The Lads Can't Help It

However far they try to distance themselves from the unholy monster they created, most Never Trumpers simply cannot endure more than a few minutes of critiquing the insanity of their recently former party without taking an awkward, swerving detour down "But the Democrats..." boulevard.  

For, y'know, "balance". 

Even if they have to make shit up, this ritual mating-call-and-response of Beltway respectability is wired so deeply into their psyches that, like Roger Rabbit and "Shave and a Hair-Cut", they are powerless to resist the minty-fresh dopamine hit of a well-placed "Both Sides Do It".

Observe as we join a conversation already in progress among the Lincoln Lads -- Reed Galen and Lincoln Project Senior Advisors Trygve Olson and Jeff Timmer -- as they are sharing their thoughts on the recent tragic Nashville school shooting

Olsen:  And here's the thing about it at the end of the day.  Most of those deaths are caused by the exact same weapon.  It's not like they're using a pump action 12 gauge and going into schools and doing this.  It's the same gun.  And at some point it has to stop.  And honestly that Boebert woman just drives me nuts, right?  Like, she has all these pictures of herself and their kids, all armed up. 

We're it within my power I would bar every pundit on Earth from ever using phrases like "at some point it has to stop" since they're lazy and meaningless.  At some point every person dies.  At some point the sun will burn out.  So what?  But other than that, I have no objections.  To this point the conversation  had been clear, fact-based and cited specific statistics and policies. 

Galen:  As did the member of congress who represents Nashville.

Olsen:  Right.  And it's like, I just wonder what their parents were like that they were teaching them that about guns.  I mean, clearly they weren't going to hunter safety in western Wisconsin.  Like, it's just asinine.  And the other thing is, though, about 400 people [in Las Vegas] might be a statistic, Jeff, but every single one of those people is the most important person in the world to someone who's left in this world dealing with it.  And in the case of those three kids [in Nashville] they were the most important person in the world for at least two people; their parents.

Once again, no objections.  But then...

Olsen:  But, y'know, the Left doesn't do itself any favors in this either, Reed.

Strap in because now we're taking that hard, non sequitur pivot away from verifiable statistics and identifiable policies and people, and into the "Both Sides Do It" land of straw men and sweeping, bullshit generalizations about "the Left".  

Olsen:  Because most of them don't understand, y'know, when they get talking about guns and whatever, they don't want to have a reasonable conversation about it either.   

Suddenly, Olsen is somehow a fucking expert on what "most" of us on the Left do and do not understand about "guns and whatever". 

Suddenly, Olsen can infallibly intuit that we "don't want to have a reasonable conversation" about guns.

Olsen:  Y'know, a lot of them -- this is where the cultural differences matter, right?  They're not, like, differentiating between somebody's 12 gauge they use to go out and hunt ducks or even a 9 millimeter that they're keeping in their house that they like to go and do some sport shooting with and have for security that they keep in a locked box, and AR's with, y'know, hollow point bullets.  And so you don't get a reasonable conversation about it.  

"a lot of them"...

"they're not, like, differentiating"... 

And that's why "you don't get a reasonable conversation about it."

Fuck you, Olsen.

Olsen:  I think, y'know, there are things that could be done, but I think at the end of the day some of this starts, quite frankly -- and this is what's so irresponsible about people like Boebert -- responsible gun owners making sure their kids -- and most of them do... 99.9999999 percent of them -- that they're responsible and that they're not promoting this weaponized culture.

Here's a static for you, Olsen.  Clowns like you have waving the myth of  "responsible gun owners" in the faces of unreasonable Liberals like me for at least a generation.  We're supposed to sit down and shut up because "at some point" these "responsible gun owners" were surely going to put an end to the massacres is some inexplicable but definitely responsible manner.   Which means that in the time we stoopid, irresponsible Liberals (who can't differentiate between a AR-15 and a slingshot) have been waiting for your imaginary "responsible gun owners" to step up and and at least begin doing something, there are American children have survived gun massacres, grown up and had kids of their own.  

And yet, after all this time. these "responsible gun owners" are still nowhere to be found.  Hey, here's an idea!  Perhaps you could prevail on your hunting friends to gather the greatest wilderness trackers in American to track them down and bring out of hiding to get this working on this extremely serious problem.  

Or perhaps instead it is time for clowns like you to stop telling everyone else to keep waiting for the Responsible Gun Owner Fairy to come in the night while we sleep and put Responsible Gun Control Policies under our pillows.  

Perhaps instead the time has come for you to sit down and shut up and let the rest of us have a crack at the problem.

At this point, Galen grabs the wheel and awkwardly tries to steer the Lincoln Lads out of the swerve.  Not by pushing back or pointing out how asinine his colleagues remarks had been, but instead... 

Galen:  But this is part of what I would call the authoritarian movement that Trump leads...

FYI, the beginning of every Lincoln Lad podcast begins the same way.

Hey everybody it's Reed.  Before we get started, I just want to remind everyone that the fight that we're facing is not about Right versus Left.  And it's not about Republicans versus Democrats.

The hell it's not. 

Burn The Lifeboats