Remembering

I can recall a time when Republicans kinda lost their shit over

• Federal Debt & Deficit
• Executive Orders
• POTUS playing golf
• Russian fuckery

That was way back in 2015. 

Seems like they're in love with all that shit now.

Years Late

...but maybe not too late - he mused, wistfully.

Nicolle Wallace is among the pimpiest of the spin pimps in American politics. Her skills as a strategist and communications director have been in service to some pretty fucked up politics over the last 20 years or so.

Most notably, she was a key player in John McCain's campaign in 2008, and ended up refusing to cast a vote for POTUS because of her misgivings about the choice of Sarah Palin.

So anyway, there she is every weekday on my librul TV thingie, bashing away at Cult45 while painstakingly avoiding the reality of her own work making this shit not just possible or probable, but inevitable.

However, when they finally sit up and make the right kinda noise, I think Press Poodles should be acknowledged for trying to do what's right.

PoliticusUSA:

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace wouldn’t air Trump’s remarks on immigration from the White House until she preemptively fact-checked them.

Wallace explained on her show Deadline: White House, “Donald Trump is making remarks in the Roosevelt room this hour. Five days before the midterm elections and a day after admitting to ABC news that he tells the truth only when he can. Today’s remarks come after weeks of engaging in a deliberate strategy of stoking fear about the humanitarian crisis in Central America. A slow-moving caravan of asylum seekers and migrants. They also come after — come days after a war of words with house speaker Paul Ryan about birthright citizenship. Donald Trump’s divisive speech has been cited as contributing to the climate in which the synagogue shooter targeted Jewish Americans and the pipe bomber targeted trump’s critics. Because he’s used immigration in blatantly political ways and in an abundance of caution, we’ve decided to monitor those remarks, fact-check them against his rhetoric and record on immigration and bring you the important news from them.”

It's kind of a bold move - calling his bluff.

45* has blustered about how "the press" can't survive without him. And he's been pushing hard, using a very old tried-n-true method that assholes like him have used forever - often with great success - to manipulate people. ie: exploit the self-doubt that often grows out of a dedication to being open-minded.

So, Nicolle Wallace announces a new policy of fact-checking his statements instead of just airing whatever he has to say. 

(BTW - fact-checking is kinda what you were supposed to be doing in the first place, dummy)

Put that together with what's been happening on All In with Chris Hayes, where in the last few days, he's taken to calling 45* out on his lies, using that word. L-I-E-S.

All of this seems like a very good sign. It makes me wonder if Phil Griffin knows he's doing something decent, or if it's just starting to show up in the analytics that people think he's behaved like an unprincipled hyper-capitalistic dickhead, contributing to the demise of our little experiment in self-government.

We'll see.

Quick Lesson

We stay because we believe
We leave because we're disillusioned
We come back because we're lost
We die because we're committed

Why I prefer my Revolution without the "R".

hat tip = driftglass

Today's Tweet

There'll be some changes made.

Risk-averse corporate entities making highly visible contributions to formerly controversial causes is exactly what profound cultural change looks like https://t.co/J1RnXbKCxY

— David Frum (@davidfrum) March 24, 2018

Sam Cooke - A Change Gonna Come

Man In The Mirror -(cover) Joyful Noise

What's Goin' On -(cover) Playing For Change

PA18

Some of the Poodles are baying loudly about everything they've been trained to bay about, while missing the seemingly obvious point that the GOP has become whatever is a few orders of magnitude worse than a cess pool.

James Hohmann, WaPo:

THE BIG IDEA: National Republicans threw the kitchen sink to hold a House seat in Pennsylvania that President Trump won by 20 points. But while the special election remains too close to call, Democrat Conor Lamb clings to a narrow lead and declared victory early this morning.

