However, what remains a taboo subject everywhere except out here in
disreputable wilds of whatever is left of the Liberal blogosphere is
how exactly the Republican base came to be such a aggregation of
unsalvageable garbage people that they would nominate this degenerate monster
for president three times and elect him twice.
How is it that no one but us dirty hippies noticed or cared about the monstrous cancer that was growing in plain sight at the heart of the GOP until it was far too late to stop it?
If you have eyes to see with and ears to hear, you have no doubt noticed the
media making a big deal of the 10 year anniversary of Donald Trump's June
16, 2015 journey down an escalator and into the hearts of the Republican
base.
Trump Has Us On His Golden Escalator to Hell—But There is a Way Off
Fox News:
Flashback: 10 years since Trump's golden escalator ride
‘The Five’ co-hosts recount President Donald Trump’s first election,
his game-changing rise in politics and already ‘fascinating’ second
term.
The Washington Examiner:
A decade of MAGA: How Trump’s golden escalator ride changed America
At the time, right down the line, all the Very Serious People and every
Republican who would go on to be a Never Trumpers regarded the whole idea of
Trump running for president as a goof. A joke. A jape. A
stunt. Burlesque. The notion of this jumped-up real estate
buffoon and reality teevee guy running for, well, anything was seen as a
clown on his way to the inevitable banana peel.
But there was a tiny contingent of us dirty hippies (who had long since been dispatched to media Coventry for the unforgivable sin of being right about the Right when everyone else had been wrong) who looked at Trump and saw the genuine threat he represented.
It's not that I had any special, inside dope about the way Trump had operated in the New York real estate market, or in the New York media market, or on reality teevee. I didn't. What I did have was a lifetime of up-close-and-personal exposure the Republican base, and could see with my own two eyes the terrible trajectory they had already been on for decades: a trajectory which both the legacy media and elite Conservative media categorically refused to believe existed at all.
And so, on June 18, 2015 -- two days after Trump announced -- I wrote this, which you are encouraged to send along to your favorite Never Trumper who still insists that no one could possibly have seen Trump coming, or what geniuses they are because they and only they caught wind of what a colossal ass-ache Trump might develop into. You are especially encouraged to send this along to your favorite Never Trump who is constantly moaning that we Liberals are potty-mouthed idiots who have no inkling what's really going on, or what is at stake.
From me, June 18, 2015:
The Premium Leads
In case you missed it, Squint and the Meat Puppet handed the MSNBC camera over to Donald Trump this morning for a relaxing, 30-minute handjob. While Trump rambled lazily from one pinnacle of bullshit and narcissism to the next, Morning Joe crack house regulars Mark Halperin (Glenn Beck's favorite mainstream media enabler) and the pickled remains of Mike Barnacle looked on, smirking and giggling. All that it lacked to complete the creepy, peep-show effect were trench-coats and bad lighting.
But of course, the story of the Trump candidacy has very little to do with Donald Trump.
As I wrote a few years ago, the brain-caste of the GOP spent a 40 years and billions of dollars carefully breeding an army of reliably angry, paranoid, racists chumps. And they have been so successful at completely re-engineering the Right's ideological digestive system that they can no longer process any information which does not come to them in the form of Fox-approved Benghaaaazi goo.
In other words, in order to win elections and rake in vast fortunes, the Conservative brain caste has painstakingly created the perfect feeding-ground for con men and demagogues like Trump, the louder and more bombastic the better. And from David Brooks and the Wall Street Journal and "Meet the Press", to Ann Coulter and the Washington Free Beacon and the Breitbart Collective, in one way or another, virtually everyone in the media makes bank by flattering Conservative meatheads and pandering to their delusions.
They are the GOP's premium leads, but however abundant and renewable a resource the Conservative meatheads may be, come Presidential election time, there is never enough room at the trough for every rapacious Republican hog. This is why every few years we have these Little Red State Fundy moments; that delicate time when the knives come out and the various species of Conservative con men start cutting each other's balls over who gets to pluck the wingnut pigeons...
...while trying desperately not to call attention to the fact that their entire political system depends on pandering to the army of reliably angry, paranoid, racists chumps which the GOP has worked so long and hard to cultivate.
Fortunately for the Right, now that the "respectable" media has as much to lose by cracking out of turn as Hate Radio and Fox News, we can all look forward to another campaign season of the American mainstream media looking stoically the other way.
End of sobering sojourn into the twilight of the Before Time.
Back in 2004, we on side of the angels were staggered to discover that 62M Americans would choose to put their higher cognitive functions in cold storage and instead take council of their fear and spite and invincible ignorance by handing the country back to a manifestly and criminally incompetent administration led by an idiot who had gotten creamed in every presidential debate.
(Fun fact! Within five years, most of the meatheads and weasels who were crowing from the rooftops in 2004, touting George Bush as the greatest leader since Charlemagne and bragging about making the Libtards cry were busy doing exactly what we predicted they would do: burning their Bush/Cheney lawn signs, calling themselves "Independents" and swearing on the lives of their children that they had never even heard of George W. Bush.)
