It is popular in some circles to embrace, as opposed to the alleged rabid partisanship of the Trump label, a new and shiny bipartisan agenda. RINO governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, who is barking up a wrong tree if he expects to get through a 2024 Republican presidential primary season, has joined the squish chorus with a group called “No Labels.” Well, I have a label for them. It’s called “cowardly opportunists.”

Now yes, the Democrats are loonily hyperpartisan and the president picked fights he didn’t have to. But they did so, agree with them or not, to advance ideas. Also true, to advance personal power. But take away the ideas, as the No Labels would do, and all you have left is the pursuit of personal power under the opportunistic mask of a revulsion with supposed overweening partisanship in both parties.

Oh, and one other thing you have left: raw trembling political cowardice. Because to take a stand creates enemies. When you run from fights because you are afraid to stand for something creates the kinds of friends the Czechs had in Berlin in 1938. Yes, when you’re over a target you get flak. Some people would prefer the warm coziness of the O club to the cockpit. And yes, they will be friendly and agreeable. That is, until it comes time to take the risks associated with the mission. Then, they will be absent.

We are not saying adults of both parties should not be able to sit down and try to find common ground. If they can, fine. But given the polarization in American politics today, borne of the rise of authoritarian socialism in the Democrat Party, it is quite difficult to come to a compromise with those who don’t think you merely disagree with them, but think you should have no right to disagree with them.

And given these allegedly bipartisan politicians are mostly creatures of the state, their idea of bipartisanship will always lean heavily leftward. It’s the old DC Dem dictum, “What’s mine is mine. What’s yours is negotiable.”

Freedom is a messy thing. It is raucous, unscrupulous, and as we recently had a lesson in, many times patently unfair. But the alternative, of sweet, decorous, and agreeable conformity is of no interest to a free American. Under the cover of pragmatic bipartisanship these politicians only want to advance a pro-big government paternal agenda.

If not, then where is the conservative “bi” in their bipartisanship? I mean, the “bi” takes two to tango. Where is the conservative balance? Read what they stand for and you’ll see it’s not exactly 50/50. It reads more like Winston Churchill’s martini recipe, “Three parts gin and the vermouth is accounted for by merely glancing at it.”