We know who the enemy is; do we know who we are?

Obviously it hasn't merited the foremost position among my thoughts in the last few days - with the avalanche of developments, how could anything hold that status for more than a few hours, anyway? - but I have found my thoughts occasionally returning to George Will's piece that appeared at both The Washington Post  and National Review entitled "Amy Klobuchar Could Break Minnesota's Presidential Losing Streak."A lot of it is taken up with wonky diving into Minnesota voting patterns in recent decades. He juxtaposes her against the current radical fever gripping the Democrat party, noting that  the Almanac of American Politics deemed her the 27th most liberal Senator, "liberal enough to soothe other liberals without annoying everyone else."

A big thrust of the piece is his point that Minnesota Dem presidential candidates lose. Harold Stassen. Hubert Humphrey. Eugene McCarthy. Walter Mondale.

A few questions:

• Why would Will give a s--- about Minnesota breaking its Dem-prez-candidate losing streak?
• Why would Will, with all that is going on, and with Democrats currently on the ropes due to such moves as the open love of infanticide, give a s--- about Dem political prospects in general?
• What kind of conversation among members of NR's editorial board led to the decision to publish this weird screed?

The piece has resurfaced among my thoughts today, because he ends his piece with this paragraph:

Her special strength, however, is her temperament. Baseball, it has been said, is not a game you can play with your teeth clenched. That is also true of politics, another day-by-day game with a long season: It requires an emotional equipoise, a blend of relaxation and concentration, stamina leavened by cheerfulness. Klobuchar laughs easily and often. If the nation wants an angry president, it can pick from among the many seething Democratic aspirants, or can keep the one president it has. If, however, it would like someone to lead a fatigued nation in a long exhale, it can pick a Minnesotan, at last.

The essay ran on January 31, and it hasn't aged well. This is now out there for our consideration:

At least three people have withdrawn from consideration to lead Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s nascent 2020 presidential campaign — and done so in part because of the Minnesota Democrat’s history of mistreating her staff, HuffPost has learned.

Klobuchar, who plans to make an announcement about a potential presidential bid on Sunday in Minneapolis, has spent the past several months positioning herself to run for president. She’s beloved in her state as a smart, funny and personable lawmaker and has gained national attention for her lines of questioning at high-profile hearings.

But some former Klobuchar staffers, all of whom spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity, describe Klobuchar as habitually demeaning and prone to bursts of cruelty that make it difficult to work in her office for long. 

It is common for staff to wake up to multiple emails from Klobuchar characterizing one’s work as “the worst” briefing or press release she’d seen in her decades of public service, according to two former aides and emails seen by HuffPost.

Although some staffers grew inured to her constant put-downs (“It’s always ‘the worst,’” one said sarcastically, “‘It was ‘the worst’ one two weeks ago”), others found it grinding and demoralizing. Adding to the humiliation, Klobuchar often cc’d large groups of staffers who weren’t working on the topic at hand, giving the emails the effect of a public flogging.

There's more:

Three former staffers said Klobuchar has tasked them or their co-workers with performing personal errands, such as making her personal appointments, washing dishes at her home or picking up her dry cleaning.

Senate staff are generally prohibited by Senate ethics rules from performing personal duties for members. 

Let's get back to Will for a minute. He has made it very easy for the once-actually-conservative-usually-all-the-way-through-the-primaries-but-now-full-throatedly-supportive-of-Trump crowd (think Kurt Schlichter) to lambaste and lampoon him. Will has been weird for some time. Maybe he's about to turn Dem. Who knows?

But the biggest disservice Will does to his former ideological soulmates - actual conservatives - is open the door to the band with the hyphen-rich characterization to lump conservatives who haven't gone weird one way or another in with those who have gone weird in an anti-Trump way.

This all came to mind for me yet again as I read strieff's latest piece at Red State. He takes Rich Lowry and Joe Walsh to task for their tweets asserting that 30-plus-year-old photos of politicians in blackface should not be career-enders. The gist of where strieff is coming from: In isolated consideration, none of this would be worth giving a diddly about, but Leftists hate conservatism in an all-consuming way, and would indeed take kindness for weakness. Regardless of whether we cut Herring or Northam a break, Dems will go to lengths even beyond those employed against Kavanaugh in the next SCOTUS nomination.

Again, a few thoughts:

• All conservatives really have to do is stand back and let these Freedom-Haters eat their own.
• The above-mentioned Rich Lowry makes pretty much that point in today's Politico piece, to which I linked in a post earlier today. Intersectionality inevitably entails throwing somebody overboard, since no one's past is not without lapses in judgement.
• Standing back on the identity-politics angle allows us to focus with requisite ferocity on the infanticide angle.

Strieff, for the second time in the last few days, approvingly quoting the above-mentioned Kurt Schlichter, reprinting a tweet in which  Schlichter uses his pet term of disparagement "Conservatism Inc." to talk about its "sissy reaction to what's happening in Virginia."

I think strieff must be the head editorial honcho at Red State these days. Diary posts that get promoted to the front page have to have his imprimatur. And he's becoming more of a fan of Schlichter all the time.

The Erick Erickson era at RS is obviously long over.

You may recall my linking to the Bulwark piece by Kimberly Ross and Andrea Ruth about why they quit RS. The decision to shift editorial tone seems to go all the way to the top at Salem Communications.

All this can be tied together.

A few points:

• Leftists are indeed as much of an enemy of Western civilization and America in particular as North Korea, Iran or the Sunni jihadist network. They have to be defeated. 
• The Democrat party has gone full leftist. The only way to constructively converse with the last few decent, normal, truly civic-minded people affiliated with it - and they are only to be found at the local level anymore (and I know a few like that; two on the local city council and one vying for a seat on it) - is to say to them, "Why would you be willing to associate yourself with such an evil organization?"
• Even with a few good recent moves, such as Tuesday's SOTU address, Trump remains unqualified to serve as a standard-bearer for conservatism.
• George Will and Bill Kristol have indeed become weirdos, and maybe even (though it pains me to even hint at any alignment with Kurt Schlichter) useless sissies.
• Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot are even worse and deserve complete banishment.

So, yes, this is war. The Democrats have served notice in unmistakable terms. The question is how most effectively to fight this enemy.

I think where the actual conservatives are coming from is making sure there are no gaps in our integrity, no loopholes that leave us open to charges of inconsistency. This in turn leads to the larger question of just what conservatism is, a conversation dating back at least to the days of William Buckley forbidding the Ayn Rand or the John Birch types from coming anywhere near the aforementioned National Review. 

In turn, what the Schlichter and strieff types (by the way, I just have to weigh in on the convention of using enigmatic nom de plumes in Internet-opining work. Is it just me, or does it strike anyone else as having a hint of scaredy-cat-edness to it?) seem to be proposing is "Use anything that can be used to your advantage that comes along. We're storming the beaches at Normandy here."

I'll take a moment to give this position, with which I strongly disagree, the benefit of the doubt. We're in mortal combat with an enemy that hates our guts. Chances for us to defeat that enemy non-violently are not increasing. Ferocity is definitely called for.

I just don't want to see anything arise to bite us in the backside at the moment when victory is in sight.