I've never tried to hide the fact that in 2016, I wasn't on the Trump Train. His decision to run in the Republican primary didn’t excite m. I saw him as a New York liberal with no genuine interest in being president, and I didn't think he would govern as a conservative. What changed my mind was James Comey's FBI declining to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton despite her obvious mishandling of classified documents. That's when I decided to vote for Trump. I grew to not only like Trump, but to be grateful he was elected. The question I have right now is why more Never Trump conservatives haven't come around.
You won’t find anyone more understanding of conservatives who were skeptical about Trump in 2016 than I am—I was one of them. But Trump showed us he was the conservative fighter we needed in the White House. Even after he won me over, though, many conservative commentators refused to admit they were wrong. Instead, they've become obsessively anti-Republican, abandoning the very principles of conservatism they once claimed to champion.
Pundits like S.E. Cupp, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Ana Navarro, and George Will come to mind as prime examples. And, of course, there's David French—a former conservative icon who has become a useful tool of the political left.
In an op-ed in the New York Times on Sunday, French promptly established his conservative bona fides on abortion, including his belief that life begins at conception, before declaring, "But I’m going to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 and — ironically enough — I’m doing it in part to try to save conservatism."
Of course, French goes through the usual anti-Trump talking points, lamenting the change in the Republican Party because of the MAGA movement
"It has divorced Republican voters from any major consideration of character in leadership and all the while it has labeled people who resisted the change as 'traitors,'" French claimed, before asking: "What allegiance do you owe a party, a movement or a politician when it or they fundamentally change their ideology and ethos?"
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What French gets wrong here is that the ideology of the party hasn't changed under Trump. The MAGA movement isn't any different from the conservative movement under Bush and Reagan. The only thing that has changed is the willingness to let our party and our values be trampled over by the left without a fight.
As evil as the radical left is, they know how to fight and win. Back in 2004, I got my start in political blogging by running "Blogs For Bush," rallying support for George W. Bush's reelection. And I don’t regret a second of it. Bush was a conservative, but he lacked the fire that we see in Donald Trump today. After the razor-thin 2000 election, Bush knew he had to work with Democrats to get some of his agenda through—and he did. Among other things, he secured tax cuts with bipartisan support, only to be betrayed as Democrats pulled every trick to undermine him. It was during his presidency that Democrats first weaponized the filibuster to block judicial nominees. What they did to Bush was disgraceful, but he was too polite and mild-mannered to push back and defend conservative principles.
Donald Trump was the fighter we needed against a political party that has spiraled into dangerous radicalism. Sure, he has his flaws—who doesn’t? But after three and a half years of Joe Biden in the White House, it's clear that Democrats can do significant damage in a short amount of time. From radical gender ideology to the weaponization of government, the left is systematically dismantling American ideals. Voting for a San Francisco liberal will only accelerate the decline of our nation. We need someone who can stop the bleeding, not someone who will worsen it.
