The Cuckservative Conscience

Where is the #LyingPress firestorm? Where are the Democratic Senators stabbing Hillary in the back and demanding she drop out of the race?

In pursuit of civic health:
There are R’s who’ve asked hard questions about our nominee.
Who are the D’s asking real Qs about their nominee?

— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) October 29, 2016

They’re playing politics. That’s what they are doing. That’s why you haven’t seen a single Democratic senator disavow Hillary. That’s why you haven’t seen so much as a single article trashing their own nominee over Comey reopening the FBI investigation. That’s why the Democrats aren’t having a public meltdown on the Sunday shows.

Just think about where we were three weeks ago: on the evening of Friday, October 7th, I was on a dinner date with my wife at an Irish restaurant. When we left the restaurant, I learned about the two October surprises that had just come out: the Wikileaks release (Hillary had told a group of Brazilian bankers she wants open trade and open borders in the Western hemisphere) and the Access Hollywood tape.

What happened next? While both Trump and Hillary had gotten equally bad news, only the Access Hollywood tape caused a #LyingPress firestorm. By Saturday, 1/3 of the Republican Senate and 1/4 of all elected Republicans had trashed Trump and disavowed him. By Sunday, Sen. Mike Lee was on Meet The Press demanding that Trump drop out of the race altogether so that Mike Pence could replace him.

Fastforward to Friday, October 28: FBI Director James Comey announces he is reopening the FBI investigation into Hillary’s email over Weinergate. The Justice Department attacks Comey. The Democrats attack Comey. The #LyingPress attacks Comey. Saturday is a quiet day in which no news is made. Sunday is equally quiet.

Why is there such a stark difference?

1.) First, conservatism isn’t a political movement. Politics is about power. It is about friend versus enemy. In contrast, conservatism is about moral grandstanding, virtue signaling, displaying your status, maintaining your respectability and one upping each other with constant displays of I’m-more-Christian-than-you-are.

2.) Second, the role of conservatives in the system is to lose. If they have a strong chance of winning the election and changing public policy in their favor, they will find a way to lose. Usually, they prefer to nominate a candidate like Romney in which they can lose gracefully. If they have to though, they can get very nasty and vote for a spoiler candidate like Evan McMullin or vote for the Democrat in order to secure a defeat.

This is something you don’t see on the Left. You don’t see leftists going out of their way to impress conservatives in order to show them “I’m one of the good ones.” You might see some disaffection, but you don’t see them ripping apart their own candidate. You don’t see them touting losing as a moral virtue. That’s the most important difference. For conservatives, defeat is a moral vindication of one’s own superiority.

Conservatives have fought Trump harder than any candidate – Democratic or Republican – in my entire life. They’ve attacked Trump far more viciously than Hillary Clinton. The Left’s greatest advantage over the Right is that they aren’t burdened by a similar class of cuckservative losers. It’s hard not to reflect on this after what we have seen this weekend (crickets) compared to the spectacle we saw three weeks ago.