Charlie Sykes

Charlie Sykes
Born	Charles Jay Sykes (1954-11-11) November 11, 1954 Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Occupation	Radio talk show host, author
Employer	WTMJ
Spouse(s)	Diane S. Sykes (m. 1980–1999) Janet Riordan (m. 2000)

Charles Jay Sykes (born November 11, 1954) is an American political commentator and prominent never-Trumper. In response, Donald Trump called him a "dope". From 1993 to 2016, Sykes hosted a mainstream conservative talk show on WTMJ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is also the editor of Right Wisconsin which he co-owns with WTMJ's parent company E. W. Scripps.

A civic nationalist, he wants the Republican party to reach out to non-white minorities, and is a strong opponent of xenophobia. He now opposes Trump's proposed restrictions on Muslim immigration to the USA. In response, commenters on the alt-right have derided him as a so-called cuckservative.

Early life and education

Charles Jay Sykes was born in 1954 in Seattle, Washington and later grew up in New York and Fox Point, Wisconsin. He is the son of Katherine B. "Kay" (Border) and Jay G. Sykes, a lawyer who later worked as a journalist for several small newspapers in New York before settling with the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1962. Jay later became a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union Wisconsin chapter and ran for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin unsuccessfully against Martin J. Schreiber in the 1970 primary.

After graduating from Nicolet High School, Sykes enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and completed his bachelor's degree in English in 1975. While at Milwaukee, Sykes was a member of the Young Democrats, and following a nonreligious upbringing, Sykes converted to Roman Catholicism at age 18. In 1974, using the slogan "A Different Kind of Democrat" due to his opposition to abortion, Sykes challenged Republican incumbent Jim Sensenbrenner for Wisconsin State Assembly and lost. As Milwaukee Magazine profiled: "...his pro-life campaign signaled a growing crack in his liberalism. And as elements within the antiwar movement became violent, he became increasingly disillusioned."

Career

Writing

Sykes began his career as a journalist, starting in 1975 with West Allis, Wisconsin weekly The Northeast Post for a year. In 1976, Sykes joined The Milwaukee Journal, starting with North Shore assignments before being promoted to the Milwaukee City Hall beat during the administration of Mayor Henry Maier.

After seven years of reporting in the Milwaukee area, Sykes moved to Cleveland in 1982 as a staff writer for Cleveland Magazine, but the magazine went out of business by the end of the year. Sykes returned to Milwaukee as managing editor at Milwaukee Magazine in 1983 and moved up to editor-in-chief in January 1984. Sykes wrote features, investigative articles, and commentary for Milwaukee Magazine.

Sykes has been a published author, primarily concerning education. He made his book debut in 1988 with Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education, inspired by his father's essay published posthumously in the October 1985 Milwaukee Magazine recalling his experience teaching at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

In addition, Sykes has written commentary for Imprimis, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and has edited WI Interest, the magazine of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and the website Right Wisconsin.

Radio

In an era when the national success of Rush Limbaugh was inspiring similar call-in talk radio shows around the U.S., Sykes started hosting talk radio in 1989 as a substitute host for Mark Belling at WISN in Milwaukee. Sykes got his own show on WISN by 1992. Lacking a contract with WISN, Sykes jumped to WTMJ within a year and hosted a mid-day show there until December 19, 2016.

In 2002, Sykes and fellow WTMJ host Jeff Wagner gained prominence in leading a campaign to recall Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament, who was embroiled in scandal for changing the county pension policy to give himself and close aides large payouts; Ament controversially retired at the end of February 2002 rather than resign to retain his pension.

In a 2005 speech, Jay Heck, executive director of the Wisconsin branch of the liberal political advocacy group Common Cause, said about Sykes's influence on local politicians: "The Sykes Republicans from southeastern Wisconsin are worried that he will castigate them by calling them RINOs, 'Republicans in name only.' So (he makes it) very difficult for Republicans to be independent of the party line on any issue."

On July 26, 2005, WTMJ settled a libel lawsuit against Sykes for $5,000 with Spanish Journal editor Robert Miranda, over a November 2004 blog post by Sykes that alleged that Miranda in 1991 organized a protest that became violent in opposition to a "pro-American" rally at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, information that Sykes later retracted.

Sykes did not support the Donald Trump presidential 2016 bid, campaigning against him and instead choosing to cast a write-in vote for independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin.

In October 2016, Sykes announced that he had decided late in 2015 to quit his radio show for unspecified personal reasons. In December 2016, Sykes wrote a New York Times op-ed suggesting that the conservative movement had lost its way during the 2016 campaign, saying "...as we learned this year, we had succeeded in persuading our audiences to ignore and discount any information from the mainstream media. Over time, we’d succeeded in delegitimizing the media altogether — all the normal guideposts were down, the referees discredited."

In January 2017, it was announced that Sykes and Brian Lehrer will co-host an evening talk show called Indivisible that will air on WNYC and Minnesota Public Radio.

Television

Sykes was an investigative reporter at WISN-TV in 1983. From 1993 to 2016, Sykes hosted the local Sunday morning talk show Sunday Insight for WTMJ-TV.

Bibliography

• Sykes, Charles J. (2017). How the Right Lost its Mind. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 1250147174.

See also

• List of Republicans opposing Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN