One of the sad facts of political life is that argument paradigms are inevitably overused. The real damage from that overuse is not that any particular argument is rejected, but that the paradigm itself is then tarnished.

Case in point: “If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” That paradigm is available to anyone to use about any problem, so, as one might imagine, it has been worked to death by every snitch-driven, speech-suppressing totalitarian state ever created. But then along comes the GOP's Trump problem, of which, with all due respect to Mr. French, one can rightly say to any Republican, "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." Some may see an inconsistency in rejecting the paradigm in some contexts and using it in others, but the “consistency” demanded in that regard is of the foolish kind that Emerson rightly called “ the hobgoblin of little minds.”

I was a registered (but not especially partisan) Republican until Trump. I can identify the instant at which I mentally resigned from the party. It was in that debate where the moderator asked the candidates whether they would support the GOP nominee whoever that might be. Only Donald Trump had the temerity to raise his hand. Yet, everyone else on that stage pledged, in effect, that they would support Trump if he became the nominee. In that instant, everyone on that stage became part of the problem, because not one of them had the courage (or brains) to denounce Trump right then and there. And they still don't.

Much fuss has been made over the Harper's free-speech open letter. I'd like to see an open letter signed by the weasels who shared the stage with Trump that night in which they publicly renounce and apologize for the endorsement of his fitness implicit in their silence. I'd be happy to supply a first draft. (As if.)