#NeverTrump Radio Host Announces He's Stepping Down Because He Doesn't Believe in the Conservative Movement Any Longer, In the New York Times, Naturally

I'd like to encourage more of this #TruConexit.

One fantasy these imbeciles peddled is that the election was Not a "binary choice." When I'd point out to them that opposing Trump meant, by inexorable logic, supporting Hillary, they would snap back that that was "binary thinking" and wasn't true due to Reasons they couldn't be bothered to spell out.

They were all very certain on this point: The election was not a "binary choice," so they were not working for Hillary every day of the election.

When you'd ask them who'd become president if not Trump, they'd either refuse to answer, or say "The election was over the moment Trump was nominated" (not true, as it turns out!), or say something obnoxious like "Not my monkey, not my circus."

This asshole is back with more of that here.

As I said: In the New York Times. Because of course. That's where all "conservatives" go to slander actual conservatives.

After nearly 25 years, I’m stepping down from my daily conservative talk radio show at the end of this month. I’m not leaving because of the rise of Donald J. Trump (my reasons are personal), but I have to admit that the campaign has made my decision easier. The conservative media is broken and the conservative movement deeply compromised.

In April, after Mr. Trump decisively lost the Wisconsin Republican primary, I had hoped that we here in the Midwest would turn out to be a firewall of rationality. Our political culture was distinctly inhospitable to Mr. Trump’s divisive, pugilistic style; the conservatives who had been successful here had tended to be serious, reform-oriented and able to express their ideas in more than 140 characters. But in November, Wisconsin lined up with the rest of the Rust Belt to give the presidency to Mr. Trump.

How on earth did that happen?

Before this year, I thought I had a relatively solid grasp on what conservatism stood for and where it was going....

In short, I was under the impression that conservatives actually believed things about free trade, balanced budgets, character and respect for constitutional rights. Then along came this campaign.

....

When I wrote in August 2015 that Mr. Trump was a cartoon version of every left-wing media stereotype of the reactionary, nativist, misogynist right, I thought that I was well within the mainstream of conservative thought -- only to find conservative Trump critics denounced for apostasy by a right that decided that it was comfortable with embracing Trumpism....

To be sure, some of my callers embraced Mr. Trump’s suggestion for a ban on Muslims entering the country and voiced support for a proposal to deport all Muslims 000 even citizens. One caller compared American Muslims to rabid dogs. But right to the end, relatively few of my listeners bought into the crude nativism Mr. Trump was selling at his rallies.

What they did buy into was the argument that this was a "binary choice." No matter how bad Mr. Trump was, my listeners argued, he could not possibly be as bad as Mrs. Clinton. You simply cannot overstate this as a factor in the final outcome. As our politics have become more polarized, the essential loyalties shift from ideas, to parties, to tribes, to individuals. Nothing else ultimately matters.

In this binary tribal world, where everything is at stake, everything is in play, there is no room for quibbles about character, or truth, or principles. If everything -- the Supreme Court, the fate of Western civilization, the survival of the planet -- depends on tribal victory, then neither individuals nor ideas can be determinative. I watched this play out in real time, as conservatives who fully understood the threat that Mr. Trump posed succumbed to the argument about the Supreme Court. As even Mr. Ryan discovered, neutrality was not acceptable; if you were not for Mr. Trump, then you were for Mrs. Clinton.t anymore.

His listerners were convinced it was a "binary choice" because it was a binary choice: Either Clinton or Trump would be president, and none other.

If he had gotten out of his Twitter/listserv bubble for ten minutes, and let his mind be still without a thousand other #NeverTrumpers cultishly chanting "not a binary choice, not a binary choice," perhaps he would have seen that it was a binary choice.

But these people are very clannish and slavishly imitative of each other.

And the choice was not the choice of an ideal; it was a comparative, a weighing of this against that. The fact that many #NeverTrumpers clearly preferred Hillary in this comparative choice -- all the while lying that they didn't -- does not change the fact that they did, in fact, prefer Hillary.

There was lots of room for discussion of character and policy and all the stuff this asshole talks about. But there was also room for discussion of the binary choice of "Which is ultimately better for the country, warts and all, and which is ultimately worse-- Hillary or Trump?"

The #NeverTrumpers did not wish to talk about that question, preferring to preen about perfect Platonic Ideals and how much better they were than everyone else.

I'll say it: I want them gone. They say we've revealed our stripes; fine, I'll say they've revealed their own.

Go. Get gone, be gone, and stay gone.

Join the liberals, which 90% of you are already 90% of the way along to doing. Just make it official, so we don't have another crop of fake conservatives appearing in the liberal media for the only purpose of collecting a check while bashing other conservatives -- the ones who are actually looking out for this country's future, rather than their own reputability and acceptabllity to their would-be liberal media employers.

By the way, Sykes will soon be collecting royalties for the new book he's writing: How the Right Lost Its Mind. And no, that's not a joke; the NYT article advertises this upcoming sure-to-be-greeted-warmly-by-the-Times'-reviewer book in noting Sykes bio at article's end.

By the way, Sykes is getting a lot of positive tweets from, get this, NYT reporters and other hard-left liberals. And he's retweeting them proudly -- almost as if he's looking for another tribe to Join.

Some are Joiners, some are Leaders.

posted by Ace at 12:34 PM

| Access Comments