You Say You Miss The Comforting, Toxic Myopia of 2010 David Brooks-Brand False Equivalence?

That you're hungry for someone, somewhere who will look Republican fascist madness square in the eye and declare, "Yep, Both Sides did this."?

Will kiddo, do I have a podcast for you!

It's called The Bulwark.  Specifically this episode of The Bulwark in which new-Bulwark employee Will Saletan emphatically agrees with everything his new employer has ever said.  

And it has everything.

It's a podcast ...

... where a couple of cosseted white guys who move words around for a living parse what "real" racism is and what isn't.

...where Liberals are pretty much to blame for Donald Trump because Liberals accused Republicans of doing racism before Donald Trump.  And since everyone know Republicans weren't doing racism before Donald Trump, when a real racist like Donald Trump showed up doing real racism, Republicans just shrugged it off as more Liberal alarmist.  Here are some actual words from the actual podcast:

Sykes: I... I have made this point, uh, over and over and over again without much success I... I think...

driftglass:  Because the point you are about to make is ridiculous, self-absolving flapdoodle.  But hey, please continue.

Sykes: ...but it's hard to overstate, um...

driftglass:  But it's not.  Because you wildly overstate this same, stupid point every time you make it. But hey, please continue.

Sykes: ...the difficulty of saying that Donald Trump, he's the real thing.  You really ought to be alarmed about that, when for decades every Republican was accused of being a racist. Every Rep... 

driftglass:  That is incorrect.  The correct critique of Mr. Sykes' Republican party -- the party of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, the party of Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh, the party of that freaked out whenever anyone suggests that the South shouldn't be littered with statues valorizing Confederate traitors, the party of Willie Horton ads, Reagan's speech at Philadelphia, Mississippi and the "Welfare Queens" threat he waved like a Confederate flag, the party that went on an eight year, racist primal screaming jag again Barack the Kenyan Usurper and then elected the King of the Birthers, the party that was build according to Nixon's Southern Strategy blueprint and rolled out the rolled out the red carpet for every sister-fucking Bircher and Archie Bunker-mentality halfwit -- deliberately recruited disaffected Southern racists into its ranks as a mean of winning elections.  

The entirely accurate and irrefutable critique of the Republican party is that, whatever fraction of the GOP wasn't openly racist, was only too willing to accommodate themselves to being members of a party where racists were flattered and pandered because without them the GOP would never win another election.  

The 100% accurate critique of the Republican party is that party influencers like Charlie Sykes and the Beltway media were perfectly willing lie about what was obviously going on inside the party.  Perfectly willing to go along with all it until -- as Liberals had been warning for decades -- the day of reckoning came when the racist Republican mob which party elites and the Beltway media insisted was a figment of the fevered imagination of alarmist Liberals, broke out into the open to anoint Donald Trump their God King.

And why did they fling themselves into arms of a corrupt lying racist pervert?

Because he spoke to them in their native language.

The language of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms.

The language of Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh.

The language of the glorious Confederacy. 

The language of Willie Horton ads.

The language of Reagan's speech at Philadelphia, Mississippi.

The language of "Welfare Queens".

The language of the "Send the Kenyan Commie Back to African" Tea Party.

The language of the Birchers and of Nixon's Southern Strategy

But hey, Charlie,  please, continue.

Sykes: And at certain [point] people just rolled their shoulder... they rolled their eyes.  And so when the real thing came -- when the real wolf came down the door -- people thought, "You know we've heard this.  We've heard this over and over and over again."

driftglass:  Here's a Fun Fact.  Whenever you hear Conservative mopes like Charlie Sykes speak in sweeping, ex cathedral terms about "people" or "voters" or "the public" or "Americans" they're almost always talking about themselves.

Sorry, got a little off track there.  Where was I?

Oh yeah.  All the tepid, David Broder-era Centrist comfort food that is on-offer at The Bulwark.  

It's a podcast ...

...where the Extremes on Both Sides yadda, yadda, yadda.

...where the crazy opinions on Fox News and MSNBC, yadda, yadda, yadda.

...where everything would work out great if everyone would stop being so judgmental.

...where everyone on Both Sides should stop assuming that people who disagree with them are acting in bad faith.

... where you should trust experts, except when you shouldn't.

... where history began in 2016 and anyone who tries to bring up anything prior to that is being an asshole. 

There's more but reruns of Zombie Centrist claptrap bore me. aso I lost interest somewhere along the way and had to fire up some vintage Tom Lehrer to cleanse my palate.  

Maybe you need some too?

Burn the Lifeboats