JONAH GOLDBERG: The Running With Scissors Party. A good conservatism is a boring conservatism. That’s not what we have right now:

If you think that distancing yourself from someone who believes in Jewish Space Lasers isn’t worth it for fear that the very conservative voters in her district—or elsewhere—will never forgive you, you don’t think much of those voters. Nor do you think you have even the slightest responsibility to be a leader.

Look, I get it. Our politics is so messed up, it may be true that drawing a bright line around the dregs and saying, “That’s not us” could actually alienate some decent Americans who’ve been deluded by cable- and Facebook-fueled culture war tribalism. But what choice do you have? Where does that thinking end? George H.W. Bush repudiated David Duke when he ran for office because it was the right thing to do, but also because a party that welcomes David Duke will be unwelcome to millions of Americans. Better Americans.

The rules state: If you create a monster, the responsibility for stopping the monster—not feeding it—falls to you.

A party of conspiracy theorists and would-be secessionists will be a failed party—I hope. A party merely perceived as a party of conspiracy theorists and would-be secessionists will be a failed party—I hope.

But let’s say I’m wrong. How is that good news? If a new GOP of gasoline-fighters, meme-warrior entertainers, grifters, and tinfoil hatters succeeds, the country will fail. You can debate all day where you should amputate a limb to keep gangrene from taking over. But the longer you wait to find the exact spot, the more likely it is that the rot will spread beyond it.

I’m down for a stupid party. But not this kind of stupid.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Yes, QAnon is stupid — and probably a disinfo program intended to harm the Trump movement — but it’s pretty rich, after four years of Russian Collusion and #Resistance and “hacked election” talk, to act as if this is somehow a largely Republican problem. And “the rules?” What rules are those? Not any rules that we’ve been operating under since 2016.