Here we go: Hillary drops two new ads on Trump

One of these ads is aimed at anti-Trump Republicans, the other is aimed at Democrats. Can you tell which is which?

Team Trump must have at least 20 minutes of soundbites of Bernie Sanders dumping on Hillary for an inevitable “your party hates you” ad of its own, so stay tuned for the rebuttal. In the meantime, since Hillary’s showing off big-name Republicans who’ve attacked Trump here, I share Jonah Goldberg‘s mystification at how people like Bobby Jindal, who was one of Trump’s most brutal critics earlier in the primaries, could come around to the position now that he’ll grudgingly vote for Trump over Hillary. If a guy’s unfit for office ideologically, morally, and temperamentally, how does he suddenly become kinda sorta fit just because his opponent — who was already all but inevitable back when Jindal was flaming Trump daily last year — also reeks?

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Indeed, this taps into what I hate most about Washington and about politics. If you’ve been saying that Donald Trump is a threat to the Republic, that it would be dangerous and reckless to give him access to nuclear weapons or even that, if nominated, he would wreck the Republican Party, on what grounds can you now jump on board the Trump Train?

Were these people simply lying? If not, are they endorsing Trump regardless of what they actually believe? Is party loyalty that important?

Jindal actually said in his laundry-list speech attacking Trump last September that “he’s dangerous because you wouldn’t want a hot head with his fingers on the nuclear codes,” but … I guess he’s okay with that now? I don’t know. Individual voters have a freedom politicians don’t in choosing whether to support their party’s nominee since, if Jindal balks at Trump, it could cost him should he ever run for office again. But that hasn’t stopped Ben Sasse from standing on principle. It might not stop Ted Cruz (although that’s not how I’d bet). It’s already stopped Rubio and Jindal, though. If you give them a pass just because they’re once and possibly future elected officials, you’re essentially saying that it’s valid for them to privilege their personal ambition over the principles they claim to stand for. That’s a good working definition of “establishmentarian.” If you’re the sort of conservative true believer who’s traditionally been part of the Jindal fan club, why would you trust him after this?

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And the weirdest thing is that there’s actually a middle ground between the “Yes, Trump!” plurality that nominated him and the tiny #NeverTrump cohort, and that middle ground is currently occupied by many millions of Republicans. That’s the #SkepticalOfTrump group. They haven’t written Trump off but they’re wary. They’re reserving judgment to see how he behaves this fall. That group already includes at least one Republican senator. Why wouldn’t Jindal, whose short-lived campaign was noteworthy only for the relish with which he lambasted Trump, stake himself in the #SkepticalOfTrump group rather than commit to supporting him now? Weird. Guess we learned something about him, though.

By the way: Neither George H.W. Bush nor George W. Bush have any plans to endorse the nominee. Go figure.

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