Sorry Charlie Sykes. You built that, you OWN IT

This is an excellent article from the Driftglass blog responding to Charlie Sykes' recent commentary in the New York Times, where Sykes said that all today's Trump supporters care about is opposing and trolling liberals.

While Sykes' theory seems to be mostly true these days (after all, how can the average blue-collar "America First" Trump supporter actually approve of what this guy is doing?), Driftglass reminds us that's because Charlie-tan Sykes and numerous other GOPper-gandists spent years creating that monster. And that us on the left told thse rubes that fact well before people like Sykes joined the party after Trump was nominated.

We were also, of course, right, Completely right about the Right all along. Over and over again. And the worst hell on Earth for a Conservative is to be shown up and humiliated by us dirty Libtards, because, as Thomas More noted over four-and-a-half centuries ago, , "The devil...the prowde spirite...cannot endure to be mocked."

Every day of these people's lives, their own leaders, their own words and Reality itself humiliates them by slapping yesterday's lies out of their mouths right in front of God and everybody. And because they have been rendered incapable of admitting error or self-reflection, every day for your basic American wingnut is like chugging salt water: the exercise only leave them ever more frantic for even Bigger and Better lies to slake their thirst and hide their shame.

This is why the Right's hatred of us grows exponentially more berserk, more unhinged. This is also why they have reached a point where they will eagerly follow anyone who will look them in the eye and tell them the gigantic lies the want the hear.

And, for the record, it's also why Both Siderism is the worst crime against truth of all: because "Both Sides Do It" is always the the universal, inexhaustible "Get Out of Accountability Free" card every wingnut has been trained to play when he or she does not have the next Fox-approved lie or excuse readily at-hand.

And now that the hellscape we warned them about for decades has finally arrived?

Well, that just so happens to circle us right back to Mr. Charlie Sykes who, like so many of his Conservative media confederates that were finally cast out of the Conservative freak-show they created, have found an equally rewarding second career just plain ripping off the very Liberals who Mr. Charlie Sykes spent his first career mocking and demonizing.

Maybe he thinks he can still trick out-of-staters

And why did Charlie-tan perform this about-face? Let's go back to Bruce Murphy's excellent Urban Milwaukee column from a Feburary titled "The Many Faces of Charlie Sykes."

I can only imagine how hard it must have been for someone like Charlie, always deeply cynical and Mencken-like about the intelligence level of the great unwashed masses, spending day after day — for 24 years — stoking the anger and wing-nut conspiracy theories of his listeners.

But the paychecks were great. Between his radio gig and right wing dollars for his books from conservative groups, Sykes did very well. And he had the power to help elect and defeat candidates, and make friendships with heavyweights like Gov. Scott Walker, House Speaker Paul Ryan and the conservative Bradley Foundation’s president Mike Grebe.

By 2016, however, Sykes must have gotten sick of it all. Sources tell me he applied for the position of president of the Bradley Foundation after Grebe announced his resignation, and Sykes was never seriously considered for the job. After all he had done for the right-wing cause. That had to be infuriating. (And yes, there has always been some anger fueling Charlie’s views.)

So Sykes fell back on his well-practiced turn as the enlightened political turncoat who has suddenly — and ruefully, wittily, quotably — seen the error of his former ways. Rather than become king of the nation’s biggest conservative foundation, Sykes maneuvered to become the titan of talk radio traitors, getting coverage in the Politico and National Public Radio, and winning a position as contributor to MSNBC.

Lastly, let's remember this clip from just a few years ago, where now-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus gave Sykes a sloppy wet kiss about how Charlie was a big part of the GOP's "success in Wisconsin."

I'd love some enterprising reporter to ask Reince and Charlie how their relationship is going these days, and whether anything's changed in how they get along, and how they view world. It probably hasn't, in real life. After all, Sykes and Reince are just two grifters doing different things as a means to cash in on the disaster known as the Trump Administration.