The media will focus today on what an embarrassment it is for Trump to lose in the heart of his geographic base of support. He went to Pittsburgh twice in the closing weeks to boost Republican Rick Saccone, including on Saturday, and tweeted his support again on Tuesday. The White House also deployedDon Jr., Ivanka, Kellyanne Conway, Mike Pence and even Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to help.

The bigger reason that the savviest GOP operatives in town are freaking out right now, though, is that the results underscore the degree to which the party has been unable to hone in on a message that can reliably win races in this environment.
Yeah - you bet - it's the message. Like it was Hillary's message. 

It's not the fucking message.

I'm not saying propaganda doesn't work - it should be clear that it does, because it's been working for quite a while.

But eventually, we start to catch on. We start to see how little there is behind the slogans and bumperstickers.

And also too

Call me silly and old-fashioned and nerdy, but the message is directly dependent on the issues and the policy proposals. 

When the words in your message are empty, you get a jagoff like Saccone trying to close the deal yesterday with, "...they hate you; they hate this country, and they hate god."

GOP has no message because they're upside down and backwards on practically every issue that matters to people, while believing they can always count on the formula of God Gays Guns and Gynecology. 

Their message sucks because it's all style and no substance - and people are gettin' wise to it.

And also too - this is what PA18 looks like right now.

Gerrymander much? No wonder the courts spanked 'em.

Decorum My Ass

John Pavlovitz - Stuff That Needs To Be Said

When they start bitching about your tone, you know your arguments are getting pretty close to top dead center.

This is the very height of irony: people who’ve spent eighteen months repeatedly glossing over or excusing or rationalizing away the most toxic, offensive, vulgar behavior and language—now greatly disturbed by a perceived lack of decorum.

It should be obvious, but to make sure we're good and clear on this: "Conservatives" have gotten all pissy because "Libruls" are being so Politically Incorrect.

This is how sideways it’s all gone here: that there are people apparently more concerned about the feelings of the bullies than about the very lives of those being bullied. I refuse to be one of those people.

If you’re waiting for me to apologize for emotionally wounding someone with the suggestion that they may not be all that keen on people of color, or that they’re likely afraid of gay people, or that their nationalism is showing because they defend what’s happening here—it’ll be a long wait.

I think the futures of dreamers and the welfare of sick people and the safety of LGBTQ teenagers and the stability of families of immigrants are worth the raising of my voice, and the forcefulness of my delivery, and the discomfort it causes anyone.

BTW: We all get to be mad all we want, but you're not justified in being mad at me just because I'm mad at you for something you've done; or for something you've failed to do.

This Is It

I don't like it, but here it is.

Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes in The Atlantic:

A few days after the Democratic electoral sweep this past November in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere, The Washington Post asked a random Virginia man to explain his vote. The man, a marketing executive named Toren Beasley, replied that his calculus was simply to refuse to calculate. “It could have been Dr. Seuss or the Berenstain Bears on the ballot and I would have voted for them if they were a Democrat,” he said. “I might do more analyses in other years. But in this case, no. No one else gets any consideration because what’s going on with the Republicans—I’m talking about Trump and his cast of characters—is stupid, stupid, stupid. I can’t say stupid enough times.”

This, then, is the article we thought we would never write: a frank statement that a certain form of partisanship is now a moral necessity. The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. The problem is not just Donald Trump; it’s the larger political apparatus that made a conscious decision to enable him. In a two-party system, nonpartisanship works only if both parties are consistent democratic actors. If one of them is not predictably so, the space for nonpartisans evaporates. We’re thus driven to believe that the best hope of defending the country from Trump’s Republican enablers, and of saving the Republican Party from itself, is to do as Toren Beasley did: vote mindlessly and mechanically against Republicans at every opportunity, until the party either rights itself or implodes (very preferably the former).


Two things up at the front:

People doing things mindlessly is a big reason we're in this jam to begin with. But it seems that's how the Republican brain works now, and so maybe these two guys figure, "if that's what got us here, that's what gets outa here" (?)

