To be honest, I don’t have many friends on Facebook who are conservative, but a few of those that I do have, have been asking questions like “when is bipartisanship coming back,” or “when can we expect a return of common sense?”

So let me answer that question quickly: not while Donald Trump is the President of the United States.

There are, of course, people out there who claim that conservatives “suffered” under President Obama, and that Trump’s Presidency is some kind of “Ausgleich,” some kind of equalizing for what conservatives had to endure under Obama.

Hogwash.

Conservatives didn’t have to “endure” anything under Obama, other than the arrival of a polished black man[1] as President and some policies that they did not like.

Progressives did not suffer under President George W. Bush

Just as conservatives did not suffer under Obama, liberals (or the term I prefer, progressives) did not “suffer” under President George W. Bush. There were plenty policies that we (and I personally) abhorred, such as Bush’s war mongering. I wasn’t in agreement with his tax cuts and with his refusal to fund stem cell research. There were lots of policy decisions that I was in strong disagreement with, but other than having to put up with a bit of a “doofus” as President, there was nothing to “suffer” through. It was just that the other team is in charge.

I recently read “Sister’s First,” the biography written by the Bush twins (Jenna and Barbara), and I must say that I liked them a lot in their book. Likewise, I think it’s sweet that George W. and Michelle Obama have essentially become friends.[2] I realize that there are people who consider George W. a war criminal, but whatever you think of his policies, he was a conventional politician who really is solidly in the tradition of American bi-partisanship. In person he appears to be what one might term a “nice man,” however misguided his policies may have been.

Conservatives did not suffer under President Obama

Likewise, conservatives did not “suffer” under President Obama. The man’s primary accomplishment while President were helping to stabilize the economy after the financial crisis of 2007–08, and the enactment of the Affordable Care Act.

Some conservatives were unhappy with the amount of money that was spent to stabilize the financial industry and to bail out the auto industry (although a good many of those policies were set in motion by the Bush administration before Obama even became President). And some conservatives did not like some of the post-crisis financial reforms, including the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The other initiative that many conservatives hated is, of course, the Affordable Care Act. They hated it even though the central idea in the ACA – the establishment of an “individual mandate” was a conservative idea that came out of the Heritage Institute after the Clinton health care initiatives went belly up. They hated it even though Obama bent over backwards to work with the Republicans on the Affordable Care Act, only to discover that the Republicans (as Mitch McConnel expressly stated in 2010) were only interested in not giving Obama any kind of “victory” that he could take into the 2012 campaign.

Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize (which I have previously argued he did not deserve). If some black men are pulled over for driving while black or similar “offenses,” Obama was unnecessarily rewarded for being President while black.  Trump partisans have argued, to promote their man, that Trump should have received the Nobel Peace Prize for reaching out to and meeting with Kim Jong Un. Of course, Kim Jong Un played Trump for a fool, so don’t stay up waiting for that to happen, Republicans. But I’m sure Obama’s prize stuck in the craw of many conservatives. That, and his unruffled “super cool” persona and the way that Hollywood and the glitterati fawned over him.

President Trump is not normal for a President of Either Party

Unlike Bush or Obama or any modern American President before him (including Richard Nixon), Donald Trump is not a normal President. Ignoring for a moment that Trump began his Presidency by lying about the size of his inauguration crowd – a lie that was so easily disputable – and has not stopped lying ever since, ignoring for a moment that Trump is a demonstrable malignant narcissist, just a look at his behavior in the last week (since the mid-terms). Just these two items (below) demonstrate how seriously disturbed Trump (and by extension his administration) really is.

1. Not even waiting a full 24 hours for the ink to dry on the Midterm election results, Trump fired Jeff Sessions and replaced him with Republican hack Matt Whittaker. When pressed on this choice Trump claimed that he “didn’t know” Matt Whittaker, even though he had praised him on Fox just a few days before.
2. Flustered by a set of challenging questions from CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta, Trump tried to a get a White House flunky to take his microphone away. To justify Acosta’s subsequent exclusion from White House briefings, Sarah “Huckster” Sanders then released an obviously doctored video of the incident, even though the incident had been broadcast live.

WTF White House! Who does shit like this?

If Obama had done just those two things and nothing else, Republicans would have been calling for his head. In their heart of hearts Republicans know this to be true. They’re giving Trump a pass because he is their guy, because he totally pisses off the liberal establishment, because he is the thorn in our side that they’ve always wanted to have.

I have argued in the past (and will say it again) that people voted for Trump not despite him being an asshole, but because he is an asshole. That was the whole point.

And that’s why there will be no bipartisanship, no return of “common sense” as long as Trump is President.

And after Trump is gone conservatives will discover (as some of them already have) that they threw away virtually all of the moral authority they may have once had on this particularly odious piece of shit. Evangelicals, in particular, will discover that their “one issue” embrace of Trump[3] is going to cost their credibility dearly going forward into the post-Trump world.

[1] Technically Obama is bi-racial and not black, as I’ve pointed out on many occasions before.

[2] They were caught on film passing candy to each other at John McCain’s funeral.

[3] That one issue, of course, is abortion. Ironically, Trump isn’t personally pro-life. It’s simply a position-of-convenience for him, although he has delivered on a lot of the “pro-life” judges that the evangelicals so cherish