Originally published via Armageddon Prose:

A boutique breed of Republican politician reinvented itself after Trump wrecked the neocon GOP establishment in 2016, commonly known as the “Never Trumper.”

Such creatures include the likes of:

• Chris “Kristy Kreme” Christie
• Liz Cheney
• Adam Kinzinger
• Mitt “Mittens ” Romney

These DC creations – who style themselves as highly principled statesmen and women who reject the MAGA movement for the sake of something called Democracy™ — are the subject of never-ending praise in the “progressive” and corporate state media in the mold of the following, via Mother Jones:

“Cheney became the only member of the House GOP leadership to refuse to sign an amicus brief in support of the ridiculous lawsuit filed by Texas’ pro-Trump attorney general asking the Supreme Court to overturn the election in a handful of swing states. According to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Cheney privately lobbied her colleagues to reject Trump’s demands that they endorse the brief. And as the weeks went on and January 6 approached, Cheney continued to sound alarm bells. When Trump was recorded pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to change the election results, Cheney called the president’s actions “deeply troubling.” She also drafted a lengthy memo warning that efforts to challenge the Electoral College vote in Congress would “set an exceptionally dangerous precedent” that would be “directly at odds with the Constitution’s clear text.”…

Cheney’s insistence on pursuing that truth in the face of Trump’s lies will probably put an end to her time in Congress. The courage she has displayed over the last 13 months certainly doesn’t undo the damage she has caused around the world throughout her career; no amount of never-Trumpism can paper over the disastrous legacies of the Bush foreign policy chorus. It doesn’t have to. Cheney is not a life-long hero. But she is a hero of 2021.”

Related: Chris Christie Claims He Made a ‘Great Sacrifice’ to Become a Career Politician

They are marketed as “brave” “truth-tellers” sacrificing their good standing in a party given over to White Supremacist™ fascists and “conspiracy theorists” who gave up oh-so-much for the sake of truth and reconciliation.

With much fanfare, Mitt Romney announced his intention to not run for re-election to the Senate, inciting a new round of fellatio on the MSNBC/CNN circuit.

“The Senate Is Losing One Of Its Few Remaining Moderate Republicans,” pearl-clutches ostensible mainstream polling organization and actual Democrat Party accessory Five-Thirty-Eight.

The unsubtle narrative lays itself bare, which should require no further elaboration.

The countervailing reality is that such creatures do not have “principles” – the politician does not, as a rule, have any such thing. Indeed, their moral malleability is a feature, not a bug: the lack of a moral center is the entire reason that national-level politicians with high profiles got as far as they did in the first place, with very few exceptions.

The ones that do have sincerely-held beliefs who slip through the cracks, like Ron Paul, and then gain a foothold of actual grassroots support, spend their careers in DC marginalized as “kooks,” “conspiracy theorists,” etc.

Here are the entrenched interests in the power structure that are opposed to the MAGA movement for various reasons and that consequently sponsor “Never Trump” astroturfed creations like Mitt Romney and Chris Christie:

• The intelligence agencies (for his opposition to forever wars)
• The weapons contractors (for the same reason)
• Wall Street (because he’s too “unpredictable” for market manipulator vultures like, not coincidentally, Mitt Romney)
• The corporate state media (because hating him is good for ratings)
• NGOs (to keep “humanitarian aid” slush funds moving)
• The permanent bureaucracy (because “Drain the Swamp” rhetoric threatens their careers)

These “Never Trumper” RINOs are rewarded for their loyal service to these power structures upon leaving office (or often being kicked out by primary voters) with open-ended appointments to multinational corporate boards, neoliberal think tank largesse, MSNBC contributor contracts, and the whole nine yards.

Their “principled” opposition is self-serving submission to the Deep State, and for it they have earned my eternal contempt. They should reap yours too.

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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