So as you might imagine, the question of "What to do next?" came up a lot.
Here was one loud and clear reply to that question from the late Steve Gilliard.
After seeing Bush's nauseating press conference, I realized this isn't 2000. He's not getting a chance. Even the Daily News, which endorsed him, prays he won't lie any more. I bet Laura said the same thing before he went to rehab.
Look, let me say a couple of things:
1) Leadership is hard. It is a very hard thing and sometimes you have to make the hard decisions.
John Kerry did.
Ask yourself this: in the opposite position, do you think George Bush wouldn't have ripped this country up to keep his job, even if the numbers weren't with him?
George Bush doesn't make hard decisions. He makes easy, simple ones. And while it would have felt good to smack Bush around a bit, it would have only delayed the inevitable.
So let's get off his back. He did what he had to do, and that was the hard decision. Not the easy one.
Democrats have a nasty habit of turning on their candidates. They ripped into Gore mercilessly. mocked him, even after he lost. Especially after he lost. We WILL NOT repeat that. We need leaders, strong leaders who have a vision for America. And we have them. Not just one, or two, but a room full. We have people who can fight, run and win and who can support down ticket candidates. I can understand what happened after 2000, but now. We were too close, hit too many right notes to turn on each other.
Let the GOP do that.
Because all the fundies who think Bush represents their "family values" are going to get a shock. The GOP has been shining them along for a long time. Why would they stop now?
There seems to be an addiction to the search for the new. Let's avoid that this time. Let's rally around Kerry and Edwards and encourage them to speak for us. Make so that people know them long before 2008. We don't need ideal, we need people who can be trusted and who are familiar. Who can challenge Bush on his schemes.
Why? Because we need presidential quality people to lead the party, not just functionaries. We need to take a page from the Europeans and have candidates around for more than one cycle.
Look, Nixon ran twice, Reagan ran three times (1968,1976,1980). Same with Bush. Michael Dukakis disappeared. Al Gore vilified. Where are the senior leaders who can rally the party and raise money? Let the media talk up Hillary Clinton. They need something to do. But we're gonna do things differently this time. Look, if Kerry got blown out, then yeah, but he didn't. And we will need him when the war turns rotten. Let him be a true liberal statesman and not just a candidate.
2) Bush gets no breaks. He fucks up, we hammer him. We raise all kinds of issues, from his vacation time to his plan to gut social security. They chased Clinton for six years. He never got a chance to breathe. All bad deeds should be punished. Bush wants to act like he has a mandate. Let's not pretend he has one. We oppose him from today. We demand answers for Abu Gharib and the missing explosives. Fuck Andy Sullivan. He doesn't start over and we cut him no slack. None. He speaks, we protest. They say get over it, we say fuck you. You didn't get over Clinton. Nope. Not this time. Because our goal is to drive as many of you from office as possible. We don't want to work with you on gutting social security or some dumbass medical savings plan. We plan on stopping you.
3) We protest this war, and if he dares, a draft. We do what we can to stop this madness. No more arguing over ANSWER or whatever. If they want to march and focus on the issue at hand, which isn't Palestine or Mumia Abu Jamal, but Iraq, fine.
4) Nader was wrong. The two parties are very different. If you don't want to see that, fine. But you're wrong. A lot of people complain about how the Dems are corporate owned. Well, we raised millions this time and we're gonna have to do more, a lot more. And that means everything from school boards to writing letters and giving money. Kerry had to stop fighting, the Dems in Congress better not, if they want to keep their jobs. Accommodation doesn't work in the face of evil. Never has, never will. These people want to kill the New Deal and if we don't fight them every step of the way, they will. And God knows how long that will take to fix. We know Bush is wrong. We have to act like it.
5) Stay involved. Give a damn and do not give into your darkest fears. Stay and fight, and every bit helps. Avoiding Wal-Mart is a start. Tell them why Target gets your dollars instead. Don't just fixate on politics. It's about schools, the media, how you spend your money. If you want to make change, you have to change.
We are a band of brothers and sisters. We can do great things together. But we have to dare to do them. If you want a new America, a better America, you have to build it here, today, now. You cannot wait for someone to do it for you.
Those of us who backed Kerry to the hilt in 2004 and woke up the day after the election to find that, out of fear and spite and indestructible ignorance, the country had re-elected a manifestly and criminally incompetent administration led by an idiot who had gotten creamed in every presidential debate are probably in better shape that anyone to explain to the young un's what just happened to their country. My opinions were fully-formed and firing on all cylinders long before Kerry vs. Bush, but in 2004 I had not yet begun my glamorous and lucrative career as a Liberal!Blogger! so I spent a considerable fraction of my staggering around, raging at heaven WTF?? time after Kerry got beat hanging out in places like the late Steve Gilliard's News Blog.
