Most telling is the Trumpians’ inability ever to utter a whisper of criticism of their man. Even Never Trumpers will occasionally find themselves agreeing with the administration over one issue or another. Not so the Trumpians. With instincts that recall the Stalinist intelligentsia of the 1940s, they mix the logical elasticity of the sophist with the unflinching loyalty of the toady. They are never anything except always all in.
All this suggests that what the media now trumpets as a looming G.O.P. civil war isn’t going to happen. Corker and Flake aren’t stepping up; they’re bowing out. Political retirees are good for leading charities, not movements.
As for the rest of the conservative movement, through its liaison with Trump it is participating in its own moral degradation in much the same way that Xaviera Hollander — a Dutch consular secretary who realized she could make a much better living as a call girl and brothel operator — became the notorious “Happy Hooker” of the 1970s. Shameless, yes. Criminal, also. But a runaway success all the same, with a memoir that sold north of 15 million copies and a movie about her starring Lynn Redgrave.
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