Never Trumpers Go Home

So the "bringing the Red Army" quip was in response to Bob Cesca making a strained analogy to the second battle of Bull Run where the Union general returned a bunch of deserters from Maine back to their brigade and said, 'look, we need you to fight and we aren't going to ask any questions if you pick your rifles back up and get in line.' All analogies have points where they don't line up, but this one isn't even on the same page. The never trumpers were never on our side, they were with the Confederacy for God's' sake. You can study military history but forgetting the relevant facts that deserters are most often shot and that deserters from the other side, while interrogated thoroughly, are never just told 'okay, get a rifle and line up with the guys you were shooting at yesterday.' Would you trust a guy still wearing gray standing behind you? That's what the never trumpers are.

So in addition to asking what army the never trumpers bring with them, Driftglass asked

LOL, Bob is friends with a Navy War College professor and Jeopardy champion named Tom Nichols whom he likes to point out as a worthy never trumper to have on our side. Driftglass replied that his post about Nichols at the time was "Area drunk blames 5th DUI on the repeal of Prohibition" and added that Nichols blamed the "dumpster fire" that is the modern Democratic Party made trump possible. So yes, for all of Nichols' erudition, his scholarly poise, and intelligence when put on the spot he's as full of shit as all the rest of the gang. I'm still planning to read his book The Death of Expertise at some point because despite political disagreements, and for crying out loud my thesis advisor was a conservative so I am no stranger to the ideas of intelligent conservatives, I can appreciate his ideas separately from snarky baggage.

Bob wants to cling to this idea that we can sway moderate republicans and conservative Dems who voted for #doughfacedonny over to our side, I have to ask, who are these people? Just as Driftglass likes to say that David Brooks writes for beltway bubble cloistered rich "moderate" conservatives, who are again almost a rounding error in terms of actual numbers of votes, this vast pool of untapped moderate conservatives simply does not exist. I don't live in the cornfields anymore but I doubt those rural people have changed. You can meet them halfway on an issue... they will just move the goalposts on you. You can try to find common ground, they will not in agreement and go right back to bashing Democrats. You can prove to them, categorically, that their pet conspiracy theory is nonsense and a week later they will be right back to it.

I thought about people in my home town and how they all changed after Scott Walker showed up. The doughy, bald-spotted proto fascist didn't change them so much as activate the latent xenophobia that grows out of being in an isolated community. That happened all over small towns across the country once hate radio and fox news ramped up the fear of outsiders and scapegoat anyone to the left of Mussolini

Never trumpers are not "squeezed from both sides" they made this bed and should deal with it. Penitence should be visible and public, otherwise it means nothing. You're not praying to God for forgiveness, you are trying to get right with your neighbors.

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