The Greatest Joke in American History
Mark Levin hosted a special edition of his Fox News program Sunday night devoted to ranting about Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The “money quote” from the show — how ironically apt that expression seems in this era of Trump sycophancy among the “conservative media” — was quoted in the headline for Right Scoop’s tagalong trumpery: “Mark Levin blasts the Mueller investigation as ‘the greatest scandal in American history.'”
For his troubles, Levin received an immediate “Thank you” on Twitter from his master. And why not? Levin is a wizard of issuing near-maniacal hyperbole with the semblance of utter conviction, and he has turned his considerable rhetorical powers to the humble service of the one true god. That one true god, for his part, never met a ring-kisser he didn’t love, because he is apparently too wee a man himself to be disdainful of such obvious wee-ness in his midst. Flattery will get you everywhere with Donald Trump.
As I have noted, the Mueller report is exactly what everyone wanted it to be — namely, whatever they already thought of the issues involved, regardless of anything actually in the report (or not in it). Those opposed to Trump find it damning on the issue of obstruction of justice, though no indictments were recommended. Those in love with Trump cannot stop screaming from every rooftop that Mueller exonerated Trump by declaring that there was “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government — though as Patterico points out, Mueller explicitly rejects all the talk of “collusion” as misdirected media hype, since that term has no legal significance in this context, and is therefore irrelevant to the actual focus of the investigation, which was conspiracy.
And yet, in the name of consistency, the Trump cultists, even as they cite Mueller’s complete non-judgment regarding collusion as a definitive exoneration of the President, cannot stop vilifying Mueller himself as Captain Witch Hunt. I mean, how dare he investigate the President of the United States when appointed to do so, based on such trivial, fake, made-up excuses as the President’s campaign manager having long-standing ties to Russian government interests, one of his campaign officers having been scouted and approached by the Russian government as an operative, one of his first administration appointees having established a working relationship with the Kremlin’s English propaganda service, and massive evidence of Russian operatives flooding the internet with pro-Trump trolling and leaking illegally-obtained information about Trump’s presidential rival? And surely none of those crying “witch hunt” now would have felt any differently had the investigation been directed at a Democrat’s campaign under similar circumstances, right?
I am particularly impressed, however, by Levin’s insistence that this is “the greatest scandal in American history.” This, as I’ve explained before, is typical of the cultist mind: the need to believe that everything related to one’s idol is the greatest, unprecedented, unimaginably huge and unique, epoch-making. The cultists must believe, in this case, that Trump is not merely a Republican subject to Democrat attacks and smears, like all Republicans. No, the Orange One must be the victim of the greatest conspiracy of villains and traitors the world has ever seen. The entire government of the country must be reconceived as one big opposition force directed exclusively against Trump — the “deep state” they call it. The idol must be seen as completely alone, abandoned and despised by his back-stabbing allies, sold to the enemy for thirty pieces of silver. Trump must be the only thing standing between America and tyranny, America and Untruth, America and The End.
Hence, his opponents, even when they choose not to recommend indictments against him, must be branded the perpetrators of the greatest, most unconstitutional “coup attempt” in the history of America, perhaps of the world.
“The greatest scandal in American history.” Not FDR packing the Supreme Court. Not the ramming through of the New Deal that forever changed the nature of the U.S. Federal Government. Not the passage of the 16th Amendment, which effectively ended the concept of self-ownership in America. Not the passage of compulsory school laws. Not the Obama-Clinton dereliction of duty, propaganda campaign, and continuing cover-up over the murderous Benghazi attack. Not the passage of ObamaCare without anyone having read it, nor the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court saving this unconstitutional law by rewriting it on Obama’s behalf, nor the GOP’s repeated and systematic lying promises to repeal it. Not any of the many other serious cases of America’s government forsaking its constitutional limits and violating the public trust. No; the greatest scandal in American history is the Democratic Party’s opposition to Trump, and the mainstream media’s preference for Democrats. What a cultist has to believe!
These lost souls are no longer to be reasoned with, and they cannot even be pitied, for they are dangerous; their mass delusion has real world consequences. And the best one can say on behalf of the most embarrassing of them, such as Mark Levin, is that they may not really believe most of their own nonsense, but may merely be playing sycophant for easy cash and a sense of power.
If there is a candidate for “greatest scandal in American history” here, it may be the millionaire radio and television hosts, and their GOP establishment-owned brothers online, who spent years rallying millions of decent, patriotic Americans to their profiteering escapades by pretending to be the only public voice for those people’s desperate hopes of saving their dying republic, only to turn around and sell those desperate millions down the river for a bigger house, a fancy new TV soundstage, a Fox News gig, and a seat in the golf cart of the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American presidency — a reality TV presidency.
When the history of this moment of America’s demise is finally written, there will be a chapter devoted to these pied pipers and the betrayal they have perpetrated, all for money and vanity.