Second, it's important to remind these guys (guys like Rauch and Wittes) that maybe if they hadn't been sitting on their hands for the last 30 years, we wouldn't be quite so deep in the shit now.

On we go:

One more nonreason for our stance: that we are horrified by the president. To be sure, we are horrified by much that Trump has said and done. But many members of his party are likewise horrified. Republicans such as Senators John McCain and Bob Corker and Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse, as well as former Governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, have spoken out and conducted themselves with integrity.
"...conducted themselves with integrity."  Except that those first 4 guys have voted to fuck over millions of us, practically at every opportunity.  Every one of them is All In on the policies - they just don't like 45*'s Trailer Trash Approach. An approach, btw, the Right Wing Dis-InfoTainment Complex has been pimping for those same 30 years.

I'm certainly not the first to point any of this out (see: driftglass and Blue Gal), but we have to keep repeating it until it starts to sink in - what these guys are trying to do is to build lifeboats. They're already rebranding the shitty monster they've allowed the GOP to become by calling it "Trumpism". They intend to set fire to it and escape, watching it sink, as they sidle up to the rest of us and pretend they had nothing to do with any of it.

AKA: The arsonist wants credit for his courageous efforts in fighting the fire.

And get this:

 Abandoning an entire party means abandoning many brave and honorable people. We would not do that based simply on rot at the top.

Uhh - fellas, that "rot" didn't get to the top without a shitload of support from the bottom, and the bottom doesn't support the Rot-At-The-Top without a shitload of support and direction coming from The Rot At The Top.

Then this (which goes to the very heart of the problem):

Future generations of scholars will scrutinize the many weird ways that Trump has twisted the GOP.

No.

Ah, hell no.

And No fuckin' way.

Trump hasn't twisted anything. A twisted GOP made Trump not just possible or probable - but inevitable.

But since even a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while, these guys are making one thing very clear - we still have a decent chance to start putting things right.

SHOW UP OR SHUT UP

One Year Ago

We are one year past Trump's inauguration, and here are a few numbers from Jan 2017 for comparison:

Also:

Federal Budget Deficit: $441 Billion

Federal Debt: $19.9 Trillion

Median Income: $56,500

Minimum Wage: $7.50/hr

Median price of an existing home: $188,900

Median Rental: $1231/mo

CPI (unadjusted as of 12-31-2017): 2.1

Casualties Of War

Al Franken resigned this week.

(hoping I'm wrong about all this, BTW)

I can't stop thinking he got swift-boated. GOP went after him solely because he's been very strong on Equality issues.

It's basic Debate (and Salesmanship) training: If the opponent can knock down your strongest point, they can ignore everything else you have to say and revert to their comfortable assumptions.

There's a strong element of False Equivalence too. Kristen Gillibrand has led the charge, saying that when we argue over Degrees of Offense, we're having the wrong conversation - harassment is harassment is harassment, and we simply cannot have it.

I think I get it - we all have to be called to account, including our friends and political allies.

But this looks a lot like the GOP has played the Hypocrisy Card, and the Dems have bought in like it's Everything On Sale At Whole Foods. 

AKA: taking your strength and turning it against you. And as usual, Dems have been most obliging by going into navel-gazing mode, picking fights with their own, and imploding with self-recrimination.

Meanwhile, we are in fact very busy being drawn into having Ms Gillibrand's Wrong Conversation anyway - because when you overreact, you can lose some credibility, which means you give up the edge, which means the other side gets more control over the subject of the argument.

To wit: we're talking about why The Librul Media cropped out one of their Silence Breakers.

"It's intentional, to represent women who aren't able to come forward," Rosner wrote. "In this case, it is an actual woman with a tale of harassment who was unable to be public, but here she represents all women who remain silent (for whatever reason)."

Rosner also compared this cover to New York Magazine's July 2015 cover, which depicted the 35 women who had accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault at the time. The cover left one empty space to symbolize the women who hadn't come forward with their stories.

