The Enemy Of My Enemy Is A Useful Idiot

I'm pretty sure worthless "Never Trump but we support 99% of his policies" Republicans and "bi-partisan but really we're Republicans" Third Way Democrats deserve each other in the Trump era, so it's no wonder then that both groups are joining forces to make sure the GOP obtains total power in 2018.

Since Donald J. Trump began dominating American politics more than two years ago, Democrats concerned about his policies and behavior have taken solace in a group of influential Republicans who have consistently assailed the president as anathema to the values of their party, and the country more broadly. 

In the past year, however, influential liberal donors and operatives have gone from cheering these so-called Never Trump Republicans to quietly working with — and even funding — them. Through invitation-only emails and private, off-the-record meetings, they have formed a loose network of cross-partisan alliances aimed at helping neutralize President Trump, and preventing others from capitalizing on weaknesses in the political system that they say he has exploited. 

While this network has mostly eschewed electoral politics, some involved see the potential for it to help form an ideological — and possibly financial — platform to back candidates, including a centrist challenge to Mr. Trump in 2020, possibly from within the G.O.P. or even a third party. 

The network — composed of overlapping groups led by Democrats such as the donor Rachel Pritzker and several veteran Obama administration operatives, as well as leading Never Trump Republicans like Evan McMullin, Mindy Finn and William Kristol — aims to chart a middle path between a Republican base falling in line behind Mr. Trump and a liberal resistance trying to pull the Democratic Party left.

“If you’re a Republican who is concerned about the health of the liberal order and alarmed over the destruction of the norms of American democracy, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be willing to work with a Democrat who is equally concerned about those same matters,” said Jerry Taylor, a Republican who is president of the Niskanen Center, a moderate think tank that grew out of the libertarian Cato Institute.

"Trump is a bad man yes, but I'm not sure that those dirty liberals who want health care, criminal justice reform, affordable housing and schools not getting shot up are a real answer either!" is a hell of a position to take while Rome is burning, but OK.

Let's face it, a "centrist third-party challenger" is exactly what these assholes want, splitting the resistance to Trump to the point where he just so happens to get 400 electoral votes and a second term "mandate" despite getting 40-45% of the popular vote.

If that happens (I fully expect the Mueller probe to have been dismantled or otherwise politically neutralized by the end of 2018) then we're done, and that's if we're not in the middle of a shooting war with North Korea or Iran or goddamn Mexico or something by November 2020.

Ugh, I can't with these guys today, I really can't.