Ramesh Ponnuru, perhaps to fulfill a quota of some sort, has dashed off what I like to think of as a semi, hemi, demi never Trumper, “Three Clichés About Trump That Have to Die”,1 soundly thumping those lazy, self-righteous liberals who say all sorts of mean things about the Donald which just are not true! But also—to show he’s nothing if not even-handed—taking down some anonymous “Fox & Friends” “host” for saying that Republicans don’t care if Trump is lying about Stormy Daniels. They do care! (Well, some of them.)
To gather “evidence” for this column, which surely most have cost him all of 30 minutes to, you know, write, Ramesh watched a lot of cable, which is basically a stupid thing to do, as evidenced by you know whom, though it’s a great way to obtain evidence that liberals, and everyone else, are stupid. The whole point of going on cable is to say something outrageous. What’s the point of going on cable and saying things like “I don’t know” or “I don’t see much change for the foreseeable future”? Who wants to listen to that? I could be watching “Law and Order”.
Ramesh is particularly irritated by big mouths saying that there is a “constitutional crisis” at the drop of a hat. “Not every development in Mueller’s investigation is a ‘constitutional crisis,’” Ramesh tells us, with a touch of petulance.
Well, I guess that’s true. But here’s the thing, Ramesh. It doesn’t matter if not every development in Mueller’s investigation is a constitutional crisis, because every minute of Donald Trump’s presidency is a constitutional crisis! I believe Ramesh was one of those who acknowledged, back when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey amidst a flurry of lies that has not yet ceased to swirl and shimmer, that if President Obama had done so a Republican Congress would immediately have impeached him.But now, as Trump ever doubles and redoubles on his compulsive lawlessness, that sort of thing doesn’t seem to matter to Ramesh and his friends. Sure, that stuff is awful, but, you know, righteous indignation has gotten so, well old hat! Let’s have some variety, something new!
Yes, a few brave Republicans cried out, but they immediately noticed that their cries only accentuated their isolation. The great mass of Republican voters didn’t care, and don’t care, what Trump does, as long as he talks Trump talk, trashing the people they hate and basically telling the world to go fuck itself. That’s why there are no Republican heroes in Congress, not one and why people like Ramesh write 2/3 pro-Trump, 1/3 not so much ass-covering columns. They know that Trump and Republicans in Congress long for a complete politicizing of law enforcement in the United States, they see the supposedly honorable Vice President of the United States “honoring” a career criminal and sadist—because all, or nearly all, the people he humiliated, oppressed, and abused did not have white skins—and they tremble, not for their country, but for themselves, and, most of all, for their careers.
Afterwords
There has been a slow-burning, long-running constitutional crisis in this country ever since the election of Bill Clinton, when Republicans decided that no lie was too great to tell, as long as it weakened Bill. This cult of irresponsibility has swelled steadily ever since, and now it holds the White House, in a more grotesque form than anyone could have imagined only two years ago. The Republican Party is corruption personified, and the worst is yet to come. “Conservatives” like Ramesh should take a look backwards every six months and notice how far they sink in every interval, intoning each time that there is “no crisis”. But there is one, and they are part of it.
- Ramesh can pay me later for the aigu accent on “clichés”, which Word rightfully, and righteously, demanded, even though Word cannot spell “aigu”. Strange! ↩︎
