Trumpism insists that you cannot be somewhat on board

Great Jonathan V. Last piece at The Bulwark on Trumpist absolutism.

He starts out describing two recent meltdowns.

One involves Federalist writer D.C. McAllister, about whom, after her having lost it on Twitter, going after Meghan McCain and Yashar Ali, it has come to light that she's been most unpleasant to work with over the years.

Then there's the video of Alex Jones saying "a form of psychosis" made him assert that the Sandy Hook shooting was a false flag operation.

Last then makes some broad observations:

Over the last three years conservatism has gone crazy. Perhaps you’ve noticed this.

It’s not just McAllister and Alex Jones. There’s Laura Loomer, who handcuffedherself to the doors of Twitter’s offices and went after a 20-year-old pro-life reporter to get him fired because she was angry about his tweets. There’s Milo, who brags about how great pedophilia can be. There’s Kurt Schlichter writing one-handed race war slash fiction. There’s Jesse Kelly fantasizing about scalping liberals. There’s Julie Kelly insisting that David French’s wife, who was repeatedly abused by a pastor as a 12-year-old girl, “screwed around with her preacher when she was a teen.”

He concedes that these examples are outliers, but what's up with them being given legitimate venues in which to express their views?

Look: There are plenty of normal, well-adjusted Trump supporters. You may disagree philosophically with Michael Anton or Charles Kesler or Scott Johnson. I have my disagreements with all of them. But they’re all perfectly normal, good-faith human beings. You’d be happy to leave your kids with any one of them while you went to the store. (Disclosure: Johnson is a friend and I know and like Anton.)

Would you be willing to leave your kids with McAllister, Jones, Loomer, Milo, Schlichter, or the Kelly twins? I doubt it. Because they do not present as normal, well-adjusted adults. And yet they have been given platforms by conservative media organizations.

Why? There’s only one possible explanation: Because they’re on Team Trump.

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Trumpism is singular in that it doesn’t allow people to pick and choose with only conditional support. You can’t be a cafeteria Trumper and say, “Yeah, I’m here for the wall and judges, but I’m not signing on with tariffs. And the North Korea stuff is terrible policy.”

You don’t see a lot of that, do you? Instead, Trumpism demands that people be all-in, for everything. No matter how stupid or malignant the policy or behavior.

I was gratified to see his inclusion of Schlichter. He in particular sticks in my craw. As I've said before, he delights in assuming the schoolyard bully persona. One can imagine him on the playground in fifth grade, bending some beta male's fingers backward just to watch the kid drop to his knees.

And as I said the other day in my post about the Very Stable Genius's Grand Rapids rally,

I realize there are gradations of conservative objection to Trump, and I want to once again distinguish myself from those such as Jennifer Rubin, George Will, Bill Kristol and Max Boot. They seem to have swallowed some kind of weird pill. They've jettisoned all embrace of the actual conservatism they just a few short years ago spoke of wanting to preserve. But they're a different breed from Erick Erickson, Susan Wright, Jonah Goldberg, Ben Shapiro, David French, Brad Thor, Joe Walsh, Peter Heck et al. These are the adults in the room. I consider myself in their camp.

And these gradations are real despite the efforts of the likes of Brian C. Joondeph and Kurt Schlichter to obscure them.

Schlichter often attempts to burnish his bona fides by saying he was a Cruz supporter who found Trump objectionable but has been so impressed with his presidency so far that he is fully on board now.

But, as Last points out, with Schlichter and Trumpists in general, there is no room for the cafeteria Trumpism I've put in boldface above.

And you're some kind of sissy to his ilk if you find Trump's personal style vulgar, off-putting and culturally irresponsible.

Sorry, Kurt. Cheering that garbage on is a bridge too far for this staunch conservative.