Paris 25 August 1944 Kherson 11 November 2022

Intersectional beyond the call of duty.

It’s “ironic” of course, which is to say it’s annoying on purpose rather than by accident, but it’s genuinely annoying all the same. In fact by rights annoying on purpose should be more annoying rather than less.

That “y’all” for one thing is extremely grating. The ironist is at Macquarie University in Sydney; “y’all” is not Australian argot. The ironist is not from the Southern US, much less a descendant of enslaved people.

But the “setting homework” is even more annoying.

And then the content of the “homework” is level 3 annoying. No, I won’t know that; no, I won’t mean that. No.

Who is Sandy O’Sullivan? A Fine Art PhD with a nice line in bullshit.

Sandy is a Wiradjuri transgender/non-binary person. 

They are a 2020-2024 ARC Future Fellow, with a project titled Saving Lives: Mapping the influence of Indigenous LGBTIQ+ creative artists. The project will explore the unique contribution and influence of queer artists to understand how modelling complex identities contributes to the wellbeing of all First Nations’ peoples. 

Since 1991 they have taught and researched across gender and sexuality, museums, the body, performance, design and First Nations’ identity. Sandy was the inaugural director of the Centre for Collaborative First Nations’ Research at Batchelor Institute in the Northern Territory…

I have to wonder how Wiradjuri Sandy really is though. I realize it’s taboo to question that kind of thing, but isn’t it also taboo to imply or hint or pretend that you’re more first nations or indigenous than you really are? Especially when it looks as if you’re doing it for academic glory?

I’m not as bossy as Sandy though. This isn’t homework; you don’t have to answer the questions.

Speaking of A oppressing B and B oppressing C – the UK Green Party says women must pretend men are women when told.

Green Party Women must remain trans-inclusive

Must. Orders are to be obeyed. Hop to it.

The intrinsically linked nature of social and climate justice isn’t news to anyone who has been involved with the Green Party for more than a few minutes. From tackling the disproportionate impact of deadly air pollution on people of colour, to opposing the running of privatised public transport for profit, the solutions to the climate crisis are so often those which promote societal equality and which tackle historic and contemporary injustice. Liberation politics is at the heart of all of this: ‘for people and planet’ means for all people, not merely those free from societal oppression.

Meh. I don’t buy it. I’m sure there’s plenty of overlap, but “intrinsically linked” is overstating it. Circumstantially often linked, yes, but intrinsically, no. It’s not the same kind of thing. The fixes are technical far more than they’re political or social. Poor people have more trouble getting broken plumbing fixed because it costs money, but the fixing itself is technical.

And that’s when we’re talking about real oppression. When we’re talking about the absurd made-up reverse victim and offender kind, it becomes even flimsier.

Next week, Green Party Women, a self organised liberation group within the party, will vote on a new constitution. This proposed constitution would remove the right of non-binary people and trans people who do not identify as women to vote in Green Party Women democracy, or to stand for election to its committee. It is vital that this constitution is be rejected.

Green Party Women want to keep men from voting in a women’s group, and we’re told they must not be allowed to keep a thing for women for women.

Time and time again, the Green Party membership has reiterated its support for trans-inclusive feminism, passing a policy for the self identification of gender, and for the recognition of non-binary identities. Liberation from patriarchy must be inclusive and universal. To exclude trans and non-binary voices from Green Party Women is to absorb the system of oppression against which feminism fights into our own ranks.

Bollocks, kid. Women get to organize as women, which entails not being “inclusive” of men no matter how the men choose to “identify.” What if oil company executives started “identifying as” Green and wanted to gobble up the Green Party? Would you be all gung ho about that?

Self organised liberation groups in the Green Party of England and Wales represent an important principle within the fight for social justice: ‘nothing about us without us’. Ensuring that the voices of those affected are centred in the struggle for liberation is crucial — after all, there is no one more qualified to speak on the extent of queerphobia than queer people, no more legitimate voice than that of disabled people in the fight against ableism in society.

One, ok, but what does that have to do with Green?

Two, ok, but then why don’t women get to say “after all, there is no one more qualified to speak on the extent of sexism and misogyny than women”?

Our liberation groups organise against these forms of structural oppression, envisaging and mobilising for a world free from discrimination and prejudice where everyone is free to be who they are, and where barriers to societal participation are broken down.

