During the 2016 presidential campaign, blogger, activist, and speaker Erick Erickson was one of Trump’s fiercest critics. In February of last year, for instance, he announced that he would “never” vote for the man who would eventually become the Republican Party’s nominee.
“I have become convinced that Donald Trump’s pro-life conversion is a conversion of convenience,” he wrote in an article at his own website The Resurgent. “Life is the foremost cause in how I vote. Therefore I will not be voting for Donald Trump at all. Ever.”
He then proceeded to criticize members of the pro-life movement who had already thrown their support behind Trump while there were still other, more reliable conservatives in the race. “If Trump were elected President, there would be members of the pro-life movement who would compromise their convictions for access to power,” he explained. “If Trump were elected, portions of the conservative movement would compromise the movement to be one degree from Donald Trump. The intellectual institutions on which we have made our case for limited government and freedom would crumble.”
After the election, however, Erickson did a 180 — or at least a 90. He admitted that he was (rather obviously) wrong when he predicted that Trump had no chance of winning, adding: “In an election in which I wanted both candidates to lose, the man I wanted to lose beat the woman I wanted to lose, and I am O.K. with that. If I was wrong about the election, I am willing to admit I can be wrong about Donald Trump.”
Well, from the looks of it, Erickson is once again moving towards the “NeverTrump” camp:
If POTUS pardons before a trial put me in the impeach camp.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 28, 2017
Of course, this is related to the Russia controversy. At this moment there’s absolutely no reason to believe that Trump is going to pre-pardon anyone, but it’s a popular theory in NeverTrump circles nonetheless. Erickson clearly thinks there might be something to it, so he’s already setting himself up for yet another 180.
That’s understood, and yes, it will be very problematic if Trump does indeed pardon his former allies when/if they’re going to be prosecuted over their ties with Russia, but let’s not pretend that this scenario is likely to unfold. RussiaGate has been blown out of proportion by the leftist media for months now. They’re pretending that Trump, Flynn, Bannon and others colluded with the Russians, betrayed their country, and stole the election from Hillary in doing so. It’s pathetic. The media have investigated this matter ad nauseam. If they haven’t found any smoking gun yet, chances are they’re not going to.
So, Erickson would be wise to calm down. RussiaGate isn’t nearly as big of a deal as the liberal media pretend. Not yet, at least.
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