They're so predictable. You could set your watch by them.
Every election year, all the very serious conservatives come out of the woodwork to sincerely offer their good-faith advice to the Democratic candidates.
Here's Tom Nichols in the pages of USA Today:
OPINIONNever Trumper: I'll vote for almost any Democrat, but lurching left won't beat Trump
This election is a referendum on Trump, and nothing else should come close as the central issue. His name alone should be enough to drive up turnout.|
Oh, a "Never Trumper!" Oh, you're a member of that important demographic? Oh, well, by all means, you just go right ahead and dictate terms to the Democratic Party! You're such a valuable voting block! All half-dozen of you! The electoral importance of "Never Trumpers" ranks just above "Babies" and just below "Cryptozoology Moms" Of course you should be in a position to make demands about what kind of candidate you will accept from the opposing party.
Never Trumpers, of whom I am a charter member, fear that the Democrats and their unruly coalition are going to lurch to the left, lose the Electoral College again, and hand Trump a second term while the Democratic nominee claims another victory as the imperial regent of the Pacific Coast Empire.
Oh. Okay. Well why don't we nominate a bland, inoffensive middling moderate then? Someone with a lot of experience who won't go too far on any issue. Someone who likes Obamacare but assures us that single payer will never happen. Someone who talks about the environment but likes fracking and oil pipelines. Someone who thinks it might be okay to raise the minimum wage, but raising it to a livable level is just unreasonable! Someone like, oh, I don't know, Hillary Clinton?
Look, Tom. We don't need your vote. We don't need any of you "never Trump" Republicans' votes. You are not relevant. Trump got fewer votes in 2016 than Mitt Romney got in 2012. If the Clinton campaign had been able to energize the Democratic base the way Obama had in 2008 and 2012, she would have won. And it ain't like there's going to be any new Trump voters this time around. I don't think he's won over any skeptics with three years of buffoonery, graft and racist sadism. All the Democrats will need to do is generate some excitement among their voters. And you know how you don't do that? By nominating someone who is acceptable to a Never Trump Republican. If you people were at all sincere about your "never Trump" stand, you'd have voted for Hillary Clinton. And if you had any electoral power, you would have put her over the top. You didn't and you don't. We don't need your votes and we don't care what you think.
And of course David Brooks had to weigh in.
Dems, Please Don’t Drive Me Away
By David BrooksOpinion Columnist
Oh, yeah. We'd sure hate to lose David Brooks and the tens of readers over whom he has influence. Why, there must be at least a score of Times Readers who don't hate-read read David Brooks' column, but honestly look to Brooks for his insight and wisdom!
I could never in a million years vote for Donald Trump. So my question to Democrats is: Will there be a candidate I can vote for?
This is a hell of a premise, and Brooks isn't the first to use it. "I could never vote for Trump, he's a racist, misogynist clown who is dangerously unqualified and too unstable to be trusted with the nuclear codes. I would never vote to put such a monstrous fool back into the most powerful office in the land. Unless the Dems nominate someone I don't like!" If you honestly understand the threat of another Trump term, you would vote for anyone the Dems put up. But by saying that you won't, you show that you really aren't serious.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 35 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, 35 percent call themselves moderate and 26 percent call themselves liberal. The candidates at the debates this week fall mostly within the 26 percent. The party seems to think it can win without any of the 35 percent of us in the moderate camp, the ones who actually delivered the 2018 midterm win.
Oh my God, where to begin?
How about since when are you a "moderate?" Just being a bit to the left of the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer hardly makes you a moderate.
Also, when you say "liberal," I assume you are using that term interchangably with "progressive" or "leftist," since you only allow for three categories. And if you think that candidates like Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gilibrand, John Hickenlooper, Pete Butiegieg, and Beto O'Rourke are on the Left, that just goes to show how far to the right you actually are.
Ans what eveidence do you have that "moderates" delivered the 2018 midterm wins? This would be the electoral wave that brought Ayanna Presley, Lucy McBath, Chuy Garcia, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Debra Haaland and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to DC? Is that the electoral victory for which you think "moderates" deserve credit?
