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About those NeverTrump Republicans

The New Neo Posted on by

We’ve already talked an awful lot here about the phenomenon of the NeverTrumpers on the right. Even so, this piece on the subject is well worth reading:

Before President Trump’s explosive entrance onto the political scene, mainstream conservatism was somewhat tolerated by gatekeepers in the media, academia, and the arts. My heroes were nuisances to America’s increasingly liberal institutions, sure, but no real threat to the progressively progressive status quo. Establishment conservatives were tokens, allowing liberal elites to pretend they were objective when they were fully intent on transforming American society.

But Donald J. Trump was a different animal altogether, one who refused to kowtow to the cultural norms of American political theater. His frank and straightforward style was intolerable to liberal puppet masters who had spent decades corralling Republicans and forcing them to play nice.

Establishment Republicans have built entire careers out of playing nice. And it shows.

The threat of banishment from cocktail parties and university lectures—over Donald Trump of all people—has been enough to force much of the right’s pundit class to toss aside their ideals to preserve mainstream acceptance.

Three years later, it’s this cadre of tamed conservatives who are lending their efforts to the left’s never-ending coup against the President.

In some ways, author Greg Jones’ trajectory is like mine in that he wasn’t particularly political prior to 9/11 and yet found himself surprisingly attracted to conservative thought after that event. In addition, during the 2016 campaign, Jones was initially quite anti-Trump, but during Trump’s presidency he has come to appreciate what Trump’s been doing.

But Jones and I are also quite different. Jones is much younger than I am, for starters. He also describes some of the supposed conservatives who later became NeverTrumpers as having once been his “heroes.”

I would never, never ever, have described them that way.

If I have any “hero” at all in the camp of conservative thinkers, then or now – and I’m not sure that I do – it would be limited to Thomas Sowell, a uniquely clear and fearless thinker whose writings were especially resonant to me when I was undergoing my political change.

I think the word “hero” should be used very sparingly, and time has proven me correct as so many feet of clay are revealed.

Comments

About those NeverTrump Republicans — 40 Comments

  1. I never thought of anyone at “National Review” as a hero, though WFB came close in retrospect, but I did think of them as friends or colleagues.

    I’m rather disappointed.

  2. Like clockwork… but unperceived

    happy (?) Guy Fawkes day

    The Fifth of November

    Remember, remember!
    The fifth of November,
    The Gunpowder treason and plot;
    I know of no reason
    Why the Gunpowder treason
    Should ever be forgot!
    Guy Fawkes and his companions
    Did the scheme contrive,
    To blow the King and Parliament
    All up alive.
    Threescore barrels, laid below,
    To prove old England’s overthrow.
    But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
    With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
    A stick and a stake
    For King James’s sake!
    If you won’t give me one,
    I’ll take two,
    The better for me,
    And the worse for you.
    A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
    A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
    A pint of beer to wash it down,
    And a jolly good fire to burn him.
    Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
    Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
    Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

  3. This one sentence says it all–

    “The threat of banishment from cocktail parties and university lectures—over Donald Trump of all people—has been enough to force much of the right’s pundit class to toss aside their ideals to preserve mainstream acceptance.”

  4. The NeverTrumpers are, without exception, scoundrels, mostly opportunists and very few, if indeed any, possessed of intellectual substance or acumen. Not many conservatives lament the passing of The Weekly Standard, nor can one easily imagine any who now prefer National Review to American Greatness. Sowell, of course, is brilliant and worthy of much praise, but attention should also be drawn to Roger Scruton, without question the most distinguished living philosopher.

  5. He is asking the only crucial question. The only question that really can be asked:

    “How can anyone align oneself with that which the Democratic Party has allowed itself to become?”

    To which the only answer is the contemptibly easy: “It’s a no-brainer: Anyone but Trump”….and so, on and on and on we go, through the Looking Glass, down the rabbit hole, with the “good guys”, the “moral elites”, the “holier than thou”, seething, vowing, declaiming in march step that to save the country, it must first be destroyed….

    What could possibly make them wake up from the nightmare they have hypnotized into existence?

