Pun Salad

And now, here to tell you everything about anything is Mr. Know-It-All :

• Naming and shaming. Jeff Jacoby makes his way toward a famous, but apocryphal, Groucho quote: For many leading conservatives, 'Never Trump' didn't mean never. Who are those guys (and gals)?

  The conservatives and Republicans I have in mind are the ones who were adamant and very public about being Never Trumpers because anything else — so they said — would violate their moral convictions or betray their conservative values or bring shame on the Republican Party. Individuals like the high-profile radio host Glenn Beck, for example, who in 2016 told his huge audience that Trump was "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity" and that opposing him was the only "moral, ethical choice." Just three years later, Beck was a full-throated Trump supporter, insisting that he would "gladly" vote for him in 2020 because a Trump defeat would mean "the end of the country as we know it."

  Or like Dennis Prager, the prolific conservative writer, broadcaster, and public moralist who began by declaring that Trump's vulgar words "render him unfit to be a presidential candidate, let alone president," but switched 180 degrees to claim that it is "childish" to oppose a candidate merely because of his odious personal traits.

  There is an abundance of additional examples, from the evangelical leader Albert Mohler to Daily Wire cofounder Ben Shapiro to the renowned economist Thomas Sowell. Of the 22 notable conservatives who contributed to National Review's much discussed "Against Trump" special issue in 2016, at least half reversed themselves within a few years. Many of Trump's most vehement backers in 2024 were once among his most vehement foes.

  What explains it?

  That apocryphal Groucho non-quote: "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them I have others."

• We're all doomed, so see you at the party! Philip Greenspun notes that some rhetoric got memory-holed post-election: The fascist dictatorship looms, but Democrats expect to overpower it in 2026.

  Friends on Facebook who have posted for 6-9 months about how the election of Trump v2.0 would mean the end of American democracy are now posting about how they expect to retake the U.S. in 2026 and 2028 via selecting candidates who aren’t as brain dead as Biden-Harris-Walz.

  The mind of the typical Democrat seems to be summed up in this tweet from Kerry Kennedy, sibling of the traitor RFK, Jr.:

  Yesterday was a bad day for our country, for our democracy, for our economy, for our party, for our family, and for ourselves. I’ve lived through 15 presidential elections, and this is not different because it is amplified or more extreme, but because it is fundamentally different. We are facing an incoming president and administration that have developed multiple, detailed plans for a fascist takeover of every department of the federal government. … But I’ve felt beat down before. And despite all of this, I’m confident we will survive. … We have two years until midterms, when we can make a comeback.

  Donald Trump will be a dictator. As commander of the U.S. military, the FBI, etc. he will have practical powers to implement a police state that previous dictators worldwide could never have dreamed of. Yet at the same time, there is no doubt that free and fair elections will be held in 2026 and 2028 during which time Democrats can regain power.

  Philip (I call him Philip) extracts some amusing 2021-2022 quotes from AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib demanding abolition of the filibuster, SCOTUS term limits (and associated court-packing), and other "reforms". Have you heard those demands at any point in the past few days?

  And for an actual filibuster, Philip includes a video clip of the stylings of Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, asked to square President Biden's pre-election insistence that a Trump win would bring the end of democracy, with his post-election optimism that "America is going to be OK".

  It's a performance for the ages. Video at the link, and text transcript here. (Search for 'how do you square that')

• And a Star Wars reference for the win. Robert F. Graboyes has some worthwhile thoughts too: Winning by Losing, Losing by Winning. I'm going to do multiple excerpts:

  Today, my best guess for 2028 is J.D. Vance versus Josh Shapiro. Philosophically, I have major disagreements with both, but either would be an able and attractive face for America on the world stage. Their debates would feature two young, articulate, cerebral, amiable, accomplished leaders—far from the cacophonous brawls between Trump and the trio of Clinton/Biden/Harris. In other words, less “Garden of Earthly Delights,” and more “Peaceable Kingdom.” Less “Night on Bald Mountain,” and more “Ave Maria.”

  You heard it here first. Unless you read Graboyes' substack, in which case you probably heard it there first.

  I also got a chuckle from:

  Recently, Democrats shook their fists and bellowed to the Heavens about the need to expand the Supreme Court, abolish the filibuster, override state abortion laws via federal legislation, and choose presidents by popular vote. All to save Our Democracy. So far as I can tell, all such talk has ceased—as if there were a great disturbance on the Left, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. It’s never wise to seek powers that you would fear in the hands of your adversaries.

  Yup, there's Star Wars.

  And finally, a bit of election analysis:

  Trump and Vance won every single swing state, and lost New Mexico, Virginia, New Jersey, Minnesota, and New Hampshire by under 6%. Add those five states to 2024’s haul and the 2028 Republican electoral vote jumps from 312 to 358. Trump and Vance lost New York, Colorado, Illinois, and Maine by under 12%; add those to the pile and the Republicans win 418 electoral votes. These aren’t predictions—just warnings that Democrats had best rethink their strategies. Podcaster and Obama alum Jon Favreau has said that Biden’s internal polls, in fact, showed Trump winning over 400 electoral votes, had Biden remained in the race.

  Fun fact: Kamala's narrowest margin of victory was here in New Hampshire, about 2.7 percentage points. (50.9%-48.2% according to the Google). It's difficult to game-play alternate universes, but I can't help but think just about any less (um) controversial GOP candidate (cough—Nikki—cough) would have walked away with a landslide.