As a study in how much and how little has changed in the intervening 12 years, as well as some sound advice on the nature of politics. Steve's dispatches from after that election are worth the read.
I know I have been getting yelled at by some people who were pissed I wasn't drooling over Diebold or crying because Kerry lost. Well, the reason is simple: I've been in politics. I've been in a winning room and a losing room, and I like the winning room a lot more. I've worked for both parties, in North Jersey, which is some of the nastiest politics in America. I've seen what an evil, indifferent mayor can do and what it's like to be pissed for eight years.
But I'm not sad, and I'll tell you why.
A lot of you may have been too young to remember 2000, much less 1992. I did some campaign work in Jersey back then, more in 1996. It seems like a million years ago and not because it was. It's because then, no matter how angry you were, or frustrated, no one heard you, and no one cared. And you couldn't join the party and you couldn't fight back. Either way, you were outside. That was politics.
I know people are discouraged. But I have never felt better about a campaign, not 1992, not the local Jersey campaigns, not the NY mayoral campaigns. Why? Because the fact that you can bitch at me and you care what I have to say is a sea change. It is the start of something new and different and important.
This is the first campaign were, we, as citizens, could actually be heard. The GOP sent their e-mails and Kerry sent his. But the difference was, we didn't wait for Kerry or the party to direct us. Kos set up his site on his own. So did Atrios, and while I had a generous grant from George Soros, :), I was able to discuss things and be read more than in a hundred newspapers. This election wasn't about Howard Dean or John Edwards or John Kerry. It was about us. We raised money. We supported candidates, we scared Tom DeLay shitless. This was the first time since I've covered politics I felt it was more than just the pros playing along.
People invested their heart and soul into this campaign and I know losing hurts like hell. I'm a little distant because I learned from the pros. And believe me, they don't quit after one election.
Yes, the GOP controls Congress. But I think while they beat back this challenge, they won't be beating back them much longer.
Don't get me wrong. A year or four of George Bush is a mistake we will all regret. But the thing is that we know that at least 55M people stand with us. We are not alone.
Now for all the doomsayers who think John Kerry killed the progressive movement.
No. This isn't a one man movement.
Kerry couldn't fight Ohio and that is a man who isn't inclined to quit. We lost, not because of him or us not working hard enough, but because a lot of people who voted think gay marriage is a threat to their lives. Which is insane. They don't even get it. Not that the Dems ever framed the issue right. But no one took that seriously, and we're gonna pay for that. They're wrong as hell, but we never told them why, lest we be tainted as well. If we start to blame anyone, let's start there and we're all guilty.
What we didn't get is that gay marriage isn't just a legal concept, but to many people, the final straw in a world gone mad. They can't control anything, not their job, their rent or their kids. but men marrying men? That's a bit of madness they can stop.
Of course, a ballot amendment won't do that. It doesn't stop anything except paper. It doesn't stop people living together. The problem will come when straight couples are affected by the same laws many of them voted for.
Karl Rove conned these people. He promised them something that will never happen. They think the war is a speed bump to a Christian America. But if we can stop the homos from marrying, we can save America.
And of course, the cruel joke is that two years out, the most disillusioned people in America will be the Christian Right. Bush doesn't need them any more, he'll be looking to his legacy. And being the Jesus freak president will not play. He knows that.
Like with abortion. He will play with Roe v Wade, but he has no real motive to end it outright. Because when he does, that will mean the end of the Republican party as we know it. Only the Christian right will be left. There isn't enough of them to force his hand. So he can even find judges who will fritter around the edges. But to overturn Roe v Wade is to lose any hope of the woman's vote in the future. Why do you think they mever pushed this stuff when they could in the last four years? Because they didn't have to.
We need a new language to deal with these issues. We need to frame them differently. Because we are doing people a grave disservice. They think it's external factors ruining their lives. TV, movies, drug dealers, gays. Well, no. It's those 50 hour weeks you pull.
You don't need to go beyond Oprah and Dr. Phil to see this in action. Six year olds left to fend for themselves. Teenagers coming home to empty houses. Parents working longer and longer hours. Of course families are fucked up with that kind of economic pressure on them. So when they get an easy answer, go to church, oppose abortion and it will all work out. And of course it won't. Because it's not a problem of faith but economics. And until we reframe the issue in those terms, we're gonna lose a lot of votes. We have this unspoken economic crisis exploding, like an illness, and all we do is look at the symptoms.
Sure, people dislike gay marriage. But if you think that's the real issue, you're gonna have a few more bad election nights. It's about control and fear. Until we say "look, this is not about gays, but your loss of control. You work all the time, never see your kids and you think gay marriage is your problem? Working all the time, not raising your kids, that's the issue. Your marriage blew up, you don't get child support on time, and you think the most important thing in your life is if two strangers get married? Your schools don't even work and you hope your kids will find a way to pay for college. Yet, with all this going on, gay marriage is your priority?"
