Partisans Don't Need No Stinkin' Principles

Especially in an election year.

Groucho Marx once said that, “Those are my principles, and if you don't like them ... well, I have others.”

The line is from the 1933 film “Duck Soup,” where Groucho plays a politician named Rufus T. Firefly, the president of a country called Freedonia. The line shows President Firefly for who he really is — someone ready to toss his principles over the side, if by doing that, it would help him personally.

The line got a laugh in the movie, but in the real, non-fictional world of politics, Firefly’s message is taken very seriously. For partisans, principles are often a luxury they can’t afford, especially in an election year. Everything is about supporting your team and trying to destroy the other guy’s team. Partisans today are no different from Groucho’s Firefly in 1933. They feel no need to hang on to principles. Winning is all that counts.

Which brings us to Donald Trump’s supporters — and their principles. If they gave Trump a pass when he did something stupid, would they be fair and stand on principle and give his two opponents for president, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, a pass too?

Let’s see.

Remember when Donald Trump said John McCain wasn’t a war hero because “I like people who weren’t captured.”

How would Trump’s MAGA base have reacted if Hillary Clinton, while running against Trump in 2016, had said the very same thing? Would they pretend it was no big deal?

What if Hillary decided to make fun of a reporter she deemed unfriendly, a reporter with a physical disability? What if Hillary mocked the reporter by shaking uncontrollably — before a large crowd at one of her rallies and before a national TV audience? How would Trump loyalists respond to that? Would they write it off as much ado about nothing?

What if Biden lost to Trump in 2020 but said the election was rigged and tried to stay in office even after he lost? What would Trump supporters say about that?

What if Biden egged on a crowd of his supporters by repeating the lie that the election was stolen — and then they stormed the Capitol? Trump loyalists weren’t really bothered by what Trump did. Would they feel the same if it had been Biden who egged on the crowd that stormed the Capitol?

What if Joe Biden told a foreign leader that if NATO nations didn’t pay their fair share of costs, he’d encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want”? How would MAGA react if Biden said what Trump said?

What if Biden refused to hold Putin responsible for the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison — but instead compared Navalny’s plight to his own problems as president? Would Trump supporters let something like that slide?

What if Joe Biden tried to make a buck selling $400 gold sneakers? Would Trump supporters simply laugh it off?

We know the answer to every one of those questions, because we know that for partisans — whether they’re Trump supporters or Biden supporters — principles take a back seat to political convenience.

We know that Fox News would be all over Biden if he said the same things Trump has said. Hannity, Watters, Gutfeld and a whole bunch of lesser experts in the fine art of brown-nosing would never let Joe Biden get away with any of the stuff they let Donald Trump get away with.

And we know if Donald Trump were as obviously feeble as Joe Biden is, CNN and MSNBC would spend all day running video clips with comments about how Trump is too old, too incompetent, to be president. And Biden supporters who are playing down his mental acuity issues would be playing them up if it were Trump.

Neither side has a monopoly on hypocrisy.

So let’s end where we began, with Groucho’s line about principles: “Those are my principles,” he said, “and if you don't like them ... well, I have others.”

At least that’s better than having no principles at all.