I was going about my daily business on Wednesday when I happened upon an online conversation on Facebook.

A woman decided to tell me, given what she saw of posts on my home page I am assuming, that she was a Lincoln Project Republican. I tried to be gracious. I promised, after I realized this was good article fodder, no names.

“Hey, I am a Lincoln Project Life long Republican that is sad to switch parties to be a Democrat because I believe the Republican party is now a cult devoted to Trump…Now, if Congress could just stand up for the truth and purge out the trumpists – 1/6 insurrection was the perfect chance…It’s like the Republican party is the dark side now…I can not support anything – the clapping at CPAC that Biden missed the vaccine goals? It’s like a death cult.

“I know a bunch of Republicans that are ride or die for him- I am an evangelical Christian and I think some see him as a savior – they only read news that feed their fears of the ‘government’- my only explanation – since I come from a very conservative (almost cultlike) background (lol, I was told I couldn’t be a Christian if I voted for Biden – yeah, because Jesus was so into politics…) is that they are used to an authoritarian voice and if you are used to a black and white narrative, Trump fits right in…”

My response? “Must respectfully disagree. Must get back to work. Nice speaking, in a sense, with you.” Where to begin?

First of all, after a fashion, she and I are singing from vaguely the same hymnal. I am not a Trump Republican. The former president appeals to a populist crowd. I’m an elitist. I appreciate excellence, experience, and merit and have very little trust in the mob populists deem “the people.” Tyranny of the majority and all that. Guess I’m a Hamiltonian in that sense, with a lot of Burke, Madison, De Toqueville, and Mill thrown in.

Yet I know I am in the minority in the Republican Party right now and do not seek to change or lecture my fellow Republicans on the error of their ways. Why? Because, as this woman doesn’t not ken, the worst howling populist Republican is better than a leftist Democrat. That’s why I voted for Trump twice and if he is the nominee against Biden will do so again. I just don’t want to see him get the nomination. I prefer DeSantis or Tim Scott, or Tom Cotton. But I am clear on the unacceptability of any current Democrat leader, especially Biden, in comparison to Trump.

Not to mention, the woman makes her case in a babbling emotional style of wild exaggerations. Insurrection? Death cult? Dark side? Dear gawd. Grow up. Why have we reduced our political vernacular to silly emotionalism? Doesn’t anybody think anymore, on any side, and not merely give expression to their overwrought feelings? Her religious analysis is wacky at best and her overall argument not sound. Not like I expected anything less from a Lincoln Project Republican. It seems proper she acknowledges her zany apostasy and moves over to the heathen.

Thus, the Left is screwy. The pro-Trump Republicans can be more than a tad slavish to a mercurial master whose id seems to come before all else to him. And clearly some in the rabid anti-Trump crowd have been reduced to quivering masses of mental jelly. Oh good. That’s what’s great about American politics. So many awe-inspiring choices.