"When New York Magazine did their Cosby accuser cover they similarly left an empty chair — it's an elegant and powerful gesture, a visual ellipsis," she wrote.

And suddenly, we're not talking about the problems caused by harassment. The folks who need to be thinking about, and talking about harassment aren't thinking or talking about it.

So Dems, you assholes better make this work, cuz this is USAmerica Inc, where we really suck at nuance. Maybe you're trying to move against that; trying to demonstrate a stark contrast between the two parties, but the Rule Of Unintended Consequences is against you.

If you think this is a low-cost proposition, you're probably in for a rude surprise. I think you can count on a serious backlash against the perception of "Dems being Dems - always looking to tell us how to live our lives - they're a buncha pinch-faced blue-nosed prigs who just love the smell of their own farts, and the Nanny State! and blah blah blah".

If you make it about Purity, we lose the best opportunity we've had in 50 years.

Don't fuck this up.

Not Just Yet

I think it has to be obvious to most of us that there's a substantial chunk of the deep south that's still pretty fucked up in the head.

But once in a while we see that faint glimmer of hope.

Patricia Murphy, Daily Beast:

B.L. Shirley is a Republican woman from a Republican county who always—always—votes Republican. And yet, on a windy, grey morning last weekend, the Talladega, Alabama, retiree found herself in, of all places, a Democrat’s campaign office, wondering just what she could do to defeat the GOP candidate running for a seat in the U.S. Senate from her state.

“Roy Moore,” she said, when asked why she would go canvassing for Democrat Doug Jones before the special election on Dec. 12. “I think Roy Moore is an impostor. I am a Christian and I don’t want to be counted in his camp. He’s a divisive person.”
Things change when we change. And they change for the better or for the worse according to how we change ourselves.

Today's Podcast

Preet Bharara's podcast - with Jeff Flake:

Flake seems like a decent and at least marginally reasonable guy, but don't mistake him for any kinda hero.

The issue of guns comes up at about 34:00, and Bharara asks him about Congress Critters voting with the NRA every time because they're afraid of what the Ammosexuals will do if they don't vote that way. Flake runs as fast as possible to the False Equivalence of a Both-Sides response, saying there're plenty of instances of members "on the left" being influenced by big money donors blah blah blah.

I think about that for a short minute and I'm left with the notion that Flake is saying it's OK for him to trade dead kids for the safety of a continued stream of campaign donations and the near-guarantee of no primary challenges.

In a very real sense, he admitted his vote against gun control is - and has always been - for sale.

A Map

Just wanted to throw this one up and look at it for a while.

(WaPo)

I don't do colors very well, but to me, this looks a lot like Virginia has seen a significant shift towards the Blue end.

Even all that wide open space in the western and southwestern parts don't have that deep red thing going on like before.

But what's really odd is the purpling of places like Fredericksburg and The Tidewater (Norfolk etc) because of the fairly heavy National Security presence in those areas.

I guess it's possible that the GOP's insistence on the belt-tightening fiscal regime that eventually led to the choking effects of Sequestration is making life difficult in places that depend a lot on federal money. We heard a little of that leading up to Tuesday's elections.

I dunno.

Once upon a time, a friend who knows about such things told me the reason most US Military people have been way more inclined to vote Republican is that the Democrats were the ones who sent them to war in stupid places, for stupid reasons - Korea, Vietnam, etc - while cutting their budgets and talking shit about them, but now they're drifting to the Dems because it's the GOP who's been doing all that lately.

I dunno again.

It's pretty weird, and getting weirder - Bob Goodlatte (R-VA06) just announced he's not running in 2018, which makes him like the 20th Repub to bail - so I think it doesn't start getting un-weird for a while yet.

The more we learn, the less we know - just keep watching I guess.

A Tweet Thread

There's no good reason to feel at all sorry for GOP politicians who have "suddenly" discovered they represent a political party that panders to the darkest instincts of American Populism.