Oh, and one more thing. Does it occur to you that a lot of people don't identify themselves as "liberal" because that word has been poisoned for the last 30-some-odd years by Republicans hurling it as invective and Democrats trying to duck it? Does it occur to you that, no matter how many people identify themselves as "moderate" or "liberal" or whatever, progressive policies like Medicare for All and a $15/hr minimum wage are actually quite popular? That maybe people who support these progressive/liberal policies call themselves "moderates" because these things just seem like common-sense ideas?
The party is moving toward all sorts of positions that drive away moderates and make it more likely the nominee will be unelectable. A
You say "unelectable" but the polling shows that the two leftiest candidates in the Dem primary would both beat Trump in the general election.So there's no need to settle for a dull centrist like Biden, whose polling numbers v Trump aren't much better and he has yet to unleash the gaffe machine.
Polling Data
| Poll | Date | Sample | MoE | Warren (D) | Trump (R) | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RCP Average | 3/27 - 6/24 | -- | -- | 48.3 | 44.7 | Warren +3.6 |
| Emerson | 6/21 - 6/24 | 1096 RV | 2.9 | 53 | 47 | Warren +6 |
| FOX News | 6/9 - 6/12 | 1001 RV | 3.0 | 43 | 41 | Warren +2 |
| Quinnipiac | 6/6 - 6/10 | 1214 RV | 3.5 | 49 | 42 | Warren +7 |
| Rasmussen Reports | 5/12 - 5/23 | 5000 LV | 1.5 | 46 | 44 | Warren +2 |
| Emerson | 5/10 - 5/13 | 1006 RV | 3.0 | 52 | 49 | Warren +3 |
| CNN | 4/25 - 4/29 | 452 RV | 5.6 | 47 | 48 | Trump +1 |
| PPP (D) | 3/27 - 3/28 | 846 RV | 3.4 | 48 | 42 | Warren +6 |
Polling Data
| Poll | Date | Sample | MoE | Sanders (D) | Trump (R) | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RCP Average | 3/27 - 6/24 | -- | -- | 49.7 | 43.2 | Sanders +6.5 |
| Emerson | 6/21 - 6/24 | 1096 RV | 2.9 | 55 | 45 | Sanders +10 |
| FOX News | 6/9 - 6/12 | 1001 RV | 3.0 | 49 | 40 | Sanders +9 |
| Quinnipiac | 6/6 - 6/10 | 1214 RV | 3.5 | 51 | 42 | Sanders +9 |
| CNN | 4/25 - 4/29 | 456 RV | 5.6 | 50 | 44 | Sanders +6 |
| Rasmussen Reports | 3/31 - 4/11 | 5000 LV | 1.5 | 44 | 47 | Trump +3 |
| PPP (D) | 3/27 - 3/28 | 846 RV | 3.4 | 49 | 41 | Sanders +8 |
There are others, of course. Plenty of other conservatives who just want to be helpful and offer some solid advice to the Democrats. Ross Douthat phoned it in, kind of giving the game away.
I'm off this weekend but this earlier column can serve as my contribution to the great Twitter debate over whether alienating @BretStephensNYT and @nytdavidbrooks is bad news for the Democrats:https://t.co/kllrlQQTJM— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) June 29, 2019
Yes, it is the same bullshit Every. Damn. Time. Thank you for copping to it, Douche Hat.
Look, here's the thing. There are more of us (Dems/Libs/Progs) than there are of you (Republicans/Conservatives/Right-wingers). And there are a HELL of a lot more of us than there are "Never Trumpers." We Don't Need You. We don't care what you think. You people have been on the wrong side of every issue ever.
Also, we already tried it your way. Remember Chuck Schumer's strategy for 2016?
“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
I think we all remember how that turned out.
So, here's the deal. We will decide on our own nominee. If we want to nominate a centrist like Biden or Beto or Butiegieg, we will nominate a centrist. If we decide to nominate the ghost of Che Guevarra, we will nominate the ghost of Che Guevarra. And if that results in a smattering of "Never Trump"conservative Republicans voting for Trump as if they weren't already going to do that, it won't matter one bit. WE DON"T NEED YOU> AND WE DON"T CARE WHAT YOU THINK.
