The Truth in Anti-Anti-Trumpism!!!

The best way to communicate and understand the irrational conservative mind, especially the Trumpsters, is to talk to right wingers that have seen the light. 

Someone who has seen the light and admitted to making some big mistakes is radio's recent retiree Charlie Sykes. 

"Anti-Anti-Trumpism:" It's a word that caught on briefly, but will stay with me a long time, because it's so right on the mark. This best describes my conservative friend in Milwaukee, who just sent me an internet poster showing Trump's face in the sky over sailing ships, telling loyalists "we can weather this one too."

From MSNBC, here's Sykes' with the great Charlie Pierce, who said of Paul Ryan, "This notion that we're going to wait for someone like Paul Ryan, who's an intellectual invertebrate - probably the biggest fake in American politics - to do something about this particular crisis, that's ludicrous."  

"If there was one principle that used to unite conservatives, it was respect for the rule of law. Not long ago, conservatives would have been horrified at wholesale violations of the norms and traditions of our political system, and would have been appalled by a president who showed overt contempt for the separation of powers.

But this week, as if on cue, most of the conservative media fell into line … “Dems in Meltdown Over Comey Firing,” declared a headline on Fox News. Given the enthusiasm of the president’s apologists, it is likely that much of Mr. Trump’s base will similarly rally to him as it has in the past.

Loathing those who loathe the president. Rabid anti-anti-Trumpism … much of the conservative news media is now less pro-Trump than it is anti-anti-Trump. The distinction is important, because anti-anti-Trumpism has become the new safe space for the right.

Here is how it works: Rather than defend President Trump’s specific actions, his conservative champions change the subject to (1) the biased “fake news” media, (2) over-the-top liberals, (3) hypocrites on the left, (4) anyone else victimizing Mr. Trump or his supporters and (5) whataboutism, as in “What about Obama?” “What about Clinton?”

For the anti-anti-Trump pundit, whatever the allegation against Mr. Trump, whatever his blunders or foibles, the other side is always worse.

But the real heart of anti-anti-Trumpism is the delight in the frustration and anger of his opponents. Mr. Trump’s base is unlikely to hold him either to promises or tangible achievements, because conservative politics is now less about ideas or accomplishments than it is about making the right enemies cry out in anguish.

Damon Linker noted, anti-anti-Trumpism “allows the right to indulge its hatred of liberals and liberalism while sidestepping the need for a reckoning with the disaster of the Trump administration itself.” Not surprisingly, the vast majority of airtime on conservative media is not taken up by issues or explanations of conservative approaches to markets or need to balance liberty with order. Why bother with such stuff, when there were personalities to be mocked and left-wing moonbats to be ridiculed?

Conservatives will care less about governing and more about scoring “wins” — and inflicting losses on the left — no matter how hollow the victories or flawed the policies. Ultimately, though, this will end badly because it is a moral and intellectual dead end, and very likely a political one as well.

As the right doubles down on anti-anti-Trumpism, it will find itself goaded into defending and rationalizing ever more outrageous conduct just as long as it annoys CNN and the left.

In many ways anti-anti-Trumpism mirrors Donald Trump himself, because at its core there are no fixed values, no respect for constitutional government or ideas of personal character, only a freefloating nihilism cloaked in insult, mockery and bombast."