Republicans in 2020:
1. Illegal immigration is really bad because laws need to be enforced.
2. The radical left wants to defund the police.
3. Before Covid, Trump gave us 3.5% unemployment—an outstanding labor market!
4. Don’t tell us what we can do with our bodies.
5. Lock her up!
Republicans in 2022:
1. Yes, Trump’s hoarding of documents was technically illegal, but minor crimes don’t matter.
2. Defund the FBI and the tax police.
3. Biden gave us 3.5% unemployment, hence we’re in recession.
4. Ban abortion.
5. Don’t lock him up!
PS. Everyone is asking why Trump seems unable to find good lawyers. I’d like to know why a billionaire can’t find an interior decorator that knows how to choose a non-ugly carpet?
PPS. This FT story caught my eye:
An increasingly insecure Conservative party has also succumbed to myths, the gravest being that of a great liberal conspiracy under which key pillars of society, from the judiciary and the media to the entire “leftist” civil service is conniving to obstruct the elected government. . . .
Alongside this belief in the Protocols of the Elders of Liberalism, two new betrayal myths are abroad among Tories. The first is of the lost leader; the second is the “lockdown lie”. Neither can be allowed to pass by default.
The former, championed by Boris Johnson’s cheerleaders, tells of a Brexit-delivering, Moscow-defying titan unjustly ousted. The myth of the undefeated leader is potent and friends say he believes Tories will soon regret the absence of his “winning touch” once a probable Liz Truss premiership unravels. . . .
Pandemic fantasies have already fuelled anti-vax attitudes and — as with the “war on Whitehall” — lockdown fables are underpinned by adherence to deep state conspiracy theories which sit poorly with the supposedly natural party of government.
So glad I don’t live in a country like the UK, full of deranged conspiracy nuts.
PPPS. Here’s Reason magazine quoting the man who supposedly made up a story about Trump endorsing Chinese concentration camps in order to smear him:
Although “a lot of Trump’s critics have great theories about how he’s gonna use this information to blackmail people,” Bolton said, “I think that gives Trump too much credit. I just think he brought things into his possession thinking…it’d be interesting to look at it later, and that’s how it happened. That doesn’t excuse it. But I think when you overstate your case against Trump, and by really giving him powers and mental ability that doesn’t match the reality, you’re setting up a target that you can’t possibly get to.”
Yup, Trump won’t be going to jail.