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In reply to the discussion: George Will: Vote against Republicans [View all]JHB
(37,132 posts)George is a conservative. The "Big C" Conservative Movement kind.
The very people who insisted Republicans get with the program or be driven out of office. It's what they did to the Rockefeller Republicans in the 70s and 80s. And did it pretty damn gleefully.
When Poppy Bush wheezed the last gasp of of semi-authentic Republican "fiscal conservatism" by signing a too-small tax increase because the cherished 1986 tax reform was blowing an even bigger hole in the budget than earlier Reaganite cuts did, conservatives crucified him. And kept pounding the nails all through his presidency.
To get all the items on the Conservative Movement wish list, George's friends and colleagues played on voters' fears (especially bigoted voters' fears), said liberals and Democrats would make those fears come true, capitulate to the Soviets, be puppets of the Russians, and destroy the nation, while Republicans would stave off the end of civilization and restore us to our former glory (hey, don't that remind you of something?).
This all happened in the heyday of George Will's career, and he was fine with it. He and his fellow Movement Conservatives still thought it wasn't enough. When the Democratic candidate for president described himself as "pro-business", it wasn't an occasion to celebrate bringing an opponent closer to their point of view. No, they needed to demonize him, question his legitimacy, and throw up a fogbank of steam rising from great mountains of bullshit, lest they face pressure to compromise and have to sacrifice the biggest item in their wish list, destroying every last remnant of the New Deal and restoring the Gilded Age.
The Republicans aren't a party of invertebrates, George. You and your fellow conservatives transformed the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Ahab, and any among you who questioned the wisdom of hunting the White Whale were thrown overboard. When those people were fish-fodder, the ones who clove to norms and looked mildly askance at some of the excessively uncivil rhetoric were brought to heel or brought under the keel.
Think that's an exaggeration? For how may decades did any Republican who was even mildly critical of Rush Limbaugh jump to be on his show within 48 hours,doing qualifying runs for Olympic backpedaling?
Your elected officials are spineless, George, because they are your apparatchiks.
You're a conservative, George, and the Republican party is in the state it is in because your people made it that way. Good on ya for saying "elect Democrats", but don't pretend you and all of your NeverTrump colleagues didn't spend your entire careers preparing your party to embrace him.
No Disowning.