Steve Schmidt, Never Trumpers and "If Only Someone Had Warned Us"-- Part Infinity

From Raw Story:

MSNBC sacks Steve Schmidt after he begins advising ‘spoiler’ Howard Schultz on presidential run: report

MSNBC has reportedly cut ties with political analyst Steve Schmidt because he is advising billionaire Howard Schultz on a possible independent bid for the U.S. presidency.

According to the Free Beacon, MSNBC is dropping Schmidt as a contributor after Schultz this week appeared to be moving forward with his presidential plans...

So here is your word of the day:

dis·ap·point
/ˌdisəˈpoint/
verb: fail to fulfill the hopes or expectations of (someone).

If you search Twitter for "Steve Schmidt disappoint[ed]" you will get many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many hits.

But you won't find me there.

I am not disappointed in Mr. Schmidt because I never held out any hope or expectation that he would do anything other than what he has done.

In fact, if you remember, I told y'all this is what would happen. From me 06/20/2018:

...sir or madam, Mr. Steve Schmidt would like five minutes of your time to talk to you about an amazing "...proud and meaningless association of people" called The Church of Latter Day Independents!

...

I'm being a little hard on Mr. Schmidt today because based on the totality of the history of the modern Republican party, it has been my observation that once the accelerating and downward-spiraling depravity of the GOP hits certain benchmarks, inevitably a handful of formerly-staunch party men and women throw up their hands, slap on an "Independent" name tag and make a great show of exiting the party, usually 20 or 30 years too late.

For Mr. Schmidt, that benchmark was internment camps for babies.  Which is fine.  I'll take what I can get.

However, it has been my observation that as soon as the immediate crisis that triggered their gag-reflex has passed, many of these same suddenly-conscience-stricken quickly find their way into the front pews of the High and Holy Church of Both Sides Do It.  Because inside the Beltway Bubble, blaming Both Sides still absolutely the official state religion.

And these newly-minted "independent" dutifully pray the prayers -- "Lord Of Th' Holy Centre, Sayve Us From Th' Curs'd Extemese On Bothe Sydes"  -- and sing the hymns -- "In Brooks alone my hope is found/He is my light, my strength, my song..." -- because that is how you keep your fucking job....

And I was advised by many of my Liberal brethren and sistren to lighten the fuck up because wasn't I down with Resistance and didn't I realize what the stakes were, man?

Yes, in fact I knew exactly what the stakes were.

And because I knew exactly what the stakes were,  I ignored the no-doubt-well-intentioned  scoldings from of my Liberal brethren and sistren and went on trying to warn them about what was going to come barreling at them right around the next bend in the road (from me 06/28/2018):

Never Turn Your Back on a Never Trumper

Repeat after me:   There is no such thing as a "former" hard-core Republican.

A causal, occasional Republican voter?  Sure.  They can kick the habit.  Over the course of many years I've voted for Republicans once or twice on down-ticket races or in board elections where I knew the person and they were extraordinarily well-qualified.  Hell, in my misspent youth I also voted for John Anderson, because Reagan was clearly dangerous, but Carter wasn't pure enough for my noble and rarefied political tastes.

But this it not so for the hard-core Republican.  The party activist, campaign coordinator, door knocker, serious donor, straight-party ticket voter, pundit, elected official, analyst or pollster.  Anyone who has evidenced a keen and active interest in advancing the Republican party's depraved agenda over any length of time.

They've been in the life too long.  They have been too conditioned.  Too bent.  Their brains and political pleasure centers have been permanently rewired.  And so, like any other kind of toxic, lifestyle addiction, the best you can ever hope for with your hard-core Republican is a state of recovery that they can maintain one-day-at-a-time until they shuffle off this mortal coil

But until they join Ronald Reagan in Republican Heaven, they will always be junkies who, given the slightest opportunity to rationalize themselves into just one more little taste, will backslide right back into their bad habits every fucking time.

Like, for example, Steve Schmidt, darling of the Acela corridor rebels because 9/10ths of the way through his career as a stone-cold Republican button man he freaked out that his Republican party was full of -- gasp! -- Republicans and, without missing a beat, started talking like, well, me.

And he was doing a pretty fair imitation of me right up until yesterday when he just could not stop himself from chasing that sweet-sweet Both Siderist dragon one more time...

For 40 years, Mr. Schmidt's party has seized every opportunity to run up deficits as part of a calculated, long-term, poison-pill strategy to create a "But we haz no munnies!" alibi for gutting the social programs they have always hated.  So when you hear Mr. Schmidt whining about how radical it is for a candidate to talk like FDR and why we cannot possibly meet the basic needs of our citizens because something something free market capitalism, and then rolling it all up into a big, Beltway-pleasing "The Extremes on Both Side" fatty that he passes around the table to his fellow junkies, you can be pretty damn sure that ol' Stever is no longer in recovery.

...

And once again, far too many of my Liberal brethren and sistren couldn't understand why grounchy pedants like me couldn't see that we were all in this together now, man?  That Never Trumpers were our allies, man.  That for the sake of the cause their laundry list of past sins must be immediately absolved and forgotten without requiring anything like confession or repentance or atonement.

Which brings us to the present moment and all the, y'know, disappointment:

Unfollowing Steve Schmidt. What a disappointment. Republicans always turn out to be shitbags in the end.

— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) January 30, 2019

So why do so many of my Liberal brothers and sisters keep falling for the same "But he's changed!"  horseshit over and over again?

It might be because, after decades of being relentlessly slagged and slandered by Republicans (and decades of being mocked and kneecapped by the Beltway media whenever they raised their voices to fight back) too many of my Liberal brothers and sisters have lost their self-confidence.  Don't know how to throw a punch because no one ever showed 'em.  Don't understand that, at this moment, we have the power, and while that fleeting moment lasts, we should be exercising our power by dictating some very clear rules of co-habitation to the Never Trumpers and not the other way around.

It might be because, after decades inside a community under a constant barrage of abuse from both Hate Radio/Fox News and the Beltway media, too many of my Liberal brothers and sisters are so beaten down and hungry for validation from anyone who used to throw rocks at them that they'll fling themselves drunk-prom-date fashion at anyone with an (R) after their name who tells them they're pretty.

Or it might be because, as hard as it is to believe,  they've never actually seen The Blues Brothers.

Behold, a Tip Jar!