The Madness of Mercy

When the Never Trumpers inevitably turn on their new BFFs on the Left, this is pretty much what it will look like.   Handshakes and pro-forma apologies, because whatever "betrayals" you think you may have suffered at my hands, please respect that it was strictly business, and that I now have the inside dope on your opponent's strategy, which I will sell to you in exchange for getting my career back.

In the end, behind closed doors, the bad men with money will cut deals with the bad men with marketing savvy that serve their mutual interests, and over drinks and fake bonhomie, the Ad Hoc True Conservative Patriotic Committee For The Return to Reaganism or Whatever will be born.  And once more the rest of us will find ourselves suffocating under a new rendition of the Beltway's favorite old-time gospel.  A clarion call to restore Balance to the Force.  To forge a bold, new alliance out of the ashes of the Old Left and the Old Right that will take on the Extremes on Both Sides.

A bold, new alliance that will be comprised of the same the old faces.

And those on the Left will who really thought that this time it would be different, will wake up to find that they were never more than a temporary crash pad and fuck-buddy.  A convenient way-station where Never Trumpers can wait out the Trump shit-storm before going returning to their lives as Republican myrmidons.

This will happen because, frankly, too many of us suck at hard-nosed negotiating, even when we are in a position of strength.

Think about it.

The long,  deranged shadow cast by Donald Trump and the Republican party has sharpened the contrast between the sanity, humanity and virtue of the Left and the sadism, bigotry and corruption of the Right to once-in-a-generation level of stark clarity.  Objectively, should be no question about who should be speaking on behalf of those who have been right about the Right all along, and those who should be shutting the fuck up and sitting the fuck down for the next 20 years or so.  

And yet, the "Shocked, shocked, to discover Republicans in the Republican Party!" fairy tale the Never Trumpers are peddling sells so much better in the Beltway media than the "Where the fuck have you been for the past 30 years?" reality which the vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers of the Left keep foul-mouthing on about.

And there is very simple reason for this. It is, in fact, exactly the same reason that, after the collapse of the Bush Administration, the same Beltway media handed the Fake Tea Party the same kind of instant, unearned credibility and flattering, tongue-kissing coverage, while those who were telling the real tale of the Fake Tea Party were reduced to shouting it on street-corners:

The Tea-Belly Sneetches
(this one's for you, Mom ;-)

Now, the Bush-Belly Sneetches were backers of Bush...



The Plain-Belly Sneetches thought Bush was a Tush.
The Bushs weren’t so big; they were really quite small.
You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.
But because they backed Bush, all the Bush-Bellied Sneetches would brag,
“Plain-Bellies are nothing but Commies in Drag!”...

Because the Liberal bottom-line has always centered on trying understand the truth of why things are fucked-in-the-head now, how to fix those problems, and how we can prevent worse disasters from happening in the future.  Which means, inevitable, insisting on assigning responsibility for the catastrophes unfolding all around us where it rightly belongs. On calling things by their true names and interrogating the past as it actually happened, and not as we wish it had happened.

This is diametrically opposed to how the Right functions -- lying the country into disasters and then lying their way out of responsibility for those disasters with even bigger lies that are centered on their own instant exoneration.

It wasn't me!

And even if it was, I'm an Independent!

And even if I'm not, Both Sides are to blame, so whatabout Benghaaazi!

Rinse and repeat, over and over, until the end of days.

And having failed this country so repeatedly and spectacularly for the past 30 years, it should surprise no one that Beltway media has zero interest in any activity which involves confession and repentance, but is keenly interested in throwing in with anyone, anywhere offering instant exoneration.

This is why Liberals -- who have been right about the Right all along -- are still aggressively locked out of the Beltway media narrative, while Never Trumpers -- who offer the Beltway media an absolving line of soothing bullshit in which there never was anything really wrong with the GOP before Il Douche showed up in 2015 and magically transformed it into a racist dungheap -- are jumped to the front of the line.

So, fine.  I get it.  Of course the Beltway media going to go along with the "Shocked, shocked, to discover Republicans in the Republican Party!" okey-doke.   This is who they are.  

But...

But, there has truly never been a time when events have more completely vindicated the Left than the moment we are living through now, so I simply do not understand why so many Liberals who should damn well know better by now fling themselves like drunk prom dates at the tiniest wisp of validation from the Never Trumpers.

If the Never Trumpers are offering actual, useful intel -- plans to the GOP Death Star -- then great.  Welcome aboard.  If they are coming to us in the spirit of genuine confession, repentance and atonement, terrific.  We're a forgiving bunch.  But if they cannot form the words "The Left was right about the Right all along" and will not lock their loyalty to our cause down with anything more than nods and winks, then we have no reason in the world to lend them our hard-won credibility or give them our trust or show them an ounce of our mercy.

Because if they are not with us all the way by now -- if they have not genuinely seen the error of their ways by now -- then all they are doing is biding their time and enjoying the hospitality of our fox hole until the immediate danger has passed.  And the minute there is a break in the storm, they will breeze right out the door and go back to the business of poisoning wells, pimping monsters and slandering those who now give them shelter.

Behold, a Tip Jar!