The same old Vichy GOPe liberal phonies in conservative mufti: wrong then, wrong now, wrong forever.
Every bit of this — the grinding and gurgling economy of the legacy media and its temporary darlings — relies on this support structure of peer approval. Doubtful? You can most clearly see it play out live on Twitter, like a Discovery Channel exploration of an ecosystem made up entirely of mosquitoes. And the cool kids’ waterboys are the anti-Trump Republicans.
The Never Trumpers are a joke kept alive by this structure of self-support. They haven’t been correct on a thing in years, yet continue to earn their supper and an invitation to the party by wholeheartedly agreeing with their new patrons. They predicted ruin when the president was nominated and doom when he was elected, all while his poll numbers have continued to tick upward. They prophesied the shattering of the Republican Party all while it has maintained near-historic discipline in the face of a unified Democrat-media assault. They assumed the end of the economy because America reacted to unfair international trade practices, and terrible global disasters because Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords and killed Iran’s terrorist general.
All of their predictions are based on the conventional wisdom and assumptions of an insulted and excluded D.C. intelligentsia, and all are wrong. Indeed, Trump’s above decisions have resulted in the very things the Never-Trump Republicans once called for, including closing America’s sizable income gap and maintaining a strength and deterrence that are independent of entangling foreign powers.
These men and women are included for agreeing with a media that has been proven wrong over and over again, but there is no room for self-awareness. The two-or-so weeks of journalistic self-reflection that followed the 2016 election gave way to race-baiting, conspiracies, and inquisitions. A promised focus on the heartland and The New York Times’s apology to its readership gave way to The 1619 Project.
In what industry would this hubris survive except for media? Even in politics, a business filled with corrupt liars not even trying to deliver, its practitioners are held to task by elections. Not here. Unaccountable and self-satisfied, the club marches on, complete with back-handed back-slaps to the boys who carry its water.
Ace says this about this gaggle of contemptible rumpswabs:
“Neocons” were disillusioned Democrats who objected to their party’s excesses.
But never the basic philosophy or priorities. Just the excesses.
The neocons remade the Republican Party into something that Democrats could join — and control.
Now that we’ve taken their control away from them, and begun turning our backs on their preferred Democrat priorities for the GOP, they abandon it.
It was never anything more than a refuge of convenience for them.
Actually, I have my own theory: they’re wishy-washy vacillators who wet themselves in fear over 9/11. Many if not most of the aforementioned bunch had leaned liberal until then; the rest were content to play the role of perennial Noble Losers to their Democrat-Socialist overlords. And then 9/11 hit a bit too close to home, rocking their comfy world as Swamp insiders. The attacks upended everything, they grabbed the Neocon life preserver as the handiest way of coping with their stark terror. They were comforted by Dubya’s initial note-perfect response to the atrocity, and of course perpetual, futile half-a-wars far removed from the DC Elite playgrounds were always okay with them.
Now many years have passed without another mass-casualty Moslem attack against their Acela-corridor home turf, and they feel secure enough to let down their guard and get back to big-government business as usual…and then along comes this damned interloper Trump to crash the party and upset their apple cart all over again. Is it any wonder they’ve all come so completely unglued with hatred for the man?
Ace’s characterization is close of that of the late William E. Simon, in his blockbuster political Jeremiad A Time for Truth. In that book, he referred to neoconservatives as “anti-Communists of a New Deal stripe.” Sounds right to me.
They are instead nothing more than filthy Koch-sucking Rove Republican swill, looking to get some largess from Charles.
“…liberal phonies in conservative mufti…”
Perfect.