As 2017 comes to a close, tumbleweeds roll down the empty Lido Deck while the Republican base answers the question, “What if Conservative, Inc., gave a cruise and nobody came?” The Democrats fled Washington under cover of darkness, desperate to keep their slobbering socialist wing from forcing them to commit ritual suicide by closing down the government over Christmas because the GOP Congress (for now) won’t hand a couple million illegal aliens citizenship. Robert Mueller’s Keystone Kop Korps started off with “unquestioned integrity” and ended the year with totally questioned integrity. The mainstream media abandoned the principle of objectivity in favor of shrill advocacy, yet it is baffled that most Americans now consider its members like just another bunch of partisan hacks.

In the White House, where everyone who was anyone told us Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit would reign, President Donald Trump finished the year by signing a tax reform bill that punished conservatives’ enemies and rewarded their friends. The Democrats get to go tell their base of blue state coastal swells, “Uh, sorry about losing those state tax deductions cuz we were too busy resisting to actually negotiate and thereby get a seat at the table.” Cue the Sad Trombone. Trump plays for keeps, unlike the squish-cons who play for media hugs and invitations to the kool kidz’ parties.

He was supposed to lose the primary, but he didn’t. He was supposed to lose the general, but he didn’t. He was supposed to fall victim to the covert schemes of leftist bureaucrats and the overt obstruction of The Resistance, but he didn’t. Instead, Donald Trump has prospered as the most conservative president since Ronald Reagan. And it’s breaking the souls of his enemies. Deliciously.

The elite keeps losing to the guy they tell us is dumb. The elite keeps losing to the guy they tell us is a clown. The elite keeps losing to the guy who doesn’t meet their bottom line standard to be worthy of governing – being one of the elite. So, what’s that make the elite?

He just refuses to lose. He just refuses to submit. He just refuses to give a damn about what they say or what they think. And that infuriates them. He won’t take a knee, but he will offer them a finger.

Brick by brick, he is disassembling the rickety edifice of Barack Obama’s transformed America. Regulations? Slashed, even as the screams of the professional expert class echo across the District of Columbia. ISIS? Dead, with our military unleashed to hunt down our enemies without hesitation or mercy. The Courts? Packed, not with squishy wimps ready to bend to the will of the WaPo and the Georgetown cocktail crew but with true conservatives determined to fight for the Constitution.

Trump’s enemies are getting tired of all the winning.

Slowly, it’s dawning on Trump’s enemies – on our enemies – that this isn’t just an unfortunate, temporary bump in the road to the Californiaization of America, but a U-turn. The people who elected Donald Trump were something his allegedly conservative Never Trump opponents never were: serious about being conservative. It’s easy to grift the donors with big talk about culture wars and policy initiatives when you never expect to be in a position to actually pull them off. But the Normals finally got sick of election year bomb-throwers morphing into pliable puffboys once their reps crossed into the Beltway. And that’s how you got Trump.

Suddenly, the fake hardcore facade of Conservative, Inc., was revealed for what it was – a pose, an act, tiresome political voguing. When someone finally showed up who actually wanted to act on all the things the pro-cons had been talking and writing about for decades, well, that didn’t leave a lot of room for those who only wanted to talk and write and luxuriate in being insiders. Never Trumpism spends a lot of time whining about how Trump is “vulgar” and “unfit,” but what these guys really resent is that he has embarrassed them. He showed them up. He did what they had been yakking endlessly about doing, and they hate him for it. They much prefer the quiet dignity of losing under a Bush or a Romney to obscurity under a Trump.

It’s crisis time for Conservative, Inc. The Eagle Liberty Forum of Conservative Freedom and Liberty can’t fill its annual dinner tables anymore, even with a keynote speech by Ben Sasse on how “True Conservatism™ Morally Obligates Us To Lose And Not Offend The Elite Rather Than Win And Displease Our Betters.”

That’s why they hate Trump. He didn’t make them irrelevant; he just showed the world that they were irrelevant. And that’s unforgiveable.

Trump’s kickin’ it old school in his enemies’ heads, chillin’ in their cerebral crib. His foes defined themselves by not being him. The Democrats’ tax policy? Not Trump. Their regulatory policy? Not Trump. Their foreign policy? Not Trump. And it’s the same with the allegedly conservative Never Trumpers. How do you get an alleged conservative to oppose moving our embassy to Israel’s capital? Get Trump to finally do it.

They are all about Trump, 24/7. CNN, and its silly Don Lemons and Tater Stelters, need Trump. They obsess over him, for without Trump they are nothing. The Resistance? They have nothing but Trump to fill their empty lives, getting giddy every time some media outlet reports that someone who knows somebody who heard somebody say that maybe Mueller is investigating someone who met Trump once for felony jaywalking. The Supreme Poo-Bah of the HIPAA Court is readying his Grand Warrants of Arresting – it’s gotta be true cuz I read it on the interwebs!

Trump owns his foes. They are mere satellites orbiting around him, and his gravity is all that keeps them from spinning off into space. They have willingly submitted to the reality of a Trumpocentric political universe. It’s hilarious.

Their impeachment fever dreams are fading, so they look at popularity polls and take solace at the numbers. They took solace in them on November 8, 2016, too. It’s a bit over 10 months to the midterms, and there is a growing, gnawing fear in their guts not that tax reform will be a disaster but that it will succeed. They look at their swelling 401(k)s and mourn their prosperity. They take cold comfort in the fact that with a zillion dollars they managed to beat by less than two points an accused strange-o whose campaign strategy was to ride around on his horse. But they fear that the Republicans won’t oblige them again by nominating more weirdos.

And Trump rolls on, not seeking their approval, not conforming to their demands, ignoring them when he isn’t mocking them on Twitter. He refuses to acknowledge their superiority, their right to rule over us Normals. Because while Trump makes a wonderful avatar, he is really only that – a symbol, a representation of something more terrifying to the elite than any one man. Trump represents Normal Americans, the ones the elite on both the right and the left look down upon with contempt and fear. They don’t really hate Donald Trump. They hate who he represents. They hate us. And they hate that they can’t do a damn thing about it.