Here We Go

[Content Note: Disablist language; bigotry.]

For a very long time, as Donald Trump was emerging as the Republican frontrunner, prominent members of the GOP were wringing their hands about it and pretending that Trump's policies (such as they are) were outside the mainstream of their platform. It was always bullshit: The only thing that's "extreme" about Trump, by the measure of the GOP platform, is his refusal to conceal it with dogwhistles and doublespeak.

As seas of digital ink were spilled on stories about how the GOP was going to implode, I said over and over that they would coalesce behind Trump, specifically because he isn't truly outside the mainstream of Republican politics. And because they want to win, at any cost.

And so here we are. The coalescing has begun.

Lest there be any doubt how thoroughly cynical the Republican Party really is, today former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said that he will vote for Trump, if he is the nominee:

"[I]f he is the nominee I will be voting for him, I will be supporting him," he said, explaining that there are "quite simply too many important issues," giving it "a chance" that Trump would get rid of Obamacare.

"I think there's a zero percent chance that Hillary Clinton would do that. So yes," Jindal continued. "If it comes down to a binary choice between Donald Trump, I'm supporting the party's nominee. I'm not happy about it. I don't think he's the best qualified, I don't think he's the one most likely to be successful, but I would vote for him over Hillary Clinton."

Let us recall that, last September, Jindal wrote an essay for CNN entitled "Trump is a madman who must be stopped," in which he called Trump "a shallow, unserious, substance-free, narcissistic egomaniac" whom conservatives "need to stop enabling... They need to stop praising him, stop being afraid of him, and stop treating him rationally. ...Conservatives need to say what we are thinking: Donald Trump is a madman who must be stopped."

Fast forward eight months, and suddenly Donald Trump is now the nominee who must be voted for.

Welp.