  6. Agree completely about the use of the word “Hero”. It is a word that is misused and used far too casually.

    In particular, I detest it being used to describe victims of a crime or natural disaster. But, even beyond that, the word gets used for people just doing a job they were trained for and without being exposed to any particular or unusual risks. That isn’t heroic. It is the minimum we expect of them.

    It is the same phenomenon as the school kids getting an award just for participating.

  7. Yes on Thomas Sowell!

    I didn’t think of Bill Kristol, et al., as “heroes” at any time, but I did used to think the Professional Conservatives were worth reading and their opinions worth considering. They simply can’t get over how (gasp!) crude Trump is, and I don’t read them any more. Don Trump, Jr., said something during the campaign that stuck in my mind as true. He said his dad was kind of a blue collar billionaire.

    Do we want someone who isn’t as loud-mouthed and combative, but who is either a radical leftist or willing to roll over for those who are? No, thanks, not for me.

  8. My political transformation took place during the early 70’s during the Cold War and the winding down of the Viet Nam War, as a result, of among others the writings of the classical liberal F A Hayek and the cultural conservative Richard Weaver. Though hardly philosophical compatriots, they both spoke to my values as regards the essence of liberty and that which was essential to its preservation, the cultural values of western civilization that had stood the test of time.

  9. My dad and 2 uncles survived WW2, and 2 uncles did not come home. In my eyes they were all heroes. Pundits and most politicians are not heroes.

    Sowell and VDH are stellar thinks, never trumpers are self serving cowards. Rand Paul was at Trump’s Lexington, Ky rally yesterday and called for all republicans to publicly stand up and support POTUS.

  10. The NeverTrumpers are just a symptom of a problem affecting both the Left and the Right, which is that their leadership classes have more in common with each other and other global elites than they do with the public they’re supposed to be leading. The NeverTrumpers just highlight it by being such raging a-holes to Trump supporters when Trump supporters make up the overwhelming majority of Republicans and conservatives.

    I mean, George Will has literally proclaimed that Republican voters and politicians must be PUNISHED for disagreeing with Will when it comes to Trump. Add in the endless insults, snark, and NeverTrumpers blindly joining in on every anti-Trump liberal obsession that comes along and it raises a question: How do NeverTrumpers think this behavior is going to return them to positions of influence and leadership within GOP or the Conservative Movement?

    Answer: They don’t care about their status within the Right. They care about their status within the mainstream political establishment.

    Mike

  11. Second (third?) that on Sowell, who looks at results as opposed to intentions to measure success, and whose commentary always unearths the “unseen” to balance against the “seen.” …as well as on VDH, who evaluates events with a long-term view & historical context.
    I also have grown to like very much the writings of Conrad Black. I find his commentary prose measured and reflective, and his conclusions founded on facts and reason.

  12. The residue of NeverTrumpers consists of people on a spectrum: (a) those trying to earn a living and (b) those given to striking ineffectual and inane poses in lieu of (1) admitting that they misjudged the situation in 2015-16 and / or (2) admitting that they are and always have been divorced from practical life. Most of them have nothing to contribute of a salutary nature to the discussion of civic life at this time. NB, like the Obamacons, NeverTrump hardly exists street level or among working politicians. Its a tendency among academics and opinion journalists.

  13. Do NeverTrumpers still call themselves that? I was pretty Trump-skeptical before the election, still am somewhat, though I would never have called myself a NeverTrumper. But once he won the election it seemed beside the point, to say the least. Like walking around in the rain without an umbrella because you refuse to accept that it’s raining.

    Seemed to me that “hope for the best” was the rational response for anyone on the right end of the political spectrum. And Trump has done better than I expected. I’ve been saying for many years that for conservatives the Republican-Democrat choice is between an unreliable ally and an enemy.

    I began to turn conservative in the late ’70s, after a leftist youth, because it seemed apparent to me that the leftist view of the world did not correspond very well to reality. Never would I have named any political writer/thinker as a “hero”, though.

