There is a debate brewing among #NeverTrump conservatives (the few of us there are) and others: do we seek to persuade pro-Trump (or pro-Moore) voters, and understand them, or scold and mock them? /1
I am firmly in the “scold and mock” camp. The “We must understand and reason with them” approach rests on an assumption that theirs views are merely misinformed, or a reasonable expression of political frustration. To which I say: bullshit. /2
The hard-core Trumpers - like the people who now say “sure, Moore is a child molester, but at least not a Democrat” - are not the dispossessed and downtrodden just venting their frustration. They know exactly what they’re supporting. /3
Here, I do not include the people who made an agonized choice to vote against Clinton a year ago. I mean people who, right now, love the ongoing circus and only care who is angered by it. /4
This is not the anguished moral choice between Clinton and Trump. This is an appalling, unpatriotic, anti-small-r-republican display of resentment and moral fraudulence beyond any in recent American history. /5
I see no point in pretending to reason with people for whom reasoned arguments are a smokescreen for small-minded and vulgar resentments that have nothing to do with politics or government and everything to do with crackpot notions of social revenge. /6
I will never change the mind of Trumpers or Moore voters. But I refuse to be their enabler, morally or intellectually. I intend to go right on scolding and mocking, because it’s the right thing to do. /7x
