Why Never Trumper Persuasion Fails

If they had bothered to ask us (or, indeed, treat us like anything other that a smelly nuisance with which they were being forces to barely tolerate until the Republican party "fever" broke and they could return in glory) we could have told the Never Trumpers that their attempts to persuade their party base to, as I wrote 19 years fucking ago -- 

...grow opposable thumbs en masse, climb down out of the Stupid Tree and stop believing dangerously lunatic trash.

-- were doomed to fail.    That...

The only effect Reality has on these clowns is to make them feel ever more picked-on and angried-up.

Did I mention that I wrote all of that and about a million other words just like that four presidential administrations ago?

They were always doomed to fail because the Never Trumper theory of persuasion has always been based on first being able to regain the trust of the MAGA meatbags based on the fact that they share 98% to the same political DNA.   

In other words, continuing to shit all over us -- their new "allies" -- to prove their TrueConservative (tm) bona fides, while lecturing cranky Liberals like me that shitting all over us was absolutely necessary to Save Democracy!

Here's the script.

Recently-former Republican:  Donald Trump is a very bad man.

Current Republican:  I knew it!  You're one of those filthy Democrats!

RFR:  I'm not!  I'm not!  I swear I'm not!

CR: Bullshit.  Democrats think Trump is a very bad man.  You think Trump is a very bad man.  Do the fucking math!

RFR: No!  You've got it all wrong.  I agree, Democrats are depraved commies!  I have always said so!  Remember?  Remember when we got together at CPAC?  That drinking game.  Take a shot every time someone comes up with a new way of saying that Michelle Obama is a dude or Hillary is a lesbian.    

CR: Sorta.  I was pretty hung over. 

RFR:  Me too.  I fucking hate Democrats.  Hate 'em.  

 

RFR rolls up sleeve revealing a tat of Rush Limbaugh. 

 

RFR: Loved that guy.  Soo funny!  Never missed a show.  Remember "Rush Rooms"? 

RFR:  I named my second kid "Rush". 

CR: Well... 

  

CR smiles. 

 

CR: "Rush Rooms" were awesome.   Cigars.  Dudes.   "N"-words.  Awesome.

CR rolls up sleeve revealing a tat of a roll of toilet paper with scribbled writing on it.

CR:  Obummer's "Birth Certificate".   That fucking guy ruined this country.

RFR:  He was pretty awful.  You know I worked against him!  Twice!

CR:  And now we're got this retarded Obummer placeholder who cheated his way into the White House. 

RFR:  Yeah, about that.  Y'know Biden hasn't been all bad.  In fact...

CR:  I knew it!  I knew you were one of those filthy Democrats!

CR flee back to the comfort of NewsMax and FaceBook to tell all the other meatheads about his harrowing encounter with a RINO, DemonRat squish traitor.

See, every Never Trumper knows the ugly truth about the racist, paranoid, imbecile voters they spent decades gaslighting and grooming, which is why it's no surprise that this was Christie Christie in November 2015 -- 

-- and this is the Brand New Chris Christie, trying and failing spectacularly to coax Republican voters out of the sweaty, fascist embrace of Donald Trump, June 2023:

Their theory was that they could lure a few of the MAGA zombies back into the light, but only if they were able to move among the MAGA zombies without being attacked.  And to do that they needed to slather enough MAGA zombie goo on themselves to pass the initial smell test.  

Shitting on you and me was that zombie viscera.

But however much wingnut buddying-up they might do, and drinks-and-ratfucking nostalgia they might share, none of it was going to work, because they were always going slam face-first into the Fail-Safe, Jack Grady Problem.  

Which, hey look!  I was writing about this exact problem about all the way back in 2018!  Right about the same time that I was getting blocked for pointing out such heresies by all those Never Trumpers who were, at the time, colonizing the "liberal" media, and who, thanks to their wall-to-wall coverage on "liberal" media,  had just launched a media corporation called [checks notes] The Bulwark:

From me, in August of 2018, 

Face Facts: The GOP Base Flew Past Their Fail-Safe Point Years Ago

...But other than profiteering from the theft of our authentic and hard-won Liberal vocabulary and making a great, public show of their synthetic piety it will make absolutely no difference at all.

No difference to the Left because our sweat and blood built the vehicle they are now taking for a joy ride.

No difference to the Beltway media, who are already happily re-calibrating the parameters of their branded version of "public discourse" to "debates" between Conservatives, moderated by Conservatives or Both Siderists, with nary a Liberal nor an inconvenient mention of political history prior to 2016 anywhere in sight. 

But most importantly, it will make absolutely no difference to that mob of reprogrammable bigots and imbeciles who are the actual source of the problem: the Republican Base.

It doesn't matter that they heeded you in 2012.  Adored you in 2014.  Cheered you in 2015.  As the Never Trumpers discovered, if you cross the Pig People's wires even slightly, they will cast you out like the dirtiest of dirty Libtards.

And why?

Because the only source of trust or authority which anyone on the Right ever had came from telling that mob of reprogrammable bigots and imbeciles exactly what they want to hear.  By pandering to their ignorance and racism.  By telling them that the voices in their head were real and that their paranoia was patriotism.   By telling them that over and over again, decade after decade.  And, to keep the whole, reeking farrago of Republican lies and madness propped up and delivering voted, by training them to reflexively ignore anyone who tells them anything that contradicts their prime directive...

And then I added the transcript from the movie Fail-Safe, but since then some helpful soul has uploaded it to YouTube, so here it is:

Back to that August 2018 post:

The reason the Republican base will never listen to reason is because they have been specifically ordered not to.

And who trained them to be such perfectly reprogrammable meatbags?

The Never Trumpers did.

And who spent the past few decades courting threats, derision and professional exile by trying to warn the Never Trumpers that training up an army of paranoid, racist golem would end very badly for everyone?

The dirty Libtards did.

And only now will you find recently former-Republican, recently-former National Review mope and current New York Times op-ed page employee David French staring into the abyss he created and finally figuring out that his Republican party is really, for-real dead.

And recently former-Republican, former Weekly Standard mope and The New York Times' longest serving useful Conservative idiot, David Brooks, staring into the same abyss and finally figuring out that his Republican party is really, for-real dead.

And just to complete the "David" trifecta, if he weren't already dead, I' sure we'd find David Broder staring into the same abyss, ruminating about the same thing, and wondering how Barack Obama let all of this happen.  

When I wrote, in 1,000 different ways, that Republicans had spent decades building a Doomsday Machine with no "Off" switch, I wasn't kidding.

And so, once again, we find the professional political experts and savvy insiders slowly beginning to figure out something us stoopid Liberals have been right about all along.

Burn The Lifeboats