Matt Walsh:
Goodbye, Republican Party.
I mean that in more ways than one. I’m leaving. You’re dying. I could stick around while you gasp your last pitiful breaths, but what would be the point? I’m certainly more pro-life than you ever were, but when it comes to political parties that have been overtaken by some kind of unintelligible, socially liberal populism, I say pull the plug.
Good riddance. Your wounds are self-inflicted anyway. Clearly you have no desire to live. So goodbye. I am abandoning you on your deathbed, and I feel no shame in it.
Ted Cruz lost Indiana by enormous margins last night. He dropped out. It’s over. It would’ve required a miracle for him to win the nomination anyway, and this is certainly not a country that deserves a miracle. I’d say ruination and judgment are more our speed at this point, and I believe the good Lord just may oblige us.
Ruination is obviously what a majority in both parties have enthusiastically endorsed, especially the predominately “conservative,” “Christian,” “Republican” states that turned out in droves for a left-wing vulgarian who, when he’s not bragging of his adultery or fantasizing about dating his daughter or mocking POWs and the disabled, has taken to perpetuating conspiracy theories about how his former opponent’s father killed JFK. Of course, he said this on Fox News while the empty vessels on their morning show sat by and nodded submissively.
But this is par for the course with Trump. He’s not abovecalling your wife ugly if you cross him or sending his surrogates out to accuse you of being a serial adulterer. As a guy reportedly linked to the mob, and who’s been credibly accused of brutal rape, and who used to pal around with an infamous international pimp and pedophile, you’d think he’d shy away from repeating rumors. But Trump doesn’t shy away from anything, save the truth.
Trump, as Sen. Ted Cruz finally observed hours before the end, is a pathological liar. He lies about everything, all the time, relentlessly. Even when there’s no real need or reason, like when he brazenly lied about Mike Tyson’s rape conviction after Tyson endorsed his campaign. And so on. I don’t need to list all the times Trump strayed from the facts, nor the conflicting positions he’s taken on every issue, nor the litany of other charges that can be leveled against him. All of these things are known, yet he was still handed the banner of the Republican Party and appointed its standard bearer. Let others suffer the degradation of marching behind him. I’ll be somewhere far away, shaking my head in disgust.
Still, before I leave, I thought I’d pass along a few final thoughts. It doesn’t matter to me if you take them to heart. I am no longer associated with the idiotic activities of the GOP and its orange god-king. I refuse to have spent 8 years criticizing President Obama’s unthinking statist minions only to throw my lot in with Trump’s own gaggle of worshiping cultists. The fate of the suicidal, self-mutilating Republican Party is no longer my concern.
But, out of the kindness of my heart, I offer these closing observations:
1. It’s not me, it’s you.
The Republican Party is host to many millions of people who fell prostrate before a flamboyant charlatan, despite, or perhaps even because of, his compulsive dishonesty, his moral cowardice, his cruelty and pettiness, his blatant and unapologetic ignorance and disinterest in the most important issues facing our country, his liberalism and so on. As Trump said himself, he could shoot someone in the middle of the street and these people would still follow him.
That’s why I’m leaving. It’s also why you’re dying. It’s not my fault, and it’s not even Trump’s fault. Trump is just a parasite who took advantage of a weakened immune system. He’s the violent case of dysentery that finally kills the frail man who was already sick with a thousand other exotic diseases. The untrained eye may say the man died because he was vomiting blood, but in truth he was vomiting blood because he was dying.
The Republican Party, we should remember, is made up of Republicans. And most of the Republicans are voters, not politicians. So even if nobody else will say it, I must make it clear that I’m leaving because of these voters. Whatever else can be said of citizens who want a man like Trump to run the country, it cannot be said that they’re anything resembling conservative. Nor can it be said that we have anything much in common.
Yesterday, a Republican in Indiana told the media she’s voting for Trump because he’s a “different kind of liar.” The day before, Cruz attempted to have a reasoned dialogue with a couple of Trump supporters who responded to all of the senator’s arguments by shouting slogans and pumping their fists. Trump fans perform even less admirably in cyberspace, where an impassioned collection of anti-Semites and white nationalists work tirelessly to confirm every negative and cartoonish stereotype liberals have ever concocted about Republicans.
I’m not saying they’re all like this, but I’m done answering for the antics and inanities of the Trump squad. They’re not in my party. Or, I suppose they’d respond, I’m not in theirs. And they’re right.
2. Trump is Hillary, Hillary is Trump.
Many conservatives have told me they “hate Trump” but “hate Clinton more,” or words to that effect. Last night, a good number of them condemned me in no uncertain terms for daring to do anything but fall in line behind Trump and his party. “Lesser of two evils,” they cried. “If you don’t vote for Trump, you vote for Hillary,” they insisted. And they were wrong and will continue to be wrong on both counts.
What these people have not been able to do is explain, in clear and rational language, why they think Trump would be superior to Clinton. Reminding me that Clinton is awful doesn’t help. I’m aware, thank you. My contention is that Trump is awful in equal measure. I think the facts are on my side: They’re both elitist progressives. Both pathological liars. Both morally bankrupt. Both narcissists. Both entirely unconcerned about the issues and willing to take whatever position assures them more power. Both Statist. Both authoritarian. Both tyrants, the only difference is that Trump actually ran on a platform of tyranny – promising to murder women and children and squash dissent. etc. – whereas Clinton has to pretend she’s not a tyrant. That means Trump will have a mandate for tyranny that Clinton will, much to her chagrin, not be granted.
These two could not be more identical. That’s why they were such good friends. For God’s sake they’ll both be under investigation for crimes during the general election. Clinton for her email scandal and Trump for financial fraud. It’s like they’re fraternal twins or something. It would almost be kind of cute if they weren’t harbingers of national doom.
It’s true that Hillary is worse than almost every human in America, but Republicans went rifling through a a flaming dumpster and managed to dig up the one guy who could rival her in general contemptibleness. This will be yet another reason why I’ll cringe with shame when I tell my grandkids that I was once a member of the GOP. Of course, by that time the GOP will be a question in a Trivial Pursuit game, not an actual functioning political party. (Question: “Which American political party actually wasn’t joking when it made the guy from The Apprentice its nominee for president?”)
Either candidate will, through their vanity, moral vacuousness, and incompetence, inflict fatal damage on the country. Hillary would do so with the hearty endorsement of liberal Democrats, and Trump with that of Republicans. I’d say, if you really had to choose, it’s better that the tyranny come from the other side than your own. That doesn’t mean I’d vote for Hillary – as I’ve said many times, I’d rather take a bullet to the head – but the situation does bring to mind an Alexander Hamilton quote:
“If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.”
I think there is a very basic voting principle that is as American as the Constitution itself (not that Trump or his fans care much for that old thing), and it’s that we must never actively affirm tyranny. It’s one thing to compromise on a policy here or there, but if a tyrant is seeking the Oval Office, no matter who he is running against, you cannot support him. You cannot support tyranny. Ever. Under any circumstance. Indeed, American have died for the sake of this principle. The least we can do is trouble ourselves to vote third party.
Anyway, it doesn’t make a difference. Trump will lose in a landslide to Hillary. Allow me to egotistically quote myself from a week ago: