Fake-News "Exclusive"**: Over the weekend, I obtained a tape of a conversation between two Republican senators, one an obscure back-bencher and the other a prominent defender of the president and a regular TV presence. I transcribed it yesterday.

“I don’t know, ol’ buddy. I’m really starting to waver.”

“Waver? Why?”

“Well…that Times story last Friday. I saw what you said publicly. But you and I both know there wasn’t a single false word in that whole story. We sat next to each other in that briefing.”

“So? What of it?”

“And now this DJ IG report isn’t gonna say what we wanted. Strzok was telling the truth.”

“I’ve known that all along. But one more time: What of it?”

“Well… we’re lying! And we’re helping Russia!”

“Look at me while I say this to you, and I will speak slowly: The president is a reformer. He was only interested in Ukraine reforming its judicial system, and once that was accomplished to his satisfaction, he released—”

“Oh, come on, you can say that on Fox, but we’ve known each other 30 years. Don’t blow that smoke up my ass, pal.”

“—the aid to the government, now run by a true reformer who happens to be an ally of the President of the United States, the greatest reformer of them all.”

“Oh come off it. We’re helping Russia. We’re helping goddamn Putin! I’m starting to get spooked by it. The other night I had one of those dreams where you’re back in college and it’s finals week and you haven’t gone to class all semester and you show up for the final totally unprepared and wearing your underpants, you know the one?”

“Have it all the time.”

“Well, in this one, Putin was the professor! And he was laughing at me hysterically, maniacally! ‘I have your balls in a sack,’ he kept saying. Except he was speaking Russian, so I don’t know how I knew that’s what he was saying, but somehow I did, cuz, you know, dreams.”

“They’re weird that way. But look. Shake it off. We need you to be strong.”

“I’m trying. But the guy is indefensible. You know that. We all know that. He’s a fucking criminal. He’s guilty. He’s guilty of it all.”

“I know that.”

“What? You know that? You say the opposite every day on TV.”

“That’s correct. And if television bothered to ask you, you would say exactly the same thing. You know why?”

“Why?”

“ Here are some things Donald Trump is not guilty of. He’s not guilty of raising taxes. He’s not guilty of socialism. He’s not guilty of wanting to give health care to people who haven’t earned it. ”

“Cuz here are some things Donald Trump is not guilty of. He’s not guilty of raising taxes. He’s not guilty of socialism. He’s not guilty of wanting to give health care to people who haven’t earned it. He’s not guilty of putting liberal judges on the federal bench who’ll rule that everybody and their brother can vote and that David Koch can’t buy Congress. He’s not guilty of trying to kill coal and oil. Need me to go on?”

“I get you, I get you. But… I don’t know. There has to be a limit, doesn’t there?”

“Let me explain something to you. Ask yourself this. If he loses, who wins?”

“Well, if it’s Biden, Joe’s not so bad. At least we know he’s an honest guy. Even Elizabeth… I’m against everything she wants. Ideologically she scares the hell out of me. But she’s a nice enough person, a non-horrible human being. And we’ll block everything she wants to do anyway, I mean we’ll just steamroll the shit out of her, and she’ll get nothing done and the left will be demoralized and we’ll take back the House in ’22 and the White House in ’24, so what’s so bad about that?”

“I’m not even talking about the presidency. That’s important, sure. But you’ve gotta think bigger. Nancy Pelosi wins. Abortionists win. The gays win. The New York Times wins. CNN wins. MSNBC wins. Rachel Maddow wins.”

“I know, but—”

“And who loses? You know who loses. You lose. I lose. Good patriotic Americans lose. The military loses.”

“The military! Mr. Fucking Bone Spurs!”

“Irrelevant. Jesus Christ loses.”

“Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ!”

“Yes. Jesus Christ.”

“Jesus Christ’s fortunes depend on a guy who fucks porn stars and lies about it?”

“Exactly! Now you’re starting to get it! Lookit. We’re at war. And in war, the ends justify the means. And the best mean of all is propaganda. Indoctrination. Works every time. I mean, how we got those dumbass evangelicals to buy into this guy—so much easier than I thought it would be!”

“I’m just telling you. My conscience is getting to me. I might vote to convict, if Mitch releases me.”

“Uh-huh. Let me ask you a question. You just started your fourth term. Thinkin’ about retiring, I hear.”

“Thinking about it.”

“Talking to some K Street folks, as I understand it.”

“You have some big ears there.”

“There ain’t no secrets in this town.”

“Apparently not.”

“Yes, that’s a nice life. Nice life. What, six, seven hundred thousand to start, before distributions?”

“’Bout that.”

“I’d hate to see something disrupt that. I mean, I’d hate to see you exposed as being a puppet of... George Soros.”

“George Soros? I wouldn’t know him if he walked in this room!”

“And that’s exactly how sneaky people like Soros want it.”

“But you wouldn’t—”

“No. I wouldn’t. I’m your friend. But not everybody’s as nice as I am…”

**Obviously, this is not a real dialogue. Two senators wouldn’t talk this way. But the reason they wouldn’t talk this way is not that the above doesn’t contain truth. No, the reason they wouldn’t talk this way is that they don’t need to. It’s all understood.

There’s a quote from an old Boston ward-heeler named Martin Lomasney that is the greatest political quote ever: “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink.” I doubt Republicans speak to one another very much about Trump. They nod and they wink. And they’re nodding and winking democracy into oblivion.