There are 221 Republicans in the House of Representatives, and a bell curve of those GOP reps would reveal that most of them are stereotypical political creatures with lengthy political resumes, always striving to convey an air of respectability as they claw their way to higher office and/or more seniority.
But there are always a handful of unpolished representatives at the outer limit of the Republican bell curve. Frankly, they are more likely to authentically represent their districts than the coiffed and polished professionals, and these more exotic representatives are also more likely to maintain an authentically conservative voting record, and to pursue the agenda of the conservative grassroots.
So of course, polite conservatives have a need to obsess about these few exotic Republicans - mocking them, denigrating them, focusing on their private lives, and seeking to terminate their political careers.
A few weeks ago, one of those unpolished Republicans, Lauren Boebert, was caught canoodling in a darkened theater, and perhaps breaking other rules of decorum. (Coincidentally, there was a camera in this darkened theater pointed right at her, and video of her was leaked to the press, yet we’ll never know who smuggled white powder into the West Wing of the White House, despite that facility being blanketed in cameras.)
The left-wing media was predictably appalled and outraged at Boebert, but so was most of right-wing media, whose writers all seemed to need fainting couches and smelling salts to deal with the shocking PG-13 footage they had seen. In fact, it seemed like a contest among conservative pundits over who could show the most indignation and condemnation toward this back-bench representative.
A few people asked me what I thought about it, and my answer was simple. “I. Don’t. Care.”
Not only I am absolutely sick of the requirement to “celebrate” the alternative behaviors of those on the left, but I am equally sick of the expectation that those of us on the right must either defend or condemn those on our side whose actions cause media outrage.
I don’t care about those politicians’ personal lives, just like I don’t care about the personal lives of the linemen who restore electricity to my house after a storm. And frankly, I really don’t care about how politicians comport themselves in office either, so long as they vote to advance the conservative agenda. I have no expectation that any politician is respectable or will serve as a role model, I just want them to advance my agenda.
A few years ago, someone named “Warden” posted a piece here at Ace of Spades HQ, “How Losing My Political Values Helped Me Gain My Freedom”. It summarized as well as anything I’ve ever read my liberation from caring about the character and behavior of those I vote for.
There's a frustrating game that the left plays with conservatives. It's an Alinksy tactic called, "Make them live up to their values." Now, living up to one's values isn't a bad thing, but setting high standards ultimately means that you'll sometimes fall short.
The left loves to exploit these shortcomings--every Christian who falls short of perfection is a hypocrite; the social values candidate you voted for just got arrested for drunk driving. Haha, everything you believe and advocate is now discredited.
They got away with it for years, waving away the lies, hypocrisy, indiscretions, and criminal behavior from their own politicians while beating the right mercilessly with the missteps of their own. It's effective because the right always maintains a baseline of integrity not displayed by the left, as evidenced by comparing what happens to Republican politicians when they're caught in criminal behavior with what happens to Democrats. Republican voters and politicians reluctantly dump the malefactor while Democrats defend their guy and launch an offensive against those who demand accountability.
And then came along Trump, a guy just ripe for demonization by the left. I think it's fair to say that even his early supporters worried that the Democrats would successfully make him toxic to the general voting public with his boorish behavior, vulgarity, multiple bankruptcies and very public divorces.
But something strange happened. Not only did Donald Trump not care about attacks on his character, neither did anyone else. We saw this new paradigm assert itself over and over during the primary throughout repeated media predictions that this time he's gone too far and he's cooked.
This same indifference that helped Trump carry the election has continued into the early days of his administration. With it comes a refreshingly freeing state of mind. Personally, I don't feel in any way responsible for Trump, nor do I feel compelled to defend him against attack.
Why? Because I voted for retribution.
"He's thin-skinned and petty!" shrieks the left. "He takes everything personally!"
Good, I say. I want him to take attacks personally and deal out payback. I know I won't be the target, you will be.
"He's unpresidential! He'll destroy the integrity of the office!"
No, that's already happened. Remember, you elected a shit-talking jackass who takes selfies at state funerals when he's not giving stealth middle fingers to his opponents during debates. There is no dignity of the office, not after Clinton and Obama.
"He's a narcissist! He's got totalitarian impulses!"
Yes, he's basically a mirror version of Obama. Except now, he'll be working for what I want. The end justifies the means. You taught me that.
"A sitting president going after the media. OMG!"
Oh, like Obama trashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News? How about when he sent his lackeys to berate news reporters for failure to flatter him at all times. Oh, and NSA spying on the press. That was pretty great, too.
"He won't show his taxes!"
Don't care. Where are Obama's college transcripts, by the way?
"He's a bully! Is this what you want? Someone who uses his power to bully other people?!!!"
And this is where everything funnels down to the very nexus of my change in attitude from "Do unto others" to "I will do unto you what you do unto me."
It's two words: Memories Pizza.
It was that moment that everything changed for me--not only the harassment, fake Yelp reviews and the death threats that forced them to temporarily close up shop--oh, that was bad enough, but the most powerful man on Earth bullying a couple of small town pizza owners from Indiana simply for expressing an opinion on a hypothetical asked of them by a reporter with a malicious agenda? That was when I snapped.
Do you remember?
It's this that sent me to a place from which I'll never return. I literally don't care what Donald Trump does because nothing he can do is worse than what they've already done.
Donald Trump isn't the bully; he only insults and abuses people in power who have attacked him. They're the fucking bullies. The left, with their smears, their witch hunts, their slanders, their insults, their riots, their violence, and their weaponizing of the federal bureaucracy.
There aren't any rules anymore because the left only applies them one way. And in doing so, they've left what once was a civil compact between the two parties in smoldering ruins.
I have no personal investment in Donald Trump. He is a tool to punish the left and roll back their ill-gotten gains, no more and no less. If he succeeds even partially in those two things, then I'll consider his election a win.
Further, I no longer have any investment in any particular political values, save one: The rules created by the left will be applied to the left as equally and punitively as they have applied them to the right. And when they beg for mercy, I'll begin to reconsider. Or maybe not. Because fuck these people.
This new philosophy has freed me of more emotional angst that I can describe. Literally nothing the left says or does matters to me anymore. I don't care about their tantrums. I don't care about their accusations. I don't care if they say Trump is lying. I don't care if Trump is lying.
They created this Frankenstein. They own it. I am free of all obligation. I will never play defense again. I will attack, attack, attack, attack using their own tactics against them until they learn their lesson.
What I will not do is let them play my values against me ever again. I don't need to prove that I'm better than them. I already know it.
For what it’s worth, I also barely care about the scandalous behavior of Democrats anymore either. Short of treason or murder, it is a waste of my time to bother getting upset. They’re a protected class, and I’m only showing my ignorance if I expect those on the left to be principled in opposition to Democrats’ misbehavior.
But as for any embarrassing actions by those in office who are on my team…I don’t care.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]