Economist Paul Krugman poses before a conversation at the 92nd Street Y on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

It’s not uncommon for Never Trumpers and Democrats to have similar views when it comes to the state of affairs in American politics, especially as it relates to the presidency of Donald Trump.

This is not in spite of any supposed philosophical differences because, as we’ve reported extensively here at RedState, there are really no significant political differences between Democrats and their hardline Never Trumper friends, considering how many of the latter have either highly praised and/or endorsed Democratic candidates at the top and bottom of national tickets, as well as state and local races – because the way one goes about “conserving conservatism” is to remove as many conservative Republicans from office as possible, you see.

But what’s especially amusing is when these same Democrats take advantage of their alliance with Never Trumpers by way of pointing to them as authoritative sources on Republicans, which is exactly what happened with liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman earlier today in tweets alleging that the “Trump told people to ingest disinfectant” story nonsense has convinced even some of Trump’s more staunch defenders that enough is enough.

It started with a thread Krugman wrote on Friday in which he claimed the alleged “turning” against Trump was similar to how President Bush’s diehards supposedly turned on him after Hurricane Katrina:

I could be wrong, but somehow the Lysol moment feels like it could be a psychological turning point — the moment when even a lot of Trump diehards face up to his essential unfitness 1/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 24, 2020

Those who went through the Bush years may remember how scandal after scandal, policy failure after policy failure, didn't seem to stick. The debacle in Iraq dented Bush's popularity, but not nearly as much as it should have 2/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 24, 2020

But Katrina somehow was the defining moment. Some of us had long understood Bush's inadequacy, but "Heckuva job, Brownie" as scenes of devastation played on TV broke through the denial 3/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 24, 2020

He followed up today by proclaiming his assessment about Trump fans allegedly turning on him was correct …

I guess I'm not the only one who thinks this; Trump has abruptly abandoned his self-promotional news conferences 1/ https://t.co/1UwWwmly4g — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 27, 2020

… by pointing to piece from Washington Post “conservative” columnist Jennifer Rubin in which she was essentially saying the same thing:

And Jennifer Rubin is saying pretty much the same thing 2/ https://t.co/wouo8VEKI1 — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 27, 2020

Oh, so because a so-called “conservative” who is in bash-Republicans mode 24-7 said so, that proves Kruggie’s point or something. Right.

There’s much to tackle from Krugman’s TDS-inspired analysis of things, but let’s tackle two:

1) Bush diehards didn’t turn on him after Hurricane Katrina. In fact, there was a rally-round-the-president effect around that time from Republicans who were disgusted with how Democrats were treating Bush the same way they did after 9/11, which was to accuse him of knowing the attacks were coming but doing nothing. There was some Republican criticism of his handling of the Katrina crisis, to be sure, but it was nothing on the level Krugman painted it as. The real turning point for diehard Republicans and Bush was over the illegal immigration issue, where he took a more centrist approach, which rankled the conservative base.

2) Jennifer Rubin claiming anything about Republicans does not automatically make it true simply because she happens to be a Republican. In fact, Rubin has demonstrated on more than one occasion that when she was a Republican defender, she was more of an opportunistic Republican who then, as she does now, takes contrarian positions not out of principle but because it generates clicks, RTs, and more talking head show appearances.

In summary, Jennifer Rubin is about as much of an authoritative source on Republicans as Paul Krugman is as it relates to economic matters. Which is to say, neither are authoritative sources in their areas of supposed expertise at all.