Twilight of the Never Trumpers

Does anyone remember David French? He used to write for the National Review. He, along with his fellow anti-Trumper Kevin Williamson, performed one of the most infamous acts of professional self-immolation when they penned twin articles sneering that poor white communities "deserved to die," that whatever misery they suffer is entirely their own fault, and that the obvious fix to their problems is simply renting a U-Haul and moving to a better job market.

It's one thing to not like Trump. It's quite another to caricature millions of his supporters in ways that would make Keith Olbermann blush. Still, I suppose it's one way to end a career as a "conservative" journalist. Both French and Williamson soon thereafter took the express train to oblivion, never to be heard from again.

So when I saw an article out of the blue from French the other day entitled "Four Lessons From Nine Years of Being 'Never Trump,'" I'll admit that it piqued my cynical curiosity. The RealClearPolitics website yanked the article as quickly as it had put it up, which should have been my first clue. But his article starts off with some bait, teasing that "it can be hard to admit when [he's] wrong" and that the truth "reflected poorly on [his] judgment."

So, like a chump, I thought that maybe here was a Never Trumper who had learned the meaning of humility and reconciliation. I took the bait and made the mistake of reading the entire article. And that reflected poorly on MY judgment. I saw gristle and mistook it for meat. 

Like most Never Trumpers, French makes clear he has no intention of ever conceding that he might have been wrong about his earlier bigoted judgments of Trump supporters. The "lessons" he claims to have learned is that we Trump supporters are even more stupid, more brainwashed, and more cowardly than he would have dared to dream. 

Suffice to say, the article is a textbook example of what psychologists call projection. French hates and despises us and has since 2016. His article is an unartful and clumsy attempt to pin that hate on us. At least Biden saved the time of penning an article and just came out and called us "garbage."

To quote Carmine Falcone, you always fear what you don't understand. Never Trumpers have never understood what motivates Trump supporters. So they fear us. And that's on them. This late in the game, if you don't know us, that's because you don't want to know us. There is no blindfold so effective as that of condescension.

What motivated the Never Trumpers? From what I can discern, they break down roughly into the following categories:

RINOs

I'm thinking Paul Ryan and John Boehner, Asa Hutchinson and Michael Steele, Mitt Romney and Jeff Flake, John Kasich, and Dick Cheney. These are the cocktail party Republicans who, for years, winked and nodded with their Democrat friends and corporate donors as they broke one promise after another to us. They sold us out for money and status.

MEGALOMANIACS

Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger suppressed evidence during the J6 hearings that would have exonerated Trump. Gen. Mark Milley conspired with the Chinese government against President Trump (and, by extension, against all of us). John Kelly tried to sway the election with an October surprise hit piece alleging that Trump expressed admiration for Hitler. These people crave power at the expense of both democracy and the truth.

CRAZIES

Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, and Joe Walsh feel at home in the padded walls of this political sanitarium. Their hysterical rantings make MSNBC and the low-watt bulbs on "The View" look positively reasonable in comparison. What drives them? Beats me. A schizophrenic voice in their head, I suppose, that shrieks whenever Trump walks into view.

Or maybe they're the political equivalent of the "crazy" street preacher who keeps changing the date on his sandwich board whenever the latest deadline for the promised apocalypse has come and gone without fruition. It's not that they're "crazy" so much as they know that there's a market for what they're selling.

FAUX INTELLIGENTSIA

This is the spiritual wasteland where David Brooks, Bill Kristol, George Will, Bret Stephens, and the Lincoln Project pedophiles join French and Williamson. We spurned their advice in 2016 when they instructed us to vote for Jeb! or whoever's "turn" it was, and they never forgave us for not heeding their sainted wisdom. 

Nothing wounds arrogance more than irrelevancy. So it can't be their fault. It can't be that they were wrong. As with the Obamas, we simply don't appreciate them enough. We're not "ready" for them. And in their conceit, they lash out by reminding us at every opportunity just how low down the evolutionary ladder they consider us. It's not Trump they hate; it's us.

Whether these people are motivated by narcissism, political power, personal spite, or good ol' fashioned insanity, there is one thing that is certainly not motivating them: patriotism. Whatever legitimate concerns for the preservation of liberty they may have once held at the beginning of their careers has long since drowned in the undertow of corruption and hubris.

But now, their role in this great drama is at an end.

Whether Trump wins or loses on Tuesday, the fact remains that the Republican Party has undergone a complete rebranding. In these people's eight-year mission to prevent this, they have utterly failed. The Right now knows who they are and have purged them from its midst. The Left used them for all they were worth and will discard them without a second thought after this election. 

The Right has already discarded Liz Cheney, and others will follow. French sees the writing on the wall, and his aforementioned article is his parting shot to us. The influence and recognition they crave and that they once possessed is gone. They are no longer our problem, and each of them must deal with obscurity as they see fit. But don't count on any of them to handle it with the civility they demanded of Trump.

In the words of Dante: "The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened, have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them — even the wicked cannot glory in them."

Or, in the words of Curly Bill: "Well... bye."