Just a Harmless Little Bunny

Because memory is such a rare commodity these days many of you  may not remember that some of the very loudest Never Trumper voices weren't exactly storming the barricades in 2016 and fighting like the life of the republic depended on Hillary Clinton defeating Donald Trump.

Instead, in the language of The West Wing, they mostly went "Uncle Fluffy".  And what does Uncle Fluffy do?  Uncle Fluffy tries to split the difference.  Uncle Fluffy never commits.  Uncle Fluffy dangles his feet.

Leo McGary: You said -- No! You said, let’s dangle our feet in the water of whatever the hell it is 

we dangle our feet in, when we want to make it look like we’re trying without pissing 

too many people off!

And that's what the very loudest Never Trumpers were doing four years ago.  Dangling their feet, playing footsie with doomed third party candidates or protest write-ins and generally outsourcing the hard work of saving the country from yet another Republican catastrophe to the Democrats...after which these Never Trumpers could enjoy a very profitable four years of beating Hillary like a piñata and rising to power in their now-fractured and demoralized Republican Party as the "We Told You So" caucus in exactly the same way the neocons like Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and David Frum and rest of the noecons moved to the front of the line after the attacks of 9/11.

We know that Charlie Sykes of Wisconsin -- a state which swung for Trump in 2016 by less than 23k votes -- could not bring himself to vote for that icky Hillary Clinton in 2016 (via Wikipedia):

Sykes did not support the Donald Trump presidential 2016 bid, campaigning against him and instead choosing to cast a write-in vote for independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin.

Nor did Rick Wilson, who has lied so often about revealing who he actually did support in 2016 that even his friend Ana Marie Cox eventually gave up asking.

And these are excerpted from The Atlantic's November 6, 2016 cheat sheet, with emphasis added: 

Michael Steele:  The former RNC chair and lieutenant governor of Maryland told an audience at a dinner honoring Mother Jones (seriously), “I was damn near puking during the debates,” adding that Trump had “captured that racist underbelly, that frustration, that angry underbelly of American life and gave voice to that.” He says he will not vote for Trump or Clinton. (October 21, 2016)

Bill Kristol: The editor of The Weekly Standard threw his lot in with the #NeverTrump crowd with gusto, and he’s been a leading advocate for a third-party alternative. But these days, he seems a bit confused about what exactly the word “never” means: “I mean, I guess never say never. On the one hand, I’ll say #NeverTrump, and on the other hand, I’ll say never say never. I'll leave it ambiguous.” (May 2, 2016)

Erick Erickson: The radio host, editor of The Resurgent, and former RedState editor writes: “Hillary Clinton is unfit for the Presidency, but so is Donald Trump. Some Republicans may decide it is time to be a team player, but I will put my country before my party and decline to help the voters in this country commit national suicide.” (May 4, 2016)

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: The editors of the nation’s most powerful conservative editorial board are not fans of Trump’s, but they are resigned. “Mr. Trump wasn’t our first choice, or even the 15th, but the reality is that more GOP voters preferred him to the alternatives,” they wrote. “Yet GOP voters made the ultimate decision, and that deserves some respect unless we’re going to give up on democracy.”

Joe Scarborough: The MSNBC host and token network conservative was among the friendliest voices in the media toward Trump during the Republican primary. He has been more critical since then. Referring to Trump’s attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, he announced to Republicans, “You have to start calling him out and saying you'll retract your endorsement of him today or else the United States Senate is in danger.” A day before, he compared Trump’s remarks to the Nazi Nuremberg race laws.

Bret Stephens: The deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, says he will not vote for Trump, but will probably not vote for Clinton. “Probably none of the above,” he told Hugh Hewitt. “I will never vote for Donald Trump. I have a very, very hard time voting for Mrs. Clinton.” But Stephens added: “I think that for the United States, Hillary Clinton, as awful as I find her, is a survivable event. I’m not so sure about Donald Trump.” 

John Podhoretz: Among those younger neocons with whom Norman Podhoretz has parted on Trump? His son John, the current editor of Commentary. In May, he wrote in that magazine that he couldn’t support either nominee: “Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both devils we know. And because the GOP has become unfit, we will not be able to avoid the choice between them, except by literal avoidance—by staying home. Many, many millions of us will surely do so.”

Ari Fleischer: The former White House press secretary under George W. Bush says he will note vote for Trump. “If my ballot contained a box for whom I was voting against, my choice would be easy,” he writes in a Washington Post column. “Never Clinton. But voting means deciding whom to vote for. I will vote for Republicans up and down the ballot. But when it comes to the presidency, I’m going to leave my ballot blank.” (November 6, 2016)

Fleischer previously said he would hold his nose and vote for Trump, and joined a coalition of Bush administration veterans backing the Republican nominee. (September 27, 2016)

Since Clinton's victory was obviously inevitable, the plan was leave it to Democrats to do the hard. necessary work of limping Hillary over the finish line (even as Never Trumpers slagging her relentlessly), while Never Trumpers preserved their professional and political viability as Stompers-of-Democrats for the forthcoming Failed Clinton Presidency and burnished their bona fides as the heirs presumptive to the Crown of Reagan after Trump crashed and burned.