We simply have to reframe the debate.
Once we do, the GOP will lose and lose big. But until we do, we'll get a stalemate, with one side or the other eking out wins. We'll go after the president, of either party and fight a political Western Front. Which mean no health care insurance, no real progress on a whole bunch of issues. No matter who is in office.
It makes me sad to hear people talking about boycotting red states. Why? Because what about the blue counties and all those people who fought for Kerry knowing they would lose. The people who did Kerry in Atlanta, and Dallas and Houston and Little Rock? Are we going to walk away from them because of what their neighbors did? There were a lot of people in blue states who voted for Bush on the same grounds. All those folks in Charlotte and Miami and a lot of other places who went for their conscience regardless of the outcome. They knew they were going to lose and they did it anyway. Are those the people who deserve a boycott? They didn't have the numbers, but they had the heart.
You know, I've slammed Nader for a long time, but today, I just feel sad for him.
It's like we had a big-assed party, and instead of having a beer and relaxing, he sat in his room, making snide comments with his little friends and calling the RA or something.
Nader could have joined what is growing here. He could have embraced what Dean and millions of others started. He could have been part of it. But instead, he was part of the past. The old top down lefty model which no one cares about any more. The one where we all follow the great leader. He never really got how many people respected him. He took it for granted. And then he squandered it. It is to his everlasting shame that he decided destroying the Dems was more important than embracing people acting as citizens. We did what he wanted, and then he decided it wasn't good enough
For a long time progressive was a code word for self-indulgent lefties, most likely heard on Pacifica and in various magazines. Now, it's your neighbors and friends. It's the people around you online and off.
Look, Bush won, it sucks and the question we face now is what is next. And I know what my answer is. The question is what is yours.
Even before the end of the campaign I was thinking about how I would adjust to the mayoral election. What could we bring from the national campaign to this local campaign and toss 12 years of Republicans out on their ass. Is it meetups, online contributions? What? Where do we go from here to bring all this energy to our homes. I want to see local candidates represent my views and get support. I want change. I couldn't change George Bush, but I can change Mike Bloomberg and kill that fucking stadium of his.
The question is how. Where do we go from here with that? What do I need to do? How do I help people?
That's what's on my mind today. How do we make this local and make it work.
Surprisingly, given all of the attention to Trump’s attitudes and behavior toward women, he did virtually as well among white, Republican women (91 percent support) as he did among white, Republican men (92 percent). Clinton was more competitive among white independent women than men, losing to Trump by a 49 to 41 percent margin among independent women and by 57 to 31 percent among independent men.
Remember these women. They chose this. They wanted this.
Remember that Republicans did not win yesterday by playing nice and cooperating and agreeing with Democrats, in the spirit of comity, to set aside our differences for the good of the country.
They won by spending thirty years and billions of dollars honing their rage and paranoia on the whetstone of racism and ignorance. They won by seeding the corporate media with quislings and collaborators and fellow-travelers who made sure the camera would never focus on that rage and paranoia and racism and ignorance, and that they would never pay any real price for fucking up everything they touch.
I have no idea how this all ends, but I know the only way we come back from this is by finally listening to people who actually understand how these fuckers think and not Beltway bubble muppets.
So the racist orange fire demon who one outcast Liberal loser described back in May as a "political WMD designed to take out the Republican party, but leave their laptops and office space intact" has finally dropped the big one.
All over radio and print this AM and teevee last night, there was widespread pundit Shock! And Horror! And Even More Shock!
Trump refuses to say he will accept election results; Clinton calls it 'horrifying'
Threatening a fundamental pillar of American democracy, Donald Trump refused to say Wednesday night that he will accept the results of next month's election if he loses to Hillary Clinton. The Democratic nominee declared Trump's resistance "horrifying."...
Over here in my tiny Liberal outpost in the middle of Middle America, all I saw was the latest poisonous harvest from the toxic seeds the Republican Party has been carefully cultivating for decades.
Perhaps those very highly paid pundits would have been less Shock! And Horror! And Even More Shock! if they had been paying the slightest attention to what Liberals have been saying all along.
Here, untouched and intact from 2005, is one of the first posts I ever wrote. I would change a few details if I were putting it together today, but overall it still stands up as a solid B+ in a world where virtually every paid Beltway media professional has been pulling straight F's since Christ was a corporal:
Little Red State Fundy sez...
Whatever will we tell the children?
One day we will have to explain to the children what happened when Thurston Howell III lost his right mind and decided that for the sake of some tax cuts to make him incrementally more comfortable, his very bestest buddies in the whole, wide world were the Ultra Right Wing Gorgons down in Jesusland.
May I suggest the following?
The Story of Little Red State Fundy
Little Red State Fundy found a grain of hate.
"Who will help me plant the hate?" she asked.
"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.
"Not I," said the Undecideds.
