Well, I won’t. I won’t, because I now have a theory to justify my bombast. For months—nay, years—I have been berating the mainstream media for its continuing Paulie worship (catch up on all the bombast right here). Well, now that the scales have been falling from some eyes, thanks to Paulie’s continuing embrace of Donald Trump, I’ve been able to figure out why those scales took so long to fall: because the elite wanted to believe that there was still such a thing as an old-fashioned, “moderate” Republican.
For many centrist types, there was always something just a little too much about the Democratic Party—a little too pointy-headed, a little too many-headed, just a little too too. A little too pushy, a little too sweaty, a little too common. Can’t there be a party for fellows like us? I mean, you don’t have to have gone to prep school, because most of us didn’t, but wouldn’t it be nice to look like you did?
Well, Paulie certainly looked the part. But, frankly, that’s all he did. His beloved budgets, which the mainstreamers took with such comical seriousness, were always shameless political packages that made no economic sense at all. It’s a measure of the mainstream’s desperation that they could fool themselves over Paulie for so long. People like Paul Krugman could see through him from the very first, but agreeing with Paul Krugman—I mean, completely agreeing with him—well, isn’t that being awfully left wing? Can’t we be balanced?
But, of course, there is no balance in American politics any more, because there is no Republican Party any more. Hillary Clinton, weighed down by flaws that can only be described as Clintonian, is the only game in town. It shouldn’t be that way. But that’s the way it is.
