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You call Thomas Sowell or Brent Bozell (William F. Buckley's nephew) RINOs? Really? In the name of protecting a supposedly recent Democrat convert?

Coulter said something profound ...

Conservative pundits keep assuring clueless viewers that Trump is not a "real Republican." ... Looking at what the party has become, I certainly hope he's not a "real Republican."

We should come to grips with the fact that (R)INO is a relative term of art. Except for a handful of dead-ender party-first (R)epublicrat loyalists today, we can all agree that Ronald Reagan was a wonderful RINO in the 1970's, compared to the then well established GOPe (R)epublicrats Nixon, Agnew, Ford, Rockefeller, Dole, ad nauseum.

The post-Reagan (R)epublicrat reset, which was well underway by his 2nd term, really was just a re-assertion of the same with Bush41, Dole, Lott, McCain, Romney, Ryan and all the rest. History is predictably repeating once again, and calling Trump names as we have seen also duplicate the attacks on RINO Reagan. As no two people are ever alike, Trump and Reagan are not interchangeable, but the lashing out by the establishment in their day is very similar.

So what to do with normally rational warriors like Bozell and Sowell? It's very hard to categorize them in a changing environment like this. Probably the safest thing to say is to just state that they are now blissfully unaware UniParty shills, attempting to preserve the status quo - an illusion of opposition to the socialist government - but is really just kabuki theater to keep the masses from storming the beltway. They are still allies of ours on occasion, but they are willing to sacrifice some of their reputation to a kind of political correctness ( which does not always mean leftist dogma ). In a sense they are more worried about becoming Robespierre than Thomas Paine, and that literally means that socialism and captivity is preferable to revolution or civil war, hot or cold.

Personally I prefer to skip the (R) discussion completely and to ask our luminaries whether they actually believe that doctrinaire (C) or (R) labels will win in the twelve swing states: OH, PA, MI, WI, IN, IA, NC, VA, FL, NV, NM, CO. If we stick to that cold clinical logical electoral approach then there is no need for a philosophical circular firing squad. If they would rather lose on principles in those states to remain philosophically pure they should just say it in plain English, loudly and proudly. I can respect that while completely disagreeing with them.

However, I would expect in return a logical argument specifically addressing those battleground states and no hand-wringing appeals to philosophical authority as they are doing with this insane National Review publicity stunt by the little metrosexual girley-man Rich Lowry.