You say “free to be who they are” but what you mean is “free to be who they are not.” You’re talking about people being free to claim to be the sex they are not, thus displacing people who are that sex. When the sex in question is the subordinated one, that becomes a problem.

This extends, of course, to the fight against patriarchal oppression. From the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States earlier this autumn, to the Conservative government refusing to take a clear stance on abortion here in the UK, whilst continuing to fail to make misogyny a hate crime, it’s clear that patriarchy is alive and thriving. In the fourth richest economy in the world, tampons are still financially out of reach for millions, menstrual leave is but a pipe dream, and just 1% of reported rapes lead to a charge — let alone a conviction.

Well said. So why are you putting your efforts into forcing women to pretend men are women if they say they are?

Liberation.

H/t KB Player

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany 9.

We have all seen countless lists outlining the various features of pseudoscience such as Bob Park’s “The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science”. Some of us have even written such lists ourselves. I thought it might be interesting to attempt something similar for Bogus Social Justice Movements (henceforth referred to as BSJMs). Examples of BSJMs include MRAs, incels, the dominant strand of trans rights activism, NAMBLA, the pro porn/pro “sex work” lobby etc*. Attempts to portray legitimate criticisms of Islamism as “Islamophobia” or portray legitimate criticisms of the Israeli occupation of Palestine as “antisemitism” can be understood in the same terms**. As with pseudoscience, there is no non-arbitrary place to “draw a line”, such that everything on one side is 100% legitimate social justice activism and everything on the other side is 100% bogus social justice activism. Rather than a sharp definition we must make do with a set of criteria. Most BSJMs will probably meet most of these criteria to some degree, but none has to meet all of them 100%. So, without further ado, I give you

The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Social Justice Movements

1. People vs. Ideas

• The goal of every legitimate social justice movement is to protect real live human beings from injustice and harm.

• BSJMs are usually more concerned with protecting ideas, behaviors, belief systems, ideologies, cultures, traditions, policies, or ways of life. Criticism of what people think, say, or do is re-interpreted as an attack on who they are.

2. Unstated Premises

• BSJMs make frequent appeals to non-specific “rights” that their opponents are accused of denying or violating. Even the most basic tenets of their cause are based on premises and definitions that are best left unspecified.

3. Dubious Connection to Harm

• Every legitimate social justice movement can provide endless examples of obvious, demonstrable injustice and harm.

• BSJMs make exaggerated claims of “harm”, as well as “oppression”, “hate”, “persecution”, “violence” etc. based on a Danish cartoon or the proper use of pronouns (!). The alleged “harm” only shows up at the other end of a long chain of impossibly sloppy inferences and extrapolations and stretching of word-meanings beyond the breaking point. Quite frequently the apocalyptic rhetoric boils down to the implicit threat that the alleged “victims” themselves will hurt themselves or others if they don’t get their way.

4. No Debate

• Every legitimate social justice movement is actively seeking to change hearts and minds through open debate. If anything, their opponents are the ones who are trying to shut down debate because their position is indefensible.

• BSJMs are more concerned with silencing dissent and forcing their views down people’s throats unexamined through intimidation and bullying. Anything other than blind, unconditional agreement in advance is spun as debating their “right to exist” (#2) etc.

5. Conflicts with Real Social Justice Movements

• No real social justice movement is attempting to make other oppressed or marginalized groups less safe from injustice or harm.

• What BSJMs call “oppression” usually boils down to other groups having rights on their own (the right to free speech, the right to leave the dominant religion, the right of lesbians to be uninterested in your “lady cock” etc.).

6. Appropriation/Forced Teaming

• BSJMs appropriate real social justice movements and claim monopoly on speaking in their name while being actively hostile to their goals (#5). Every right and protection gained by other marginalized groups is re-interpreted as belonging to the usurpers instead of the people for whom they were originally intended (and the people who did all the actual work fighting for them).

7. Institutional Capture

• Real social justice movement usually play with open cards.

• BSJMs are more inclined to work by stealth to capture institutions from the inside and change legislation with little or no meaningful debate or accountability (#4). One favorite strategy is sneaking weasel words into bills that were introduced to protect other groups (#6) and use them as a trojan horse for the BSJM’s own agenda.

* As I recently commented there was a time, not too long ago, when the same applied to smokers.