"Not I," said the Libertarians.
"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.
So she buried the hate in the bloody ground of the Old Confederacy. After a while it grew up paranoid and ignorant and violent.
"The hate is ripe now," said Little Red State Fundy. "Who will do the mass mailings and preach bigotry from the Pulpit?"
"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.
"Not I," said the Undecideds.
"Not I," said the Libertarians.
"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.
So she licked envelopes until her bill was cracked and dry and stood up into the House of God and crowed to her flocks in their millions that God Loved Them for hating and killing creatures who were not like them.
Then she asked, "Who will help me focus this hatred politically?"
"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.
"Not I," said the Undecideds.
"Not I," said the Libertarians.
"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.
So she made databases and phone banks, and walked door-to-door with petitions that talked of Gods Great Hatred of Gays, and Gods Great Hatred of Judges that did not worship the Hate God in exactly the way the Little Red State Fundy told them to.
Then she carried the hate to steps of the Congress and the White House.
"Who will make a mandate from this hate?" she asked.
"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.
"Not I," said the Undecideds.
"Not I," said the Libertarians.
"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.
So she got on the phone with her very good friend Karl Rove and with his help organized carpools to the polls, and get-out-the-vote drives, anti-gay marriage amendments and smear campaigns. For Jesus.
And Little Red State Fundy delivered the margin of victory and was featured in many, many magazines: without Little Red State Fundy, the Republican Party could never, ever, ever win anything.
And now everybody knew it.
Then she said, "Now who shall help me Rule the Earth."
"We will!" said Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.
"I am quite sure you would," said Little Red State Fundy, "but see, now you are all my bitches."
Then she called Randall Terry and Tom DeLay and Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson, and they and the rest of the Shining Path Republicans used what was left of the Constitution as ass-floss.
And judges were terrorized into silence.
And those deemed ungodly were beaten in the streets.
And they invaded whoever the fuck they felt like, for whatever fucking reason they chose.
And the very idea of a Free and Fair press died.
And to people who had been very clear all along that they genuinely believed in a Theocratic Nanny State and thought that precipitating Armageddon and triggering the Second Coming should be the highest calling of any worldly government, were handed over the police, courts, government, treasury and nuclear weapons stockpiles of the United States of America.
And in the end -- just as they had been warned for the past twenty years -- there was nothing whatsoever left at all for Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.
A loss leader is a product or service at a price that is not profitable but is sold or offered in order to attract new customers or to sell additional products and services to those customers
-- Investopedia
The war was over, the Movement in ruins, and Mr. David Brooks of the New York Times -- the aging Imaginifer* of the fallen regime -- wanted nothing more than deliverance from the ruin and carnage he had sanctioned. Sure he was keeping the money...and the fame...and the perks...but he didn't want to personally get his hands dirty any more.
But now everything was going to shit and all he wanted was to semi-retire in comfort and travel the world, unencumbered by his past. He wanted the freedom to pile up a fortune lecturing youngsters on Humility and pile up another fortune lecturing adults on Redemption and Faith without anyone asking any tricky, embarrassing questions.
He wanted to tend his roses and use his extremely valuable New York Times real estate to blather about born-again-paganism in language that, in days of old, the Imaginifer of Bush The Conqueror would have blasted off the page:
...
Democracy isn’t a political or legal bargain. It’s enchanted like romantic love, but on a larger scale. Each democratic citizen receives the love of her fellows as a gift to which the only appropriate response is gratitude and love in return.
The poet has a special responsibility as society’s seer, who grasps the eternity in the present and sings to people about their own unique divine powers within.
Personally, I have issues with born-again paganism. Shapeless, it leads to laxness — whatever moral quandary you bring it, it gives back exactly the answer you’d prefer to hear. It throws each person back on himself and leads to self-absorption and atomization, as everybody naturally worships the piece of God that is one’s self. Naïve, it neglects the creedal structures that are necessary for those moments when love falters...
He wanted to sit on his million-dollar porch with his faithful hound Burke at his feet and whittle and muse about how nice it would be if every family were like this family --
...
The kids who show up at Kathy and David’s have endured the ordeals of modern poverty: homelessness, hunger, abuse, sexual assault. Almost all have seen death firsthand — to a sibling, friend or parent.
It’s anomalous for them to have a bed at home. One 21-year-old woman came to dinner last week and said this was the first time she’d been around a family table since she was 11.
And yet by some miracle, hostile soil has produced charismatic flowers. Thursday dinner is the big social occasion of the week. Kids come from around the city. Spicy chicken and black rice are served. Cellphones are banned (“Be in the now,” Kathy says).
The kids call Kathy and David “Momma” and “Dad,” are unfailingly polite, clear the dishes, turn toward one another’s love like plants toward the sun and burst with big glowing personalities. Birthdays and graduations are celebrated. Songs are performed.
...
-- without any inconvenient conversations about who broke the country and shredded our bonds of mutual affection in the first place.
