Ten years later,
@NRO is as Never-Trump as it was in 2016, just more vapid.
This piece is earning great aplomb from the clapping seals of American decline—from Kinzinger to Kristol—because each link directs to things Trump has said or done. The ‘atta boys’ are for being a ‘principled conservative.’
But this banal politics of ‘what if the shoe was on the other foot?’ is not principle. It is anti-conservative because it is an ideology—some species of liberal proceduralism—dressed in conservative drag. It’s politics without politics. It has no conception of ends and goods.
Behold, the beautiful loser, here to ‘um ackshually’ you to death.