Bill Kristol and the political defector grift

Did you hear? Bill Kristol is turning his back on the Republican party!

Yes, again.

On Tuesday morning, the erstwhile Weekly Standard founder and current editor-at-medium of the Bulwark went to the Washington Post (that newspaper beloved by all conservatives) and announced that, lifelong devout conservative that he is, he just can’t abide Glenn Youngkin as the Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate, and will be voting for Democrat Terry McAuliffe instead.

The Post lays it on thick with the headline: ‘Conservative Bill Kristol endorses McAuliffe in race for Virginia governor.’ See, a conservative is endorsing a Democrat! That shows just how insane the Republican party has gone!

Of course, the Post had to stick ‘conservative’ before Kristol’s name or everybody would forget that he’s supposed to be one. Is anybody fooled by this? Certainly nobody right-of-center on Twitter.

Bill Kristol is a conservative in the same way that I'm a feminist BLM activist https://t.co/BW7Rc73ULN

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 24, 2021

Bill Kristol isn’t a conservative. https://t.co/3GIR224Z5T

— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) August 24, 2021

I haven’t met a single conservative in the last 5 years who regards Bill Kristol as “conservative.” I’m pretty sure it means you’re unqualified to share the news if grasp of basic facts is so tenuous. My word. https://t.co/4A2DRnWj0y

— Erielle Davidson (@politicalelle) August 24, 2021

Youngkin himself recognized the Post‘s scam. He quipped that ‘A 43-year political boss like Terry McAuliffe trotting out the endorsements of fellow political grifters is neither impressive nor surprising.’ Youngkin either greatly elevates Kristol or greatly demeans McAuliffe by lumping the two together.

Seriously, how many times is the press going to re-run the story of a frustrated Kristol turning his back on the party? In 2017 he advocated replacing Republican voters with immigrants. That fall, he donated to Virginia governor Ralph Northam’s campaign. He literally announced just three months ago that he’s ‘not really’ a Republican, hadn’t voted for a Republican in years, and didn’t plan to vote for a Republican for several years to come at least. He even called for people to vote against good Republicans in the House and Senate, because it would risk raising the power of the party as a whole.

There’s a word for people who attack Republicans, only vote for Democrats, and call for the Republican party to lose every election for the sake of empowering the Democratic party instead. They’re called Democrats! It’s OK to be one, Bill! They still accept white people (for now).

The only people who seem to buy the shocking swerve of ‘conservative’ Bill Kristol abandoning his party in deep distress over its direction are fellow ‘conservative’ Jennifer ‘Pro-Voting’ Rubin and the Post’s chief fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, which tells you everything you need to know about the standards of that position.

But this also reveals the true psychological purpose of these phony conservative endorsements.

Cockburn doesn’t recommend watching cable news under any circumstances. But he recognizes that the world isn’t perfect and that some people suffer severe head injuries through no fault of their own and have no choice but to watch television for their news consumption.

Anyway, if one of those sadly-maimed individuals is watching Fox News in the evening, they may catch a glimpse of contributor Bryan Dean Wright. Fox’s online bio for Wright helpfully identifies him as ‘a former CIA officer and member of the Democratic party who resides in Oregon.’ And that’s all you need to know! Wright is on Fox to be the Democrat who actually doesn’t like Democrats at all.

To the hostages trapped in Afghanistan, the message from Joe Biden today is clear:

You’re on your own. Fight your way to freedom or die. Good luck.

— BDW (@BryanDeanWright) August 24, 2021

Here’s the vaccine that the Biden Regime is mandating us to take, or else. https://t.co/WDqwkhMJy4

— BDW (@BryanDeanWright) August 23, 2021

Looking forward to the “babies in cages!” crowd expressing their outrage at Joe Biden’s treatment of refugees. https://t.co/Y1fcmHfWwg

— BDW (@BryanDeanWright) August 24, 2021

Wright is, essentially, a sop to Fox’s viewers. He creates a phantasm of bipartisanship, proof that there are good Democrats but that the party’s leaders have gone crazy and lost their way. Fortunately, Fox viewers don’t dwell on the fact that Wright has been doing this for more than half a decade now, so it’s not clear why exactly he’s a Democrat at all anymore.

Bill Kristol serves the same purpose for Democrats. Actual political defections are uncommon and unpredictable events. So why find new defectors when you can just have the same person defect over and over again?