Coulterites, Thrill-Riders, and Historians

Interpreting current events in different ways

Many of these thoughts sprang from items in my Today's News column, but others have rattled around for some time. (

Interpreting (mostly political) events today can have a much different slant depending on one’s initial world view—-and I’m not talking “DemoKKKrat” or “Republican.” Largely, most people fall into one of three categories as they examine daily events.

The first group, whom I call the “Coulterites,” are mostly thought of as “conservatives,” though they absolutely are not. I speak, of course, of Menopausal Ann Coulter, who five years ago stunned a panel by saying that Donald Trump was the most conservative candidate out there, while less than a year into Trump’s actual presidency she had turned on him for not moving fast enough.

Well, that was her story.

In fact, I see Coulter, Max Boot (Bootless), Jonah Goldberg (Goldburger), Stephen Hayes (who is so lame he doesn’t even rate a nickname) and John “the Pud” Podhorez as faux conservatives who used their position for over a decade as a means of attaining social status, access to television, book publication, and other assorted cruise line gigs.

What made their schtick believable was that they knew in their hearts that there wasn’t a chance in hell that any of the conservative positions they claimed to espouse would in any way, shape, or form actually become law or policy. This was key. They knew it, and their liberal hosts knew it. It was a cozy club: they could go on CNN and “debate” someone then go to cocktails with them afterwards, saying, “Of course, we know none of these things will ever be enacted.” So they provided the political commentator equivalent of the “Recon” platoon in Clint Eastwood’s “Heartbreak Ridge.” They existed to be punching bags so leftists looked like they were defeating someone.

Trump was “Gunny Highway.” Gunny didn’t care what happened before. He was there to make sure the boys in Recon didn’t die because they weren’t well trained enough. Trump was there to protect America and, yes, Make America Great Again whether the Coulterites cared or not.

When he did that—-yea, even during the primary campaign when he was talking like he would do that if elected—-the cocktail party class freaked out. They sensed in 2015 that HE. MEANT. IT.

So the whole neverTrump thing to a great extent is a comedy schtick, a standup routine that has been bounced off the main stages and now resides in off-off-off Broadway and non-strip Vegas lounges. But they can’t give it up, cuz they never believed in the Trumpian conservative principles in the first place.

Members of a second group are much more common, and are far less defined by Trump. I call them “thrill-riders” and it is not derogatory. They revel in the extreme highs and are crushed by the extreme lows of politics. To some degree I was in this group for a time, and only with painful discipline did it get out. (I am still that way with my team, the Dallas Cowboys, so much so that I can’t watch a game real time any more or I’ll bust a corpuscle. So I watch them on tape so I can prepare myself for losses).

Many of my friends are in this group. None could soar higher on election nights. I recall getting a call from one friend having a dinner on election night 2016 who just had to shout out the good news to more than just those in his dinner party. When you’re in the company of the thrill-riders, you have to be cautious not to get too caught up—-cuz you WANNA BE. The danger, of course, is that nothing lasts forever, and sometimes the tide can turn faster than you can put your lifejacket on. When this happens, more so than with the third group I’ll name, these people can be sunk into dangerous and dark depths of despair. They will often say things like “America is finished,” “There is no Constitution any more.” “The Elites/Globalists [pick your group] have won.”

And the truth is, they sometimes have won . . . for now. Just as our victories are seldom permanent, so too are our defeats. Virtually every aspect of Obamacare, despite McTurd’s dumbball Nero-esque “thumbs down,” has been killed. No one even mentions Obamacare, co-ops, or any of the medical bovine flatulence that accompanied it anymore. It is deader than Alyssa Milano’s acting career. But on the flip side, how long do tax cuts—-of almost any amount—-last? George W. Bush’s lasted until the first DemoKKKrat House and Senate got ahold of them in 20007.

I totally understand the thrill riders. We all—-at least, all of us who aren’t in the fascist party—-want to win, and win decisively and win once and for all. But life ain’t like that. John Wayne boasted he “beat the big C,” not long before he died of cancer. Glenn Beck dominated the entire evening viewing with an audience of over 3.5 million nightly . . . just a few years before his empire broke apart.

The third group I call “historians,” not because they are professional educators but because they constantly bring in a sense of the past. As Solomon said over 2000 years ago, “There is nothing new under the sun.” I put myself in this group, along with people such as Newt Gingrich and Victor Davis Hanson.

In a way, we are like the one-armed economists Ronald Reagan never wanted to see—-so they couldn’t say, “on the other hand.” But there is always “on the other hand.” Remember the zen master story in “Charlie Wilson’s War?” related by Philip Seymour Hoffman?

He told of a Zen master who observed the people of his village celebrating a young boy's gift of a new horse. "We'll see," said the Zen master. The boy fell off the horse and broke his leg, which everyone thought was bad. “We’ll see,” says ZM. But when a war broke out, the boy was exempted from the draft. You know what ZM said.

That certainly doesn’t mean there are not trends to be discerned. Rome’s collapse over 300-plus years could be observed and, perhaps, prevented. Japan’s ill-considered war with the U.S. could have been stopped by the right people in power. But this is only possible if you’re not thrill-riding.

What does that mean for today? While conservatives rightly celebrate each new DemoKKKrat congressman announcing he won’t run for reelection, it must always be done with the caveat “if current trends continue.” I think they will, but I have to always remember as a historian that events turn on a dime, that the “obvious” winning parties in November 1942—-Nazi Germany and Japan—-were literally only six months away from being so devastated they couldn’t win at all. The task-master of time is a party-pooper, but it does well to remember that after the astounding victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in a four-day period in 1863, there was still almost a year and a half of brutal, devastating combat ahead.

The left didn’t get to where fascist so-called Antifa could march and burn freely, or to where non-violent American patriots could be jailed for almost a year for a protest march, or where the black family was almost eradicated. These were long-term policies fought out in smaller battlefields for 50 years. Yes, enjoy the thrill ride, but realize historically, nothing happens quickly and long-term changes must be nurtured daily.

Larry Schweikart

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