Since Saying "The Left was Right All Along" Would Burn Their Tongues With Fire...

..,Never Trumpers have to keep inventing ever more baroque locutions to navigate around the simple fact that their actual political party really has been a reeking shitpile of bigots and imbeciles for decades.

Today's exhibit, Charlie Sykes from Never Trumper HQ:

Sykes:  Over the weekend Maggie Haberman had a piece.  I don't know what you [Daniel Drezner] think about it. I'm slightly obsessed about this whole issue because I...I've thought this for years, that...that...[sigh]...that...that Donald Trump -- who has no principles whatsoever -- sort of listens intently to Conservative media to figure out what Conservatives, uh, would say.  So it...so he's created kinda this caricature...become sort of this caricature of, uh, Conservatives.  He takes your C-level talk show host and he basically spouts the same kinds of lines.  So, like, he, for example, you know, most famously when he was asked what should happen to women who have abortions and he suggested that they needed to be punished.  He hadn't given five seconds thought to that.  He thought that's what a Conservative would say or that Conservatives would want to say so he's constantly playing to this cartoon version of Conservatives.  And I think that that's true.  But clearly, y'know, he has reasons to think it's working, right?  Because most rank-and-file Conservatives do seem OK with the cartoon version of themselves, right?   Either they don't recognize that it's a cartoon version, or they don't care.  

Cartoon version?

Caricature?

No, Charlie, the "cartoon" version of the GOP -- the caricature -- was the codswallop that clowns like you have been hawking for the past 30 years.  That the Right was a fraternity of noble, beard-stroking, Burke-quoting Jeffersonian yeomen who, dammit!. just loved Freedom --

-- and hated welfare-moochers and Libtard Commies so damn much!

But of course this was never true and you damn well knew it.  The base of your party has always been a mob of bigots and imbeciles  -- a mob that made your very lucrative career possible.  A mob that fed your family and put a roof over your head.

And as for "C-level talks show hosts", I have no idea what you're talking about Charlie.  Trump gets some of his daily megadoses of batshit crazy directly from GOP-bestriding colossi like Sean Hannity, who does gonzo ratings on your side of the aisle, and Rush Limbaugh, the Father of Hate Radio and the man at whose knee you learned your craft.

In fact, when I think of C-level talks show hosts at all, one of the first names that comes to mind is...Charlie Sykes.

From Urban Milwaukee in December of 2016:

Charlie Sykes’ Bullying, Racism, Sexism and Propaganda to Advance Wisconsin Republicans on Milwaukee Right Wing Radio Comes to an End

‘Goodbye and Good Riddance’ to Conservative Mouthpiece and Broadcasting Bully

MADISON, Wis. — For 23 years Charlie Sykes used the public airwaves to deliver Republican talking points, at times literally given to him by right-wing politicians and interest groups, to attack the poor and minorities and degrade political discourse in the state of Wisconsin. On his final day of his radio program, One Wisconsin Now says goodbye, and good riddance.

“For 23 years Charlie Sykes put the bully in bully pulpit, using his time on the public airwaves to attack those less powerful, undermine reasonable public discourse and promote his favored Republican politicians and their agendas,” said One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross. “Today, to paraphrase broadcasting titan Edward R. Murrow, we say ‘goodbye and good riddance’ to Charlie Sykes.”

Sykes was a leading propagandist for Republicans in Wisconsin, lending his show to allow conservatives to deliver their message unchallenged by him and in the absence of differing points of view, and at times literally delivering talking points provided to him by politicians and special interests. For example, Gov. Scott Walker directed Sykes to make open records requests to obtain information that would be damaging to his 2010 gubernatorial primary opponent.

After a 2011 state Supreme Court election the right-wing feared they had lost, conservative activists and lobbyists plotted, absent a shred of evidence, to make allegations of voting impropriety. Sykes broadcast the allegations the next day. In 2016 Sykes provided nearly unlimited airtime to conservative court candidate Rebecca Bradley after writings in which she revealed her virulent homophobia, compared birth control to murder and suggested women could be blamed for their date rape were publicized.

The broadcast behavior of Sykes was particularly despicable on issues of race and poverty. He used his show to broadcast a blatantly racist video mocking food stamp recipients and has referred to the First Lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama, as “mooch.”...

Meanwhile, back at The Bulwark in the here-and-now, Mr. Sykes' guest replies:

Drezner:  ...So one of the things I think is going on is that Trump is...Trump has succeeded in remaking the GOP.  The...the...y'know, a lot of the Republican base really does identify with what Trump is talking about.  And this, by the way, is one of the ways in which he did win the nomination in 2016.  Which is he campaigned on issues -- particularly immigration and trade -- where there was a significant fraction of the GOP base that was different from the way the GOP elites thought about this.  Um, and so as a result he wound up hijacking the party. 

"Remaking the GOP"?

Bullshit.

Long before Trump showed up, your party of bigots and imbeciles was assembled, polished and primed for use by any racist demagogue willing to tell them the lies they were desperate to believe.

Right wing media's excitement at DHS stormtroopers taking over cities finally puts to rest their sanctimonious pretensions to states' rights, freedom and federal power --- the same people who had hissy fits over the Bundy standoff

They were always fascists. But we knew that.

— digby (@digby56) July 21, 2020

And "hijacking the party"?

Also bullshit.

A party which eagerly gave itself to Trump gift-wrapped and tied up with a bow is not a party which has been "hijacked". It is a party whose deepest racist aspirations have finally been fulfilled.  Whose long journey to the Wingnut Promised Land is at last at an end.

Honestly, anyone who tortures the King's English this brutally just to avoid recognizing an obvious and terrible truth about their own people should, at the very least, be required to get a permission slip from John Yoo.

No Half Measures