The Mount Rushmore of Cowardice

      Comments Off on The Mount Rushmore of Cowardice

[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.]

I tried to back away from politics away, after tweeting a bunch of stuff like this yesterday:

Also this and this and this. And this:

And this and this and this. And/but, also this and this:

Point is, I was (again) very sad and very angry last night, and feeling compelled to use extreme rhetoric in a way that’s out of character and makes me feel uncomfortable. Anyway, I decided that a mental health break was in order.

But, first, before I could step away, it turns out I had more to get off my chest – and even directly telling Paul Ryan that he’s a disgrace to the country wasn’t sufficient. Nor was writing on Facebook: “The song that best encapsulates my feelings about the 2016 presidential election is Stan Rogers’s Barrett’s Privateers. ‘GOD DAMN THEM ALL!’ Flaming sh*tpile Donald Trump and his vile minions and cowardly enablers have actually made me, huge political junkie that I am, *hate politics* this year (and maybe beyond??). Now I’m a broken man on a Denver couch…”

Instead, shortly after that post, I ended up proceeding to draft a magnum opus of a Facebook comment on a friend’s share of a Politico article about Ryan’s non-unendorsement. Having gone to all that trouble, I suppose I should share it here as well.

So, here goes. From the “tell ’em how you really feel” files…

*     *     *     *     *

Big picture, I guess I’m happy that the media narrative coming out of Ryan’s conference call is “Ryan effectively abandons Trump,” because that narrative hurts Trump. But, God dammit, it’s way too kind to Ryan, who belongs alongside Joe McCarthy’s enablers and the pre-Lincoln slavery compromisers on the Mount Rushmore of America’s most cowardly goddamn “leaders” ever.

Unlike some ignorant Trump supporters to whom “forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do” arguably applies, Ryan knows *precisely* what Trump is. For that reason, he considered withholding his endorsement (and perhaps backing another candidate) back in May, but then – in a historically consequential display of transparent, shameless, feckless, immoral, unpatriotic careerism unmatched in my lifetime – sold his soul to the American Mussolini and his merry band of alt-right goons and thugs, and decided to tepidly support him, while continuing to routinely condemn his actions and statements. Now, having been handed by fate a golden opportunity to correct his moral error (and having been given political cover to do so by the belated conversions to the #NeverTrump cause by dozens of his compatriots, e.g. Cory Gardner, who, while also shamefully late in their disavowals of Trump, at least showed a *shred* of belated moral courage, unlike Ryan and the rest of the party’s putative “leaders”), this profile in cowardice says he “won’t defend” and “won’t campaign with” Trump, but will continue to nominally support him … which is essentially the same goddamn thing he’s been doing since May!!!

I keep seeing references to the Republicans’ “state of paralysis” regarding Trump, but I wholly reject that framing. Paul Ryan and his ilk aren’t “paralyzed”; they are affirmatively CHOOSING NOT TO ACT, which is itself an action, in this case a monstrous one. This is the titular “leader” of the (non-Trump wing of the) Republican Party, who, instead of being a FUCKING LEADER EXERCISING SOME FUCKING “LEADERSHIP,” is pulling a Denethor and essentially telling his fellow Republicans to, politically speaking, “go now and die in what way seems best to you.” It’s every man for himself, in other words, with zero moral leadership from their “leader” on the clearest moral question imaginable, i.e., whether to support this wannabe tyrant & flaming shitpile of a human being for President of the United States.

I used to disagree with Paul Ryan on policy but respect him as a human being, and as a relatively sane and sensible human being – an “adult in the room” trying to tame the crazies in his caucus. No more. Twice now, he has been uniquely positioned to show leadership in a way that would fundamentally change the narrative around the election, and twice he has failed. I will never forgive Ryan for this, and, assuming there isn’t an extremely compelling reason to care about the 2020 Democratic presidential race, I pledge right now to temporarily switch my party registration in order to vote (whatever our ideological differences) in the primaries for Ben Sasse or John Kasich or Larry Hogan or Justin Amash or, heaven help me, Mike Lee, or whichever #NeverTrump Republican emerges as the primary alternative to the Ryan/Rubio/Pence wing of the party, the accommodationist #VichyGOP that has abandoned not just conservative principles, but basic principles of liberal democracy itself, in hopes of walking a political tightrope, saving their careers, and then trying after the election to paper things over, put the alt-right genie back into the bottle, and emerge with a WSJ-approved, Chamber of Commerce-endorsed savior who can unite the clans and lead a restored coalition of earnest tax-cutters, “values voters,” GamerGate misogynists and Pepe the Frog bigots to victory in 2020. No, no, no. Fuck no. NO. NOOOOOOOOO.

In conclusion, speaking as someone who has always prided himself, in past political debates, on being civil & moderate and tone, engaging in honest & open discourse with conservatives (including those with whom I *strongly* disagree, like opponents of gay rights), avoiding extreme rhetoric and analogical hyperbole (no “Bush=Hitler” here), and refraining from moral judgments based on political disagreements…

FUCK. PAUL. RYAN. FOREVER.

Fuck him and all of his kind, the immoral accommodationist Vichy assholes who have enabled Trump at the expense of America, the nation they profess to love.

Based on his decision today, I can only conclude that Paul Ryan would’ve tepidly endorsed Hitler in 1930, in hopes he’d help Ryan pass his #ABetterWeimar legislative agenda. But he wouldn’t have campaigned with him, so it’s cool.

#NeverRyan #NeverMcConnell #NeverPence #NeverRubio #NeverPriebus #NeverGOP

/rant