The Orange Man was surrounded by enemies. He was stabbed in the back. He had no choice.

Yada yada yada.

More excuses. The same excuses. The ancient excuses that Republicans have eructed since the Reagan era to explain away their serial failure to thwart the left by playing patty cake with it. By playing Charlie Brown to their Lucy – eternally holding the football for them to kick.

It gets tedious.

Would you continue to hire a mechanic who couldn't fix your car? How many times would you accept him not tightening the oil filter sufficiently or crossing the threads of the drain plug bolt before you found another mechanic?

Republicans get nowhere because they have no core principles to get going from. They agree with the core principle of the left – that the collective has rights – and thus the only disagreement with the left is over how much the individual must submit to the collective and for what reason.

This is why the country marches inexorably toward more collectivism. It will not stop marching until the individual's right to not be collectivized is respected. The Republicans – which includes "conservatives" – do not respect this right in principle and so in fact.