And yet

David Frum has been admirable throughout the Trump catastrophe. He is a person of principle and intellectual honesty, and has the moral decency to condemn the indecent. His latest piece in The Atlantic provides further evidence of all that.

And yet, he's still living in a bit of an illusion. "To be a conservative" hasn't had much actual meaning for 25 years. There has been nothing remotely "conservative" about the GOP or its fellow travelers. The right has become increasingly radical -- the polar opposite of conservatism. They want to rip things up from the root (the root word of "radical"). Grover Norquist's bathtub long predates Trump's descent on that escalator. From Gingrich & co forward, the Republican Party had devolved into an anti-Constitutional, anti-American rolling coup. Trump has taken that coup to terrifying and disgusting places, but he didn't start the fire.

Battle of deep states

This seems entirely plausible. Even vile morons can be pawns in the Great Game -- maybe especially vile morons.

Profound perspective

I want to park this piece here, because it's a brilliant integration of feminism and post-modernism. It's unique in capturing the emotional impact of living under erasure.

Bye bye Bernie...

... or, at least, his bros. Good piece from Charles Pierce on the DNC chairmanship election.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

What happens to the feelings, the mental health, the spiritual state of Trump voters when the circus tent comes crashing down -- as it will eventually, perhaps sooner rather than later? They will be exposed to the world as, at best, morons (at worst, vicious racists and misogynists). There will be no escaping from the knowledge that they were not only snookered into backing a disaster, but that the civilized world holds them in contempt. The Trump voter will forever be the Yahoo Laureate of Planet Earth. The shame and humiliation will be intense -- and will certainly be exacerbated by the we-told-you-sos from the media and the elites they thought they were defeating.

Where, then, do those feelings go? Is this the seed of shame that will, after some interval, grow into an American Reich? an American Al Qaeda?

Trump truly is a body blow to the American experiment -- one whose effect will not end when he is eventually gonged offstage. We may need some avatar of Lincoln and Mandela if we have any hope that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Stop spreading the news

Frank Bruni had a brief period of lucidity, but seems to have reverted to his wonted gossip column vapidity.