Performative Conservatism

Once again the nation has come perilously close to recognizing that the Left has been right about the Right all along.

And since obviously that cannot be allowed to happen, the Beltway media's Very Respectable Conservatives are once again digging into their scanty bag of shopworn tricks to push back on this terrifying development with their mightiest weapon of all.

Both Siderism.

The new party line among these performative conservatives is that every single Democrat is personally responsible for every nutty thing anyone on the Left does anywhere, and that if you and I and +67 million other Democrats don't practice 100% perfect, Never Trump-approved message discipline right down the line we're going to scare away suburban moms and ruin everything and Murrcans will re-elect Trump and it'll be all our fault!

Remember they are whipping themselves into flaming fantods over the same, boring, normal Democrats who twice nominated and elected Barack Obama, and have now nominated Joe Biden, but apparently now we need to shaddap and do what Charlie Sykes and Mona Charen and Bret Stephens and David Brooks tell us to do.

The same Charlie Sykes and Mona Charen and Bret Stephens and David Brooks whose party has, in the last 20 years, elected the two most catastrophically failed presidents in American history.

But the other hand, according to these performative conservatives no True Republican is in any way responsible for what has happened to their Republican Party.  And if actual Never Trumpers leaders, and not some fringe characters, have long and well documented histories of trafficking in the most hateful kind of racist bomb-throwing and ratfuckery in order to get the worst Republican scum elected ("The Lincoln Project Has a Rick Wilson Problem")?  Well how dare you bring that up!   That shit is off limits because ... well ... because we say so!

This is why controlling the cameras and microphones and printing presses is paramount.

For example, the Hate Radio roots of our new Never Trump BFF Charlie Sykes really shine through over at The Bulwark where, in podcast after podcast, Mr. Sykes and his guests will quickly stipulate that "Trumpism" (remember, it's not Republicanism) is pretty terrible before moving on to spend an inordinate amount or time positively wallowing in their horror at the "Performative Wokeness" of the Left.

And here is Andrew Sullivan who still gets paid to write plop his hysterical True Conservative turds in major publications even though no one can explain why:

How long before the woke left try to cancel July 4? It’s only a matter of time, no? Why celebrate evil? https://t.co/lUffnPrKqH

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) July 4, 2020

And here is David Brooks who still gets paid to write fatuous flapdoodle in major publications even though no one can explain why:

David Brooks Deploys The Otter Defense

And here is Bret Stephens who still gets paid to write self-aggrandizing wingnut claptrap in the same major publication as David Brooks even though no one can explain why:

Today In "Liberals Are The Real Hitlers": Bret Bug Stephens 

And at last Lawyers, Guns & Money brutally sums up where all of this was going all along:

TRUMP DELIVERS ANDREW SULLIVAN’S MAGNIFICENT SPEECH AGAINST CANCEL CULTURE AT MT. RUSHMORE

[The following is from Trump's actual speech and not a parody] 

...
1776 represented the culmination of thousands of years of Western civilization and the triumph of not only spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason. And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure. Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities...

We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture. We embrace tolerance, not prejudice...

Their goal is not a better America, their goal is to end America...

This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty must be stopped and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children from this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life. In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us...

Meet the Press this very morning:

ANDREA MITCHELL:   And [American Enterprise Institute Stooge] Danny Pletka, he was talking also about left wing fascism. That's new to me, left wing fascism. But in using this and in talking about these monuments, where would you draw the line?

DANIELLE PLETKA:   Look, I think when the president talks about left wing fascism he's talking about something that's familiar to a lot of Americans, frankly. It is people feeling, sensing that there are lines being drawn about how they need to behave that they object to...

Once upon a time I took to calling to this kind of empty, posturing, whim-based chin-music "Pineapple Ice Cream Conservatism" --

If [Andrew] Sullivan suddenly developed a taste for pineapple ice cream, within a week he would be penning columns about how "Liking Pineapple Ice Cream" is a cardinal Conservative value because of something something Edmund Burke.  If he got sick on bad Thai food, we would suddenly see a spate of columns discussing bad Thai food and how it is something that only extreme Christianists or Left Liberal would ever put in their mouths.

He is, at best, a flighty dilettante with a wealthy patron and does not have the slightest fucking clue about how his adopted country works.

Likewise the Moderate Mr. Brooks adds or subtracts from his lexicon of virtues based almost entirely on how best to hide out from whichever one of his until-recently-held principled positions has gone hideously wrong.

-- but I think now that "Performative Conservatism" has won me over.

No Half Measures