Sunday Morning Comin' Down: Peak Both Siderism

We knew it would inevitably come to this.

We warned that it would inevitably come to this.

And now, inevitably, it has come to this.

President Stupid as cited in The Chicago Tribune (emphasis added):

In the hours after a car plowed into a group of anti-racist counter-protesters on Saturday, Trump addressed the violence in broad strokes, saying that he condemns "in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides."

Speaking slowly from his New Jersey golf club while on a 17-day working vacation, Trump added: "It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump. Not Barack Obama. It's been going on for a long, long time."

As longtime readers know, I have had a "bordering on obsessive" (and occasionally crossing the border and taking up residence on the other side) focus on "Both Siderism" practically since the day this blog went live, twelve and a half years ago.

This is because, even long before this blog went live, it was terribly clear to me that "Both Siderism" was not merely the single biggest Big Lie in American politics, but also the most corrupt and corrosive lie of all, because it is a Big Lie that makes all the little lies possible.

From me, back in June:

...Fourth -- and of paramount importance, so pay attention because it will be on the final exam -- is the cement that holds this whole demented juggernaut together.

The Biggest of all the Big Lies.  

Say it with me now...

Both Sides Do It.

"Both Sides Do It" is the Alpha and the Omega of political lies in modern America.  It is the first falsehood that David Brooks has turned to to prop up virtually every one of his shitty columns since the collapse of the Bush Administration...

...and it is the final, desperate, excuse-of-last-resort that every single wingnut in Christendom turns to when they the get themselves cornered in another otherwise inescapable pit of their own bullshit.

It is the fraud that launched a thousand media careers, several ridiculous political "movements" and one entire radio network.  It is...

...[a] parasite-cult that empowers the Right by deflecting and diffusing its opponents. and without which the demise of the Right would be greatly accelerated...

And so, as surely as projectile vomiting follows a night of Jägerbombs and tacos, when the King of the Birthers was directly confronted with the leering, raving racist face of his party's most dog-loyal foot soldiers and asked to comment, of course he immediately and automatically lunged for the same, time-tested alibi that every Crazy Uncle Liberty and Aunty ALL CAPS in America have been taught over and over again is their secret weapon.   President Stupid felt perfectly comfortable telling this particular Big Lie on Saturday because the Beltway media had long-ago given it's permission to every scumbag on the Right to deploy it as their own inexhaustible, all-occasion, all-powerful, Beltway-media-approved  Patronus Charm.

Or don't you remember how just 10 months ago -- just two days before the 2016 election -- virtually every professional pundit in America was piling giddily into the "Both Sides Do It" van  -- 

-- for what they thought was going to be four years of extremely profitable Hillary-bashing, witch-hunts,  and endless yawping about the Corrupt Duopoly and the dizzying joys of "disruption"?

Well, the disruption they wanted -- they begged for -- has arrived.  

And this is what it looks like.

Which brings us to "Meet the Press" and Mr. Rich Lowry: a man deeply embittered by the fact that The Breitbart Collective has replaced his National Review as America's leading journal of White Supremacy.  You see, Mr. Lowry spent his career specializing in the kind of tasseled-loafer White Supremacy cloaked in a smirking, viperish ersatz-erudition that appeals to a small coterie of aging Republican gentry, while The Breitbart Collective -- with its blunt, front-page, in-your-face racism and conspiracy-mongering -- feeds the debased and insatiable appetites of the massive, meathead base of the party.

Well the leader of one of these cliques now sits at the right hand of President Stupid, while the other must sit on a panel with Chuck Todd while being side-eyed into a pillar of salt by Joy-Ann Reid.  And so, like the cornered rat he so eerily resembles, Mr. Lowry predictable scampers for the safety of the High and Holy Church of Both Siderism -- that well-fortified and amply-provisioned pundit safe-house which so many of Mr. Lowry's colleagues have labored so assiduously to create for occasions just like this (emphasis added):

RICH LOWRY:  I do think he, obviously, should've specifically denounced the white nationalists. But there are two sides to this now. This country now has a violent fringe on the right and on the left, both of whom, the white nationalists and the so-called anti-fascists who like violence, who thrill to violence, like the attention that comes with it. And this is going to get worse before it gets better.

...

RICH LOWRY:   Look, you have so-called anti-fascists who dress in black, wear masks.

JOY-ANN REID:  Were they beating clergy yesterday?

RICH LOWRY:  There was violence on both sides.

JOY-ANN REID:  There was certainly not.

RICH LOWRY:  Yes, there was.

JOY-ANN REID: Were they attacking clergy?

RICH LOWRY:  You didn't see the video?

JOY-ANN REID:  I spoke with clergy who were being beaten with brass knuckles by neo-Nazis.

RICH LOWRY:  Anti-fascists also beat people up, break things, and burn things. They both should be condemned...

As we must do every week, we shall leave the question of why the fuck hobgoblins like Lowry are given any air time anywhere for future generations who have access to Chuck Todd's terms-of-service contract at NBC and move on to the grand prize for network teeevee wingnut enabling, which this week must go to 'ol Chuckles the Clown himself.  

Chuck Todd who. completely unprompted, went waaay out of his way to open a whole new super-secret sub-basement emergency spider-hole beneath the main sanctuary of High and Holy Church of Both Siderism.  A special, emergency pundit panic room for members of the Beltway media who wake up one day to discover that Both Siderism is (at least temporarily) no longer able to hide them from the baleful gaze of Reality.  Behold as Chuck Todd once again betrays his profession by going full David Brooks and simply erasing the entire depraved and inconvenient  history of the modern Republican Party prior to 2015:

CHUCK TODD: ...  Amy Walter, look, it is not new to have this fringe. The Republican Party for a long time has fought very hard to keep these people out, you know. The Democratic Party pushed them out. Republican Party pushed them out. Until 2015, there's been this sense that there was a permission slip.

It is no exaggeration to say that the powerful media gatekeepers like Chuck Todd believe their primary professional duty is to absolve Republicans of any behavior no matter how heinous or treasonous in order to preserve the Big Lie of Both Siderism.

And until that changes things are never going to get any better.

Behold, a Tip Jar!