Norm Ornstein was never a conservative, but he was moderate enough to be a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute even before it went insanely NeverTrump.

I used to read his analyses because I thought they were smart, balanced, and gave me insight that I might not be able to get elsewhere. Along with Michael Barone he was considered among the elite in political analysts–and that is a very small group because most analysts are total hacks.

But now Ornstein is, not to put too fine a point on it, completely nuts.

If you are not familiar with Ornstein, his bio from AEI makes it clear that he has had a distinguished career:

Norman J. Ornstein is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he has been studying politics, elections, and the US Congress for more than four decades. Along with Thomas Mann and Michael Malbin, he created “Vital Statistics on Congress” in 1980, a go-to-reference guide that provides impartial data for congressional watchers, and is updated every two years. He is also a longtime participant of AEI’s Election Watch series and an adviser to the Continuity of Government Commission.

Dr. Ornstein previously served as codirector of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. He has been involved in political reform for decades, particularly campaign finance, election reform, and House and Senate reform. He has also played a part in creating the Congressional Office of Compliance and the House Office of Congressional Ethics. He was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

He often appears on C-SPAN, CBS, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NPR, and “PBS NewsHour,” among other outlets. He served as an election analyst for CBS News for thirty years, and also was an on-air election analyst for BBC News. Through his family foundation named in honor of his late son Matthew, he helped spearhead the documentary “The Definition of Insanity,” about criminal justice and mental illness, which premiered at the Miami Film Festival in March 2020 and aired nationally on PBS on April 14, 2020.

While being respected in the media elite is no guarantee of being any good, in the case of Ornstein his expertise was real and worthy of respect. No longer.

A quick perusal of his Twitter feed shows that it is sprinkled with gems of wisdom. Most of what he posts these days is ridiculous and sophomoric dunks on Trump, DeSantis, and random Republicans.

The American Viktor Orban, simply monstrous https://t.co/lbmKw19hs0

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) October 5, 2022

If this Supreme Court uses today’s case to throw out section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, at least five justices should exchange their black robes for white ones.

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) October 4, 2022

We have a supreme court filled with partisan hacks. Add in racism. When John Roberts says “the way to end discrimination against race is to end discrimination against race” it is no different than the racist who says “I am not a racist.” https://t.co/IFlYAAvJc6

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) October 4, 2022

Ornstein’s Twitter feed is filled with nothing but vicious attacks on Republicans, mostly in the form of retweets from Lefties. He likes an occasional meme making Republicans look stupid. But what is missing entirely–and this should disturb anyone who thinks a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute should engage in a moment or two of scholarship–is any indication that Ornstein has a brain that he puts to good use at least once in a while. He appears to spend every waking moment on Twitter venting his rage.

Here are a couple of his most memorable retweets from just the last day or two:

It had to be done. pic.twitter.com/5KW8Dsa2U7

— BeaglesResist 🎃 (@BeaglesResist) October 5, 2022

Who wore it best? pic.twitter.com/NMIn4RCv1Z

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 4, 2022

There is something really sad about the people for whom Trump was a breaking point. I can completely understand antipathy towards Trump. When he was running in 2016 I thought of him as nothing more than a self-promoting crude anti-intellectual who was running only to aggrandize himself.

Yet I never bought into the absurdity of the Left’s accusations of treason, alliance with Putin, emoluments, and all the idiocy. The establishment hated him so much they revealed themselves to be crass, lying, self-dealing, corrupt, authoritarian, and stupid. Yet I would never stoop to hoping the FBI would become corrupt enough to become a Secret Police for a Republican president, as they have for Joe Biden.

Yet this is where a substantial fraction of the intellectual moderate and right wing have wound up. What was key to Trump’s popularity and his policies was his contempt for the expert class–who had utterly failed average Americans–and his willingness to forge a new policy path. It turned out that the path he led us on worked pretty damn well. And the experts, who hated him for being anti-intellectual–hated him even more for being successful.

The policy elite was proven to be worse than useless, and they simply cannot stand having been revealed to be so awful. So all they seem to have left is pure rage.

Norm Ornstein has lost his mind, and that is not just sad, but representative of what has happened to most reporters and academics. If it were only Ornstein, only political hacks like me should care. But since it is almost the entire policy elite, it matters. They have gotten back into power in Washington.

Their commitment to maintaining their power and prestige has led them to forfeit all right to either of them.