I Did Try To Warn You

When a handful of Republican media hatchet men, ad makers and pundits showed up at the door of the Democratic party, shocked and shivering, having been run out of the fascist party they helped to create, I thought, "Fine.  Great.  First step, apologize.  You were wrong.  Catastrophically.  We were right.  Be fucking grownups and own up to it.  Then grab a beer and step to the back of the line.  There's plenty of thankless, dirty work that needs doing."

Then I took a short nap, and when I woke up, they weren't at the back of the line.  

They were at the front of the line.

And the line was now closed.  

But the most darkly hilariously part of this entire farce was this: Now that Never Trumpers had become the issuers of indulgences and bouncers at the doors of media acceptability, they started demanding apologies and atonements from any new Republicans who showed up at the door looking for some of that sweet, sweet legacy media spotlight.

They had knocked together a couple of websites where they sounded exactly -- and I mean exactly -- like the Liberal bloggers of yesteryear.  

 The same Liberal bloggers they used to mock as alarmist crackpots.  

But unlike us Liberal bloggers, who were almost universally ignored and shit upon by the legacy media, every one of these recently-former Republicans were suddenly in heavy and glowing media rotation everywhere.  MSNBC was gifting them tens of millions of dollars in free publicity every year.  They were being offered their pick of op-ed gigs at leading publications.  Book deals followed.  A pop-up advertising shop that soaked credulous Liberals for tens of millions of actual dollars and delivered absolutely nothing but scandal after scandal.   And on and on.

And all of these treasures and privileges laid at their feet for literally doing nothing more than, almost overnight, transforming themselves into Brand New Media Creatures, who had no pasts and who spoke and wrote exactly like Liberal bloggers circa 2006.  

Except amid all the posts and podcasts and the blizzard of free promotion from the legacy media, there was never a hint that actual Liberals even existed, much less had been right all along.  Instead, these recently-former Republicans continued using Liberal straw men exactly as they had always done back when Team Evil was paying them: as punching bags and sourced of mockery.  

No apologies were forthcoming for being the co-authors of the ruin which their former party was inflicting in the country.   No acknowledgment that history prior to 2016 existed at all.  Instead, there was a great dealing of moaning and bitching about how they had been right all along, and how awful it was that no one had believed them. 

And while all of this was going on -- while credulous Liberals were enraptured to hear former Republicans calling Donald Trump a naughty bad man -- a few lonely, Liberal voices in the wilderness  were annoying everyone with warnings likes these.  [Note:  Since I left Twitter and deleted my account, none of my original Tweets still exist in their original form.  However, a number of them, such as this one, have been preserved in plain text form since I embedded them in my blog.]

Donald Trump exists to normalize Bill Kristol. After Trump, cable news "debates" will be between Charlie Sykes/Rick Wilson/National Review on one side, Eric Bolling/Hugh Hewitt/Breitbart on the other, "moderated" by Joe Scarborough. Liberals will vanish altogether.

— Driftglass, Guardian of Inconvenient History (@Mr_Electrico) November 15, 2018

Now that the Never Trumper colonization of the media is complete, and actual Liberals have all but vanished, here are a list of major themes that run through the "Liberal" media.

• The major event of George W. Bush's administration was PEPFAR.   There were also a buncha other minors items that aren't even worth mentioning.

• George W. Bush's name is now "myformerbosswhateveryouthinkofhim"

• The major event of Joe Biden's administration was the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was a terrible idea and ruined America's reputation forever.   There were also a buncha other minors items that aren't even worth mentioning.  Biden is old and he is pretty much entirely responsible for destroying Murrica.  

• Joe Biden's name is now "I know we promised we'd stop hating on Joe Biden but I just hate him so much." or "Joe Biden needs to stop trying to defend his legacy because I hate him so much."

• We'd like to welcome former rabid, hard Right Evangelical gay-bashing, Liberal hater, David French, to the op-ed page of The New York Times.  

• We'd like to welcome former RNC Chair, Michael Steele to our Very Large Never Trump media company.

• We bid a fond farewell to former RNC Chair, Michael Steele, who will be leaving our Very Large Never Trump media company for his own show on MSNBC.

• Our guest once again is once and future political superstar Adam Kinzinger.

• Our guest once again is the American hero who very nearly single-handedly saved the disastrous Harris campaign, Liz Cheney.

