Charles Cooke: The Great [Bilateral Trump] Derangement

Exactly right, I say.

   I think we all already know it--but it's good to keep saying it.

   Trump's rather like a vicious mastiff we released onto our land to terrorize and kill the wolves that have decimated our cattle. Every dog is sometimes lovable...but that doesn't cancel out the fact that he's a threat to us as well...

   Or maybe the Patton analogy is better. Patton was a nut and a dick...but what was our alternative? He was good at killing Nazis...which was Job 1 at the time...

   

   I continue to think this is mainly the left's fault. If they could just stop being outright insane, it would be less important to stop them, and so less important to support Trump. And their nonstop, irrational, lunatic criticisms of him push us to defend him too much... Again I ask: if he's so bad, why does the left have to lie about him virtually nonstop? It just doesn't make any sense...

   But, then, the left doesn't make any sense anymore...

   What's my point?

   Same one as always, I reckon...

   Or maybe:

   Yeah, there are the victims of TDS. And there are the Trump groupies/sycophants. But even those of us who more or less manage to keep it between the ditches can be overly excusing of Trump's vices. I myself, as is probably pretty obvious, cut the guy too much slack. My theory of myself on that point is: I jumped at every anti-Trump story for years after I finally came to mostly support him. Every time the blue team spewed out some bullshit story about him, I'd think Oh, shit, how could I have supported a guy like that? and I'd scurry off to read the allegedly gory details... And time after time it turned out to be bullshit. Not always, of course...but almost always. At least when it came to the truly allegedly devastating stuff. And all the time the left got more and more insane. And finally I just said fuck it. Life is short and you pick your poison and I'm not going to keep falling for this shit, Lucy-and-the-football-wise... 

   At this point, I've basically settled into: he's accomplishing quite a bit against some truly dangerous elements and factions. It's unlikely that anyone else would be doing more. And his failings are tolerable against that backdrop.

   I'm more or less just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

   Such a strategy has obvious dangers.