An obligatory follow-up to last night’s post. Sounds like my theory was largely correct: It’s not just his personal falling-out with Palin, which he elaborates on in his new Facebook post, or her embrace of the progressive Trump that’s bothering him, it’s the whole damned discombobulating phenomenon of Trumpmania among the tea party and its sympathizers.

Especially its sympathizers in conservative talk radio.

I do not understand her position and love of Trump. He is clearly a progressive, not a small government constitutionalist…

But he is also a bully, sexist, cruel, an ego manic and narcissist in ways that makes Barack Obama seem like Saint Francis…

As Sarah Palin holds a unique place with the tea party, I expect more from her. Perhaps this is wrong of me. To support Trump and ignore his very disturbing policies makes you a populist at best. But I am almost alone in this it seems. At least with almost anyone in my job. Maybe they all have a personal relationship with him or I am just wrong…

What principles that the tea party is founded on is she promoting with her love of trump?…

[My personal grievance with her] was Coupled with total confusion on her love affair with Donald Trump (made worse in my head by my lack of ability to grasp what 30% of small government Self proclaimed constitutionalist, values and religious people see in him.

He apologizes for calling her a “clown” in yesterday’s radio rant but stresses that he stands by all of his other criticisms. The “clown” bit was apparently triggered by watching her be chummy with Trump at Wednesday’s rally against the Iran deal in D.C.; that subject is far too grave, Beck says, for serious conservatives to applaud Trump’s self-serving clownish hijacking of the event. As for the mysterious falling-out with Palin, read the full post for details on the unnamed Iago figure who set Beck, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin at each other’s throats by spreading lies about them to each other, and whom Beck suspects of pulling the same trick between him and Palin. “Celebrity, fame and TV/radio are poison to humans I believe. At least it has been to me,” he writes. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Does he really not understand the appeal of Trumpism, though? I’ve always thought it was a more or less straightforward matter of Trump being willing to throw unusually hard punches at the right’s enemies, whether it’s Obama, the GOP leadership in Washington, illegals, or even John McCain. John Nolte wrote a bit about that yesterday, using Trump’s wisecrack about Carly Fiorina as an example of how he’s willing and able to fight successfully the way the left does. “Nobody votes for punks,” said Nolte. “People respect strength.” That’s the Trump “alpha” persona in a nutshell. The more he shoves Beltway Republicans into lockers, the more atomic wedgies he delivers to his GOP opponents, the more politically incorrect he is, the more the legend of “he fights!” grows. And years before Trump had that reputation, Palin had it. “She fights!” was probably the most popular reason given by righties for idolizing her during her 2009-11 heyday. The two of them have each spent years being scolded repeatedly by “respectable” opinion-makers for things they’ve said and they’ve refused to back down, i.e. apologize, from any of it. They’re both subversive in that sense, a rebuke to the ruling political order. Trump is filling the niche she used to fill because what he lacks in Palin’s conservative principles he makes up for in his greater willingness to groin-punch his enemies. Palin evidently decided that that was close enough to populist conservatism to make nice with Trump. Beck disagreed. That’s the difference.

Here’s her speech at the rally against the Iran deal. Exit quotation from Beck: “It may mean that I don’t have a single listener left in the end but I would rather be true to myself, principles and to my God than to parties, cliques or popularity.” I believe him.