THE STATE OF THE CONSERVATIVE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT, 2020.

Rich Lowry has certainly come a long way since he edited the "Against Trump" issue of National Review in 2016. After the election NR swiftly transitioned to a JustTheTip Trumper publication, and Lowry obligingly struck the colors and hoisted the MAGA flag. Today, as the rats pour over the gunwales, with his movement a blasted hulk, Lowry gives what's left of his followers a final message: Vote Trump to say fuck you to people you hate!

The Only Middle Finger Available
If Trump wins, it will be as a gigantic rude gesture to the cultural Left.

Well, as embarrassed journalists like to say, authors (even EICs) don't write their own heds and deks, so maybe --

If Donald Trump wins a second term, it will be an unmistakable countercultural statement in a year when progressives have otherwise worked their will across the culture.

After months and months of statues toppling and riots in American cities and a crime wave and woke virtue-signaling from professional sports leagues and absurd firings and cancellations, the year would end with a stunning, stark rebuke of all of that.

-- well, guess not: Lowry is pretty clearly taking an O.J. "If I Did It" approach: No declaratives or imperatives, just a description of rightwing bugbears and bêtes noires and how readers whose fever dreams are full of them might-could at least enjoy a spasm of vicarious vengeance via the "middle finger" of a Trump vote. 

Of course you have to believe some weird shit to buy it -- for example:

If Trump manages to pull off an upset in 2020, it will be as a gigantic rude gesture directed at the commanding heights of American culture.

So, Black Lives Matter protestors (whom wingnuts always call "rioters," it's in the Style Guide) and professional athletes are at the "commanding heights," whereas the President of the United States -- who with his footpads in all branches of the government has been wrecking the economy, the national health, the judiciary, the environment, not to mention trust in the institutions that hold the country together -- is, I guess, just a ceremonial figure like the village idiot or a cat or dog you elect Mayor of a township for shits and giggles. There's no consequences to that action except an occasional chuckle about how this collapsed civilization must really piss off the libs. 

Vote, please, and do extra diligence to make sure it gets counted. We're not in fact sending a message (Republicans don't listen anyway) but trying to improve and indeed save our lives.