It's been going on for 30+ years, and we got here because this is where Radical Right Republicans have always wanted us to be. (see driftglass)

This is something of a reckoning, and while it seems kinda fun to watch, this shit puts us in grave danger.

Senator Bob Corker "begged" me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee. I said "NO" and he dropped out (said he could not win without...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2017

It's a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.

— Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) October 8, 2017

More True History

Trying to square some people up with the truth seems futile.  But there's value in writing this shit down as I go - and the value may be mostly in pointing this out to myself from time to time, if nobody else.

The Atlantic, Adam Serwer - 2 months ago:

The strangest part about the continued personality cult of Robert E. Lee is how few of the qualities his admirers profess to see in him he actually possessed.
- and -

Lee had beaten or ordered his own slaves to be beaten for the crime of wanting to be free, he fought for the preservation of slavery, his army kidnapped free blacks at gunpoint and made them unfree—but all of this, he insisted, had occurred only because of the great Christian love the South held for blacks. Here we truly understand Frederick Douglass’s admonition that "between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference."

Privately, according to the correspondence collected by his own family, Lee counseled others to hire white labor instead of the freedmen, observing “that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find a white man, you see everything around him improving.”

In another letter, Lee wrote “You will never prosper with blacks, and it is abhorrent to a reflecting mind to be supporting and cherishing those who are plotting and working for your injury, and all of whose sympathies and associations are antagonistic to yours. I wish them no evil in the world—on the contrary, will do them every good in my power, and know that they are misled by those to whom they have given their confidence; but our material, social, and political interests are naturally with the whites.”

Publicly, Lee argued against the enfranchisement of blacks, and raged against Republican efforts to enforce racial equality on the South. Lee told Congress that blacks lacked the intellectual capacity of whites and “could not vote intelligently,” and that granting them suffrage would “excite unfriendly feelings between the two races.” Lee explained that “the negroes have neither the intelligence nor the other qualifications which are necessary to make them safe depositories of political power.” To the extent that Lee believed in reconciliation, it was between white people, and only on the precondition that black people would be denied political power and therefore the ability to shape their own fate.

Today's GIF

God-awful.Obnoxious.Pricks.

As 45*'s base continues to solidify, boiling itself down to the essence of the absolute worst animal-instinct-driven impulses you can imagine outside the lynch mob scenes from old movies, the GOP "establishment" phonies begin to bail.

But I'm guessing there're very few who can pull it off with the precision they need to prevent crashing the whole fleet.

Something About Procedure

When your very unpopular Obamacare Repeal bill is bound to lose, there's no space between losing by 1 vote and losing by 95 votes.

Cuz once they know it's a loser, your own guys understand they'll gain more than they'll lose by voting against the thing.

We've known Ryan isn't very good at his job for a while, but until now, everybody's been telling us what a fucking wizard McConnell is - not any more. Not with this anvil chained to his leg.

A lot of normal people (ie: rubes) have been absolutely sure that the blustery rhetoric was just for show. All they wanted was for somebody to "go on up there to Washington and poke them ruling elites in the eye once or twice" and blah blah blah.

It'd be nice to think maybe now they'll start to see how real the consequences can be - especially when a few too many of these TeaBagger congress critters have their heads so far up their asses, even if they manage to open their eyes, it's no longer possible for them to see anything but their own shit.

This animal is badly wounded now.

driftglass

...reminding us (just in case you're still a little unclear on the concept) that if we don't learn our History, then we don't learn from our History.  Particularly, how to keep from making the same fucking mistakes over and over and over again.

Take it away driftglass (@Mr_Electrico)

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan killed something called The Fairness Doctrine:

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was — in the Commission's view — honest, equitable, and balanced. The FCC, which was believed to have been under pressure from then President Ronald Reagan, eliminated the Doctrine in 1987.

