Protecting Their Bona Fides

There is this need -- this primal need -- among Never Trumpers in the media to remind everyone all the time that they're Not "Tribal".  That they're "Center Left/Center Right", whatever the hell that means.  On some level I think they have been vectors for Republican propaganda for so long that, deep in their bones,  they're terrified that if they don't veer into the "Shitting on Democrats" lane at least once during every fucking podcast, Bernie Sanders will appear like Candyman in the mirror, and force them to accept Medicare for All or raise the marginal tax rates on billionaires or some equally bone-chilling lurch down the road to Communism.  

Many years ago, in the sub-genre of David Brooks takedowns, I began calling these sorts of awkward, non sequitur pivots away from actual Republican atrocities and onto the imaginary sins of Democrats the "razor in the apple".  They were always there and they were always stupid and/or silly and/or wrong, and the Never Trumpers haven't improved on that particular bit of polemical legerdemain at all.  However, since their format is a panel and Brooks' is an op-ed column, one variation that Never Trumpers have adopted is to make sure that the only "Liberals" on their panels are the thoroughly housebroken, No Labels kind of "Liberals". 

"Liberals" who can be counted on to agree with the host 99% of the time. 

Like, for example, here, where Mona Charen (she who puts the "petty" in "pettifogger") conjures an entirely imaginary grievance out of thin air, and then turns to reliable Bulwark "Liberal" houseplant Bill Galston to validate her baseless speculation.  

Charen:  Tom Nichols said on the Bulwark podcast this week in light of his record the only job in America that Trump has a reasonable chance to achieve is the presidency.

This is manifestly untrue.

Any of the fascist propaganda networks would hire him tomorrow, and there are any number of fascist billionaires who would either make room for him on the boards of their fascist projects and think-tanks, or would invent one just for him.

But that's not the main point here, so please continue.

Charen: He could not be appointed the you know CEO of a major corporation.  He couldn't be elected to the Local School Board in any town he probably wouldn't be hired to run a Walmart.  But he stands a frighteningly good chance of being legitimately re-elected which is just astounding.

No it's not astounding at all.   Because Republicans are garbage people.  

Anyway, that was the windup.  Now here comes the Razor in the Apple pivot.

Charen: I'm going to come to you Bill Galston.  You have very good ties with leading Democrats...

No, he really doesn't.  Outside of the No Labels crew he's been running with for 13 year, he's either a non-entity or considered a bad joke.  But please go on.

Charen: ...and you often hear it said -- and I'd be curious your reaction to this -- that the Democrats, that is Joe Biden and the Biden Administration, want Trump to be the Republican nominee because they recognize President Biden's weaknesses and they feel that a Trump nomination is their guarantee of re-election.

You hear it often said...by whom, exactly?  The circle jerk of Beltway pundits who would rather write about anything other than the great job the Biden administration is doing?  The same, grubs-under-the-rotting-Politico-log hacks who have been wrong about everything else and have nothing else to write about except rumors whispered under the Men's Room stalls? 

Charen:  Can you evaluate that for us?

Evaluate what?  Anonymous rumors?  Some "Fuck the Dems" cringe you cooked up and, just like Trump, are attributing to "some people say"?

Galston:  Where do I begin?

How about telling Mona Charen to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut with her unsubstantiated innuendo?  I mean, you could clean the language up however you want, but that should be the gist of what any self-respecting Liberal would say in this circumstance.

Of course, if Bill Galston were to get within a 1,000 miles of saying anything like that, that would be the last time this teacup poodle "Liberal" would be allowed to sit at the Big People's table with Mona Charen.

And so, instead...

Galston:  I hope that's not what people are thinking...

So Galston, with his "very good ties with leading Democrats" can't confirm a damn thing.  Great!  We're now fully into "Big, if true"  territory, which would be a terrif place for Galston to stop if he were capable of stopping, but Galston is a pompous windbag who, once Mona Charen drops a nickel in, cannot stop pontificating.   

And so, instead... 

Galston: ... because it would be deeply irresponsible to root for the other party to nominate someone who is so manifestly unfit to serve again or, I would say, ever as president of the United States.  

All of this is bullshit.  All of it.  

First, Galston offers zero evidence that any of this is happening at all and, second, if it is, it's apparently happening in private.  Neither David Plouffe nor James Carville have been dispatched to assist the Trump campaign.  No large donation from "J. Biden" or the DNC have been made to the Trump campaign.  None of the Crooked Media lads are taking a hiatus from podcasting to secretly write speeches and jokes for the Orange Menace.  

So that's the Never Trump standard for Democrats now?  Attacking us based on anonymous innuendo for what we may or may not being thinking in the privacy of our own minds?  

And third, outside of the Roman Colosseum, when in the last 12,000 years has "rooting" for anything changed the course of events? For example, right now I'm rooting very hard for a very specific thing to happen to Mona Charen and her panel, but in my heart I know there is virtually no chance that they will actually be catapulted into the Sun.

Galston: ...it's deeply irresponsible not only because it degrades the quality of democratic choices but also because there's no guarantee that in a head-to-head contest that Joe Biden would win it all depends on events that haven't yet occurred and circumstances that are almost impossible to predict and in some cases even to foresee.

Again, this is just stupid, stupid bullshit.  Moving air around with meaningless word-noises to make Mona Charen happy.  The only people who bear any responsibility for nominating a Republican candidate for president are the reprogrammable meatbag Republican base.  

Period.  

Full stop.  

Galston: I am cautious to the point of pessimism by nature and that means that I tend to favor a form of decision making called maxi-min by the game theorists which means that you look for situations in which you can minimize how bad the worst outcome is and it is deeply risky to deliberately promote an outcome that is very bad in order to enhance the chances that an outcome that is very good would occur.  That's the sort of gamble that you could take when you're playing in Las Vegas but when you're talking about the future of the country.

Name me one Democrat, "leading Democrat" or otherwise, who is actually doing this.  Just one.  And then describe to me exactly how any of this applies when the only people who have any material influence over such decisions, or are taking any risks or are "gambling" anything in the Republican primary are Republican voters. 

Jesus Christ, would you please just shut up.

Nope.

Galston: ...but when you're talking about the future of the country you should want the country to be able to move forward or, at the very least, to be stable and held together regardless of which candidate wins the election, and so from a political point of view I think it's ill-advised.

Except it's not happening. 

Galston: From a more moral point of view ,if that's what people are thinking in the White House or anyplace else, I just think that's wrong.  Almost wrong to the point of being unconscionable.

Except it's not happening. 

Galston then gasses on a while longer about how, if the Republicans were to nominate a traditional conservative, he wouldn't be so worried about Biden losing, but since Republicans are manifestly insane and have no conscience and no agency of their own, it is far too dangerous for any Democrat anywhere to do this thing...which Galton has no evidence whatsoever that any Dems are actually doing, and which would have no effect on the Republican primaries even if it were true.

Galston then gasses on even further about how the "American people" deserve a better choice than a fascist madman like Donald Trump.

Really?  Then why don't the actual "American people" get of their fat asses and do something about the actual problem, which is the deranged Republican party? 

Oh that's right.   It's because around +70M of those actual "American people" are Republicans, and Republicans are fucking garbage people.  

So instead we get imaginary "American people" who are apparently completely politically impotent and are therefore incapable of doing anything but sit on the sidelines and bitch-by-proxy about how Democrats are failing them via the medium of Bill Galston.

Nice work if you can get it.

Meanwhile, I remain your faithful servant.  And...

I Am The Liberal Media