Today's Never Trump Moment of Zen

They are extremely miffed that you and I dominate the political infosphere while they are barely represented at our Cool Kids Table.

From this Bulwark exchange between Matt Yglesias and Charlie Sykes in which they extol the glories of the Imaginary Center: (BTW,  if you've never hear Yglesias speak, he sounds exactly like actor and recent arrestee Ed Deezen, shown here worrying about giving away back door secrets in WarGames):

Yglesias: Because so many people experience politics not by, y'know, counting up votes in congress but by looking at what's happening in the media, right? And, y'know, our experience of politics is very mediated by what's on cable, by what's on Twitter, by what's in the New York Times op-ed page. And it's quite, um, extreme, right? It is a lot of very left-wing Democrats counter-balanced by a lot of very crazy Republicans.  And, y'know, you've got a podcast.  And, y'know, I've got my SubStack.  And Josh Barrow now will have a SubStack and a podcast. Like, there certainly are more moderate people who exist in the media but we don't dominate the stage in...in the same way.

Sykes: I think that's something of an understatement.

Yglesias: Yeah, but... but that's, like, the... that's the vibe of politics y'know?

What Yglesias and Sykes fail to mention is that the Sunday Shows have long been nothing but endless fire swamps of the kind of Both Siderist drivel they both crave.  Fire swamps in which indestructible Centrist Pundits of Unusual Size are the apex predators.

They also somehow failed to mention that MSNBC gives three hours of prime time every morning to a failed Republican congressman and his side piece -- a perch from which Squint Scarborough has been vigorously punching down at us dirty hippies for decades.

And that MSNBC is now basically a co-production with The Bulwark website marketing department.

And that...well, you get my point.  Neither Yglesias nor Sykes let the fact that Yglesias is talking entirely out of his ass interrupt the self-pitying folie à deux they were sharing.  Instead, Yglesias  raced on to do some top-notch speculating about a better, brighter timeline that could have been if only President Biden had punched some hippies, loudly and publicly.

Specifically, Yglesias joins Josh Barrow in the belief that the aggressive Republican voter suppression efforts taking place in every GOP-controlled state in the union are no biggie.  And that comparing Republican scumbags who are engaging in widespread voter suppression campaigns today with the scumbags who engaged in widespread voter suppression campaigns during the Jim Crow era is being really unfair to today's scumbags and -- no kidding -- deeply insulting to black people who lived through the Jim Crow era.  

Yglesias went on to speculate that since today's Republican voter suppression efforts are a big nuthin', Biden should've sat down with, say, Rob Portman, and told him that Democratic party voting right activists are stupid, whiny babies to get all upset over widespread Republican voter suppression efforts.

And Portman woulda said, "Yay!  I love hippie punching!"

Then Biden would spring into action, saying that since widespread Republican voter suppression efforts don't amount to anything, what'd be the harm in passing a few, face-saving voting protection thingies?

And then, over in Yglesias' alternate timeline, because Biden had called Democratic activists stupid, whiny babies and given Portman a fig-leaf, Portman would've skipped happily back across the aisle and rounded up a bunch of Republican senators to pass some minor, meaningless stuff.

Which, to anyone who isn't hopelessly, knee-walking drunk on Beltway Both Siderist popskull, is all patently ridiculous.  But would, according to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, accomplish two important Centrist goals: 

1. Deal the base of the Democratic party a good, hard, demoralizing shot to the yam-sack in advance of the 2022 midterms and,
2. Allow Republican scumbags to look like a statemen while giving up nothing and accomplishing nothing. 

Which, to goofs like Yglesias and Sykes, is what Bipartisanship should look like.

For a brief moment, Sykes seemed to be able to hold in his mind the one, glaring reason why no such accord could ever be reached with a party so deeply invested in the Big Lie.

Sykes: But unfortunately you have Republicans who have a vested interest in, y'know spreading the... the, y'know... spreading the disinformation, the distrust...

But then, inevitably...

Sykes: ...and then of course you have you know the hyper partisan, y'know, folks... uh... uh on the Democrat side as well that... that want to engage in litigation even when you have bipartisan compromises...

Which is why, boys and girls, we here all know that we should never, ever trust a Never Trumper.

Burn The Lifeboats