Abjectly Stupid Person, Heal Thyself
Ann Coulter, one of the most audacious and enduring stars (read “unprincipled profiteers”) of the so-called conservative media, has read the tea leaves and, after a few years helping to foment the unique brand of anti-American hatred that is “MAGA,” suddenly realized that there was no future in it, i.e., no long-term career prospects in the Trump cult industry.
That is to say, as a consistent and obedient shill (shrill?) for the Republican Party establishment who, like most of her “peers” in the so-called conservative media, jumped on the Trump fraud bandwagon and exploited Trump’s personality cult stardom in support of Mitch McConnell and the Washington GOP in 2016, she has decided to rebuild her own “base” by jumping off the sinking ship. (Others of her ilk have made a different calculation, sacrificing any remnants of their dignity in the name of “loyalty” to the idol whose gravy train they worshipped as though it were a magic lamp.)
Coulter, appearing on Andrew Sullivan’s podcast, had this to say by way of explaining her absurd turnabout on Trump:
I grew up in New Canaan and I’ve been reading Page Six since I was a little kid. I was well familiar with what a narcissistic, ridiculous, tacky, vulgar, arriviste this guy was. That I knew about. The one thing I underestimated, in fact, did not see at all is, I had no idea how abjectly stupid the man is….
In other words, she is an educated girl from the right side of the tracks, so she always knew Donald Trump wasn’t “one of us” — that he was just a vulgar “arriviste” — but she nevertheless believed he would build a wall, and was shocked, shocked she tells you, that he never kept that promise. When you are out to ingratiate yourself to the anti-Trump intellectual crowd, you see, it is important to present yourself as an member of the moneyed sophisticate class, the kind of person who would happily receive Trump’s donations, but would never, I mean never, deign to introduce him to one’s dinner guests.
My favorite part of Coulter’s self-absolution, however, is this:
In my defense, a lot of journalists would ask me during 2016, when I was promoting In Trump We Trust, they’d say, ‘Oh he’s not really going to build the wall’ and I’d laugh at them. I’d laugh and say, ‘No the one thing he’s got to do is build the wall.’
“In her defense,” in other words, back when everyone around her said that a world-famous lifelong sociopathic liar could not be trusted, she was dumb enough to write a book touting her religious-level faith in him, a book she chose to name (slight paraphrase) In the World’s Most Famous Sociopathic Liar We Trust — and not merely to trust him, but to trust him specifically on his biggest and most obvious lie ever. And that, remember, is the best Coulter has to offer in her own defense. For as pathetic a self-justification as that may be, I suppose she had little alternative, since the true explanation of her “change of heart” would be even more pathetic, namely that she is a calculating, self-promoting hack who would sell her own family to make a buck and enhance her media profile, and sucking up to the Trump cult just happened to be the most useful meal ticket that year.
Such is the tenor and climate of political discourse on the American “right” today — I mean the big media Republican Party discourse, which is the only kind that counts in this era of the politics of celebrity “influencers.” A power struggle between abjectly stupid, vulgar thugs and abjectly stupid, vulgar snobs.
I might be tempted to recommend that these influencers shut up for a year and perhaps even try reading a book or two instead of “writing” yet another one, but I know nothing would be gained by this.