For the record, the two federal judges who helped Reagan kill the Fairness Doctrine were future-Supreme Court incubus Antonin Scalia, and disgraced Nixon henchman Robert Bork.  After helping to hold down the Fairness Doctrine while Reagan smothered it, both men went on to enjoy long and fruitful careers as wingnut icons and ruiners of American democracy.

driftglass almost always runs a little long, but that's cuz he drinks good Scotch and he knows things. And there's a shitload to know, so it can take a while for him to recount it all for us.

Learn a little sumpthin'.

Sounds About Right

Vox:

The gubernatorial primaries in Virginia on Tuesday were supposed to be about the fight over the Democratic Party’s soul.

National profile after national profile of the race (including Vox’s) focused on the battle between Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and former Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). Did it represent a Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton rematch? Or a key test run for the populist progressive movement?

Then the election was held, and a different storyline caught the political world off-guard. Northam, with the overwhelming support of Virginia Democratic officials across the state, crushed Perriello by 14 points. What shocked observers instead was the Republican primary, where Corey Stewart — a Confederate sympathizer and onetime campaign official for Donald Trump — came within just 1.2 points of beating former Republican National Committee Chair Ed Gillespie.

Like Jeb Bush in the Republican presidential campaign, Gillespie entered the race with massive advantages in spending, official endorsements, and name recognition. By contrast, Stewart attacked Gillespie online as a “cuckservative,” accused his opponent of treating “Donald Trump like he had typhoid,” and vowed to crackdown on immigrants and protect Confederate monuments if elected. It was quite a comeback: This fall, Stewart was fired from his position as Trump’s Virginia campaign chair after calling the RNC “establishment pukes” on Facebook.

And he almost won...
--and--

The theory didn’t prove to be true that there were thousands and thousands of populist, angry Democrats who would be willing to take a chance on somebody who hadn’t — prior to announcing his campaign for governor in January 2017 — spent more than two years in Virginia elected public life. And who, since then, had been out of the country most of the time.

Perriello’s mistake was that Perriello himself was not enough to win — there needed to be more relationships; there needed to be more connections; he had to know local Democratic committees and local Democratic officials.

At the end of the day, one reason Northam won was because you couldn’t go to any Democratic committee — or any Democratic chair or any elected Democrat in the state — who didn’t know Northam and hadn’t talked to him. At the end of the day, that makes a difference.

Perriello simply didn’t have those kinds of relationships. There was a lot of “energy” behind him, but it really wasn’t enough because Perriello hadn’t been working the Democratic electorate like Northam had been for more than a decade.
It's still the ground game that matters. The spread of the establishment's tendrils in the body politic is wide and deep throughout both national parties (we knew that - nuthin' new there).

The difference remains though:

Dems seem to be voting against their candidates by either staying home or by voicing their strong discontent, which makes it more likely for others to stay home.

Repubs have done the same in the past, but it looks like they've gotten to the point where the Tribal Loyalty thing has recently been strong enough to get them out to vote even when it's obvious to everybody else that voting for "their candidate" is voting against their own best interests.

Now, maybe we're seeing a natural backlash on the GOP side, where people woke up badly hungover and found themselves in bed with nothing but torn condoms and a sore butthole. When the Trump guy craps out in Virginia, it could be a very good sign.  But like the Vox piece says, he came a pretty close second.

Perriello got squashed by 14 points, but he was running on a "Progressive Agenda" that just makes too much sense - people love to squawk about wanting a common sense approach to governing, but when somebody steps into the ring with almost exactly what they say they want, they see it as radical and it scares 'em off (?)  Plus, "Progressive" is a dirty word to "conservatives".

Skipping to the chase - given the concentrated fervor of Radical Right Republicans for almost any kind of Trump-ish insurgency, Stewart losing by less than 2 points could be seen as a blowout in favor of restoring some level of sanity on GOP side.

And Perriello getting blown out by 14 when he has no infrastructure in place and no support from any of the top 10 Virginia Dems (and let's face it - the guy has a charisma rating somewhere between Droopy Dog and day-old guacamole) - that one starts to look a lot closer than the numbers are showing.

