It's a bit surprising to think of conservatives lusting after notoriety. And yet, close observation reveals exactly that. Conservatives aim to be notorious.
I've actually tried various adjectives to describe their ostentatious, grand-standing, spot-light hogging, obstreperous and often obnoxious behavior. Notoriety occurred to me quite late. Probably because notorious, at least in recent history, seems the very antithesis of conservative. Who can forget the cloth-coat Republicans with whom Richard Nixon identified in contrast to Sherman Adams, who had to resign as Eisenhower's chief of staff over the gift of a vicuña coat to his wife?
Of course, the Sherman Adams experience, which Nixon recalled to the end of his days, is sort of a two-fer. It let Nixon pretend to be modest while tooting his own horn and to blame a competitor's political demise on a wife's whim for a fur coat. Perhaps Sherman Adams, who went on to operate a ski lodge in New Hampshire, was actually the last practitioner of honest stewardship. Leaving behind "the flamboyant personalities such as U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and anti-Communist crusader Whittaker Chambers" might well have been a relief after six years in the White House.
In any case, reading up on Adams has given me yet another adjective for our recent crop of "conservatives," flamboyant. That's surely a good word to describe the flame-topped Donald.
Cross-posted to Hannah Blog and Bluehampshire