It was Long Ago, near the Dawn of Time in a land far, far away, when the World was Young, hundreds, nay thousands of … years, months, hours? … ago, when conservatives regularly became nearly hysterical, seemingly genuinely terrified that unconstitutional executive orders issued by then-President Barack Obama would create havoc at home and abroad. They were convinced the WH would use the orders to seize control of our economy and our very lives while plunging an innocent, faithful, trusting nation into a needless constitutional crisis and toward civil war. Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz cried that Obama’s EO’s were unilateral and overreaching, while arch conservative Tom Cole called Obama’s use of EO’s “temper tantrum-like behavior.”
Well, of course, you know what happened: new President Donald Trump signed a hastily cooked-up and poorly thought-out executive order, aka the Muslim ban, egged on by Assistant President Bannon, and rolled it out with all the intra-party coordination of a herd of drunk reindeer on ice skates. This move kicked off instant flash crowds of protesters in airports and streets all over the planet, and stranded thousands of legal U.S. residents in permanent limbo worldwide. The order was so blatantly unconstitutional on its face and so terribly executed in practice that it not only managed to confuse and shock members of Trump’s own cabinet, but it was quickly stayed on constitutional grounds by conservative judges within hours of being decreed.
What happened to the armies of vocal bloggers, fearless pontificators, and righteous pundits who so virtuously and patriotically took a selfless, bold stand against raw tyrannical power, who stood bravely and unyielding between us and dictatorship? They stood indivisible, so they told us proudly —not for party, not for profit, but for bedrock American principles! Where are those courageous warriors to remind us again and again that freedom isn’t free, and that the tree of liberty cannot survive unless regularly watered by the blood of patriots?
Of course, that’s just the tip of this melting iceberg …
All that’s left standing of those bold conservatives who defended us all against rogue executive orders when Obama was in the White House is a few concern trolls warning protestors to settle down, because order is suddenly far more important than free speech. One report of a single rock thrown is now enough to condemn the First Amendment to exile. One blurry video of a lone trash can set alight is enough to assign to protestors and sympathetic onlookers nothing less than the most vicious, hideous, un-American motives imaginable. It’s amazingly easy for formerly principled conservatives to downplay violence when expedient, and exaggerate it when they don’t agree with demonstrators.
Just a few months ago, led by Russian hackers and conservative media, the right was obsessed with IT security. The mere possibility that Hillary Clinton or anyone in the campaign might have used an unsecured channel to forward one single generic State Department email was a scandal in and of itself, regardless of what those communiques might contain. Trump himself eagerly jumped into the story as a regular part of his stump act, shouting about how Clinton carelessly endangered national security simply by using a private email server while she was secretary of state. You know what's coming next, don't you?
Donald Trump's senior White House staff including Kellyanne Conway, Jared Kushner, Sean Spicer and Steve Bannon all use a private RNC email server, according to a Newsweek report published Wednesday. This is the same RNC email server that mysteriously disappeared 22 million messagesduring George W Bush's administration and the one that US intelligence services believe was compromised by the Russians at the same time as the DNC's, earlier this year.
Unsecured email servers were going to bring this nation to its knees just a few weeks ago, but now that everyone in the White House is doing the same thing, that same act is no longer any kind of security issue. In fact, it’s gone beyond that: since reports surfaced of Russian hackers tilting the election toward Trump, national cyber security is no longer an issue whatsoever for the usual suspects, without so much as an apology for shitting up the place and then dragging the entire nation through their putrid open sewer.
Speaking of hilarious hypocrisy, only a few short months ago conservative media was afire with tales of how Obama spent his time groveling, apologizing profusely, hat in hand, taking the blame for criticisms and slights directed at us from foreign governments and nations. It sounded like this:
"Never before in American history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined," Romney writes. "It is his way of signaling to foreign countries and foreign leaders that their dislike for America is something he understands and that is, at least in part, understandable. There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe; President Obama's words are like kindling to them.”
But blaming America first was Trump’s knee-jerk, go-to excuse when cornered on Russia’s subversion in the name of his beloved, dreamy Vlad. Let’s go to the tape:
Trump said he would appreciate any assistance from Russia in the fight against ISIS terrorists, adding that he would rather get along with the former Cold War-era foe than otherwise. "But, [Putin] is a killer," O'Reilly said.
"There are a lot of killers," Trump responded, "We've got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country's so innocent?”
Which of course set up a series of hilarious exchanges as cable news show hosts proceeded to ask White House surrogates and assorted conservative pundits how they felt about President Trump saying the United States of America is morally equivalent to a former totalitarian socialist regime currently in the blood-soaked clutches of a kleptocratic murderer. For now, only the most tepid critiques have filtered in from a few paleo-conservative sources—any of which now risk the twittering wrath of Trump and his many minions.
We could go on and on, weaving clips and soundbites from conservative media as they contradict themselves time after time into comedic gold on the sacred duty of the Senate to either confirm or disregard Supreme Court judges depending on who chose them, or watch preachers and pastors rail poetically about right-wing “family values”—right up until their own cheater in chief took the Primary trophy and the oath of office. We might enjoy a review of Clinton’s many alleged business conflicts of interest and shrieks of corruption about her family’s charitable foundation, until popular vote loser and current presidential profiteer Donald Trump assumed office under a cloud of suspicion, lawsuits, and judgements that assuredly will not end until years after he has left—or been forced out of—the White House.
Yes, rest assured conservatives: the election of Donald Trump was demoralizing for us across the board. It teeter-totters between deeply embarrassing and borderline terrifying with every new passing day. But we will never again let you get away unchallenged when using the word “principles” while whining about progressives, or defending your own caucus. Your president, Donald J. Trump, is by almost all credible accounts a pathological liar, a documented adulterer, a confessed sexual assaulter, and an admitted business cheat.
But it wasn’t Trump alone who laid waste to the principled conservatism that had stood since Lincoln. “Principled” conservatives are busy doing that to themselves, in Trump’s name. They own him, they own everything he has done and will do, and because of that, when it comes to principles or values, or just plain honesty and decency, we now own them.