Burning Down His House

[EasyAce]

President Trump’s self-inflicted wounds have rendered the cognitive dissonance of his defenders untenable.
By Greg Weiner
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447746/donald-trump-self-inflicted-wounds-conservative-cognitive-dissonance-untenable

No man enters the presidency prepared for the office, yet few chief magistrates have managed a stage entry as
startlingly rife with incompetence and impropriety as Donald Trump. The reason is that the inherent, inertial conservatism
of the office disciplines most of its occupants. And this, above all, is why it matters, and why it matters now, that Donald
Trump lacks all manner of prudence, restraint, and humility — the disposition of a conservative.

To say he is not conservative does not mean he will not choose judicial nominees from the list the Federalist Society prepared
for him. He has and probably will. It does not mean he will not try to repeal Obamacare. He has, if ham-handedly. It means
his disposition — his approach to governing and life — is un-conservative at its marrow-deep core. And conservatives who
are willing to put up with it all to get the tax cuts or the Supreme Court seats or whatever other important yet transient end
— a court seat, a court seat, my constitutional regime for a court seat — are just about out of the rope with which they have
avoided the reckoning . . .

. . . Trump’s apologists, too, are jettisoning the conservatism in whose name they have boarded his train. The relentless
litany of excuses — “But Hillary Clinton’s e-mail”; “But Barack Obama and the IRS”; “But the liberal media”; “But the leaks”
— ill become their disposition. The only “but” that matters is the one preceding the statement that Donald J. Trump, not
Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or the liberal media, is the 45th president of the United States and currently occupies
that office. The same theory of law, order, and personal responsibility without excuses that his attorney general has decided
is good for petty drug offenses ought to be good for the conduct of the Oval Office, too . . .

. . . All this also goes equally for the president’s minions. Granted, they live in a bubble; but it is not an impenetrable one.
By now they ought to recognize the pattern of being ordered to tell what they must know are lies, only for their chief to un-
tell them. There is a point at which honorable people refuse dishonorable orders. This includes the apparently honorable
Mike Pence. If the vice president lacks the judgment to see his credibility is being prostituted, he lacks the judgment to
serve as a constitutional officer.

It is true, to be sure, that politics requires the suppression of particular preferences for the good of the group. So does
patriotism. If the argument was that Never Trumpers should forgo their opposition to Trump for the good of the party,
surely there is a point at which the supposed good of the party must be considered in light of the good of the country.
The latter cannot be served by a president this reckless. Trump’s escapades — from the intelligence-leaking to what
was all but, and perhaps was, obstruction of justice — have run out the clock on the dualism between the supposedly
conservative agenda and the obviously unconservative disposition. It is time to reckon.

[geronl]

The schizophrenic bunker mentality is awe-inspiring, apparently Trump is the weakest elected official in the history of weak elected officials. So much so that blogs that denounce him must be "fought" tooth and nail, so much so that the media (like the ones that called Lincoln an ape etc etc) are going to "take him down" (somehow). Oh and not only that but somehow this will somehow install Hillary or Obama as President (no way that is possible). Everything even slightly disagreeing with Trumpism is waved off as "fake news", that is a true bubble of denial.

I still find it strange that his most fervent supporters are the ones who think he's so weak.