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One is loathe to focus too much attention on the Never Trump pundit class in Washington, D.C., but a fascinating development this weekend begs some scrutiny and a long-overdue response.
While Bernie Sanders ran away with the Nevada caucus, "Never Trump" trended on Twitter across the nation because the high-profile, conservative voices of the last decade openly lamented that Democratic voters let them down by not nominating their candidates of choice to go up against President Donald Trump this November.
The arrogant, hubris required to lecture life-long Democrats as to how wrong they are for not following the advice of Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, and Stephen Hayes was amusing to witness for those of us on the pro-Trump right (that would be pro-conservative, Republican right to most normal observers). We've been living with this pomposity for years.
As many righteous Republicans enjoyed the schadenfreude of watching these insufferable school marms squirming as Democrats used social media to demand they collectively pound sand, it's probably time to address one consistent refrain we often hear from our intellectual and moral superiors in the Never Trump club.
Many of these Never Trump personalities (that's really all they are at this point, TV personalities) accuse those of us who supported the 2016 GOP nominee for president and his eventual presidency of being OBSESSED with the Never Trump cadre.
"If we're so irrelevant, why do y'all still talk about us?" They ponder aloud in mocking derision.
Allow me to illuminate...
You were awful to us. You continue to be awful to us. Many of you actively worked to marginalize us and silence our voices in the media during and after the election.
And when you were proven to be monumentally wrong about everything in the 2016 Election, you never apologized to us or your audience and you never even acknowledged we got it right.
You supported the removal of the president twice over the past three years.
First, for being "Putin's stooge." And when your hand-picked Inspector Clouseau Robert Mueller found no evidence supporting your fever dreams, you never acknowledged you were wrong about the entire Russian-collusion hoax. Then, for the Ukraine impeachment fiasco, that was always doomed from the start after President Trump released the actual transcript of his phone call with President Zelensky.
Along the way, Never Trumpers, you revealed who you really are. When you could have supported Republican Devin Nunes, you chose to support Democratic hack Adam Schiff, and you've never acknowledged you were wrong when Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report confirmed Nunes' veracity and Schiff's duplicitousness.
Even worse, through it all... you've never paid a price.
You continue to be over-represented in media as if your perspective represents anything more than five percent of the electorate. Meanwhile, we, the conservatives who support this president and his conservative policies, have been marginalized by media outlets in deference to your consistently flawed opinions and predictions.
Your prominent, consistent existence in media fills the "Republican Chair" on the panel most left-leaning media outlets grudgingly make available. So viewers across America are left without any significant voice on most outlets that might articulate what they're thinking and why they support the president.
This breeds anger, frustration and resentment.
Meanwhile, you continue to get it wrong and smugly look down on us as we articulate ideas and political positions embraced by 95% of Republicans.
We are not obsessed with you. We resent your continued prominent position that you did not earn through accuracy or hard work.
You continue to have a place at the table for one reason and one reason only: You satisfy the needs of left-leaning networks to further distort the center-right perspective in American politics and to give the false impression that the president faces serious opposition from fellow Republicans.
We were right. You were wrong.
We are still right. You are on the verge of voting for a Marxist.
You aren't serious, yet you're taken seriously by the gate-keepers of American media. And you act like you earned that place. As if you deserve it.
That sucks... and, yes, we resent it.
I hope that explains it for you.
Now, enjoy explaining your vote for Bernie Sanders, you keepers of the conservative flame. I'll be over here counting the confirmed judges that would've never existed had people actually listened to you.
Thank God you ARE irrelevant.
Larry O'Connor hosts two separate radio programs on WMAL in Washington DC and on KABC in Los Angeles. He has a daily, 30-minute podcast covering U.S. Politics and featuring interviews with newsmakers and pundits on the biggest stories of the day. Subscribe here.