But 2016 did not go to plan, did it?  And the Never Trumpers, trapped by their own unequivocal rhetoric during the run-up to the election, found themselves out in the cold.  Who was going to hire these supposedly-savvy political mercenaries and opinion-havers after they had fucked up this badly?  What Republican political outfit was going to throw money at these crackerjack operators after they had spent months braiding their own nooses out of their own words?

Thank goodness for MSNBC -- which cleared a huge space for them at the table -- and for those credulous, deep-pocketed Liberals who were willing to throw rose petals at their feet.  Overnight, the dispossessed aristocracy of the GOP found they could make an excellent living and enjoy a much wider media profile calling their former employers evil and their former voters morons.  

Across the board, media conglomerates of every description -- cable news companies, newspapers, magazines, book publishers, etc. -- made the decision to give every Never Trumper who already had heavy connections in the media tens of millions in free, glowing media attention.  And quicker'n you could say "Rat run over the roof of the house with a piece of raw liver in his mouth", their collective histories as the creators of the monster factory that gave birth to Trump were whisked down the Memory Hole.  

And how was this miracle accomplished? By doing nothing more than saying exactly the same things about the GOP in 2016 which these very same Never Trumpers just had spent decades mocking and slandering Liberals for saying since the 1980s.  

What a country!

But you know what?  I could maybe let all of that go.  Or at least some of it.  I am not unaware that I'm fighting uphill in a dumb brawl that even my allies think is a waste of time.  A tussle that I'm going to lose, or maybe have already lost and I'm just too stubborn get it through my head.  

Meh.  Won't be my first lost cause.  Won't be my last.   But now that yet another Republican administration has damn near wrecked the country and doomed itself by its own hand -- and now that Republican rats are once again scrambling for the lifeboats -- our Never Trumpers are crossing a line that I can't ignore.  

In virtually every Never Trump podcast and newsletter there is now a section reserved for Never Trumpers valorizing each other for having "seen this coming" in 2016...and for sneering contempt for the "cowardly, ignorant, reviled scum" who refused to heed their warning!

Charlie Sykes' newsletter last week:

What were you thinking? You cowardly, ignorant, servile scum?

It’s not like you were not warned. Again and again.

It’s not as if it wasn’t obvious from the very beginning who Donald Trump was. You had to know it would come to something like this.

Now look at you. You have Trump.

You’ve dragged this country into this place: more than 323,000 dead Americans, a president plotting to steal an election, whispers of military coups, pardons for crooks and war criminals, a potential constitutional crisis, and a possible government shutdown. And, after four interminable years, a nation that is dumber, crueler, and more divided.

For what? What the fuck are we doing here?

Let me repeat this: none of this is new. As far back as August 2015, I wrote that Trump was “a cartoon version of every left-wing media stereotype of the reactionary, nativist, misogynist right.”

Back then there was still time to say no. Some of us desperately made the case that he was a disaster... 

So don’t pretend you are really surprised. You may be appalled by what you are seeing, but nothing that is happening now — the reckless attacks on constitutional norms, the flood of lies and conspiracy theories, the bullying, insults, or chaos — is inconsistent in any way with what you have known for years...

Indeed.  Nothing that is happening is inconsistent in any way with what Liberals have been warning you about for decades. 

From Mona Charen's Bulwark-adjacent podcast, with Sarah Longwell, founder and publisher of The Bulwark:

Mona Charen: ... um it is i mean you know you've got Rich Lowry and some others, y'know, saying well the president's behavior trying to overturn this election is really regrettable. It's really not good.  But you know, every single republican and, um, conservative thought leader -- right? -- who, until a few weeks ago was saying "Yep, we should definitely re-elect this guy."  Um, y'know, it would be nice, wouldn't it, to hear at least some contrition?  At least some, uh, comment along the lines of y'know, I... I... underestimated just how crazy he could behave?

Yes, Mona, some contrition would be fucking awesome!

Sara Longwell: You know, Mona, it's the holidays so i want to not indulge in too much schadenfreude, but there is a part of me -- and Charlie [Sykes] quotes me in his newsletter -- because I had a piece, and this was back in the summer, saying y'know. "What did you think was gonna happen?  Folks, uh y'know, you elect somebody of extraordinarily low character who is... who constantly lies.  And is corrupt.  Uh,  y'know, who who wanted to be the chaos candidate. Who said he was going to burn it all down.  Why would you be surprised that things are now on fire?"

