Today In Both Sides Do It: Michael Gerson

"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N*gger, n*gger, n*gger.' By 1968 you can’t say 'n*gger' -- that hurts you, backfires."  -- Lee Atwater, 1981

"Hold my beer." -- President Stupid, every fucking day.

Like virtually every other highly-paid, Beltway Conservative haver-of-opinions these days, former George W. Bush chief speechwriter, senior Republican policy adviser and reliable Beltway Republican stalactite, Michael Gerson, has very, very recently become teddibly, teddibly concerned about the millions and millions and millions of bigots and imbeciles who all suddenly and simultaneously precipitated out of thin air -- fully formed and raving mad -- and joined his Republican Party mere moments after Michael Gerson left.

And now that his Republican Party is finally, fully out-and-proud as the ignorant, racist shitpile we Liberals have always said that it was, like virtually every other highly-paid, Beltway Conservative haver-of-opinions these days, Mr. Gerson has had to lay on a second shift at the Both Sides Do It Alibi Factory.   So because those Beltway Conservative havers-of-opinion lifeboats ain't gonna build themselves, behold the work-product of a former George W. Bush chief speechwriter as he zig-zags his way through the ruins the world he helped create with a brick on the Bullshit Accelerator. 

Mr. Gerson telegraphs intentions right there in the headline --

Our political parties can’t save themselves

-- so that you can see the rest of it coming from miles away:

...Arguably the worst president in modern history might still beat one of the most prominent Democrats in the United States. This indicates...

This indicated...that Fox News and Hate Radio and their Beltway media enablers have finally completed their work of turning the GOP into a fascist cult of reprogrammable meatbags that are no longer on speaking terms with factual reality?  

This indicated...that most "independents" and sitter-outers are feckless idiots and children who are shit-faced drunk on the kind of Both Siderist rat-poison Mr. Gerson peddles and have no fucking clue about how our political system actually works or what the differences between the parties actually are?

 Nah

This indicates...a Democratic Party in the midst of its own profound crisis. During the Obama years, it collapsed in large portions of the country. Its national establishment has been revealed — with extensive footnotes provided by Donna Brazile — as arrogant, complacent and corrupt. But the only serious ideological alternative to that establishment is frankly socialist — the fatuous and shallow sort of socialism held by college freshmen and Bernie Sanders...

So helping the poor, feeding the hungry, making college affordable, making wages livable and catching us up to the rest of the civilized world on health care is considered fatuous and shallow socialism by a man who bleats on and on about his deep and abiding Christianity?

Well isn't that special!

We have reached a moment of intellectual and moral exhaustion for both major political parties. One is dominated by ethnic politics — which a disturbingly strong majority of Republican regulars have found appealing or acceptable. The other is dominated by identity politics — a movement that counts a growing number of Robespierres...

Both seem united only in their resentment of the international economic order that the United States has built and led for 70 years...

Wheee!  Robespierres!  See how hilariously fungible being a Libtard can be?  Why it seems like just last week that we were idiots and saps.  Ineffectual, intellectual weaklings who were dooming ourselves to extinction by not getting in line to cheer on Michael Gerson's Iraqi Debacle.

And now -- in the twinkling of an eye -- we have become as one with the Lord of the Guillotine and the most infamous architect of the French Reign of Terror.   And all it took for Michael Gerson to shit his Dockers this badly and dive for cover into the deepest, darkest sub-basement of the High and Holy Church of Both Siderism was the sight of a million, pissed-off women in pussy hats.

Sisterhood is powerful indeed.

But wait!  There's more!

Normally, a political party would succeed by taking the best of populist passion and giving it more mainstream expression. But in this particular, polarized environment, how is that possible?

C'mon, Mikey!  Tell us how!

Do mainstream Republicans take a dollop of nativism and a dash of racism and add them to their tax cuts? That seemed to be the approach that Ed Gillespie took in the Virginia governor’s race. But this is morally poisonous — like taking a little ricin in your tea.

How adorable that Mr. Gerson thinks there is anyone outside of his Beltway Media Circle Jerk who still pretends that "a dollop of nativism and a dash of racism" hasn't been the foundation on which his modern Republican Party was built.

And since Mr. Gerson can no longer credibly lie about the rotten heart of his Republican Party -- no longer keep up the charade that bigotry and ignorance and paranoia and hatred of the very idea of American democracy (as I wrote a long time ago) isn't "the fucking Guanine and Adenine in your fucking political DNA" -- he must instead lie about those who have been right about the Right all along and have always stood foursquare against the fascist cult his party has become.  

Like every other Bush Regime Dead-Ender who made a living building a monster that they can no longer control and are now trying frantically to disavow, Mr. Gerson knows that the only way to absolve himself of the blood on his hands is by doubling-down again and again on the biggest lie of all.  

The lie that hat no one is to blame because everyone is to blame.  

That everyone on every side is equally irrational and immoral.  

That Both Sides Do It.

And here it comes:

Do mainstream Democrats just take some angry identity politics and a serving of socialism — some extreme pro-choice rhetoric and single-payer health care — and add them to job-training programs?

The lead ideology of the Republican Party at the national level is now immoral and must be overturned — a task that only a smattering of retiring officeholders has undertaken. The lead ideology of the Democratic Party is likely to be overturned — by radicals with little to offer the country save anger and bad economics.

If America really develops a political competition between ethno-nationalism and identity socialism, it will mean we are a nation in decline...

Of all the ghouls and hobgoblins who stalk our politics and media, I have always believed that none have done more long-term damage to our democracy than professional Both Siderist goons like Michael Gerson who conceal their toxic bullshit with self-serving, saccharine piety.

"And thus I clothe my naked villany
With odd old ends stol'n forth from holy writ,
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil."

Behold, a Tip Jar!