Goodbye Forever, Never Trumpers, and Thanks for the Laughs

I have never been one of those leftists who make a point of listening to right-wing talk radio or watching FOX News either to get the other side’s perspective or out of morbid fascination. I don’t need to expose myself to right-wing media in order to know what the other side is thinking. I know damn well what Republicans are thinking. That’s why I am a Democrat.

The idea of listening to someone like Rush Limbaugh for pleasure is unfathomable to me. What possible pleasure could a guy like me get from listening to Limbaugh’s hateful, delusional ravings? 

For the past five years, however, I have repeatedly found myself reading articles by Republicans and watching videos from Republicans and following Republican accounts on social media. 

What made the difference? Donald Trump, of course. Politics famously makes strange bedfellows. Since that awful moment when Donald Trump announced that he was running for president to keep Mexico from continuing to send all their rapists and drug dealers and murderers over the border I have found common cause with a VERY vocal minority of Republicans known as the Never Trump movement. 

Though we disagree about just about everything else, The Lincoln Project folks and myself agree about something that has been very important for the last half-decade: Donald Trump’s unspeakable awfulness. 

I relate to the Never Trump contingent because we have a common enemy: Donald Trump. That has proven such a powerful, potent bond that it has inspired Democrats to donate money to an organization like The Lincoln Project, which is made up Republicans, ostensible former Republicans and folks whose party affiliation appears to be very much in flux. 

The Never Trump gang might just hate Trump more than I do because the Ghosts Can’t Do It star destroyed their party the way he did our country. For all of its faults, Conservatism at least has a consistent set of policies and ideals. Trump reduced the GOP into a bizarre cult of personality. For Republicans with principles (a group that I’m going to assume exists) Trump was a true party-pooper in the sense that he shat all over their party, transforming the party of Lincoln into the party of Trump. 

I have no doubt that the Lincoln Project folks genuinely despise Donald Trump the way I do. He’s a very loathsome human being. If you don’t hate Trump at least a whole lot there’s something very wrong with you. 

But it also feels like The Lincoln Project was a very successful hustle. It got an enormous amount of press, both due to the novelty of Trump being constantly, viciously and personally attacked by people who previously used their powers of persuasion to help Conservatives and due to the effectiveness of its propaganda. 

The stated goal of the Lincoln Project was to get Trump out of office. It has succeeded. Its other, less stated goals, was to make a shit-ton of money, increase the public profiles of its members and be on the right side of history where Trump is concerned. It succeeded just as spectacularly at that. 

The Lincoln Project has proven so successful, in fact, that it’s showing no sign of going away. It now vows to fight the plague of Trumpism with the same fury it attacked Trump himself. 

A while back I had the pleasure of interviewing the great tough guy character actor Charles Napier. I asked him how he met Russ Meyer and, in that wonderfully gruff manner of his, he said he was dating “some stripper” who was going to appear in a Meyer film so he decided he’d meet the man to figure out what kind of a guy he was. 

When Meyer asked Napier if he trusted him, he replied that he trusted the iconoclastic filmmaker “about as far as I can fucking throw ya.” 

That colorful turn of phrase describes my feelings towards Lincoln Project hotshots George Conway (a top anti-Trump propagandist confusingly and provocatively married to a top pro-Trump propagandist) and Rick Wilson. I trust them about as far as I can fucking throw them, which isn’t far. 

The Lincoln Project probably played some role in Trump’s defeat. Their ads famously enraged Trump, causing him to lash out in anger and rage. It takes a LOT to get the President to lose his famous cool and behave in a childish, unprofessional manner. No wait, it actually takes absolutely NOTHING to make the President explode with white hot rage. That’s pretty much his default state.

I’m grateful for The Lincoln Project but now it’s time for them to go away forever now that Trump has been defeated. It was weird having so much in common with so many Republicans for five solid years but we must say goodbye and head our separate ways now that the monster who brought us together is soon going to be an ex-president, despite what he might think or say or tweet.  

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