The Rude Pundit is done arguing about whether Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton will be a stronger candidate against Donald Trump. He'll vote for whichever one is the nominee, but he's done fighting the idiotically vicious battle between them any further. He's seen both sides attack, having supported each one at different times. He's watched the overdramatic rhetoric get hotter and hotter. He's received death wishes and insults and, really, everyone who sent them can just go fuck themselves with a Trump butt plug.
Back in May 2008, when Hillary Clinton was continuing her obviously doomed campaign, having her surrogates fighting over delegate rules, trying to convince superdelegates to come to her side, this blog was resolutely against what she was doing and attacked her savagely for refusing to face the reality of her defeat. It would be the height of hypocrisy to not think the same about Bernie Sanders, clearly in a worse situation than Clinton was eight years ago. The Rude Pundit may not like the outcome, but there it is. And if there is one thing he despises more than anything, it's goddamned hypocrisy.
In June 2008, he wrote this about trying to understand angry Clinton supporters (and they were mighty fucking angry): "The Rude Pundit would like to think that if he was in the position of Clinton's voters, that his candidate was actually losing the nomination, he'd have the sense to toss in the towel, as many previous Clinton supporters are doing. He'd like to think that, well, shit, the rules sometimes suck, but so be it. And instead work to change the rules for the future. Yes, he'd like to think he'd be so gracious. Indeed, when it seemed that Clinton was the inevitable nominee back last year, the Rude Pundit was ready to go all in to defeat the real enemy, and that was never Hillary Clinton. And he certainly knows that he wouldn't keep fighting if Clinton got the number of delegates needed to win the nomination."
In a Kumbaya moment, he continued, "As Democrats, one of the things we have to figure out is how to respect the rage of the hardcore Clinton voters...We who support Obama cannot take this rage for granted. Surely, Obama has his work cut out for him in reaching out to Clinton supporters, when he secures the majority of the delegates. When that moment comes, though, it's incumbent upon us, the Obama supporters in Left Blogsylvania, to offer comfort to Clinton's most rabid acolytes and give them another place to call home."
Change names and the fight is the same. You want to think it isn't. You want to think that this fight is special, like you always want to believe that that guy you fucked last night is the one, that you can find happiness together. Sorry, but chances are that he's just another fuck. He might have been a good fuck, but you'll fuck again. The Rude Pundit wasn't dumb and deluded in 2008. He ain't dumb and deluded now.
There is a fuckin' brawl coming, Democrats. You think you've seen fights? You think you've been through Atwater and Rove and nothing can be as bad as Willie Horton or Swift Boats or Arkansas murders. Karl Rove didn't have Twitter or Instagram in 2000. You don't know the dirty fight that's about to happen. That's like saying you've been through a fight if you've just been punched in the face or had a bottle broken over your head. You don't know what a fight is until you've been on the ground, getting stomped and kicked and desperately hoping your hands don't break from covering your face, hoping you aren't killed, that your skull doesn't crack, that you can come out of it with a few teeth, flailing and trying to grab someone's leg or fist to try to stop them, hoping you can walk when it's done, wanting so badly to rip the nuts off the fuckers beating you down. Until you've gotten up from that, busted up, bleeding, sore, ribs fucked, nose broken, and wondered if it's even worth fighting on, you haven't been through what's about to hit our candidate.
Donald Trump's opening gambit was to accuse the former president of the United States of rape. That's the fucking prelude. Bill Clinton ain't running for office, and Trump called him a rapist. And if Trump's willing to go to rape now, nearly six months before the election, October will be a goddamned nightmare of slander and lies.
This is the first week that the Rude Pundit thought that there is a chance that Trump could win. No one thought a fucking buffoon like George W. Bush had a chance against the sitting vice-president during a time of economic stability and relative peace. And while, yes, Bush didn't actually "win," it shouldn't have even been close, even with Ralph Nader in the mix. The goal of the Trump campaign is going to be to so dishearten and disgust Democratic voters that they stay home. So we're gonna get a toxic gas, a poison, poured into us through our various screens, a nonstop scream of hatred and vindictiveness that'll make us beg for the kinder, gentler sodomizings of Karl Rove. Trump is a man without ethics, morals, conscience, or values. He exists for only himself. Anything else can be smashed like so many friezes on the side of an old building.
So that's why the Rude Pundit is bowing out of the Clinton/Sanders war. It will continue, surely, as long as there are keyboards and anonymous comment threads. But, sorry, to his mind, what's more important than electing a specific Democrat is stopping Trump and ending Trumpism. The direction of the Supreme Court, the treatment of immigrants, health insurance for millions of people are all on the line. That's the fight for the nation. That's the fight we better get into, or we're fucking done.
