they hate Republican abortion bans. Still others might just not care very much at all. (After all, for many voters, abortion simply isn’t a high priority.)

In the meantime, there’s not much that social conservatives can do about the Portnoys of the world, short of betraying core principles. The Barstool Sports founder’s meltdown illustrated the ugly side of the kind of vaguely right-wing politics he represents. At the same time, it also vindicates the social-conservative position: “We were told that a sexual ethic reliant on easily accessible contraception and abortion as a backstop would liberate women,” my colleague Madeleine Kearns wrote. “What it’s done instead is liberate several generations of Portnoys. Now, the bro-choice movement is getting its comeuppance.”