The Ex Men

To hear Never Trumper talk about themselves, you would think they were creatures possessed of an entire suite of staggering mutant powers.  For example, pictured above is Never Trumper Tom Nichols plugged into the Amazing Never Trumper GOP Cerebro machine.

According to the brochure, the Amazing Never Trumper GOP Cerebro machine is capable of putting every Never Trumper into instant, psychic contact with every Republican anywhere on Earth.  This is what allows Never Trumper to collect a steady income from the Beltway media speaking with absolute, sweeping authority about the state of mind of the Republican Party in Murrica.

The Amazing Never Trumper GOP Cerebro machine also gives Never Trumpers the power to know with fine-grained precision the subtle gradations in the minds of each individual Republican and Independent.  For example, they know with perfect telepathic certainty which Republicans are "Trump supporters", and which Republicans and Independents are merely "Trump voters".

I was an early adopter of the idea of shaming Trump supporters - note, *supporters*, not "voters", who were a different group. Not everyone in Never Trump agreed with that strategy, and many of them still disagree with it. Me, I'm feeling like that was a good call today.

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 14, 2019

They also claim to know to an astonishing degree of accuracy which Republicans and Independents are teetering on the fence, and the individual reasons why each fence-straddler is unable to choose between the Party of Affordable Health Care and the Party of Racist, Neofascist Baby-Cagers.  And based on this unassailably definitive inside knowledge of the deepest thoughts and feelings of each individual Republican and Independent on Earth, every Never Trumper is positively brimming with stern strategic directives for us poor, stupid Dems who are Doing It All Wrong!

And because of their unique, mutant telepathic insights, the stern directives from any Never Trumper are always identical to the stern directives from every other Never Trumper:

Gee, let me guess. It's about how the most important thing is to beat Donald Trump, bail the conservative movement out of the ditch its alliance with bigotry and ignorance dumped it, and do it in a way in which no policy this guy opposes gets enacted.
Close?

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 15, 2019

But for all their claims of a nearly-omnipotent electoral wizardry so God damn almighty that we Democrats should just shut the fuck up and do what we're told --

you're right. It's not as if I spent 30 years kicking the living shit out of Democratic candidates all across the country. What do I know? https://t.co/2Dq4EvtzoW

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 28, 2019

--  you would be forgiven for wondering out loud why the hell Tom Nichols, Rick Wilson, Bill Kristol and the rest of the Twelve Angry Kibitzers haven't decamped themselves to Massachusetts to pour all their energies into the campaign of the only person running against Trump in the Republican party primaries?

After all, Bill Weld doesn't need reverse-engineering.  He already checks pretty much every one of the Never Trumper's ideological boxes.  And he's a decent man. And he's running an actual campaign that could use all the help in can get.  So if the Never Trumpers are really capable of divining the deepest desires of some vast-but-invisible-but-apparently-decisive army of "Real" Republicans, Sensible Centrists and Noble Independents, why aren't they putting their towering electoral genius to work drawing them into the Party of Lincoln and destroying Donald Trump before the GOP hands him the nomination again?

Jesus, just imagine the rewards and accolades that would shower down upon them for bringing down the Trump administration and sweeping Bill Weld to power!  Just imagine how many helpings of steaming, hot crow Libtards like me would have to eat while we watch Bill Weld take the oath of office in January of 2021?

And as an additional bonus, let me remind the Never Trumpers that getting off their asses and flying to Massachusetts to help Bill Weld in his uphill fight carries considerably less risk than, say, going to Mississippi to register black voters in 1964.

But of course the reason that none of this is ever going to happen is because it's all a sham.

History has shown proven beyond any doubt that all Never Trumpers have no special insights into anything and their Amazing Never Trumper GOP Cerebro machine is pure bunkum -- nothing but a couple of dozen soup-can-and-string phones connecting the Never Trumpers to each other.  A circle-jerk device by which they each use their media platforms to confirm each others' bullshit declarations.

A typical example:

I applaud the heroic efforts of my friends and fellow #NeverTrumpers @TheRickWilson & @RadioFreeTom to explain Politics 101 to people who don't know it and refuse to learn -- while hurling insults at those trying to help

My bad feeling about 2020 is getting worse by the day.

— John Schindler (@20committee) July 11, 2019

And, just for fun, yet another typical example, this time ripped from USA Today's headlines:

Republican: I'm telling Democrats how to beat Trump in 2020. It's Job One so get over it.

We know this for a fact because Never Trumpers have no answer to one, very simple question:  Where there fuck were these staggering mutant powers hiding themselves over the past 40 years as their Party of Atwater, DeLay, Rove, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Ailes, Hannity, O'Reilly, Ryan, Cheney, Issa, Palin, McConnell and on and on and on relentlessly built itself into a shitpile of bigots and imbeciles capable of birthing Donald Trump?

Which isn't to say Never Trumper have no telepathic abilities at all.

Oh no.  Quite the contrary.

They have a truly Brobdingnagian capacity to pretend that the last 30 years never happened.  To pretend that somehow this wasn't their party long before their party went on to nominate and elect the King of the Birthers.

And should you manage to overcome their superhuman ability to deny any responsibility for any of the horrific shit their party has done to become a monster machine capable of producing Donald Trump, and a Republican congress craven and corrupt enough to roll over for Donald Trump, and a reprogrammable meathead Republican base who stand enthusiastically behind Donald Trump...

...that's when their "Fuck You, Both Sides Do It!" superpower automatically kicks in.

You will get no such contrition, because I think your party had plenty of matches and lighter fluid and is not free of responsibility here.

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 14, 2019

And when all else fails, they reveal the most consistent Never Trumper power of all.

The mighty Snowflake Power of blocking people on Twitter for daring to raise these points with them in the public square.

Because no professional media Conservative haver-of-opinions can afford to have their rep damaged by getting publicly slobbersknockered  by some nobody blogger from nowhere.

Because in the end, cowards always run.

Behold, a Tip Jar!