The leaders of the Republican Party are swirling and writhing like madmen over the rise of the monster, the Great Cock in Chief Donald Trump. He is so bad that even Cruz might look good.
And also there is the wicked witch Hillary Clinton. There are no greater demons to be exorcised from the body politic than the devils Obama and Clinton - we have heard it for years, over and over and over like a rolling drum, that Obama and Clinton are the enemies of all we hold dear.
If there could be a contest over the next 6 months, if this could be measured, and we would determine which phrase was used most often by Republicans in any context whatsoever, I would bet huge sums that the phrase "Anybody but Clinton!" would win. I mean that literally. It even scares me.
You will hear that like a rolling drum, anybody but Clinton, over and over and over and over and over.
Let's all level with ourselves: If Donald Trump were vastly better than Hillary Clinton - a person approximately half of the country is willing to proudly support - then why all the hand-wringing on the right? If you are really holding the winning hand in politics, would you so openly admit the person leading your party is a disaster?
No. Not ever. Not in a million years.
The crisis itself - the Trump crisis - is predicated upon a few bedrock assumptions:
1) Trump cannot win the general election because he has alienated most of the national electorate, and also because he is incompetent, rude pig that he is, to be our ambassador to the world.
2) Trump presents a brand which is filled with hatred, anger, and even violence, which becomes the Republican brand the split second he becomes their presidential nominee. The horror.
3) Due to assumptions 1 and 2, Trump will effectively destroy the modern Republican Party.
How can any man capable of doing that to his own party be better than any other human being on the planet, let alone Hillary Clinton? The assumptions undergirding this uproar and panic necessitate that Donald Trump is abysmally less qualified to be president than almost anybody imaginable.
How can the man destroying his own party be better than the person earning the full-throated support of hers? All labels and identity-politics aside, how is that possible?
The following is the public stance of Republican leadership, all the way up to Romney: Trump is unimaginably horrific. He must be stopped! But, he is better than Clinton. No -- he is way better!
Let me level with you and assure you the Republicans are lying about this. They fully understand that Trump is incompetent and a monstrosity... and that Clinton is not. However, they do not want to relinquish power and admit that they are being exposed by Trump as incompetent, so they are hoping we will believe them about Clinton, and even repeat the mantra to others.
Please don't join in the witch hunt. Don't believe the lie. Please don't talk to me about emails and Benghazi - there are no perfect people. If we won't allow mistakes, we cannot govern ourselves. If we come to believe there is nobody to trust but a monster, we cannot govern ourselves.
But govern ourselves we must. You want a revolution? Be prepared to flawlessly govern in the aftermath, being measured by the same absurd and unreasonable stick. There are no perfect people, therefore there are no perfect governments.
We must trust the right people. But trust nobody ... and all is lost. Let's not believe the exposed liars; progressives are not perfect, but they are our best bet. We can believe the progressives, even if the exposed liars tell us we can't trust the progressives. Romney lies through his very teeth about this.
Remember what Pete Townsend said: Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Yet, still, we must govern ourselves. Governing ourselves is serious business, and it is not optional. We must trust somebody in that capacity. I have maybe never said anything more important and may never again.
Why is Paul Ryan the Speaker of the House and not Kevin McCarthy? McCarthy admitted publicly - and what a huge mistake - that the Benghazi investigation had been a tool, a means of hurting Clinton's popularity, and he bragged about how her ratings had declined due to the hearings. He was next in line after Boehner to be the Speaker; after saying that, he had disqualified himself. Why? He said the truth. How foolish of him.
He publicly admitted the hearings were a witch hunt. His name is even McCarthy!
People on the right, my good conservative friends: Republicans have been amazingly careless, telling you openly what they are doing, that it has been a witch hunt, and many of you still believe them. If you continue to believe them and embrace a true monster, don't be shocked when you get bitten.
They have cried, "Wolf!" from the right. Over and over and over. Now they have one.