The original American revolutionaries sometimes resembled a torch-carrying mob, but they were mostly crazy like foxes. The Tea Party born in 2009 is just plain crazy. A chemtrail of a political movement, it was steeped from the start in extreme paranoia and prejudice.

Many of those Republicans who thought they were creating a big tent when welcoming this sideshow into the center ring are now disgruntled that Donald Trump is their candidate. Funny thing is, Trump is really no different than traditional bigotry merchants Atwater and Rove, who gained power by more subtly selling racism and sexism. The hideous hotelier has merely replaced the dog whistles with dog bites, trading the soft, coded language of Gingrich for graphic soundbites about rape, assassination and genitalia. Funnier still (though not in a ha-ha way), the end result would remain the same should he become President, as Trump would use, as predecessors did, the greatest seat of U.S. power to tilt the game further in favor of the wealthiest.

Ben Howe is just such a conservative Rip Van Winkle, awakened too late to find that his complicity with Birthers and Truthers has ultimately unloosed his nightmare. From his Red State essay:

Allies aren’t friends. They may not even be colleagues. They are simply people that you find enough agreement with on enough issues to not go after each other. You don’t have to overtly support one another but you certainly don’t try to hurt each other.

As more and more people knew who I was and I fostered relationships and allies, I found myself more and more having to look the other way. Moments where I would cringe at something someone said, or quietly roll my eyes at a post they wrote, thinking “Gosh, I can’t believe they think that way” or “I swear that person is one tweet away from saying Obama is from Kenya.”

I justified it quietly to myself the way we had at the beginning of the tea party when such things would happen. People would say outlandish things and I would find myself nodding my head and awkwardly walking away, not calling them out for their silliness.

After all, there were more pressing matters.

And so, as I said, I kept quiet about these allies in new media and in Washington. People who I thought I agreed with only 70% of the time. Which normally is a great reason to consider someone an ally, but not when the other 30% is cringe-inducing paranoia and vapid stupidity.

I chose peace over principle. I chose to go along with those I disagreed with on core matters because I believed we were jointly fighting for other things that were more important.  I ignored my gut and my moral compass.

The result is that, almost to a man, every single person I cringed at or thought twice about, is now a supporter and cheerleader of Donald Trump.

I looked the other way, and I’m sure many others did too, as these people rose to prominence and their microphones got louder.  I ignored it at times because I hate self-righteous liberals who tell anyone they disagree with that they don’t want to be around them and I didn’t want to be like that. At other times because, well, it was easier than standing against foolishness.

I’m done with that now. Albeit a bit too late.•