** This remains true even if we concede that bigotry and hate against Muslims and Jews is a real and very serious problem.

After liberating his village.

Another man stomps all over women to public acclaim.

I wondered how Doctor Teetus Deletus is doing these days so I went looking. The Daily Mail (sorry) reports:

A Florida-based plastic surgeon who dubs herself ‘Dr Teetus Deletus’ — a glib reference to breast removal surgery — has been reported to America’s consumer watchdog for using her huge TikTok following to ‘unfairly and deceptively’ sway teens into having sex-change operations.

In other words she promotes such operations, she markets them, she advertises them. She acts like a Hollywood cosmetic surgeon, as opposed to a responsible health-oriented medical doctor. Her clients, however, have immature brains, so they’re less defended against her marketing than full adults are.

A complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) obtained by DailyMail.com, says Dr Sidhbh Gallagher, who runs Gallagher Plastic Surgery in Miami, talks up the benefits and downplays the risks of sex-reassignment surgeries.

Besides which, the “benefits” in question are very doubtful – they risk being temporary, and in the long term extremely harmful. A girl who gets her breasts cut off at 15 because Gallagher’s marketing convinced her it would be good fun could be in for decades of furious regret.

It accuses Dr Gallagher, who says she carries out between 400-500 gender-affirmation surgeries a year, of using catchy videos with pop music backing tracks on social media platforms as a marketing gimmick to attract ‘vulnerable and impressionable’ minors to everything from breast removals to ‘bottom surgery’.

Is there some other reason for using catchy videos with pop music backing tracks on social media platforms?

The clinic said in a statement that the videos aim to ‘educate’ and ‘celebrate’ a marginalized group, and that Dr Gallagher has become a ‘target of attacks and complaints’ because of her politically-charged work with transgender teens.

And why is the work “politically charged”? Because it’s quackery, and highly destructive, and because Gallagher’s approach is grotesquely flippant and reckless.

How exactly are we defining “discrimination” here?

Hospital managers have been warned they could be guilty of discrimination if they put transwomen in single rooms to avoid upsetting patients in female-only wards.

That’s bad stupid wording, that insinuates women are neurotic whiny bitches for not wanting men in women-only wards. Hospital managers have been warned they could be guilty of discrimination if they put men who claim to be trans in single rooms to avoid forcing them on women at the expense of the women’s safety, privacy, and comfort.

Also “have been warned” is pointlessly obscure. Why not say who did the “warning” in the lede?

Guidance for Scotland’s biggest health board also says that any woman who complains about a transwoman sharing their ward should be advised that “the ward is indeed female-only and that there are no men present”.

It comes as ministers have asked health boards around the country to explain how they accommodate trans patients, with some campaigners concerned that the trans-rights agenda could put the safety of women in female-only spaces at risk.

More crappy wording. There’s no “could” about it: of course the “agenda” to force men on women in women-only wards will put the women’s safety at risk.

The campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) described the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde guidance as “gaslighting and insulting”.

None of your silly journalistic circumlocution for them.

A spokeswoman said: “No ill and vulnerable woman wants to wake up from an operation to find a bloke staring at her from the next bed. If the NHS can’t tell the difference between a male body and a female body then it really is in dire straits.”

Sadly, we know the NHS can tell the difference, and is choosing to ignore it for the sake of a trendy but stupid ideology.

No red wave this time.

Democrats have kept control of the Senate after the crucial race in Nevada was announced in their favor, cementing a midterms election performance for the party that widely beat expectations.

Democratic US senator Catherine Cortez Masto has now beaten Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press.

That’s a whole separate piece of good news. Trump’s endorsement turns out to be not worth all that much any more, which is another stake in the heart of his plans to continue to dominate everything all the time.

For the Republicans, it was another blow after they steeply underperformed in many races. The party had touted hopes of a “red wave” that could sweep across the US and deliver the upper chamber of Congress into their hands. Instead – with a few exceptions, such as Florida – the wave was more of a trickle.

The Democrat[ic] win in the Senate is likely to prompt further recrimination in Republican circles over who is to blame for the poor showing. Much attention has so far focused on Trump after he backed rightwing or celebrity candidates in several key races who lost, such as Dr Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.

Loser! Trump is a loser!!