  15. My heroes were nuisances to America’s increasingly liberal institutions, sure, but no real threat to the progressively progressive status quo. Establishment conservatives were tokens, allowing liberal elites to pretend they were objective when they were fully intent on transforming American society.

    The left are perfectly happy to let people on the right posture to their heart’s content, as long as they are complete ineffectual. That’s the GOPe in a nutshell.
    _____

    The only hero that I had was Milton Friedman. He was clearly a libertarian of some stripe, though I never thought of him as a doctrinaire libertarian. “Free to Choose” is a classic and very accessible, and “Money Mischief …” is very fascinating if a bit less accessible.

  16. I shouldn’t neglect to site Rose Friedman, Milton’s wife who was a co-author of “Free to Choose.” How sexist of me.

  17. My own journey is quite the opposite.

    I always thought that George Will, Bill Kristol & company were kind of idiots after seeing their take on the Iraq war when I was starting college. The fact that many of my liberal friends are now linking to them and agreeing with their views is strong evidence to me that they are not capable of thinking clearly on Trump.

  18. Not that I would require it of anyone else, but George Orwell remains a hero for me. His unflinching devotion to the truth, whether it fit his political hope, e.g. Socialism, or not is an inspiration for the ages.

    To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.

    –George Orwell

    “1984” and “Animal Farm” are obvious, absolute necessities for understanding the 20th Century and beyond.

    But in addition to those books there are “The Road to Wigan Pier,” in which Orwell observed directly the true horrors lived by English coal miners in the 30s and the disconnect between the real working-class and those who considered themselves Socialists, and “Homage to Catalonia,” in which Orwell fought for the Socialist cause in the Spanish Civil War yet criticized the Communists. Both books got him in trouble with the orthodox left.

    Then there are Orwell’s many and equally hard-hitting essays plus his homey little piece “A Nice Cup of Tea,” which are not words, as a tea drinker, I live by but still love.

    Orwell is indispensable.

  19. Regarding the multiple Mormon murders by drug cartel members in Mexico reported today, where, inter alia, a fleeing child was shot down like a chicken, Never-Trumper Senator Sasse, the former president of an obscure Nebraska college, sounded just like Trump!

  20. I read this post (vial PowerLine) and suddenly understood, I think, where George Will and others got derailed from the Republicans (and erstwhile Democrats) who elected Trump.
    George thinks politics should be like baseball, and it hasn’t been for decades — if it ever was.
    It ain’t beanbag either.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/baseball-most-valuable-rules-unwritten-alex-bregman-juan-soto/

    Baseball inoculates itself against unseemly behavior by means of rules that, although unwritten, are not unenforced, as Hinch and Martinez demonstrated. Just as the common law is derived from ancient social practices and judicial precedents, baseball’s codes are the game’s distilled mores. Their unchanging purpose is to encourage players, in the midst of passionate exertions, to show respect for opponents and the game. In baseball, as in the remainder of life, the most valuable rules are unwritten. By the observance of unwritten rules, mostly learned from parents, we avoid being codified into social death — smothered by written rules and drowned in formal adjudications as learned civility withers.

    On June 2, 2010, with two outs in the ninth inning, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game — 27 batters up, 27 down — something that had been done only 20 times in more than a century of major-league baseball. Then first-base umpire James Joyce made an obvious mistake, calling the 27th Cleveland Indians batter safe when he was clearly out on a ground ball. With nothing more demonstrative than a wry smile, Galarraga stoically went about getting the 27th out. In post-game comments, Joyce forthrightly regretted his misjudgment, and Galarraga said, in effect: To err is human, and tomorrow is another game. The next day, the Tigers took the unusual step of having a player — Galarraga — present the lineup card to the home plate umpire, who, as is standard practice, had been the previous game’s first-base umpire. Galarraga and Joyce shook hands.

    Now, which would you have preferred, a perishable memory of what would then have been a rare perfect game, or this unforgettable example of mutual graciousness? Of course.

    Some say that baseball’s unwritten standards are out of date. But as has been well said (by a character in an Alan Bennett play), standards are always out of date — that is why we call them standards.

