Wash, Reince, and repeat after me: Take this party and shove it
by: Steve Deace
There are countless reasons why the Republican Party deserves to die after Election 2016. Perhaps none of them is better than this: any group led by a man such as Reince Priebus is systemically flawed and clearly unworthy of your respect.
For it’s one thing to be bullied by a man or woman of some actual gravitas. All of us can understand being sucked into such a vortex and finding it hard to get out. But it’s another matter entirely to stay around and let Priebus pretend to be Lex Luthor when he was born to be Otis.
Why do we tolerate such abject nonsense? This guy is the twerp you gave a swirly to after recess. Not because you were picking on him, but because he ran his mouth and wrote checks his puny arms couldn’t cash so he deserved it. He can barely master his own fate, and is the political equivalent of a crack addict who can’t pull himself away from ever more degrading and debased ways of prostituting himself.
But hey, no big deal. Let’s keep making that guy chairman of the Republican Party and gatekeeper of its, ahem, principles. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, I don’t know, an ugly date with destiny named Donald Trump perhaps?
We must not kid ourselves. It’s not as if Priebus was at one time taking our breath away with his principled stands and game-winning tactics, only to be blind-sided by Trump-mania, and is now simply trying to turn lemons into lemonade. No, he’s been a willing fanboy of GOP country club hackery since way back, and now he’s about to have a second lost presidential election to show for it.
Clearly, we’ve been happy to be led by losers and conmen for quite some time, not to mention conditioned to believe we didn’t deserve any better. Great uncles Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 42%) and John Boehner must be so proud of their little Reince.
But Priebus is all grown up now, and we are witnessing what might be his pièce de résistance of fake courage and situational morality. Priebus said during a recent interview that Republican Never Trumpers needed to “get on board if they are thinking of running (for office) again someday” because “they gave their word” they would support the party.
Just in case you were wondering, that sound you just heard was Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway’s fist going through a wall. Here she is, trying to beg, borrow, and steal her boss into electoral respectability these last couple of weeks, so he has at least a puncher’s chance at winning the White House in November. And what does her party chairman do? His best Peter Sellers portraying a third-world dictator impression, which only irritates the conservative voters who might be willing to join Trump’s side at the eleventh hour.
Big tent!
Besides, since when did it become super cool for Priebus to demand people keep their word? How many times has the party Reince presides over gone back on its word to stand for, oh I don’t know, anything? Ever looked at the LibertyScore® here at CR? Because that’s what it looks like when people betray their word. You know what’s not betraying your word? When you hold up your end of the bargain and the other side does not. That’s on them.
I’d further imagine the pledges of Kasich, Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%), and others at least had the implied expectation the ultimate Republican nominee for president wouldn’t be an unstable New York City liberal. Known for mocking prisoners of war and the disabled, peddling debunked conspiracy theories for the mind-numbed, self-awarding Pulitzers to disgraced tabloids, and accusing his campaign rival’s attractive and brilliant wife of being an ugly skank while asserting his dad killed Kennedy.
But that must be my loathsome purity talking again.
And I’d imagine such a pledge was conditioned upon delegates to the Republican National Convention being given the opportunity to fully participate in the GOP’s actual rules, rather than be stiff-armed at every turn with smoke-filled tactics that would make Hillary Clinton blush.
So you see, Reince, nobody has broken their word by declaring Trump dead-man walking rather than support him since you broke your word first. And then you did it again. And again. And again. You keep on doing it.
The grand illusion that is the modern day Republican Party has been revealed to be a lying and cheating emperor without clothes. When that happens, all that’s left to maintain the delicate balance is for party generals to employ the use of force.
Except Priebus is no tyrant. He’s not even a beta. He’s a party groupie who thinks he’s King Kong because he got some peach fuzz and his voice changed. Priebus is pointing the gun at us now, but we know he doesn’t have it in him. We can see his hand shaking. We can see him peeing down his own leg and telling us it’s raining.
No, Reince. We’re not afraid of you. Better to serve in Heaven than rule in Hell. So enjoy getting paid to be a towel boy for politicians less popular than root canals and cockroaches. Please know in the meantime we are laughing out you, Wormtongue, because as the Eagles once famously sang, we’re already gone.
You can’t fire us. We quit.
Steve Deace is syndicated each weeknight by the Salem Radio Network, and is also the author of the new book A Nefarious Plot.
Originally published at www.conservativereview.com.
