If the scenario that dare not speak its name (at least here) becomes reality . . .

As you know, I generally start posts about Squirrel-Hair with some variation on the statement, "I sure wish I didn't have to write about this unfortunate phenomenon yet again."

But there he is. Still ahead of Cruz, not to mention the rest of the field, in the polls.

I'm having trouble getting out of my head a NRO piece by Ian Tuttle that I came across a couple of days ago.  One gets the sense, a few paragraphs in, that he knew he was taking the risk of being wildly misinterpreted in his choice of title ("Why I'd Vote for Trump If He were the GOP Nominee"). He starts out right off the bat qualifying that assertion and never lets up. His first qualification comes in the form of some excerpts from a Peter Wehner piece in which Wehner says he absolutely could never cast a vote for S-H. Now, say what you will about Wehner - and LITD thinks he's an Establishment squish, a poster boy for Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome - but he makes a cogent argument for his position on this matter, and it is likewise LITD's position.

Tuttle acknowledges that "there is much to be said for his position."

The Republican party is the party of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan, men of sober judgment, careful administration, and high ideals who elevated not only their party but also the country. What party could reasonably lay claim to both Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump? Similarly, the coalition of free-thinking men and women that formed the conservative movement in the mid 1950s, that made possible a President Reagan, and that continues to constitute a political movement more staunch in its support for free markets, a limited government, and the sanctity of human life than any other in American history could hardly include Donald Trump in its litany of heroes. What definition of “conservative” could encompass Bill Buckley and Donald Trump?

His concluding paragraphs are hard to argue with.

I do not want Donald Trump to become president. His election would be bad for conservatism, for the Republican party, and for the country. But we do not know the contours of a Trump presidency; they may still be able to be shaped by more sober minds. We know well, though, the likely contours of a Clinton presidency — and there is reason to think that it would prove worse. Weighed against Hillary Clinton now, and against the demagogues who could arise if things continue down the current path, Republicans’ best course might be to support Donald Trump.

But I hope it doesn’t come to that.

As I say, this piece has stuck with me, because of the question that obviously looms: What will you do if the choice this November is between S-H and Hillionaire?  


I'm not sure what I'll do. Even Tuttle is saying that a S-H administration would only be marginally better.

We're now at the point in the campaign cycle at which the long knives come out even among those who have heretofore dealt with each other relatively fraternally. Ted Cruz, LITD's choice at this time, is coming in for distraction-type attacks regarding citizenship and New York values from S-H, and immigration policy continues to dog Marco Rubio.

The whole spectacle is of a piece with many other developments, none of them encouraging. Check out the items enumerated in the roundup immediately below this post: millennials concluding that the American dream is dead, economic stagnation, the Most Equal Comrade's nomenklatura trying to spin abject humiliation by Iran as a sign of a new era of international comity.

If the choice is indeed the grim one that Tuttle comes right out and speaks of, it will mark the end of hope, in the general sense of that word. At that point, the term "hope" will only have relevance in a spiritual sense: There will be nothing left to do but pray.