If Trump Is Inevitable, Just Sit Back And Enjoy It.

Megadittos, everyone. It’s me, the talk radio giant you’ve been listening to for years, maybe even decades. I’m the one who offers up cogent, principled analysis and rebuttal of the culture, media and politics that surrounds your everyday life. You’ve listened to me long enough to trust that I’m coming to you from a place of conservatism, even if I sometimes talk about Apple too much. But lately, something’s changed.
Or maybe I’m your favorite Fox News personality. The one with the bulletproof hair and blue-collar pedigree, whizzing footballs at my producer and cashin’ in on my rogue charm. I might be the one with the magnetic legs, outnumbering those who espouse lazy liberal viewpoints untarnished by actual principle. You’ve been watching me calling out double standards for a while, because I suffer from zero spin, my friends. But I’m different now.
I could also be an author, a pundit or an entire fucking website that you used to cherish. Point is, I’ve changed. I’m completely in the tank for Donald Trump. Not a little, not a lot — my devotion is now out and out slavish. You rubes that are reading this have no idea how freeing it is to be in the service of The Donald. You may accuse me of completely selling out my values in exchange for a seat at the table. You can point out how little Trump’s rhetoric matches my years of principled stances, and scornfully admonish me for only seeing dollar signs and ratings bumps. Guess what. You’re right! But we know exactly what we’re doing.
Now it didn’t start this way, mind you. Let’s not forget, you and I were in agreement with some of Trump’s early shtick. He really stuck it to the PC crowd and the media, and we laughed together. He kicked out Jorge Ramos. You hate Jorge Ramos! See? We were simpatico. The entire media structure fell for Trump and fell hard. We just happened to play along, and can you blame us? Our ratings were huge! You all tuned in to see the show because you wanted to make sure the GOP didn’t repeat that weak sauce of four years ago. A dash of Trump in the mix was a refreshing reminder that you weren’t going to nominate some elitist milquetoast. Then you started to get serious once the candidates were declared and the process began. You chose from a wide variety of republicans that best represented the core values that America needs to prosper once again as a nation. We stuck with Trump.
And it worked. We would make arguments that made less and less sense to you. We wove a tale of misdirection and sleight of hand that made you think up was down, day was night, and liberal was conservative. We became more prominent in our criticism of “establishment” folks, stretching that word until it became disfigured beyond recognition. We made you think 35% of voters constituted an overwhelming majority. Eventually you started to smell it, that odor of fabricated outrage and dishonest passion. Was it all for access? Were we getting revenge for some perceived past wrong by this “establishment” we so vaguely labelled? Could it be a straight cash transaction? 
Meanwhile Trump was chewing up fellow candidates and spitting them out. And be honest, dear readers, you were happy to be rid of some of these people. Rick Perry may have been a great governor, but Trump saved us from another debate meltdown. Scott Walker had the bona fides but not the boldness, so he went the way of the dodo fast. The Orange was crushing competition, and beyond belief, they weren’t fighting back. That point can’t be overstated. We were cheering Trump on, but so was Ted Cruz. Instead of aiming his money bazooka at Trump, Jeb Bush set his sights on Marco Rubio. The deadly crossfire was taking out those below Trump, leaving him to babble and mumble to the press and disaffected masses until it was too late. Once the dust settled, only tatters remained. And by then it was easy for us.
Sure, it may have mortally wounded the last vestige of our core beliefs to paint the remaining few in such a displeasing palette. Marco Rubio is probably the most inspiring communicator of conservative values we’ll ever see. Trump (and we) called him “Little Marco”. Ted Cruz is an unquestioned proponent of constitutional conservatism, something we desperately need to get back to. Trump (and we) called him “Lyin’ Ted”. John Kasich is the son of a mailman. No heavy lifting there, I guess. But you get the point. 
So now we’re all in with Donald Trump. And you want to know the real reason we’re riding this train full speed ahead? Because deep down it’s a win-win scenario. If Donald Trump improbably wins the next presidential election we are the anointed sayers of his truth for at least the next four years (barring impeachment). Trump is nothing if not loyal to his people, however flawed (see Lewandowski, Corey). And if he loses? If The Donald gets routed worse than Washington Generals, losing in places heretofore unchallenged? Then we pick up the pieces, baby. The people we’ve duped remain mad at the world, and Washington in particular, so they tune to our shows and buy our books. Dollar dollar bills, y’all.
Should that be the case? Of course not. If republicans lose the most winnable election since 1988 because we made Trump the nominee, you should all revolt against us. We should be treated like the whores who bed down with Nazis, heads shaved and paraded down the streets in shame after the Allied liberation. We should disappear completely, never to huckster again. But something tells me that won’t happen. Anger is way too easy to manipulate into dollars. And Caitlyn2020 is only a few short years away.