File this one under "about fucking time".
Republicans got an administration that is morally small. Trump’s proposed budget would require massive cuts in disease research, global development and agricultural programs — just as a famine gathers a hideous strength. The proposed budget practices random acts of gratuitous cruelty.
This is a pretty bad combination: empty, easily distracted, vindictive, shallow, impatient, incompetent and morally small. This is not the profile of a governing party.
But then, I look a little closer, and I see the standard "moderate sensible conservative" thing goin' on.
Gerson is providing a way for Repubs to put some distance between themselves and 45* - as usual (driftglass nails this one pretty consistently).
As soon as the voters act on the bullshit that guys like Gerson are always flacking at them, guys like Gerson are always quick to bail.
- Take whatever shitty things the GOP has been up to and tie them all to (eg) a president
- Pretend you were never actually in favor of the shitty things "this president has done" (which gives every rube the rationalization for denying ever having voted for that phony traitorous bastard)
- Make sure nobody even mentions his name at the next convention
- Find the next guy to front for your fuckery and start again at 1
You may have noticed a slight change in the last dozen or so years.
First of course, there was apparently no such thing as a Republican President since Reagan. And there was no Republican majority anywhere in DC or any of the states where some really shitty things were happening to the GOP's most faithful voters.
Second, rather suddenly in the last few years, not that many folks are doing a whole lotta talking about Reagan either. Possibly because even the dumbest rubes have started to think a little - and they're thinking the Golden Era of the 80s is beginning to look more and more like a very long time ago.
And the kicker - what we've known for a good long time: they've been promised all kinds of sparkly results in return for their party loyalty, but what they've been delivered is little more than balloon filler.
BTW - that Gerson piece was very boiler-platey. We can now look forward to the followup which will attempt to nail it down in terms of "Trumpism" (in order to further distance the GOP from the guy they pimped at us - the guy carrying their fucking flag), and shoehorning it all back into the usual Yeah-But-The-Democrats-Both-Sides bullshit.
