Honestly, the last election seemed to me to be a crooked Arkansas Democrat against an FDR Democrat, and as a Republican-leaning libertarian, I didn’t see that as much of a choice. I also thought that Trump’s wildly-public persona and history of being a Lothario, a cad, a boor, and probably a bounder (whatever that is) would make him easy pickings for the Democrat operatives in the media.
Shows what I know. I didn’t factor in the fact that Hillary managed to be even more incompetent than she was unlikeable, and Trump turned out to be a pro-defense, tax-cutting JFK Democrat — the next best thing to a Republican anyway, compared to the rest of the Democrat party — and better yet, one willing to dance with the ones who brung him on judges.
Of course, for the last three years, we’ve seen that the clerisy — the credentialed, Ivy-Leagued, well-connected, self-important, Acela-corridor power-brokers of either party — weren’t willing to accede to the wishes of the voters without a fight.
This was evidenced by a pandemic outbreak of Trump Derangement Syndrome, with symptoms like Trump Trance and complete credulity for anything that promised to put power back into the hands of the people with nicely-creased trousers and well-fitting tuxedos.
There was a perfect example of this on Twitter recently, when Tom Nichols, Expert, and Greatest Living Authority, at least since Professor Irwin Corey died, tweeted:
Got that? “[N]o Democratic policy … is more important to me to oppose” than ending a “national crisis of government.”
You may recall that the strict definition of “to govern” as “to do the business of managing the affairs of state” has become a bit of a pet peeve for me in recent days. Since Tom is an Expert, I doubt he’s ever looked it up himself, and probably thinks “to govern” means “to do what I tell them”. It certainly doesn’t seem like there’s much of a crisis in the management of the affairs of state to me: market’s up, unemployment is at a historic low, with even the long-term out-of-the-labor-market unemployed coming back into the workforce, Arab states are beginning to change their policies toward Israel. Hell, even the historic drought has broken and not even NOAA can maintain the fiction that this is the hottest year ever.
In the face of this “national crisis”, let’s just enumerate some of the Democrat proposed policies that are less important for Tom to oppose than getting rid of Trump:
- Reducing the US to environmental serfdom through the Green New Deal.
- Tax increases, with suggestions of maximum rates up to 90 percent, and a wealth tax that would transfer most of the wealth in private hands to the Government in a matter of years.
- “Free” health care for everyone, but for informal immigrants first, along with unlimited catch-and-release, while eliminating the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
- Outright gun confiscation.
- Making private health insurance illegal.
- Revising the First Amendment to give the government control of political speech.
The point is, there is apparently no threshold beyond which getting rid of Trump is too costly for Nichols, and for all the “I’ll vote for any Democrat over Trump” #NeverTrump Republicans and ex-Republicans. Nothing so unconstitutional, confiscatory, unwise, or unjust that it outweighs returning power to the Ancien Régime.