Welcome to Checkpoint Charlie Sykes

You may remember five or six years ago when we on the Left were awakened one dark night by a terrific pounding on our front door, and he sound of people screaming "LetUsInLetUsInLetUsIn" from without.  

We looked through the peephole and, much to our surprise, there stood, shaking and cursing, a mob of the very same Conservative assholes who had spent the last several decades slandering us, bedeviling us and doing their damnedest to bulldoze the very building into they now desperately sought shelter from the monster they had created.

Huh.

We huddled up and held a brief Secret Liberal Conspiracy planning meeting. 

"Their monster, their mess," a handful of us said firmly, because some of us are awesome at messaging!

"But they're our allies now," the savvy Liberal media elite said.

Are you fucking kidding me?  They loathe us.  They've built careers out of loathing us.  They'll turn on us first chance they get. 

"What do you think of Trump?" the savvies yelled through the door.

"Trump? We hate that guy! Now let us in!" came the yell back.  

"See?  Anyone who says they hate Trump is automatically a trusted ally," said the savvies.

But... but...

And they opened the door and in came the wretched wingnut refuse to our teeming shore.  

Like a wave they came.  

Someone knocked the tasteful "What Digby Said" plaque off of one wall.  Someone else picked it up.
"Who's this guy?" he asked. "What shows is he on?"

I helpfully explained that Digby was a brilliant OG female blogger who wasn't on any of the "shows".

"No wonder I never heard of him," he shrugged and dropped the plaque back to the floor.

A little further down the hall the same scene was repeated with the framed, signed copy of Steve Gilliard's monumental "Fighting Liberal" post.  Who was this person?  Why were they unknown if they were so great?  And so forth.

By the time I made my way back to the living room, getting shoved and elbowed every step of the way, the Never Trumpers had ransacked the fridge, annexed every seat in the house and were either on their cells confirming guest appearances on cable teevee, locking down publishing deals, or making fun of our clothes, our furniture, our flooring, the age of the appliances in the kitchen, our priorities, our values, you name it.  

Tom Nichols was in the massage chair with his bare feet up on our favorite coffee table, dickering with his agent about the advance for his upcoming book, Everyone is an Idiot But Me.

"Feet off the coffee table," I said.

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.

I looked around for support from the savvy media Liberals who had let this mob in, but they were busy taking drink orders from and administering soothing handjobs to our boorish guests.

"Feet off," I repeated. "You're a guest here."

This was greeting with uproarious laughter from every corner.

"'Guest'?" Nichols barked. "Fuck you. If anyone's a 'guest' here it's you.  Now fetch me a fucking beer.  A cold beer."

"Fuck you right back," I shot back. "I don't take orders from you.  This is our fucking house."

"But is it?  It is really?" Charlie Sykes smirked.  "Look around."

"Guests," I repeated. "While you were building the monster that chased you out of your palace, we built this place out of nothing. And when the monster got loose and did exactly what we warned you it was going to do, we gave you shelter here."

Nichols snorted.

"I had nothing to do with creating the monster," he said, "because I live in Massachusetts."

"And I had nothing to do with creating the monster," Michael Steele chimed in, "because when was chair of the RNC for five minutes, I drove all the racists out.  They only came back once I had been cruelly deposed.  So when you think about it, I'm actually the fucking hero here!"

"You know, when you think about it, it seems pretty clear that you're responsible for the monster," Sykes said, pointing at me. "Did you ever think of that?  That all your incessant warnings about us creating the monster actually conjured the monster."

Applause from the room.

"In fact, you're the real monster,"  Mona Charen piled on. 

More applause.

"Now shaddap and fetch me that beer," Nichols said. "I'm on with Nicolle Wallace in ten minutes and I need to fortify myself."

Steve Schmidt looked up from the mirror where he'd been practicing facial expressions.

"You're on with Nicole?"  Schmidt asked. "I thought I was on with Nicole?"

"You're both on," said Wallace's booker.

"Better make it two beers then, Libtard," Schmidt said. "And chop-chop."

"Make it three beers Libtard," Sykes said. "I'm on with Joy Reid after Wallace."

Well gentle reader, they never got those beers.  At least from me.  

And as more of them kept showing up, the tidal pressure made flotsam out of me and moved me irresistibly towards the door where some helpful savvy media Liberal in livery was greeting each new Never Trumper arrival with an ingratiating smile, for which they got spit in the face in return.  

The Digby plaque and the framed Gilliard post were long gone and had been replaced by huge statues of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, on horseback, striking heroic poses.  Between them there was now a massive portrait of St. Ronald Reagan looked on beatifically down on the proceedings from his throne in Republican Heaven. 

Over the door, some other helpful savvy media Liberal had scrawled the new "House Rules" Animal Farm-fashion.  

The first and most important rule was "Any Conservative who says Trump is a poopy-head must be welcomed in, no questions asked."

The second rule was "Any Conservative may at any time take the seat of as many Liberals as they please."

The third rule was "Any Liberal contesting these rules will be asked to leave the premises immediately." 

And so forth.  

So, with the writing literally on the wall, I began to pack up my few belongings and prepared for someone from security to toss me out into the cold night.  Well, it'd been a good run.  Going on 17 years as a blogger.  11 as a podcaster.  And hell, I'd been kicked out of better establishments than this.