[Side note:  Ever wonder how these pinheads got it stuck in their brains that Democrats are evil, baby-murdering monsters?

Oh yeah.  Now I remember.  It was slander like this, repeated over and over, for decades:

Once again, no apologies.  No retractions.  Not even any acknowledgement that Liz Cheney's bloody fingerprints are all over the Republican doomsday machine that eventually spit her out of the party.  

Because apparently that's just too damn much to ask.  

Instead those who were the targets and victims of Cheney's slanders were told to sit down shut up and get over it.  

And for the record, this is the same Liz Cheney who, as a leader of the Republican party, voted against women being able to leave a state to seek reproductive health access elsewhere, voted against a bill that would require reporting white supremacists in the U.S. military, begged Democrats to vote for her in Wyoming and then swore that she would never vote for a Democrat.

End of side note.]

• Next up, highlights from our 565th consecutive focus group of Trump voters who think Democrats are baby-murdering Communists and that Donald Trump built the pyramids...and what Democrats must do to reach out to them!

• If Democrats ever want to win another election they have got to be more Centrist!

In 2007, if you wanted the base to take you seriously, you went to Chicago and walked a gauntlet of raucous, passionate, well-informed bloggers who had serious questions and expected thoughtful answers.  I know.  I was there.  

From The New York Times, August 5, 2007:

Democratic Candidates Spar at ‘Netroots’ Forum

All but one of the party’s candidates took a detour from their summertime routines of Iowa fairs and New Hampshire festivals to appear before the bloggers, a constituency that is rivaling the significance of party activists in early-voting states. The contenders answered questions on stage and adjourned for smaller sessions with the political enthusiasts whose online journals are influencing the race in new, broad ways...

The candidate forum served as the finale to a three-day assembly of the so-called netroots -- Internet meets grassroots -- that carried the feel of a mini-national political convention. Bloggers submitted questions, read by moderators, that included three categories: foreign policy, domestic affairs and philosophy and experience...

“What you have here is a bunch of micro-media outlets that connect to thousands upon thousands of people -- influential people,” said Baratunde Thurston, who writes a political blog in Boston. “The candidates would be foolish to miss out on an opportunity like this.”...

But now, "blogger"? What is "blogger"? 

If a Centrist goon with presidential aspirations like Rahm wants his rep shined up from a trusted source that'll increase his base appeal, he reports to The Bulwark for a flattering round of Wiffle ball.   

This is the state of things today, and I have no reason to believe it will change any time soon.  

However,  I also believe that at least one, lone crackpot alarmist dirty hippy blogger should put it on the record that, if credulous Liberals hadn't been so god damn willing to immediately hand over our hard-won moral authority to a handful of former Republicans who still really, really despise us, Rahm's road to the White House would not involve getting a foot massage from The Bulwark.  Instead, it would require him to field serious questions from the likes of Digby Parton,  Rick Perlstein, Josh Marshall, Brad Friedman, Bob Cesca, Nicole Sandler, Charlie Pierce, Marci Wheeler, Tengrain, Frangela, No More Mr. Nice Blog, Allison Hantschel,  Dan Froomkin, The Field Negro, Bleeding Heartland, Jay Rosen,  Progress Michigan, Hal Sparks, Blue Virginia,  Cliff Schecter, John Amato and the Crooks and Liars crew, my lovely wife, and on and on and on.

We still have an incredibly deep bench of smart, articulate, well-read Liberals, and don't try to tell me that The Rude Pundit putting the screws to Rahm Emanuel wouldn't be Must See Teevee.

Which is not to say that Never Trumpers would not have a place in my Better Universe.  Of course they would.  It'd be crazy to turn away able-bodies volunteers because, in any large organization, there's plenty of scutwork that needs doing and our Big Tent sometimes needs patching and vacuuming.  

For example, I think some of those Never Trumpers would make pretty good sidekicks to the featured Liberal talkers.   In fact, not so very long ago, before the Never Trumpers became a subsidiary of MSNBC and colonized the media, Tim Miller was the "cuck" sidekick of the Pod Save lads.

These days, the Pod Save lads are going out of their way to help repair Glenn Greenwald's image, rehabilitate Chuck Todd's reputation and give Jake Tapper an open mike to pimp his Biden bashing book, and The Bulwark is giving Rahm Fucking Emanuel a glow up.

Funny old world.

I Am The Liberal Media