Republicans lying to pollsters

Have you ever had an itch that you just couldn't find, can't seem to satisfactorily scratch, and it just won't go away? This is the never trumper argument to me. It just irritates, like a pebble in your shoe that you can never seem to get out and every time you stop to try it you just fall further and further behind the race. I don't even know which of these metaphors are more appropriate; the absolute undying pleasure of finally scratching that itch, or the lingering irritation that causes pain long after the pebble (irritant) is removed. We will probably never know. But in this instance, Twitter fits both of them more or less perfectly.

I am lousy at Twitter. Deliberate, considered, and researched comments do not get read and I am not quick enough to stay with a thread. But every now and then I punch a few keys and get a one in there, never a super witty or original comment though. It's just not my medium.

Networking, networking. Somebody posted this Huffpost story about a minority of the minority of conservatives and self-described republicans telling pollsters that they won't vote for Doughfacedonny in 2020. To which Ed from Gin and Tacos (whose Twitter handle is Mass for Shut-ins, after the name of his podcast) replied "Bullshit, these people would drink a gallon of bleach if it meant owning the libs." And thus started a long moralizing scold from someone desperately wanting to believe there is still good in republicans out there somewhere.

The fact that so many self-described conservatives no longer consider themselves republicans (and that trump has surely caused this exodus) is nearly ipso facto evidence that there are more gooduns than you suspect.

— tospik 🌐 🌷 (@tospik) May 2, 2019

Telling (potential) defectors to go fuck themselves isn’t a great recruiting strategy, satisfying as it may be.

— tospik 🌐 🌷 (@tospik) May 2, 2019

So I decided to add two cents:

Yes, because wooing them to abandon their fascist party of bigots and imbeciles has worked so well. #notoneinch

— Tentacles of 🦑 (@TentaclesOfYest) May 2, 2019

In hindsight, I should have prefaced it with "because in 2016 Hillary Clinton's strategy of appealing to these fictional decent republicans had a statistically negligent effect in getting those supposed defectors to actually abandon the great orange god that says what they want to hear and vote for the chick they all hate while depressing actual turnout among actual Democrats and liberals." But no, I tried to stay quick and witty like the cool kids on Twitter. So I got this back:

As I said, they’ve left the GOP en masse since the rise of Trump in spite of the conspicuous *lack* of wooing preached by pricks like you. Imagine how effective a little wooing might be, or at least not openly sneering at the possibility that some of them are decent. 🤔

— tospik 🌐 🌷 (@tospik) May 3, 2019

Where to begin? "Left en masse"? I still see no real evidence for this. Being embarrassed enough to tell a pollster that the guy who "says what he means" and what he means is the racism and authoritarianism that republicans crave that they aren't going to vote for him is just meaningless. You mean you expect me to believe that the people who jumped up and down screaming "trump that bitch!" and spouted a different conspiracy theory about Syrian and Central American refugees each day are going to break their conditioning enough to pull the lever for the Democratic candidate in private and actually be honest about it? Deceit and punching down is etched into republican DNA, and the past simply doesn't exist. Record? What Record? Trump has sort of embarrassed this cohort but to think any amount of kowtowing and compromise will get even one mythical "moderate republican" to defect is the epitome of wishful thinking. There may be crossover from last time, there may not be, but as an active strategy it is a born loser because then it looks like (and basically is) signalling to both base republicans and base Democrats that the candidate has no real principles. Fox News-viewing meat puppets will see it as weakness and pounce. Activist progressive Liberals, the kind who were "Bernie or Bust" last time, will see the Democratic candidate and campaign abandoning them again to chase rainbows and butterflies.

So no, no amount of "wooing" will have the effect you want. You can call me a prick all you want but it doesn't matter how much I sneer, leading with your face and trying to woo any republicans will get you stomped on. Reality and objective facts mean nothing in this post-truth fascist republican party. If there are any decent republicans out there, they will do the right thing (finally) all on their own. And every time I hear a self-proclaimed "never trumper" decide that they get to tell Democrats what they should stand for if they want his vote just reaffirms that authoritarianism is what they want and if you are weak enough to let them take over then there really is no hope.

Republicans; either blue-collar, educated suburbans, rootin' tootin' rednecks, or brahmins have their own party. They can fight it out amongst themselves, the Democratic Party needs to stand for something untainted and uninfluenced by the other side or pearl-clutching centrists. That is why I hashtagged #notoneinch on my tweet, even if my meaning was lost, even if tospik projected what he wanted onto what I wrote, this is a war and we cannot surrender anything to republicans. They simply have to be beaten and removed from office and rendered harmless to damage America anymore.