There are few things as annoying than a “conservative” who insists they are or should be the arbiters of what true conservatism is. It’s never normal people; you won’t run into some dude at the bar holding court about what Republicans need to do win or rid itself of whatever element it’s fashionable to want to rid the party of. No, it’s always some overpaid blowhard with an inflated sense of self-importance insisting they are the heir to Reagan/Buckley/Goldwater/whomever and anyone who disagrees is damaging the cause and needs to be purged. Call it, “Weekly Standard Syndrome.”
The a few days have featured a couple of perfect examples of this. First in a op-ed from Christine Todd Whitman, though I suspect she had little to do with actually writing it, her name likely added, with her permission, so readers have a chance of having heard of at least one of the authors. The other is guy called Miles Taylor. Taylor was “Anonymous,” the supposed high-ranking government official in the Trump administration who wrote an op-ed claiming he and others were working to thwart the will of the former President. He turned out to be a mid-level drone no one had ever heard of, but propped up by the liberal media, he and his fellow travelers started a group to “Save the GOP!”
I’m not going to bother naming the group, nor am I going to link to their New York Times column, I’ll just tell you it entitled, “We Are Republicans. There’s Only One Way to Save Our Party From Pro-Trump Extremists.”
In it, the has-been and never-was proclaim the only way to save the GOP is elect people who aren’t conservative. The cite Mike Lee, Senator from Utah, as everything wrong with the Republican Party, and propose Evan McMullen as the conservative alternative. McMullen, for those who blinked in 2016, was what establishment Republicans pitched as the alternative to Trump. He was supposed to be the spoiler who elected Hillary, he ended up only spoiling the Christmas for people who did work for his campaign, leaving them short to the tune of more than half a million dollars.
The Times essentially ran a fundraising email from people you needed to read the bio-line about to remember who they are. On the other coast, the Los Angeles Times ran a similarly themed op-ed from someone you likely have heard of.
A year or so before he died, Andrew Breitbart and I were talking over drinks at an intimate dinner for about 6 people in Washington, DC. As was often the case with Andrew (especially over drinks), various people’s names would come up to see what I thought of them, and I’d do the same back. “Him? He’s a total d-bag,” or “I can’t stand that [expletive deleted]” were common in these sessions. This time, when it was my turn to bring up a name to assess, I said, “Jonah Goldberg.” Andrew’s immediate response was simple, “The biggest snob I’ve ever met, a total elitist.”
It’s funny because it’s true, and it being true makes it that much funnier.
Jonah’s piece was called, “A third party to impose some pain on the Trumpified GOP.” In it, he argues for creating a new party to essentially elect Democrats by splitting the GOP vote.
Don’t worry, though, Goldberg leaves open the possibility that some Republicans may prove worthy of his new party’s approval and not need to be purged. “If a Republican candidate met its requirements, a new party of the right could endorse the Republican, the way New York’s Conservative Party does,” he writes. “If not, a non-Trumpy candidate could play the role of spoiler by garnering enough conservative votes in the general election to throw the election to the Democrat.”
Amazing how many “true conservatives” are perfectly fine with candidates who allegedly oppose everything these people claimed to stand for (while making a pretty good living) winning elections to prevent people who would pass the legislation they pretended to care about being able to do just that. But hey, no mean tweets, right?
These people not only exposed themselves as frauds, they’ve exposed themselves as worthless. Did they mean any of it? Who cares? Does it really matter at what moment you realized you were being ripped off when your bank account is empty either way?
Both of these articles are dumber than you’d expect them to be able to be with a limited word count, but they ultimately serve as the eulogy for the belief the authors are anything but narcissists who threaten to take their ball and go home when they don’t get their way. I’m cool with that, go ahead and go. I have my own balls, thanks. You can take your store-bought ones back to your significant other and see if you can trade them to get back the ones nature gave you.
Unless and until then, ignore the Ken dolls and vote for the Republican candidates who will fight not only to win, but also to actually pass into law the things they swear they care deeply about. That doesn’t mean “Trump,” nor does it mean “not Trump.” That might, however, mean ridding your life of people who seek to tell you they’re more conservative than you are. You’ll be better off for it.