There is something almost epically pathetic about Bruce Bartlett’s long column about how he slowly learned that the Republican Party is full of shit. It is basically an admission that he’s not very bright. How could he think that the GOP could go from attracting 10% percent of the black vote to 30% just because Republicans started telling black folks about the Democratic Party’s responsibility for Jim Crow laws. Ann Coulter says stupid stuff like that, but she does it to sell books, not because she thinks it will convince blacks.
It seems like what he really wants is for Republicans to forgive him for his apostasy, agree that he was right all along, and to start following his advice. But his advice varies from the ridiculous idea that the future of the GOP is in winning 30% of the black vote to the toxic idea that Paul Krugman is an economic genius.
He was genuinely shocked when he learned that he was being punished for criticizing the Bush administration from the right in the New York Times, but he was even more shocked when he learned that no one on the right bothered to read his column in the New York Times because they were all watching Fox News.
The recent election didn’t prove Bartlett right about anything. It may have confirmed for Bartlett that the right is suffering from “epistemic closure,” but the rest of us already knew that.
I did notice that Bartlett was writing some sane criticisms of the Republican Party in recent years and I appreciated his effort, but I still think he’s an idiot.