But security never came.  

Since I was a Liberal Midwesterner and had always gone unnoticed by the large, coastal Liberal organizations, I guess I was now virtually invisible to these goofs, and therefore nothing for them to worry about.  So I got out my "shooting seat" (So handy! Never go anywhere without it.) and made myself small in a corner near the exit to watch the traffic.  

Pro Tip:  When you're not welcome at a restricted Club, the most educational and entertaining place to situate yourself is near the door of that Club.  At the interface between the Insiders whose membership in the Club is paying big dividends, and the Outsiders who are thirsty for the cache that Club membership bestows.  

And it was under just those conditions that the following actual comments fell to my ears, causing me to fall off my shooting seat.

The last nominally Liberal doorman had long since been sacked and replaced by loyal Bulwark employees and it just so happened that Tim Miller and Charlie Sykes were staffing the Club entrance when the familiar cry of "LetUsIn!LetUsIn!LetUsIn!" and "Trump is a poopy head!" were once again heard from without.  

Miller and Sykes took turns looking through the peephole and then...

MILLER:  ...but [Chris Christie has to, y'know, do some... like do something before you get praise.  And... and everybody needs to recognize, like, his... his... his culpability here.  And then just the pathetic toadying nature that he that he went along with.  It, uh, y'know, and... and so I just... I... I can't let him have... I can't let him have this this little moment that I know that... that it makes CNN so happy that he can have this, that y'know they can't all...

SYKES: So where do we draw this line?  Because we know that there are... I mean there are those of us who were Never Trump from the moment he came down the golden escalated.  That's fine.  But obviously over time there have been other people who have come across the line and that we have welcomed including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who might have supported them early on

The Alert Reader will notice that we on the Left who were right about the Right all along have now been completely erased from history. We once again exist only as Dirty  Hippie straw men, so hell-bent on passing our Crazy Socialist Agenda that we are blind to the threat posed by the GOP, which is why the Democrats need to shut us up in the cellar and start taking direction from Charlie Sykes.   

And once the inconvenient Left had (once again) been excised from the narrative, Checkpoint Charlie Sykes and his merry band were free to arrogate to themselves the sole authority to decide who's in the Club and who's out.  To decide what traits constitute a prospective ally and what that prospective ally must do to gain Charlie Sykes' favor and provisional membership in what is now Charlie Sykes' Club. 

SYKES: And we have been, y'know, sometimes had to swallow and say, "Okay, you were there.  You were serving during that administration, but, uh you've... you've seen the light.  And we will make,  y'know, "the enemy in my enemy is my friend".  Why shouldn't we get to that point with Chris Christie? Basically say, "Okay fuck you for everything you did before, but, okay I'm willing to listen if you're willing to join the militia now?

MILLER:  I have two a two-part answer...

To save time, let me summarize part one: Miller would be cool with Christie running against Trump in a primary as a Destroyer. He won't send Christie one cent for his campaign, but if he wants to belly-flop on Trump's aspirations, great.

MILLER: ...I... I haven't seen any evidence of that right now and... and so that's what I'm calling out. I... I guess my answer to "Who's welcome?" is... is just don't bullshit a bullshitter, y'know?  Don't bullshit me. Don't look at me in the eyes and tell me that, like, this is your Moment of Clarity happened in January 6th.  And... and like now you're the one that wants to step forward because... and now you're the one we're going to speak hard truths. Like, y'know, have some contrition...

Contrition?  Where had I heard that word before?

Oh yeah...

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.

This was the point at which I was laughing so hard I fell of my shooting seat. I mean these were the same guys that had already stolen the Liberal critique of their depraved GOP wholesale, filed off the serial numbers, passed it off as their own work and monetized the shit out of it.  And now here they were ripping off exactly what we Libtards were saying back in 2015/16 about letting these treacherous fucks inside our perimeter in the first place.

And right on time a Bulwark staffer showed up with ladder and paint to alter the first House Rule , Animal Farm-style.  The new first House Rule was now "Any Conservative who says Trump is a poopy-head before January 6th must be welcomed in, no questions asked."

Miller goes on to say that these new arrivals should at least be able to allocute clearly and in detail the why they chose to serve the Orange God and that, holy shit, were they every wrong.   

MILLER:  ...then you're welcome into the cause with me.  But, y'know, don't try to paint yourself as some as some hero and, like, and... and puff yourself up and turn, y'know, turn you into the tough guy.  Like that's the part that bugs me the most about Christy.  It's what I, y'know, where I [have] trouble with The Mooch [Anthony Scaramucci] too.  You know what I mean?  Like, you just give me something.

SYKES (Interrupting):  You know, there are some of these guys I have a hard...

MILLER: Give me some straight talk!  

For the record, your humble scrivener predicted this turn of events with uncanny accuracy in this post here, "Boom Times Are Coming to the Indulgence Factory".

For the record, before I was banned for life from Twitter for referring to a wingnut troll as "trash" after they stepped to me on Twitter, I asked these same goofs to give me some straight talk.  

Here was their reply.

And I am still laughing.

No Half Measures