Lincoln Square - The Complicity of the Gutless, Self-Gelding Beltway Barnacles

Jeff Timmer

If Warren Zevon were alive today, I imagine he’d glance at the smoking ruins of American democracy and offer a cigarette to the last firefighter walking off the job. Because the house is burning, and the people who were supposed to sound the alarm are now flipping marshmallows over the coals.

This is a pox on every current or former Republican elected official, every D.C. policy wonk, every think-tank libertarian, every “principled” conservative, every consultant and operative, every comms flack who flinched at Trump in 2016, held their nose in 2020, and now in 2025 are all-in, pretending they never saw the flames. They saw the incompetence. The ignorance. The corruption. The racism. The appeals to violence. The fascist cosplay. They watched Trump mismanage a pandemic that killed a million Americans. They watched him try to shake down Ukraine. They watched the tear gas fly at Lafayette Square. They watched January 6th.

-snip-

They offered somber nods. Whispered about principles. Clutched pearls over civility. Told us, “I could never vote for him, but I just can’t go along with the far-left agenda.”

Then Trump lost. And instead of backing the Constitution, they backed away from the fight. They let the tumor grow back. And now that he’s returned to power — with a vengeance, a vendetta list, a castrated Congress, and a perverted and retributive Justice Department in his pocket — they’ve decided to go along to get along. Because “we need to win,” because “it’s about judges,” because “Biden was too old,” because their taxes will be lower, because “Harris was too progressive,” because of some freshman DEI policy at Oberlin College or the University of Michigan.

https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/the-complicity-of-the-gutless-self