Meanwhile, the loss of the Senate will focus minds sharply on Trump’s ongoing dominance of the Republican party. Fissures have opened up, with some prominent Republican figures openly appealing to Trump not to announce a 2024 run, as he is widely expected to do next week.

Loser loser loser.

Eliza Mondegreen at The Freethinker on the new politics of marginalized idenninies and the trans movement:

What began as an informal social and economic pressure campaign has crossed over into a formal effort by coercive state agencies to restrict freedom of expression, assembly, and conscience. In Norway, a feminist organiser named Christina Ellingsen could face up to three years in prison for tweeting that males who identify as women cannot be lesbians or mothers, because this statement violates Norway’s newly expanded hate crime laws. In Canada, a human rights tribunal entertained the complaints of a trans-identified male against religious-minority women who refused to provide intimate hair-removal services. Professors like Selina Todd and Kathleen Stock have needed security to accompany them on their own university campuses after voicing concerns about proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act. In England, police have investigated ordinary citizens for tweeting salty limericks or displaying ‘transphobic’ stickers.

Not something the UK police have ever done in response to misogynist limericks or stickers or shouts or taunts.

In November 2020, a prominent lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted that ‘stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on’—referring to a book that questioned the sudden spike in girls identifying as transgender. Feminist groups attempting to organise in-person meetings have faced bomb threats and cancellations by venues nervous about optics and security risks. Teachers have been suspended or fired for refusing to use students’ preferred pronouns.

All for the sake of men who claim to be women. It doesn’t get any less strange as time passes.

Civil liberties have become distinctly uncool, panned by young activists, and more than a few grown-ups who ought to know better, as tools of marginalisation and oppression. Advocate for the right to freely speak your mind and activists will accuse you of harbouring specific heresies. In an interview with the BBC in September 2021, Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, defended his party’s decision to cast out a female member for asserting that women are adult human females: ‘Well, we absolutely believe in free speech but we also believe that we need to protect human rights and we believe in equality.’

But it’s neither a human right nor equality for a man to pretend to be a woman and order the rest of the world to agree with him.

Why do trans “activists” have such a hostile relationship with civil liberties? Because their claims are bullshit. They can’t defend them so instead they enforce them.

The short answer is that the trans movement threatens civil liberties because the movement is not what it claims to be and thus is threatened by free and open enquiry. If a movement cannot withstand scrutiny, it will create and enforce taboos—and undermine civil liberties in the process.

That’s a hella good point. Where arguments should be, there are taboos instead.

Rather than make a compelling case for why trans inclusion should trump fairness, trans activists seek to make sex—the very crux of the conflict—unspeakable. If ‘trans women are women’, then it does not matter whether or not placing trans-identified males in women’s prisons puts female prisoners at risk. ‘Trans women are women’ means no scrutiny and no debate.

The downside is that it’s so stupid. Unfortunately, that’s not as much of a barrier as you’d think it would be.

Sigh.

Jezebel has a sympathetic conversation with Synthia China Blast, or as they call him, “Trans Inmate Synthia China Blast.”

Synthia China Blast is a Latina trans woman who, according to her family, has been in involuntary protective custody (IPC), a glorified form of solitary confinement, for almost 20 years. When we spoke, Synthia was incarcerated at Sullivan Correctional Facility, a men’s prison about two hours north of New York City.

Last August, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) launched a petition to pressure New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to remove Blast from isolation. In a video released to promote the campaign, Laverne Cox read aloud a letter written by Blast, in which she names the abuses she’s experienced on the inside: spending 23 to 24 hours per day in solitary, receiving insufficient medical treatment, and enduring violence at the hands of guards.

What’s he in prison for?

Shhhhh that’s a rude question.

Women Are Human wrote about him in 2018:

Latin Kings gang member Synthia China Blast (born Luis Morales) held captive, repeatedly raped and brutally tortured Ebony Nicole Williams, a 13-year-old girl from Harlem, a court found.

Discovering that little Ebony was still alive after Mr Blast had stabbed her repeatedly, fellow gang member Carlos Franco broke the child’s neck. The two men were so brutal that their acts of torture nearly decapitated the girl.

While he was dressed in a skirt, 22-year-old Mr Blast carried and disposed of the young girl’s mutilated body in a Bronx underpass, and set the body on fire.

