So … are we having fun yet?

I’ve been eating jambalaya and drinking with old friends visiting from the Netherlands tonight. We spoke of Ignatius J. Reilly. My No. 1 Son came to the table at some point and told us that Ted Cruz had dropped out of the race, and that the Republican Party belonged to Donald Trump.

We all looked at each other as if Mama June from Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo had walked over to the table and squeezed out a massive fart.

But you know, I don’t feel nearly as bad as most of my conservative friends do tonight. It’s been clear for a long time that this was coming. The Republican Party brought it all on itself; read this if you wonder why. If you are the sort of conservative who has given up political hope for this country, the Trumpening goes down much easier than it might otherwise.

The only question is, which fate will be worse for America: President Trump, or President H. Clinton? Honestly, I don’t know. But I think back to my own opinions last summer, laughing snottily about the idea that Trump could be the GOP nominee, and I think: you pinhead. You had no idea what was happening in your own country.

Buy Zippy comix and get ready for the Benedict Option, is what I’m telling you.

UPDATE: More seriously, Matthew Sitman, on his way to visit his folks in Pennsylvania, pondered David Brooks’s recent column in which Brooks conceded that he needs to get out and see what’s going on in America more. Excerpt:

Most of all, though, what’s so striking about Brooks’s column is that he never reflects on the policies that have led us to this place. There is no reconsideration of “free trade,” no pondering our Forever War in the Middle East, no questioning what kind of healthcare system might reduce the risk of financial catastrophe for downscale Americans. Brooks talks about needing a “new national story,” but that will do precisely nothing to help those who are hurting and whose prospects have been most damaged by the economic trends of the last few decades. Brooks also claims we “need to rebuild the sense that we’re all in this together.” But why just the “sense” that this is the case? Why not have public policy reflect that we actually are all in this together?

In this, Brooks is like so many other #NeverTrump conservatives. They have joked about the size of Trump’s hands, laughed at his spray tan, and indulged a series of fantasies about how he might be stopped (“Rubio’s third place finish actually was a smashing victory!” “Trump has a ceiling of 28 percent!”). What Brooks and his fellow conservatives have not done is reconsider how their ideology and policy agenda have helped deliver us to this moment, or ask themselves how they might improve the material circumstances of those who have now turned to Trump. All the understanding Brooks can muster will prove meaningless if these deeper questions of policy are ignored.

Brooks can pay a visit to my family and friends in central Pennsylvania if he’d like—the people are friendly, and the mountains beautiful—but what they need is a political and economic system not arrayed against their interests. Until he and the elites he serves are willing to consider that possibility, the anger and frustration of so many will remain.

Yeah, that’s probably right.