    And yet, Will recognizes that Progressives are an existential danger to the Republic — but he can’t quite turn that into a desire to actually, you know, support someone that fights against their most venomous policies because Trump’s not a gentleman by the standards of baseball.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/8/george-will-and-american-power/

    By Clifford D. May – – Tuesday, October 8, 2019
    ANALYSIS/OPINION:

    For more than 40 years, George Will has been producing erudite political commentary. Most often, I find myself agreeing with the arguments presented in his twice-weekly columns for The Washington Post. When I don’t, I have to wrack my brains to figure out why, and how I might frame a cogent dissent.

    He’s recently published “The Conservative Sensibility” — no subtitle — a 538-page reflection on Western political philosophy and tradition, and the specifically American vision of the Founders.

    “A sensibility,” he writes, “is more than an attitude but less than an agenda.” The American conservative sensibility, he adds, includes “an unsentimental, almost bleak realism,” while applying “general principles to untidy realities.”

    American conservatives in the current era, he argues, have no higher obligation than to defend the “classical liberal tradition” upon which the United States was founded. For more than a century, that tradition has been under attack by progressivism which “began as a forthright rejection of the Founders’ philosophy.” Today’s progressives seek nothing less than “the overthrow of the Founders’ classical liberalism.”

    George & other Never Trumpers don’t seem to notice that the Democrats jettisoned the standards of baseball a long time before Trump came on the scene; they just covered it better.

  21. Elsewhere in Greg Jones’s post – this resonated with me.

    https://humanevents.com/2019/11/04/the-downfall-of-conservatism-inc/

    But I wasn’t a Democrat for a reason, and ours was not the party of corruption. If he won the candidacy, my party had spoken, and that’s who I’d be casting my ballot for.

    Sadly, my establishment heroes saw things differently. They began doing their best to copy the tactics and lies of the DNC. Of course, they couldn’t do it officially or on behalf of the Republican Party, but they didn’t have to. The loyalties they had cultivated in Americans like me gave them enough power to sabotage Donald Trump’s campaign.

    Or so they thought.
    …
    Donald Trump would eventually win the presidency. And instead of accepting their defeat in humility and taking the opportunity to reflect on how they had failed their constituents, establishment conservatives launched an all-out insurgency.
    Suddenly, the icons of modern American conservatism sought refuge within the very elitist bubble they used to criticize.
    …

    Nobody was talking about the successes of President Trump’s presidency: from a gangbusters economy to judicial appointments to wiping out ISIS, Number 45 was getting the job done.

    No, it was all Orange Man bad. And elites from both sides were happy to tell you just how bad he was.
    …
    What had happened to my heroes?

    I understand their objection to Trump’s style—three years ago, I myself was put off by it—but style is nothing when measured against substance. Here was a president advancing their agenda—our agenda—didn’t that mean something?

    At first, I attributed their open mutiny to pride. Pride is human, and prideful men often make for sore losers.

    Here is where Jones (in Neo’s excerpt) explains the NeverTrumpers as, essentially, narcissistic collaborationists whining at losing their punditry perks. He may be right, but I think he is more correct in his first impression: that they are still nursing hurt pride:.
    They told Conservatives not to elect Trump — to pick one of the other GOP candidates — and Conservatives declined to do so! Trump has to be what the Democrats say he is to vindicate the pundit’s prophetic pronouncements.

    No “conservative” in their right mind would cede one centimeter of power to the current Democratic Party. There is simply no moral comparison between them and the President—they’ve made it perfectly clear they have no intention of being civil. Perhaps the most extreme political entity in the history of the country, today’s left is proudly socialist, openly hostile to the freedoms granted by the Constitution, devoid of any respect for the miracle of life, and an open threat to our safety and stability.

    During my two-decades of political education and civic life, if I’ve learned anything it’s that principles—not personalities—should define your political identity.

    If it takes a little coarse language and off-color jokes to secure the future of the Republic and stave off the threats posed by an increasingly radical American left—so be it.

