…Is that you can stop caring what the GOP establishment and its mouthpieces think about you.<\/p>\n
And you can say things like this:\u00a0 if Chris Christie or Jeb Bush are ever put up for national office, I’ll actively campaign against them.<\/p>\n
Or this:\u00a0 any “conservative” pundit or website that is talking about the need to appeal to Latinos (or any other ethnic or identity group) in a way that effectively surrenders first principles<\/em> for a chance at taking power — deeming this move “realistic” or pragmatic, while sneering at the “purists” who simply Don’t Know How Things In DC Work — is not, in fact, conservative<\/a>; is not, in fact, a constitutionalist; and is not, in fact, part of your “team.”<\/p>\n In truth, they despise you, because they see you as an impediment to regaining power and to reasserting the status quo on the right.\u00a0 They are embarrassed by you.\u00a0 And while the left likes to keep you around so they can point to you as fringe extremists, the establishment right will work actively to sabotage your influence and dictate to you the terms of your political choice.<\/p>\n These are mere political creatures who for one reason or another have chosen one team over the other (perhaps they like lower taxes; or more business-friendly regulations) from which to base themselves.\u00a0 And having done so, they fight for the party brand, because it is part and parcel of their political identity.<\/p>\n Well, they can keep their damned brand.\u00a0 Because as I noted yesterday, their brand couldn’t turn out enough voters to defeat a disastrous President running on myths and lies.\u00a0 So what good is it?<\/p>\n Don’t fret, though.\u00a0 Because now they’re getting serious. Doing a lot of navel gazing.\u00a0 How can we get the demographics to return ourselves to power<\/em>? they keep asking.\u00a0 How do we bring over single women or Latinos<\/em>?\u00a0 How do we prevent social conservatives from smearing us with their decidedly non-cosmopolitan worldviews, which are routinely used against them by an antagonistic press, and as a result, spread to the rest of the party<\/em>?\u00a0 How can we make sure we run only thoroughly vetted and party-approved candidates, and that we don’t mess with our incumbents<\/em>?\u00a0 Because it’s about numbers, not ideology.\u00a0 Winning is paramount.\u00a0 Everything else is secondary.<\/p>\n And they’re coming up with answers:\u00a0 we need to run a more moderate candidate with\u00a0 more broad-spectrum appeal!\u00a0 Someone who speaks to the hopes and fears of Latinos. Someone who understands that the world is made up of varying shades of gray and who will be willing to sell bi-partisan compromise in exchange for an opportunity to take power.\u00a0 Someone like, say, a Jeb Bush!\u00a0 Or maybe a Chris Christie!\u00a0 Or, short of that, we can find ourselves a minority candidate and pimp the shit<\/em> out of him or her.\u00a0 Because that’ll show that we embrace all<\/em> people, not just angry old white cranks like those who make up the odious TEA Party movement.\u00a0 And it’s all about optics nowadays. We may not like it, but that’s Just How Things Are — and we realists, unlike the hidebound purists who are holding us back (how dare they fail to turn out for Mitt!\u00a0 He won independents!\u00a0 It should have been a landslide<\/em>!) — understand that we have to make certain sacrifices to compete in a game of vote haggling.<\/p>\n