But even with his horrid past safely walled off by his Beltway colleagues, his reputation as a man who knows how to weather a firestorm that he helped touch off and come out the other side rich and respected had survived among those who want to follow his example.
Which is why, about once a month, one of the hungry little orcs of The New, New, New True Conservatism comes slogging -- pasty and grim -- up the hill to his house along the footpath worn smooth by Ben Domeneche, Charlie Sykes, Rich Lowry, Michael Steele, Michael Gerson, Hugh Hewitt and a dozen, dozen others over the years.
Because while Rush and Sean and that crowd can wow the faithful with giant, roaring, racist battle wagons designed to hurl indiscriminate megatons of lies and rage, Mr. David Brooks of the New York Times is known to the initiates as a master of the subtler arts of Beltway power and persuasion. The ways of slow poison and deflection.
And once they arrive at his door, they all burble out the same hysterical question: What the holy fuck are we gonna do about Trump, David? I mean holy, holy fuck!? He's the nominee of my goddamn party! How did it ever get to this? The Liberals are having a field day with this. They're gonna bury us with this! I've got a wife, David, and a bookie, two agents and several expensive mistresses dependent on me, plus I tithe and is anything happens my church if gonna take a huge hit. What am I gonna do?
Then they collapse, weeping: the walk up this hill is not very rigorous, but they're in terrible shape.
And always Mr. David Brooks answer the same way.
First, get their attention:
Then, sighing, he gives them his little speech...
* * *
Are you sure you want to go down this road?
They nod.
Are you sure. Because this is the Dark Side, kid. The real Dark Side. And I am contractually obligated by the Nameless One who owns clear title to my soul to inform you that once you're in, there's no going back.
They nod again.
Well okay then. Right off the top. Donald Trump is not the candidate of your party, because you have no party. Because you're an "independent". Say it. "I'm an independent."
I'm an independent.
Say it again.
I'm an independent.
Good. You can dress it up any way you like -- Conservative independent, constitutional independent, Evangelical Christian independent, whatever, but always independent. In the business we call it "Dowding" and at the very least it'll at least keep your sorry ass above water and food on your bookie's table.
Next, understand that you're looking at this mess all wrong. Trump is not the boss of anything; he's your fucking Loss Leader. He's a maggoty can of tuna for $0.12 that gets them looking in the window,
Yeah, he stinks. On ice. He's a monster. He's an orange racist fire demon. And yeah, we built that shit.
But... But... He's also got a lot of people looking around the Conservative showroom floor for the first time in years. Of course, if all they see is an ambulatory Breitbart comment thread bragging about his sex crimes, well then you are fucked.
But if they see a lineup of respectable New, New, New True Conservatives? Conservatives who are, by any sane standards, are out of their fucking minds, but compared to Trump are as rational as Steven Hawking and as virtuous as choir boys?
Remember how desperate my pals in the "respectable" media were to forget the Bush Administration ever happened? So desperate they let 30 million Republican assholes get away with putting on those stupid hats, calling themselves a "tea party" and swearing they'd never eve heard of George W. Bush? Well all those people are still there, and I guarantee you, after Trump, they will be an order of magnitude more frantic to "put this election behind us and move on" as they were after the Fall of Dubya,
This could be your golden age kiddo! Your golden age! You just have to know how leverage your Loss Leader.
And to do that, other than always referring to yourself as...what?
I'm an independent.
Good lad. Other that that, you just need two more items in your inventory.
First, you're going to have to find yourself a spot somewhere in the "respectable" media. That's going to cost you money -- agents, publicists, some asshole to ghost you a shitty book about the "Future of Blah Blah Blah." All of that if money out of your pocket, but it'll pay for itself when you're a semi regular on MSNBC. Getting on one of the Sunday shows like "Meet the Press" is better. Or getting your name on the op-end page of the New York Times.
I know some people; I'll make some calls.
Second -- and this is vital -- no matter what you see, no matter how ugly it gets, not matter how fast one staggering Republican atrocity after another piles up in front of the whole world, your watch-word is always, always, always "Both Sides". Always. Say it.
Both Sides.
Say it again.
Both Sides.
If you want style points, study the collected works of Ron Founier. Ron's a fucking machine. Or Joe Scarborough, who is an asshole, but an object lesson in why you don't need the talking head who appear on-camera in your corner, just the men who own those cameras.
But for now, let us read aloud together from a very apt pupil of mine, Erick Erickson, who -- believe it or not -- was published in the Liberal New York Times this very week,
Erick Erickson: The G.O.P. After Donald Trump
By ERICK-WOODS ERICKSON
Over the past few months, a cavalcade of Republican policy wonks, pundits and partisan strategists have beclowned themselves on national television trying to defend the indefensible: their party’s nominee. Free-trade advocates have become protectionists. Strategists are treating Drudge Report surveys as scientific endeavors while dismissing legitimate polls as Clintonian propaganda.
But when the Russians go home, the pastors repent and riot police disperse white nationalist protests, the Republicans will need fresh ideas.
Republicans first must acknowledge there are legitimate concerns that fueled Mr. Trump’s rise. Both parties are more interested in listening to check writers than voters. Many Americans see their neighborhoods being overrun by addiction and poverty, but see neither help nor recognition of the problem from Washington. It is not hard to conclude that Republicans and Democrats alike value cheap, imported labor and could not care less about the heartland.
The bulk of both major-party candidates’ support comes from voters who hate the other candidate more....
Voters are being held hostage by hollow promises from both parties that Supreme Court nominations and Washington power will make their lives better...
...
People need to feel more in control of their destiny, and that happens only when we ensure that their local governments shape their lives the most, not nine black-robed masters or a dysfunctional Congress in Washington...
See how Erick never loses focus?
All disasters are always the fault of Both Sides. The Republican Party is some faraway dumpster fire that has nothing to do with him. The Evil Federal Gummint is the source of all your sorrows and the enemy of all decent Americans.
O mores, o tempora!
Then and only thendoes he try to close the deal, hoping you're so dazzled by the slide show that you don't notice he's selling the same, shitty ideas -- school vouchers, huge tax cuts, massive deregulation, hillbilly Sharia law -- that we have been trying to cram down the throats of the American public since forever.
He's sloppy and heavy-handed, but it doesn't matter. A place will be found for him at the table, just as a place was found for my friend Bill Kristol, and my friend Hugh Hewitt, and, well, you get the idea.
* * *
By this time the sun is usually cowering low on the horizon anxious to leave, and the slivery shadows from Mr. Brooks' dead rose garden are growing long and dark and beginning to menace the porch where Burke the faithful hound has not moved in hours.
In fact, Burke the faithful hound has not moved in years.
With the lecture over, Mr. Brooks watches this newest New, New, New True Conservative stumble happily down the hill in the gloaming, flattening and smoothing the path to Mr. Brooks' door a little more.
Because while the war may be over...
...the next war is always right around the corner.
Behold, a Tip Jar!
* Imaginifer: A special position from the time of Augustus onwards. Carried the standard bearing the image of the Emperor as a constant reminder of the troops' loyalty to him. He was paid twice the basic wage.
Longtime readers know that "The Tribe That Rubs Shit In Their Hair" is my shorthand for the millions of freaks and malignant lunatics who have wallowed in wingnut Hate Radio racist dung and Fox News Liberal Conspiracy claptrap for so long that is has become the quotidian argot of their wretched lives. It is their tavern-talk -- their worst, paranoid delusions, externalized, validated, tarted up as The Unvarnished Truth and then regurgitated back to them by ghouls and treason-mongers like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly... which are, in turn, passed around again like so many fish stories, getting bigger and wilder and truthier with iteration.
It is the shit they eagerly rub in their hair -- the shit which, year after year, they sculpt into ever more elaborate pompadours because everyone else in their dingy, lightless corner of Universe is doing it and they lost their sense of smell 40 years ago.
They preen over each other. They are happy in each other's company. They praise each other on the little, individual touches with which they have customized their Shitheap Toupees -- an extra layer of Benghaaaazi, perhaps, appliqued over something something the New Black Panther Party because ACORN!.
And all is right with the world...right up until they leave the cocoon of their Wingnut Pig Sty and step into the normal world, where they are Shocked!Shocked! to discover that normal people flee are the absolutely horrified at the stuff that comes pouring out of their face-holes is absolutely horrifying to normal people.
During this Year of the Trump, every one of his human finger-puppets, right down the line, have had to discard all pretense of civilized norms in order to maintain their candidate's hold the the inbred, fascist end of the American gene pool that thinks that their orange fire demon chimp with a machine gun is the Risen Reagan.
For each other them, obedience to Trump has demanded a public and ongoing auto-da-fe of whatever it is that each of Trump's stooges and lackeys at least pretend to hold most dear.
For example. Kellyanne Conway and every other mother in the employ of this monster have had to sell out their own children by publicly siding with a leering, lying sexual predator over and over again,
Pastor Jerry Falwell, Jr. and the rest of the Christopaths and con-men-of-the-cloth have been required to recrucify the Lord they claim to love every time they open their mouths in the service of a man who is in every imaginable way the diametric opposite of Christ.
Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie and every other current and former elected official have lowered themselves to the level of gibbering, lying beasts and mocked any concept of public service and civil society in order to serve their new master.
And Dr, Ben Carson? Retired neurosurgeon and former hero to millions? This is how deep into a pit of bile and madness that Dr. Ben has sunk in the service of Kim Jong Orange:
On November 9th, the Beltway media campaign to excuse what we are seeing with out own eyes, deflect it, Both Sider it and generally forget it ever happened begins.
"Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those 19th century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature."