Mr Blast and Mr Franco bragged about the crime to friends. According to acquaintances, the two Latino men were openly anti-black, and had targeted the child for sexual torture and murder not only because of her sex, but her skin color, as well.

Jezebel indignantly tells us Blast was never convicted of murder, but neglects to mention the rapes and stabbings and torture. Very left-wing, much progressive.

The blue tick thing is so absurd – the point of it is supposed to be verification, so if you make it for money instead, what is the point of having it? What does it tell anyone? “I pay Twitter $8 a month for this blue check mark thing.” Yes, and? You might as well put your monthly bus pass in your profile.

A wave of new paid blue tick accounts impersonating influential individuals and brands has led to chaos and confusion on Twitter.

Fake “verified” accounts in the names of politicians, celebrities, major organisations and businesses started appearing on the platform on Thursday.

Twitter suspended many of them, but the company’s rapidly changing attempts to address the issue added to the confusion.

…

One of the most disruptive accounts impersonated US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, and declared “insulin is free now”.

The company had to say no it isn’t. Awkward.

Experts worry that the harm caused by a lack of trust in Twitter’s verification system could come to the fore during events such as mass shootings, terrorist attacks or natural disasters, where Twitter is often used by local authorities, police, emergency services and journalists for accurate information and advice.

That’s the thing. Twitter started out as a kind of toy, but it became a lot more than that.

You could knock me down with a feather. Mark Kelly wins in Arizona:

Three days after Americans voted, the BBC’s US partner CBS estimates Democrat Mark Kelly has beaten Republican challenger Blake Masters.

That would leave the Senate at 49 Democratic seats and 49 Republican seats.

Just Nevada and Georgia are yet to be decided.

If the Dems win one they stay in control of the Senate because of the VP vote. If they win neither the Republicans control the Senate. Nail-biter. Not that the Dems have been able to accomplish much, but if the Republicans get the Senate everything will be that much worse.

Now Trump is suing the January 6 committee.

Former President Donald Trump has sued the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, as a way to challenge its subpoena for documents and his testimony, according to filings in a federal court in Florida.

Trump is [both] challenging both the legitimacy of the committee – which multiple courts have upheld – and is claiming he should be immune from testimony about the time he was president.

No, Bub, you’re thinking of a dictator, not a president. Nobody elected you monarch or emperor or Divine Absolute Ruler. You shouldn’t be immune from anything.

Trump’s lawyers say they’ve communicated with the House over the past week and a half as the subpoena deadlines neared, offering to consider answering written questions while expressing “concerns and objections” about the bulk of the document requests.

He’s probably going to get his way.

Iran votes for mass executions of protesters.

Nationwide protests continue in Iran for the 53rd straight day, despite nearly 15,000 Iranians having been arrested in connection to the demonstrations and who are now facing the death penalty.

As thousands continue to rally across Iran’s capital city of Tehran, defying a brutal crackdown by Iranian forces, on Tuesday, the country’s parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of the death penalty for protesters.

Just kill them all. That will fix everything.

There was more backroom censorship than we were told.

Pippa Rogerson, master of Gonville and Caius, and senior tutor Andrew Spencer sparked controversy last month by announcing they were boycotting a visit by Helen Joyce.

In an email to students they said the bestselling author’s views on transgender people were ‘offensive, insulting, and hateful to members of our community’. In the October 19 message the pair said they could not ‘stay neutral’ and would avoid the talk, which had been organised by Arif Ahmed, a Gonville fellow and professor of philosophy.

We knew that much, but there’s more.

But the academics also prevented Professor Ahmed from publicising the event on Venn, the college intranet system, Varsity student newspaper reported. Professor Ahmed told colleagues: ‘I have tried to advertise this event on the Venn but the master and the senior tutor have told me that I cannot do this, on the grounds that “further publicity will only inflame already heightened tensions in college”.’

Imagine someone is giving a talk on racism, and some students are Offended on the grounds that racism doesn’t exist and anyway white people are best – would the master and senior tutor tell the talk-giver “You cannot advertise the event on Venn because further publicity will only inflame already heightened tensions in college?”

I don’t think so.

Why would a beauty pageant, i.e. a Prettiest Woman contest, let a man compete in the first place? It’s a stupid concept, but it at least has a basic outline, or did until the other day. Even the law agrees.

