Did the whole world take a bath in stupid this weekend?
First and foremost, you’ll note that the Virginia 5th District Convention finally produced a winner in what had to be the most vicious, conniving, long-standing and most wearying series of four-way fisticuffs as I have ever seen in Virginia politics. Over what? A district that is borderline Dem in some years and will more than likely transition into a D+1 seat by redistricting?
Paint it however one feels, but VA-05’s Republican nomination contest was a total race to the bottom, a method that seems to swiftly becoming the norm as the Republican Party prizes intraparty contests over general election victories. That’s the truth of the matter. Who gains by painting it as otherwise? Certainly not the Lynchburg News and Advance, which tongue-in-cheek reported on the vicious nature of the campaign:
Local delegates reported hearing negative attacks aimed at both Del Rosso and Garrett during the election, including anonymous phone calls and online posts.
“He slandered me in Buckingham County, called me a liar … a snake oil salesman,” Del Rosso said referring to Garrett.
After the convention had closed Delany said his candidate “got frustrated because it’s been a long campaign against him.”
“We were disappointed by some of the tactics used against Michael,” Delany said. He said Del Rosso had left the convention at that time.
There’s no sense in pretending otherwise.
Meanwhile, we read in the pages of Bearing Drift that #NeverTrump means #NeverTrumpUnlessHeCapitulatesToImpossibleDemandsButHey-ThisMeansIAmStillAnOpenMindedGuyPleaseVoteForMe. If you’re getting whiplash, don’t worry — this is what opportunists do when they sense the winds of change blowing in a direction opposite their own principles. They squirm, obfuscate, equivocate. It’s a very human thing to do… but not terribly principled (and smart folks can pick up on it). Worse than a character flaw, it’s maddeningly disappointing. Then there’s the gem that Mitt Romney ought to be kicked out of the Republican Party. Genius move. Welcome the white nationalists and nativists; drive out the Mormons and social conservatives. Best of luck with that one.
About the only two cents of common sense floating around today’s Bearing Drift pieces is that arts funding shouldn’t come from the government (true) and Tim Kaine really ought to jump at the chance to become Hillary’s VP (though Hillary no longer requires Kaine to deliver Virginia — Trump has all but assured this).
Welcome to the era of the paid blogger, folks. Or the conceited blogger. Or the information source that is bought and sold based on whatever works to their own personal advantage.
Look: I’m really not decrying the outcomes of any of these things. Garrett will do just fine carrying the Republican battle standard. Falkenstein may prevaricate on his inconsistencies however he sees fit to survive. Kirwin and others are free to throw Romney out as they please. All well and good — they are entitled to do so.
Of course, the chaos even here on the pages of Bearing Drift reflects a stark problem: even self-described conservatives don’t know what they believe anymore.
Case in point? Criticism is disloyalty; principles for sale; firmly held positions taken moments ago are changeable and malleable just days later. You see it at the national level, at the state level…
Once upon a time, I put a theological point to a professor of mine about whether or not Catholics in America were guilty of a specific line of thinking. The professor laughed, “What do you mean? The problem isn’t what people say they believe. It’s that they have no idea what they actually believe!”
That’s true.
There’s an old saying that after nominations contests, Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line. Color me skeptical, but I have no pretense of falling in line with a mob that rewards authoritarianism and the race to the bottom. Others can make their accommodations as they see fit.
There has long been a call for a “third force” in Virginia politics. Something outside of the party strictures that cements the whole and addresses that question “what do we believe” with an answer that sets aside egos and focuses on building something around principles — not rhetoric or advantage.
William F. Buckley Jr. used to opine on how the Republican Party may not be the best vehicle for conservative ideas. Perhaps he was right all along.
Perhaps this is as close as I come to a passive-aggressive “this isn’t a fucking game; figure out what the hell you actually believe and why” to my fellow Bearing Drift contributors. Perhaps this is my last post on Bearing Drift? Perhaps I am absolutely astonished that “renegade Jew” could be an acceptable epithet defended by Trump supporters reflexively defending their candidate of choice? That navitism and white nationalism have returned to the American political discourse as something passe and acceptable, and not immediately attacked? Or perhaps I’m under the weather and this is just another screed against a national phenomenon where temper tantrums and outrageous diktats cum suggestions seem to get top-billing as policy directives and reasonable debate?
I dunno… my temper has always had a slow burn, but once depleted — it’s gone.
Frankly, the stupid has burnt enough. The mad scramble of others trying to adapt to this changing environment has moved from nauseating to repulsive. To watch a whole sea of people change their principles on a dime? Enough… and shame on those who have done so.
Britain’s Daniel Hannan perhaps set the table best this morning:
I say only one thing with absolute certainty: Don’t vote for an unfit candidate simply because you dislike another unfit candidate. Doing so makes you complicit. It means endorsing one of two amoral, power-hungry people who would very probably ignore their oath of office.
As Vaclav Havel used to say in Czechoslovakia, living under a Communist regime doesn’t mean that you have to legitimize it. A citizen can still retain his or her integrity by refusing to vote for the approved list, refusing to display party posters, refusing to repeat official slogans. And integrity matters. Indeed, at present, it’s pretty much all that American conservatives have left. For the love of God, cousins, don’t throw it away.
Hannan is not wrong, and you see it all the time — too many people throw their integrity away on a whim, and most always in a pursuit for illusory power.
J’refuse is a perfectly acceptable answer is such times, my friends.
