Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Channeling Catholic convert Newt Gingrich, Charles C. W. Cooke, who thinks Trump is a lunatic and Joe Biden an asshole, spends a whole column telling us how Harris is an idiot

In Cooke's telling, the three constitute a "trilogy", which is about as implausible as it is witless.

The dismissive spleen is the point of all this, because no one listens to National Review anymore. "We are the arbiters, dammit", and Kamala Harris Is An Idiot.

On the contrary, Harris is a left wing, doctrinaire ideologue, who knows her creed but clearly isn't a theoretician. On the rare occasions when she has been confronted about its content, or with deviations from that creed, she has simply reasserted it in its defense, or stressed her good intentions, eschewing reason, like any good dyed in the wool Christian would quote from the catechism, not write a new one, and stress that you too can be saved. Join us joyful followers!

It is the primary reason that her campaign representatives are tasked with saying that her well known leftist positions are old hat, from 2019, burbling something about that was then, this is the new Kamala. Maintaining silence from her is the point, and all the true believers know she hasn't changed one whit. She knows it and they know it.

Her leftism must be shielded from public view.

Lying is the modus operandi of leftism. The media, who are all on her side to one degree or another, are thus tasked with not asking any uncomfortable questions, and are practiced in the art of lying by omission. They don't probe their candidate too deeply, while it's open season on the other side.

So no, Kamala isn't simply an idiot, any more than Joe Biden is simply an asshole, or Donald Trump simply a lunatic. This "idiot" still has a very good chance of winning, which says more about the country than it does about her.

These Cooke eruptions meanwhile are Papal Bans from the Church of National Review, which is one thing which hasn't changed much since the days when William F. Buckley Jr. founded the magazine, except in their effectiveness. NR is nothing if not an excommunication machine.

Against this NeverTrump catechist, Mr. Cooke, however, because that is who he is, one commenter actually broke through and nailed some theses on his Wittenberg door for a change.

One loves to see it.