Never Trumpers In Disarray!

When the Splitterati fight over how many Reagans can dance on the head of a Welfare Queen it is a sight to see.  

In case you didn't read about this in America's great newspapers (because it was bumped off the front page in favor of William Shatner's Big Dick Stratosphere Parachute Drop Ride) let me bring you up to speed.  

Two of the eleven remaining Giants of the Conserative Intellectual Elite, Mona Charen and Jonah Goldberg, are in the middle of an in-print slap-fight over which is the most pure and who is the most realistic and so forth.  Or as one low-born, bootless blabbermouth has said about other Purity Cults, once purity itself becomes all you care about -- once  it becomes a distillery race to see who can get to 100% -- the chicken farmers are never far behind:

The main Islamist group in Algeria, the GIA, ended up being led by a Mr. Zouabri, a chicken farmer, who killed everyone who disagreed with him. He issued a final communiqué, declaring that the whole of Algerian society should be killed, with the exception of his tiny remaining band of Islamists. They were the only ones who understood the truth.

And this thing between Charen and Goldberg is such a gloriously overwrought kerfuffle about who gets to hold the Barry Goldwater Memorial conch at the next lodge meeting -- so very much two monocle and spats wearing crabs having it out at the bottom of the crab bucket -- that I thought I would heroically go where no major media outlet has gone before and tell you what your Never Trump allies talk about when the cameras are not on.

But I'm going to do it in reverse.

First you'll get my impressionistic interpretive version of the backing and forthing, and then the actual words from the actual people.

Ready?

Charen:  Look, Jonah, we all hate Libtards, OK? 

Goldberg:  Liar!  Everybody knows you secretly love those dirty commies Mona!  

Charen:  Shut up Jonah!  I hate the Libtards more than anybody.

Goldberg:  Then why did I see you sneaking out of their place last night.  You've got a total thing for them. Don't deny it!

Charen:  That's nothing.  They're assholes.  I'm crashing on their couch, eating their food, but they're stupid and I secretly write mean stuff on their bathroom wall. 

Goldberg:  Bullshit!  You loooove them.  Love, love, love them.

Charen:  It's all part on my plan you moron, so shut up!   

Goldberg:  You wanna marry them and have Obama's communist Kenyan baby you love them so much!  

Charen:  Shutupshutupshutup!

And...scene.

See, hating the Left defines Conservatism.  Or, rather, hating the lurid caricature of the Left that they have been feeding back and forth to each other for decades.  It's really that simple.  Signifying their contempt for us is their shibboleth and everything about Conservatism -- their media, their policies, their think tanks, the means by which the spin up their base to elect terrible people -- all of it is downstream of hating, mocking and demonizing us. Or as one bootless, low-born blabbermouth wrote, Jeez, almost 13 years ago and long before Donald Trump showed up on the scene...

For decades, Conservatives have also been equally open and clear about wanting to smash the federal government and replace it with an unfettered, unregulated corporate feudal state. Because Gummint is Evil, Evil, Evil! So Conservatives rolled the Bush Administration into D.C. with all its ruthless, calculated bumpkinism like a political IED and detonated it. And Conservatives cheered as their Decider smashed and bankrupted every bit of government he could lay his hands on…applauded as he hog-slaughtered the “fiscal health” of its predecessor without a backwards glance…and now fanatically oppose any action to address out economic crisis that does not begin and end with more tax cuts.

Because Conservatives HATE the government. Or don’t you remember?

Jesus, man, it was in all the papers. For years and years and years. C’mon and work with me here.

Unbridled loathing? “Booga-Booga; the Liberal Gummint is out to get you”? Hulk Smash? Starve the beast? Drown it in the tub?

On every radio and every teevee?

Ring any bells?

The text or subtext of a billion tons of Conservative direct mail campaigns?

The first paragraph of every Conservative phone-banking effort?

Ten seconds of every thirty-second Republican campaign ad?

The thesis statement of every wingnut begging letter and fundraiser?

The fucking Guanine and Adenine in your fucking political DNA?

And since hating government (and its Evil Liberal puppet masters) is THE central organizing principle of the Conservative Movement, how can it possibly surprise you that, as Iraq follows 9/11, Conservative policies and politicians have brought us to this moment.