It ain't over, kids.

Keith

The GOP has to be held to account on this.  They don't get to pretend they had nothing to do with what many of us knew would happen eventually.

Trump became all but inevitable by 1992 with Pat Buchanan's scary prime time tirade at the GOP convention in Houston.

Just a friendly reminder:

This didn't get all fucked up yesterday, and we won't be able to un-fuck it by tomorrow.

Stay focused

Work together

Get shit done

Maybe It's A Trend?

...but don't count on it.

Mike Gerson at WaPo last week:

To many observers on the left, the initial embrace of Seth Rich conspiracy theories by conservative media figures was merely a confirmation of the right’s deformed soul. But for those of us who remember that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity were once relatively mainstream Reaganites, their extended vacation in the fever swamps is even more disturbing. If once you knew better, the indictment is deeper.

The cruel exploitation of the memory of Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer who was shot dead last summer, was horrifying and clarifying. The Hannity right, without evidence, accused Rich rather than the Russians of leaking damaging DNC emails. In doing so, it has proved its willingness to credit anything — no matter how obviously deceptive or toxic — to defend President Trump and harm his opponents. Even if it means becoming a megaphone for Russian influence.

"To many observers on the left..."  

Wow - it's almost like the guy is catching onto his own bullshit. 

Almost.

I could be wrong - not that it doesn't happen pretty often of course - but I'd like to see a few examples of Mr Gerson's writing from the last 15-25 years showing he was in any way concerned about the degeneration he now laments when it was so very obvious to practically everyone who was paying any attention to anything other than monetizing the ignorance of the rubes and furthering his own ("conservative") agenda.

And I absolutely have no qualms about beating the drum some more when it comes to the simple fact that a shitload of people on "The Left" have been warning about this very thing for a very long time.

Maybe we're starting to see a bigger move to get the GOP back under control, and more in line with the Real Real America now that we pretty much know that the Phony-Baloney Real America these boneheads have been peddling for 30 years is exactly the poison we've been saying it is for those same 30 fucking years.

It continues:

But this failure of decency is also politically symbolic. Who is the politician who legitimized conspiracy thinking at the highest level? Who raised the possibility that Ted Cruz’s father might have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Who hinted that Hillary Clinton might have been involved in the death of Vince Foster, or that unnamed liberals might have killed Justice Antonin Scalia? Who not only questioned President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, but raised the prospect of the murder of a Hawaiian state official in a coverup? “How amazing,” Trump tweeted in 2013, “the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived.”

--and--

A conspiratorial approach to politics is fully consistent with other forms of dehumanization — of migrants, refugees and “the other” more generally. Men and women are reduced to types and presented as threats. They also become props in an ideological drama. They are presented as representatives of a plot involving invasion and infiltration, rather than being viewed as individuals seeking opportunity or fleeing oppression and violence. This also involves callousness, cruelty and conspiracy thinking.

In Trump’s political world, this project of dehumanization is far along. The future of conservatism now depends on its capacity for revulsion. And it is not at all clear whether this capacity still exists.

You get to own some of this, Mr Gerson. Right along with your buddies, David Brooks and Bill Kristol and Hannity and Limbaugh and and and - either you said way too little or nothing at all, and you were fine with all of it until the lunacy started to threaten your little piece of the empire. 

Your little corner is under threat precisely because you let (ie: helped) the loonies go crazy - and that's always how it works, dummy: "The whole country's a buncha fucked up untrustworthy assholes except for you and me - and I now I'm not so sure about you."

Even if they aren't fully aware of it, a huge number of people can see that you're just looking for a little rehab - you're doing nothing but pretending you had nothing to do with "those freaks" because you need to put some distance between yourself and them so you have a shot at keeping up with the gravy train that you know is starting to pull away for you.

We know who you are and we can see what you're doing.