Anyone up for a riddle?
What do you call a conservative that everyone on the left considers a conservative but no one on the right does?
— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) April 17, 2018
Politico has the answer:
Jennifer Rubin has become a leading voice for a group of conservative intellectuals who don’t fit comfortably in either political party—and sees the party she left behind as “immoral” and “anti-American.” https://t.co/AAyzEh57vq via @POLITICOMag pic.twitter.com/4KgcVN4QjY
— POLITICO (@politico) April 17, 2018
Jennifer Rubin? Conservative intellectual? Our eyes just rolled so hard, they fell out of our heads.
is there anyone who agrees with this article? https://t.co/CJlEYpmJoG
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) April 17, 2018
Liberals, maybe. For them, the only “reasonable” conservative is a conservative who isn’t actually, you know, conservative.
https://twitter.com/robdetf/status/986287238068801536
https://twitter.com/alwaysonoffense/status/986263208183980037
Since when has Jennifer Rubin been a conservative?
— Creepy Porn Lawyer (@CPL_Law_LLC) April 17, 2018
LOL 'conservative' LOL
— Goldens Rule (@jamesbranch3) April 17, 2018
Rubin? Conservative? pic.twitter.com/mzF8gtPF2W
— Lowcountry??????Laura (@LauraGina) April 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/Psycotic70/status/986297903672152065
https://twitter.com/RobProvince/status/986261349960429569
Narrator: She was not a conservative, or an intellectual.
— Jen DinNJ (@JenDinnj) April 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/Couranto/status/986294046531481602
If she's an intellectual I'm the reincarnation of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Einstein. https://t.co/7jQvMVB2oz
— SFK (@stephenkruiser) April 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/jeremycarl4/status/986302697358868480
“Conservative intellectual” = opposes the Second Amendment, tax cuts, the tea party; supports the Paris climate accord, the Iran deal, Dems taking over Congress https://t.co/BhnViNNcoy
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 17, 2018
Rubin is a conservative intellectual in the same sense that David Brock and Andrew Sullivan are. https://t.co/lh4Met7Dr4
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) April 17, 2018
Say it with me now, folks: Jennifer Rubin is not a conservative! https://t.co/uZSvJ5t54d
— Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) April 17, 2018
Certainly not the last time we checked. Or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that …
"I don't think I've changed at all," says the woman who has changed almost every position she's held over the last few years. https://t.co/E0hFpsquCq
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) April 17, 2018
We’ll leave you with this excellent thread from National Review contributor Varad Mehta:
This fanzine profile of Jennifer Rubin utter glosses over her inconstancy and variability and her notorious proclivity for pointing in more directions than a compass at the North Pole or a weather vane during a tornado. https://t.co/2yEiLPMWsc
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
There is no mention here of Jennifer Rubin's appalling and absurd reversal on the Paris climate accord, which she lambasted when Obama signed it then turned around and cradled when Trump did just as she wanted and spurned it. https://t.co/2yEiLPMWsc
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
There is an entire litany of Jennifer Rubin's alterations, transitions, shifts, feints, and changes of mood and mind that could be recited, not even a hint of which makes it into this hagiography. https://t.co/2yEiLPMWsc
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
To get the true measure of Rubin, her fickleness, the essentially unmoored nature of her approach to politics, her utter lack of any core and her fundamental hollowness, read this by @charlescwcooke. He shows what lies underneath: nothing. https://t.co/guxqhG8vM8
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
One day perhaps Jennfier Rubin's cheerleaders will realize that her opposition to Trump and abandonment of conservatism is due not to a surfeit of principle but to its complete absence. That day is not yet here. https://t.co/2yEiLPMWsc
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
Maybe one reason so many NeverTrumpers won't just abandon conservatism is that we still have principles and have no wish to associate with those who surrender them on a whim. If being NeverTrump means being like Jen Rubin, then, sorry, you'll just have to count a lot of us out.
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
Jennifer Rubin is the flesh and blood answer to Jonathan Chait's question about why conservatives don't join the left. Making her the poster child for the "conservative" anti-Trump movement does more harm to it than its enemies ever could.
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
Maybe one day the media and the left (I know, I know) will figure out just what a disaster making Rubin any kind of paragon of conservative anti-Trumpism is. Let's hope it's sooner than later.
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
"Being NeverTrump means being like Jennifer Rubin." And then people wonder why Trump has consolidated the conservative movement behind him. Idiots. Idiots all.
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) April 17, 2018
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with additional tweets.