In a piece that could easily be mistaken (at least in subject matter) for satire written by the late Tom Wolfe, NeverTrumper Bill Kristol and his small gang of insider Republicans try to best each other for the dumbest political advice given in 2018. The one-upmanship literally occurs with every new sentence.
“If I could just shake people up a little bit,” Kristol told BuzzFeed News after the Saint Anselm remarks. “Get them out of ‘Gee, I just saw a poll where he’s got 82% approval among Republicans, it’s over.’ If I get them to think for a minute, I think that by itself is useful.”
So, scraping off a couple tenths of a percentage point is what winning looks like? No wonder Kristol and his cronies have been called the Washington Generals of politics.
It gets worse. Here’s Kristol on the prospect of him and his merry band of perennial losers (John Weaver) and gimps weakening Trump enough to elect a Democrat in 2020:
“That’s not the best outcome,” said Kristol. “But I’ll put it this way: When people say, ‘Oh you can’t do it because it might cause that,’ I regard that as less problematic or less damaging than just sitting back and letting Trump have a free ride.”
Yes, letting Trump have a free ride—a.k.a., the lowest unemployment levels in well over a decade, enforcing immigration laws, rising wages, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear and Paris climate deals, taking on the Deep State and their media backers, keeping his many pro-life promises, reducing taxes, rolling back unprecedented levels of regulations, appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, etc.—has been such a disaster. If that’s bad, I don’t want to see what Bill Kristol thinks is good.
In any case, responding to the title of the Buzzfeed piece, “Don’t Make Bill Kristol Run for President,” I think he should run. He would once again humiliate himself and all his buddies, which would be good for a laugh or two. And after the children are sent off to timeout, we can then get back to the real business of Making America Great Again.