Last month, at Precipice, I summarized the challenge that I've had as a cultural observer since the insertion of a new force in our nation's politics since 2015:
When I started opining on culture, politics, economics and world affairs online, and in a column I wrote for several years for our local newspaper, the lines of demarcation were more clear-cut. There was right, and there was left. I expended a great many keyboard strokes trying to get people to see that Barack Obama was a lurch leftward beyond any that had come before for the Democrats. Frank Marshall Davis, Rashid Khalidi, the Midwest Academy, Bill Ayers and all that. The task before conservatives (back when that term stood for something recognizable) was straightforward: explain and defend our glorious lineage, from Edmund Burke through Frederic Bastiat, Richard M. Weaver, Russell Kirk, National Review and on up to Reaganite fusionism, and point out the dark nature of the lineage on the other side.
It’s all quite different now, isn’t it? Yes, the Left has grown increasingly grotesque, but an entirely new element has upended everyone’s previous assumptions . . .
That’s why any pundit, let alone fundraiser or political candidate who focuses solely on the very real grotesqueness of the Democrats - “We’ll defeat these leftists and then everything will be alright” - must be viewed with suspicion. Such a figure wants you to ignore the at least equally monstrous malignancy on the Right.
Now, the governor of Florida has illustrated exactly that kind of smokescreening maneuver:
"Liz Cheney is just totally off the rails with her nonsense," DeSantis said during an interview Monday with Fox News Digital. "And I think she's not really a Republican in terms of terms of what she's doing. We want people that are going to fight the left, and that's what we need to do in this country. That's what we're doing in Florida, standing up for people's freedoms. We're opposing wokeness. We're opposing all these things."
A tactic closely akin to the the-Left-is-all-we-have-to-oppose ploy is whataboutism taking the form of "but there was urban violence in 2020." That's how Elise Stefanik, who assumed Liz Cheney's number three position in House Republican leadership, even thou her voting record has been far less consistently conservative that Cheney's, has chosen to obscure the 800-pound gorilla in the room:
“House Democrats did not condemn the violence that happened all of 2020,” she said in reference to riots in some cities following the murder of George Floyd in police custody. “And we believe the January 6 commission is political theater.”
Sorry, Madame Conference Chair, but that's a non-sequitur. It's not the subject at hand.
Then there's the dragging-our-brand-across-the-finish-line-is-far-and-away-our-primary-mission approach, as exemplified by Nikki Haley in response to a question from Bret Baier on FNC's Special Report:
“Mike Pence is a good man,” Haley said. “He’s an honest man. I think he did what he thought was right on that day. But I will always say, I’m not a fan of Republicans going against Republicans.”
Donald Trump has, of course, been breaking people who once prided themselves on being animated by principle since he entered the political fray. What a lifetime ago it seems when
Lindsey Graham characterized the Very Stable Genius thusly:
"If Donald Trump carries the banner of my party," Graham said, "I think it taints conservatism for generations to come. I think his campaign is opportunistic, race-baiting, religious bigotry, xenophobia. Other than that, he’d be a good nominee."
and Rick Perry put it like this:
"Let no one be mistaken Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded," Perry said during a speech in Washington, D.C. "It cannot be pacified or ignored for it will destroy a set of principles that has lifted more people out of poverty than any force in the history of the civilized world and that is the cause of conservatism."
and Ted Cruz, full of righteous indignation, said this:
“This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth,” Cruz told reporters in Evansville, Indiana.
The Hoosier State primary is crucial for Cruz’s goal of preventing Trump from gaining enough delegates to secure the GOP presiential nomination. Most polls show Trump with a lead in the state, and Cruz’s attacks against his rival on Tuesday went into his personal life in a way Trump’s opponents have largely avoided until now.
“Donald Trump is a serial philanderer and he boasts about it,” Cruz said. “This is not a secret, he is proud of being a serial philanderer."
The only people left in the Republican Party interested in having any personal honor almost certainly have no future in it. They don't even respect each other. They each and all know that they opted to be motivated by fear of a four-year-old in a 76-year-old man's body.
They claim to be so concerned about the impact of progressive aggression on the foundations of the American way of life, but deep inside they know they've chosen a path that is utterly ineffective in addressing it.
The entire party, save for the handful of outliers with no voice in it, is in the throes of a delusion borne of cowardice.
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