Mark Sanford Loses Primary; NeverTrumpers, Get This, Freak Out and Begin Calling for a GOP Wipeout in the 2018 Elections

#Resistance hero Mark Sanford lost, for reasons probably having little to do with Trump -- Trump's tweet came when polls were almost closed, and Trump probably tweeted because he'd heard Sanford was likely to lose, based on exit polls, and wanted a piece of that scalp -- but the never-ending NeverTrump Twitter Circle Jerk went into conniptions anyway.

And if Democrats don't sweep in 2018, then he says they must sweep in 2020:

True Conservative, y'all!

Hey, maybe join Bill Maher in his prayer that the country re-enter a painful recession, if this is so vital and all.

I wrote about the pressure I felt to join the NeverTrump circle jerk. I predicted, accurately, that NeverTrump, having put itself into a position of relentless hostility and liberal-like We're-The-Experts-Here contempt for Republican voters, would simply become a species of nasty partisan Democrat, and that was part (but only part) of the reason I rejected all that.*

Mollie Hemingway notes that outside of the never-ending NeverTrump Twitter Circle Jerk, NeverTrump barely exists at all:

Perhaps it's time to just stop paying attention to whiny babies.

* Weird how I could figure out the unavoidable trajectory of putting oneself into direct opposition to one's party -- that personal feelings and egotistical impulses would, as they always do, begin to harden opposition from an ideological objection to a deeply personal and bitter emotional alienation -- and thereby lead, inevitably, to finding a new group of Political Friends to be friendly friends with, but the people who assure us all every single day on Twitter that They're the People Who Really Understand Politics and They're the Experts and Serious You Guys They Went to College and Stuff couldn't figure this fucking shit out, and in fact still can't 18 months later.

Do they not understand human psychology, human social group dynamics, and the natural (if regrettable) tendency to magnify differences between In-Group and Out-Group to create higher In-Group solidarity and higher levels of hatred towards the Out-Group?

Did they never notice the tendency of any insular group of like-minded individuals to become more extreme and "purified" in their groupthink, and more extreme in denouncing unbelievers?

Do they not know about the tendency of members of insular groups to compete with each other to ever more stridently proclaim Group Dogmas in a kind of competition to demonstrate Group Loyalty and Group Belongingness?

Did they not realize that they, being human, would wind up going down that path themselves? Did they imagine they were so virtuous and intellectual (hey, just look a their prodigious Twitter Output!!!) that they were immune to such group dynamics?

Wait-- I thought they were the Experts About Politics and All Other Things Too. They tell me so on Twitter every fucking day.

Do they really not understand any of this?

Did they think they were too smart to behave like all other human beings have since we came down from the trees?

And, on that point: I hate to say this, Geniuses, but you don't seem that smart to me. You seem on the dim side of the Average College Graduate to me.

I continue being infinitely amused by a group behaving in the most primitive tribal fashion forming a new tribe and demonizing the old tribe bemoaning the tribalism of the tribe they've decided to make war on for believing in slightly different things than they do.

posted by Ace of Spades at 12:39 PM

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