Meet Frank Luntz

Here’s Frank Luntz in the initial wave of #Shithole commentary.:

Someone please tell me how insulting billions of people across the globe makes America great again.

Teach me how you defend the indefensible, because I sure can’t. https://t.co/ASRJ3SF7cZ

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) January 14, 2018

He’s been a darling of the squish-right since the squishies were granite.

His focus groups were popular during the Bush (I think) and Obama administrations for telling the truth of popular conservatism to the power of leftist media shills.

Not Frank Luntz

Back when I was all into Hugh Hewitt’s formerly wonderful radio show, Hugh was all into Frank Luntz.  I bet that relationship has not soured, but I’m no longer down with Hugh.  Hewitt showed himself to be a scorched-earth Romney man, which is fine as far as it goes, but he didn’t mind telling his audience to get in line or shuffle off, and in pretty nasty terms.  He didn’t just call you names; he psychoanalyzed you, pathologizing you to explain your deficiencies.  Off I shuffled.

Luntz gained fame running focus groups that got to the heart of widespread American dissatisfaction with the Obama administration, and giving the lie to the media’s whitewash of those years.  Well, a man is only on the train with you until he isn’t.  The conductor announces the 19th Street stop, and Frank Luntz gets up, lecturing everybody that this is Principle Station, and that the train goes nowhere worthwhile after this.  You the unwashed are also unmoved.  You heathens.  You ingrates.  He risks damnation with a final look back at you all, beseeching you with his eyes to turn from your wicked and populist ways, you racists, you morons, you Nazis.  The Bodhissatva of Reasonableness sadly steps off, the train pulls away, and the ranks of travelers see their former fellow fade in the distance.

The train is not impeded, and the riders are victorious.  The diminished losers on the 19th street platform jeer in their little helium voices and throw tiny things a negligible distance in your direction.  Sic transit gloria luntzii.

The text of the Tweet is preserved here, a hedge against internet volatility:

Someone please tell me how insulting billions of people across the globe makes America great again. Teach me how you defend the indefensible, because I sure can’t.