Longwell: ...This part of you that says,  there you go guys!  This is what you get.  You have to ride this tiger, now you accommodated him, until the very last breath.  You have watched him turn on everybody, burn down people's careers, and what you thought he wasn't gonna come for you too? Of course he is.  And then, to your point, there are the folks, uh, who... there's a little bit of Twitter action right now that's kind of like, uh, well I guess... I guess those Never Trumpers might have been on to something ... now that we see how this this guy is acting, y'know, post-election... um ... in refusing to concede.  Because of course we were all called hysterical.  We were called unhinged for suggesting that he might behave like this...

Golly gee Ms. Longwell, pull up a stool and tell this tired old Liberal even more of the terrible pain you all have had to endure being ignored and slagged as "hysterical" and "unhinged" for a little while by the mighty Conservatives propaganda machine.  

A propaganda machine with no "Off" switch.

A propaganda machine which you fuckers built even as we hysterical, unhinged Libtards warned you that it would bring the nation you claim you love to tears and ruin.

And here we find Charlies Sykes on his podcast last week commiserating with fellow Resistance Hero Bill Kristol over not being sufficiently appreciated for having warned Republicans that Trump would be a poopy poop head:

Sykes:  I'm looking over this clusterfuck of American Conservatism today, y'know, as as we wake up amid all these crises and  y'know, whispers of coups and everything and I kind of feel a kinship with [a character from a the HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers] because, y'know I mean,  y'know what were you thinking, y'know... you cowardly ignorant reviled scum.  

It's not like you were warned again and again and again.  It's not as if we didn't know who Donald Trump was from the beginning.  Nothing that is happening right now is inconsistent with everything that we've known about Donald Trump from the beginning.  

And y'know, Bill [Kristol], you... you and I have been banging our heads against this for years and years and years and we've had to deal with the anti-anti-Trumpers, "Oh, it's no big deal.  Don't worry about it." Y'know they can rationalize it... they can play the games of whataboutism...

And as he was saying this, here's what was going though my mind as I ran the Never Trumper's basic thesis through my internal translator:

I'm looking over this clusterfuck of American Conservatism today as as we wake up amid all these crises and whispers of coups and everything and I, too, want to scream at the "cowardly ignorant reviled scum" who brought us to this place

People who were warned by exhausted, old Liberals again and again and again that what they were doing would lead to disaster.

I mean, it's not as if we didn't know what a shitpile of bigots and imbeciles your Republican Party has been for decades, right?  So absolutely nothing that is happening right now is inconsistent with everything that we've known and been warning about Conservatism, not  since Trump showed up, but for my entire adulate life.

And y'know people like me have been banging our heads against for decades ever as we've had to deal Conservatives with huge media platforms like, say, Charlie Sykes and Bill Kristol, mocking us and blowing us off as alarmist crackpots

"Oh, it's no big deal," David Brook has written over and over again, decade after decade.

"Don't worry about it,"  Michael Steele smirked over and over again back when he getting paid to run interference for a white nationalist cult.  

All these Conservatives who now style themselves resistance heroes spend most of their careers rationalized the madness into which their party was sinking.  Many of them built very profitable cottage industries out of playing "whataboutist" and "Both Sides Do It" games as each new Republican atrocity rolled off the assembly line of the monster factory they helped to build.

Never Trumpers believe that it was heroic of them to a) finally notice four short years ago that their GOP had lost its mind and b) speak out about it using the huge platforms with which large media corporation immediately gifted them.

Cool.

So how should we treat those who a) have been warning that GOP had lost its mind for decades except b) both the mainstream media and the "respectable" conservative media treated them as kooks and pariahs and so thoroughly embargoed them that they had to invent the Liberal blogosphere to carry their message?

Also, before they trust 'em, Never Trumpers don't believe it is too god damn much to want to hear some god damn contrition from these 11th-hour, Trump-fleeing lifeboat seekers.  

Cool.

So what about all of us vindicated alarmist Liberals who also believe it is not too god damn much to ask for a little god damn contrition from life-long Republican Never Trumpers like Tom Nichols --

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

-- who made it perfectly clear that they have no intention of apologizing, don't believe they owe anyone a god damn thing and think that we petty, carping peasants should just shut the fuck up, get out of their way and let them get back to the important job of lecturing everyone on the proper way of running everything.

Sigh.

There are a lot of different paths I wind down to button this post up, but the hour grows late, so on the final day of this annus horribilis, I'll just leave you with this:

The Lincoln Project raised $4.8 million between November 24th and December 16th hyping the Georgia Senate runoff elections.

Since then, it has spent $1.1 million on independent expenditures in those races and paid Steve Schmidt $1.5 million. https://t.co/BT5roJBmCt pic.twitter.com/mCS1B7wsxF

— Rob Pyers (@rpyers) December 30, 2020

No, You Move