Unifier, my tail end

 The blather about how, now that the Very Stable Genius had locked up complete control of the Republican Party, he'd pivot toward some kind of at least minimal magnanimity and extend a welcoming hand to Americans broadly gained momentum after he got his ear nicked in Pennsylvania. He even participated in the revising of his RNC acceptance speech, which had observers anticipating the new version with bated breath.

Alas, his feeble attempt to deliver on that last night lasted three minutes max. And then we were into this:

Despite the call for unity, Trump soon referred to “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” repeatedly cited false allegations of stolen elections, called for the firing of the head of the United Auto Workers, cited the “China virus” and the “invasion” at the Southern border. He called a Democratic senator a “total lightweight.” He even repeated a puzzling allusion to “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” from “The Silence of the Lambs,” which he’s used before. 

Of course, the hall full of drool-besotted leg-humpers, dutifully wearing their solidarity ear bandages, ate it up. Their "fighter" is still that. 

And because the Democrats are facing the nightmare of a candidate (and current president) who is increasingly under pressure to step down due to his obvious feebleness, with the alternatives being the specter of either a Harris candidacy or a free-for-all at their convention, Trump has a pretty good chance of re-election. 

I agree with the likes of Jonah Goldberg and Yuval Levin who say that unity is not only too much to hope for in our present moment, but has never been a realistic aspiration in a country whose citizens have widely diverse viewpoints and are free to express them.  I concur that our magnificent Constitution provides the framework for Americans to disagree well. 

As Levin puts it,

Our political system allows citizens to share a common life even when they differ fiercely on important public questions. Their disputes aren’t always settled civilly, but they are settled politically, through competition and negotiation rooted in the premise that partisan victories and defeats are both inevitably temporary, and that the people we disagree with aren’t going away. Politics within this framework can be so intense, its stakes can be so high, precisely because we are arguing about what our common future looks like. 

Constitutionalism defines the boundaries of this political realm. It offers the rules for setting priorities, deploying power, resolving disputes, and making demands of each other. Its purpose is not so much to help us agree as to help us disagree constructively and safely.

But the first step toward that aim is to get a critical mass of Americans to give a diddly about the Constitution. Our public education system has seen to it that up-and-coming citizens aren't even acquainted with it. The yay-hoos assembled in Milwaukee have no regard for it. Democrats have likewise demonstrated that they don't either, with their fierce defense of the cabal of "experts" ensconced in the various executive-branch agencies as being more qualified than elected legislators to shape policy, and their presumption that the executive branch has the authority to affect the character, and independence of, the judicial branch. 

So, no Squirrel Hair isn't unifying anybody. We're still stuck with the pugnacious populists and the current disarray of the identity politics / climate alarmism / wealth redistribution bunch.

Or somebody is. I have no truck with either of them.