Puritopian Centrists Unite!

Maurice "Snoopy" Miller: You got a problem over there, Foley?
Jack Foley: Yeah, I got a problem: this is the dumbest fuckin' shakedown in the history of dumb shakedowns.
--Out of Sight

Back in my early days on Twitter the No Labels account followed me, and I followed back. It's now Uniters.org and they unfollowed me at some point (probably after the first or third or twentieth time I mocked the shit out of them), but I'm still following them--maybe for the lulz, maybe out of sheer inertia, maybe a little of both.

Their schtick is about what you'd expect: a lot of both-sidesing, debt panic, and delusions about the popularity of their ideology (hint: "independent" is not synonymous with "moderate"), with the occasional expression of disgust at Trump--though it clearly pains them whenever they have to do so without also condemning the Democrats. But recently they have acquired a new distinction: they are the only Twitter account I have ever seen tweeting positively about Howard Schultz.

They really like Howard Schultz.

AGREE: Howard Schultz, Take Your Shot - "We need to learn more about Mr. Schultz’s policies before he earns our support, but we believe firmly that he has the right to run, & his candidacy could elevate American politics." - by @GregOrman & @nealjsimon: https://t.co/P7cHzmCj11

— Centrist Independent EIC at Uniters.org (@UnitersCentrist) February 5, 2019

Evidence that my point about the landscape providing a much larger opening for Schultz now than it did for Perot in '92 - just 2 points behind where Perot ended the campaign, after a week where >90% of the media about @HowardSchultz was negative. Bodes well to start here. pic.twitter.com/NaxNdbzIGq

— Centrist Independent EIC at Uniters.org (@UnitersCentrist) February 3, 2019

The live town hall with Howard Schultz on CNN starts in ~10 minutes. We'll be live tweeting it in the thread below. Start sharing what you'd like to see from him tonight at any time, and I'll share a few things for context. pic.twitter.com/6YPe0kLKKj

— Centrist Independent EIC at Uniters.org (@UnitersCentrist) February 13, 2019

Of course they like Howard Schultz: he sounds just like them.

From the sad spectacle of the Cohen hearing and the craven defense of the president by Republicans, to the reports of fights inside the Democratic Caucus between the ascendant left wing and a more moderate wing of the party, this was another sad week in American politics.

— Howard Schultz (@HowardSchultz) March 2, 2019

(Craven defense of illegality on one side. Policy debates on the other. What a sad spectacle!)

The failed political class of Washington, D.C., has broken America’s political system. And out of that are rising political extremes on both sides. President Trump is one extreme and on the other side is a vitriolic undermining of the American free enterprise system.

— Howard Schultz (@HowardSchultz) March 2, 2019

(One side is caging children, enacting white supremacist policies, and using the Presidency as a money-making scheme. The other side proposes a return to pre-Reagan marginal tax rates. Both sides extreme!)

Shouting down political opponents, inflexible dogma, and the making of lists of the politically impure, unfavored classes, and offending businesses, has always been integral to socialism. History is utterly clear on this point. The list is always acted on.

— Howard Schultz (@HowardSchultz) March 2, 2019

(Paging Yastreblyansky...)

There's a tremendous amount of illogic underlying this worldview, starting with the fallacy of the middle ground (what is the middle ground between dealing with climate change and denying it? between recognizing pregnant women as fully human and treating zygotes as "persons"? between governing for the common good and kleptocratic oligarchy?) and continuing with their identification of ideological centrism with "pragmatism". They really like to self-identify as pragmatists, but in reality these people are as rigid and ideology-bound as any Jill Stein voter. And so, when neither party meets every one of their ideological demands, rather than acting pragmatically (by supporting the party closer to their principles) they lean toward backing a no-hope vanity candidate (which can only disadvantage the party closer to their beliefs).

"But you must know that a vote for Schultz or anyone like him is a vote for Trump."

What I know is that anyone who thinks this is willfully ignorant.

Only a vote for Trump is a vote for Trump.

Nobody owns any voters vote except the voters themselves.

— Centrist Independent EIC at Uniters.org (@UnitersCentrist) February 13, 2019

(Any of that sound at all familiar?)

And so like Nader voters in 2000, like Stein voters in 2016, they're prepared to act out of puritopian petulance and throw the election to Trump if they can't get their way. With all due respect to Jack Foley, this the dumbest fuckin shakedown in the history of dumb shakedowns.