Face Facts: The GOP Base Flew Past Their Fail-Safe Point Years Ago

And they are, by God, going to deliver their payload no matter what.

It doesn't matter that there is no war.

It doesn't matter that they will leave nothing but a legacy of death and ruin in their wake.

And it most especially doesn't matter what the Never Trumper say or do now.  If they want to get out, raise money and organize for Democratic candidates, great! 

But when it comes to working their mouths, they can flap their arms, wail and rend their garments, and can rip off 40 years' of Liberal critique of the Right, file the serial numbers off and monetize it in book-form, and then march their plagarized outrage (Note to self:  "plagarage" might be something.  Better trademark it just to be sure) all over cable news.  But other than profiteering from the theft of our authentic and hard-won Liberal vocabulary and making a great, public show of their synthetic piety it will make absolutely no difference at all.

No difference to the Left because our sweat and blood built the vehicle they are now taking for a joy ride.

No difference to the Beltway media, who are already happily re-calibrating the parameters of their branded version of "public discourse" to "debates" between Conservatives, moderated by Conservatives or Both Siderists, with nary a Liberal nor an inconvenient mention of political history prior to 2016 anywhere in sight. 

But most importantly, it will make absolutely no difference to that mob of reprogrammable bigots and imbeciles who are the actual source of the problem: the Republican Base.

It doesn't matter that they heeded you in 2012.  Adored you in 2014.  Cheered you in 2015.  As the Never Trumpers discovered, if you cross the Pig People's wires even slightly, they will cast you out like the dirtiest of dirty Libtards.

And why?

Because the only source of trust or authority which anyone on the Right ever had came from telling that mob of reprogrammable bigots and imbeciles exactly what they want to hear.  By pandering to their ignorance and racism.  By telling them that the voices in their head were real and that their paranoia was patriotism.   By telling them that over and over again, decade after decade.  And, to keep the whole, reeking farrago of Republican lies and madness propped up and delivering voted, by training them to reflexively ignore anyone who tells them anything that contradicts their prime directive.

From Fail-Safe:

President:  Turkey One, can you hear me?  This is Ultimate One.

Colonel Grady:  This is Turkey One. I am not authorized to receive messages.

President:  Colonel Grady, this is the president of the United States.  The mission you are flying has been triggered by a mechanical failure.  It is a mistake. I order you and the other planes to return at once. Do you hear? At once!

President:  Colonel Grady, I repeat. This is the president.

Colonel Grady: I can no longer receive tactical alterations by voice.

President: I know that, but...

Colonel Grady: What you're telling me, I've been specifically ordered not to do!

President: Damn it, Grady, this is the president!

The reason the Republican base will never listen to reason is because they have been specifically ordered not to.

And who trained them to be such perfectly reprogrammable meatbags?

The Never Trumpers did.

And who spent the past few decades courting threats, derision and professional exile by trying to warn the Never Trumpers that training up an army of paranoid, racist golem would end very badly for everyone?

The dirty Libtards did.

So if you find the story of professional Conservative political havers-of-opinions belated discovering that their Republican party was full of Republicans to be uplifting or compelling, well good for you. 

But ask yourself this: would you would find these same journeys of self-discovery as inspiring if they were about, say, Charlie Sykes finally mastering addition and subtraction right around the same time he began to collect Social Security?  Or Rick Wilson learning how to tie his shoelaces all by himself at the tender age of 54?

And that instead of soliciting actual mathematicians or master knitters on the subject of math or knots, the media had not only collectively decided to go right on letting Messers Sykes and Wilson claim those seats at the national media table, but to let them use that unearned privilege to promote their new books, "Everybody Maths!" and "Oh The Laces You'll Go!", as groundbreaking epiphanies.

Behold, a Tip Jar!