[Brian] Nguyen’s win came just days after a San Francisco Court ruled that women’s beauty pageants were not legally obligated to let trans-identified males to compete.

The case had been brought to court after a trans activist, Anita Green, filed a lawsuit against Miss United States of America after they barred him from competing in 2019. In their decision, the judges in the case said that forcing pageants to include “transgender” contestants amounted to compelled speech as beauty pageants aim to “to express the ideal vision” of American womanhood.

“The First Amendment affords the Pageant the ability to voice this message, and to enforce its ‘natural-born female rule,” stated the court.

Of course the “ideal vision” of womanhood is insulting and belittling, but that’s a separate issue.

Brian Nguyen of course sees it differently.

I guess it is finally time to introduce myself!

My name is Brían Nguyen, I am 19 years old, and I am currently a freshman at Nashua Community College majoring in Business Management. I hope to use my degree so that I can create sustainable, ethical, and inclusive products such as clothing, cosmetics, and accessories. I also hope to continue to grow my career in the modeling and social media industry.

My Social Impact Initiative is #QueensAreEverywhere. This is a media movement that helps the next generation develop self-confidence, realize their potential, and become the leaders of their destiny. This is done by spotlighting members of the community that have faced adversity and teach how they overcame it. I am excited to continue growing this project and expanding it into in-person events and appearances.

I am ecstatic to be the FIRST transgender woman to be a Miss America local titleholder, and I hope to make everyone proud and become the first to walk the Miss America stage.

I am Brían Nguyen, your Miss Greater Derry 2023, and I am so excited for my year of service, to compete for Miss New Hampshire in April, and to make you all proud

There are some questions behind all this. What was the process? There was at least one contest before this one, to select the top picks, right? And some kind of filtering process before that? Not all hopefuls get to compete, because there would be too many of them, yes? So I’m wondering how that worked. I’m wondering how the filter worked that let the very slight slender delicate girls with one bent leg through and also let the very hefty bulky undelicate boy with two straight legs through. In other words there’s a mismatch, so what was the process? I’m curious to know, but I don’t suppose we ever will.

Another question is how Brian Nguyen explained it all to himself. Is it just a cynical move to get a 7500k scholarship? Or is it…no, I can’t think of anything else it could be.

Trump is clinging to the window sill.

According to anonymous insider reports, Mr Trump still harbours presidential ambitions – and is leaning toward announcing another presidential bid from his Mar-a-Lago home next Tuesday. After this week’s disappointing midterm results for Republicans, where Mr Trump’s hand-picked candidates struggled to win key races, the former president’s advisers are counselling him to wait for the dust to settle.

“Like, you know, sir, a year or two. That would give you plenty of time to campaign for the 2028 election.”

Instead, with his Thursday social media posts and evening press-release diatribe against Mr DeSantis, Mr Murdoch’s Newscorp and all his critics, Mr Trump seems intent on throwing that dust in his enemy’s eyes. He called his Florida rival an “average Republican governor with great public relations” and made explicit the parallels to his first presidential bid.

“This is just like 2015 and 2016, a Media Assault (Collusion!), when Fox News fought me to the end until I won, and then they couldn’t have been nicer or more supportive,” he wrote. “The Wall Street Journal loved Low Energy Jeb Bush, and a succession of other people as they rapidly disappeared from sight, finally falling in line with me after I easily knocked them out, one by one.”

That’s right Donnie. Focus on that. It was so much fun, wasn’t it? Relive the old days. Thaaaaat’s right…curl up, put your thumb in your mouth, and dream. Night night.

In 2016, Mr Trump lashed out at prominent figures within his own party with no restraint – presidential rivals Mr Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, as well as Arizona Senator John McCain. He didn’t need the respect or support of Republican leaders and wore their scorn as a badge.

A badge of honor, that is. The metaphor is a badge of honor, not just a badge. You can’t just stick your Boy Scout badge on there and call it a day.

At the time, those leaders feared Mr Trump would be a disastrous standard-bearer, that he would sink the party and doom them to defeat. Mr Trump won the White House anyway, but after this week – and the Republican midterm rout in 2018 and Mr Trump’s 2020 re-election defeat – his party’s elders are once again getting skittish.

Well, you know the old saying – lie down with pigs, get up covered in pig shit. “His party’s elders” should have walked away from him in 2015, end of story.