Who are the semi-Never Trumpers? Perhaps the most famous/infamous is Ross Douthat, who recently spent a column, The Once and Future Threat of Trump, desperately trying to explain away the fact that his previous writings on Trump, both before the January 6 riot and after, were politely yet accurately skewered by Robert Kagan in his recent blockbuster take, Our constitutional crisis is already here, of whose blockbusteritarityness poor Mr. Douthat is painfully envious. Wrote Mr. Kagan, “The same people who said that Trump wouldn’t try to overturn the last election now say we have nothing to worry about with the next one.”1
But there are others—Jonah Goldberg, for example, who, in a recent post, groans Grow Up, Everybody (And Do It Jonah’s Way, You Idiots!), not to mention Ramesh Ponnuru, who seems to be sticking with a Thumperific approach to dealing with Trumperific issues: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
How can (reasonably) intelligent dudes be so stupid? Well, they are, you know, conservatives, and, though they all supported Trump's removal from office, they all hate the gay-luvin’, abortion-luvin’, not Israel-luvin’ Democratic Party as well. There’s got to be an alternative, and that alternative is either the Republican Party or nothing. The problem is, the Republican Party is shit. So which would you rather have, a handful of nothing or a handful of shit?
The utter shittyness of the Republican Party was most aptly demonstrated by Sen. Charles, “Charles the 88-Year-Old Prick from Iowa,” Grassley’s recent ritual abasement before The Donald, witnessed by a howling Iowan mob, and reported in painfully ugly detail by Politico’s Meredith McGraw. Here’s what Grassley said about Trump’s conduct following the 2020 election back in January 2021:
The reality is, he lost. He brought over 60 lawsuits and lost all but one of them. He was not able to challenge enough votes to overcome President Biden’s significant margins in key states. He belittled and harassed elected officials across the country to get his way. He encouraged his own, loyal vice president, Mike Pence, to take extraordinary and unconstitutional actions during the Electoral College count.
Even then, of course, Chuck was all talk, no walk, because he made these charges after he voted not to impeach Trump for his disgraceful conduct after losing the 2020 presidential election by more than seven million votes. But now, instead of hovering six inches above the bottom, Grassley is burrowing in the mud, appearing in the same event as Trump and listening breathlessly as the Trumpinator rambled on and on about how his “defeat” was the greatest crime in American history. Explained Chuck, “If I didn’t accept the endorsement of a person that’s got 91 percent of the Republican voters in Iowa, I wouldn’t be too smart.”
This is your hope, Ross Douthat. This is your hope, Jonah Goldberg. This is your hope, Ramesh Ponnuru. You are prostituting your sacred honor, if not your lives and fortunes, on behalf of an 88-year-old whore. Well, there is a certain whorey symmetry to it all.
Afterwords
My own skewering of Mr. Douthat, which preceded that of Mr. Kagan’s by several months, was a bit more pointed: Shorter Ross Douthat: Pay no attention to that orange-haired man with his hand up my ass! I’ve also bitched about Mr. Goldberg, here, Mr. Ponnuru, here, and Sen. Grassley here.
Last week, I dissed both Dan Drezner and Jack Shafer for their laissez-faire, “What Me Worry?” take on the danger of Trump II. Neither are “real” conservatives, and Dan was unrelenting in his contemptuous hostility to Trump’s “Fuck You!” foreign policy, but both men now seem a little tired of all this, you know, politics, and demonstrations, and, you know, women, squawking their damn fool heads off about this, that, and the other. Why can’t we all just take a break from all this talking and squawking and let Trump run things the way he wants for awhile? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad! At least we wouldn’t have to think! Or care! About anything!
1. Mr. Douthat's “response” can be summarized as follows: “Well, it could have been worse, couldn't it? So that proves we had nothing to worry about then, and don't have anything to worry about now!”