-- O'Brien, 1984
Once you start to notice that a depressingly large number of our fellow citizens have become reprogrammable Orwellian meat-puppets, the rise of Trump is not hard to understand at all.
To put things in the proper perspective, it might be useful to understand that we are not living through an "Apollo 11" election. This is not a smoothly-run exercise in applied expertise -- a rendezvous with destiny that will be watched with pride by people around the world.
No. with the nomination of Donald J. Trump as the Republican standard-bearer, this has become the "Apollo 13" election.
This has become an honest-to-god, disaster-in-space election because the GOP has finally done what they have been trying to do for 30 years: inflict such catastrophic damage on our democracy that the entire America experiment in self-government in now at risk of failure.
But failure is not an option, which is why this time, history will measure our capacity for leadership not by the first footprints the Obama campaign leaves on an alien world, but by how skillfully the Clinton campaign can pilot our crippled craft back to Earth without getting us all killed.
This morning, Reince Priebus found a card in the pocket of the big-boy suit that he borrows for public events.
It was a prompting-card that someone had tucked in there a year ago to remind Reince what sort of tone he should adopt when talking to the public about Donald J. Trump.
On that card was printed the word "Apoplectic".
"Dang it," Reince cussed testily, monetarily startling his staff of mini-Reinces. "All this time I've been thinking 'Apologetic'! Why didn't any of you correct me?"
Reince Priebus Is Reportedly ‘Apoplectic’ Over Trump’s Refusal to Support Ryan, McCain
The chairman of the Republican National Committee is reportedly furious with his own party’s nominee today.
Reince Preibus is “apoplectic” over Donald Trump‘s refusal to commit to an endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan and former party nominee John McCain in their upcoming primary races. Both Ryan and McCain face stiff competition, and yesterday Trump told The Washington Post that he’s, “not quite there yet” with a Ryan endorsement, using strikingly similar language to that which Ryan used months ago regarding Trump’s troublesome candidacy.
...
But his staff of mini-Reinces had already lost interest and gone back to grooming each other and chasing Pokemons. Because honestly, who gives the tiniest fuck what Reince Priebus has to say about anything anymore.
Back in April (remember April?) before the rough winds of objective reality finally blew the last of the darling buds of #NeverTrump to ash, you might recall that Donald Trump was having big big fun mocking the RNC for running such dumb, boring conventions. What they needed was a little Trump-brand show biddnizz! (emphasis added):
Compounding the challenges facing organizers are the expectations of Donald Trump, who asserted in an interview that he should have at least partial control over programming, stagecraft and other issues by virtue of his front-runner status — even if he does not have the delegates to secure the nomination beforehand.
Trump blasted the GOP’s last convention, in Tampa four years ago, as “the single most boring convention I’ve ever seen.” The billionaire real estate mogul and reality-television star said it was imperative that this year’s gathering have a “showbiz” quality — and he cast doubt on the ability of the Republican National Committee, which oversees the convention, to deliver.
“It’s very important to put some showbiz into a convention, otherwise people are going to fall asleep,” Trump said in a 45-minute interview here last week in his Trump Tower office. “We don’t have the people who know how to put showbiz into a convention.”
And so it should come as no surprise that, like every other failed Trump enterprise, now that Donald Trump's Nuremberg on the Cuyahoga* is in the books as a catastrophe -- an entirely avoidable catastrophe -- Don the Con wants to jet the hell away from the disaster he created and leave it to other poor schmucks to clean up his mess (emphasis added):
It might have been a less notable contrast if Mr. Trump’s show had not been such a break from the tightly scripted performance that has come to typify these conventions. In Cleveland, an important endorser, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, started speaking after the broadcast networks had already moved on to local news (Republican Party officials argued Thursday that they should have shown her instead); Mr. Trump called in to “The O’Reilly Factor” while Patricia Smith was speaking emotionally onstage about her son’s death in the Benghazi attack; and one night’s program ended prematurely, leaving precious prime-time minutes unused.
Asked about the differences, Mr. Trump said he could not speak to them with much specificity, because “I didn’t produce our show — I just showed up for the final speech on Thursday.”
Meanwhile as the Democrats enjoy the warm afterglow of the most brilliantly staged, humane, optimistic, generous and inclusive convention in memory, the usual suspects are doing the usual things.
America's premiers crackpot reverse-mortgage hero whispering darkly of the Terrible Sekrit Liberal Media Conspiracy that keeps the ALL CAPS TRUTH away from the Murrican People:
MSM will try to promote and persuade for Hillary. Best not to even watch or listen. They are all in the tank. Even some at FOX.
Meanwhile, despite his temporary shock at how deranged the Republican Party suddenly became 10 minutes ago, The Sad Clown of Centrism clearly knows which side his bread is buttered on (spoiler: It's Both Sides!)
*I checked and found that I probably lifted this Melania Trump-style from bowtiejack in my own comment section, who was passing it on from somewhere else.