That however many lies it may require and however much pain it may inflict on the public, Conservatives see economic collapse in America as a good thing. A righteous cleansing and path back to power. As their golden opportunity to finally, once-and-for-all curb-stomp the Evil Socialist Gummint into oblivion.

This is why the fight over who gets to be called a True Conservative has become so pitched and so ludicrous.

This is also why Never Trumpers -- especially those with any kind of media profile -- are constantly worried about burnishing their Conservative credentials.  Always fretting over how they're gonna keep their Conservative skirts starched and white and clean now that they're being force to association with filthy, America-hating scum like us.

Which, after our long perambulation, brings us around to this actual article by Ms. Mona Charen in The Bulwark entitled "Jonah Goldberg’s Narcissism of Small Differences -- In a world of trouble, why snipe at allies?"

Ms. Charen:

Celebrating the two-year anniversary of the Dispatch, Goldberg, apparently feeling the need to do some product differentiation, tossed off a gratuitous swipe at The Bulwark. Both publications are redoubts of Trumpism-defying conservatives, and thus, you might think, allies? Compadres? Friends? I was a charter subscriber to The Dispatch. As Ronald Reagan is purported to have said...

Jane, I want a fucking divorce?   Because Nancy can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch?

No?

Ms. Charen:

Goldberg isn’t conveying that spirit. Regarding The Bulwark, he said, “If you wake up every morning trying to argue about why Trump is bad and the people who like Trump are evil, you’re just as obsessed with him as the people who wake up every morning wanting to prove that Trump is a glorious statesman and everything he does is great.” Never Trump and pro-Trump publications, he continued, are “two sides of the same Trump-obsessed coin.”

When Bother Siderists get around to both-sides other Both Siderists we're all winners.

Ms. Charen:

Recently, responding to a piece by Jonathan Chait, Goldberg again aimed a pot shot at The Bulwark, writing:

Let’s say I believe that Trump and his followers, apologists, and enablers are an ongoing threat to democracy. Does that mean I have to support Joe Biden?

That’s the question of the moment for a bunch of people on the left and the right. It seems to be the view of my friend Bill Kristol and many in his circle.

Fun fact:  "Responding to a piece by Jonathan Chait" is how I begin every conversation here at Castle Driftglass

Ms. Charen:

Much depends upon what “support” means. Goldberg implies that Kristol’s “circle” (aka The Bulwark), demands uncritical cheerleading for Biden. And Goldberg refuses to compromise his integrity, he says, to get on any partisan’s squad...

I'm not gonna lie. This -- " Goldberg refuses to compromise his integrity" -- had me fall down laughing.

Ms. Charen:

Here we have descended several fathoms deep into the narcissism of small differences. It’s hard to see what Goldberg is talking about. Throughout the past several months, The Bulwark has published dozens of pieces arguing that Biden should move to the center.

The Alert Reader will notice how the Center always just so happens to be wherever this tiny clutch of exiled Bush Regime Dead Enders happens to be at any given moment.

Ms. Charen: 

Far from being a Biden cheering section, The Bulwark has published pieces urging that the Democrats thank Senators Manchin and Sinema for saving them from themselves; that Democrats take the more modest infrastructure bill as a win; and that they make efforts to broaden their appeal to estranged Republicans. Charlie Sykes has pleaded almost daily on The Bulwark Podcast for the Democrats to reject the maximalist demands of the progressive wing of the party, comparing it with the Republican Freedom Caucus.

So slow your roll, Jonah, because we all hate Libtards here.  

Ms.  Charen:

Sometimes you must lean toward one over another, even when it makes you uncomfortable. To attempt to move Democrats toward policies that are centrist and popular and will result in success for the only sane party left at this moment is not to endorse the agenda of Bernie Sanders. Quite the opposite. And it is not a surrender to partisanship.

Remember all that stuff your humble scrivener wrote 1,000 years ago?  About not trusting these goofs as far as you can throw cotton candy underwater?  Warning that the minute you let them crash on our sofa and borrow our credibility without asking anything in return -- the minute you hand these people who have been wrong about everything all along a media platform instead lending an ear to the dirty Libtards who have been right about the Right all along -- their first priority would be to grab for the wheel and try to steer the Democratic Party into becoming Romney/Ryan 2012?

Which is why the motto of this blog for a very long time now has been...

Burn The Lifeboats