  22. So, what happens if the Democrats and NeverTrumpers succeed in fomenting their revolution against the American norm of peaceful transfers of power after elections?

    https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2015/07/08/revisiting-aleksandr-solzhenitsyns-warnings-to-the-west/

    As half-centuries and centuries have passed, people have learned from their own misfortunes that revolutions demolish the organic structures of society, disrupt the natural flow of life, destroy the best elements of the population and give free rein to the worst; that a revolution never brings prosperity to a nation, but benefits only a few shameless opportunists, while to the country as a whole it heralds countless deaths, widespread impoverishment, and, in the gravest cases, a long-lasting degeneration of the people.

  23. “…they just covered it better.”

    In fact, perfuming that pig to the hilt!

    To recap: OK so our moral betters in the Democratic Party may have been systematically shredding the Constitution and fundamentally transforming (AKA, destroying) the country….

    …but they are SO suave, SO brilliant, SO well-spoken, SO classy, SO conscientious, SO humane, SO uncorruptible…. And they dress SO well…. (reiterated ad infinitum by a gushing, hagiographic MSM in no uncertain terms, following a well-orchestrated, finely-tuned script of what can only be described as the latest “blockbuster” version of “La Grande Seduction”….)

    As opposed to the current occupant of the WH, a loud-mouthed, uncouth, racist, deranged buffoon (reiterated ad infinitum by a hateful, hypocritical, hysterical MSM—so that it has become FACT), who is as incapable of running the country as he is of telling the truth….

    …but who, as it just so happens, is trying his best to thwart the plans of the above MSM-backed wrecking crew (suave and well-dressed as it is) and save the country from the latter’s transformational machinations (AKA road to paradise)….

    …for which trouble he, and those who support him in this noble effort, must be utterly destroyed…

    …along with the country they are trying to save.

    Not sure why this is such a difficult choice….

  24. So, what happens if the Democrats and NeverTrumpers succeed i

    Again, NeverTrumpers are not numerous and have no objects other than maintaining themselves.

    Ross Douthat works for The New York Times. David Brooks works for the Times and PBS. Jennifer Rubin and George Will work for The Washington Post. The Bulwark crew are maintained by grants from a liberal billionaire named Pierre Omidyar. David Frum works for The Atlantic. Joe Scarborough works for MSDNC. Amanda Carpenter, Nicolle Wallace, and S.E. Cupp work for CNN. They’re astroturf.

    Aside from these, you have the legacy beneficiaries. John Podhoretz is maintained by the donations of a coteries Jewish septuageniarians invested in Commentary as an institution. Mona Charen is on the patronage of the Ethics and Public Policy Center; she’s a publicist without any important skills and generally confines her writing to topics other than the President. David French receives a per diem from National Review, another grant money vent pipe. Kevin Williamson has at times been absurdly well-compensated by that same vent pipe (they’re IRS 990s indicate they were paying him over $200,000 a year at one point; Richard Lowry and John Podhoretz have in the past been similar beneficiaries of fiduciary failure by their organizations’ boards). Max Boot has a sinecure at the Council on Foreign Relations (which is indubitably dominated by the Peter Sutherlands of this world).

    Some of the foregoing (Frum, Will) don’t need the money, others have seen their income decline a great deal in the last four years (Erick Erickson), others are avocational and make their real living doing something else (Patrick Frey), and a few actually work for self-supporting starboard media (Ed Morrissey, Allaputz). However, the quantum of NeverTrump discourse is an order of magnitude larger than it would be because these people are being financed by liberals.

  25. I try to ask all those who complain about Trump:
    What is more important, words or results?

    Trump has great results.

    I support good results.

    Now I’ll be adding – you think Trump’s words are icky, isn’t that really why you hate him?

  26. Art Deco – impressive list, but you left out one (I have never heard of him, but I don’t read the Atlantic much anymore).

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/trumps-tweet-makes-me-proud-be-human-scum/600685/

    I’m Proud to Be Called Human Scum
    If the president thinks my support for the Constitution and the rule of law justifies that epithet, I’ll wear it as a badge of honor.

    OCTOBER 24, 2019
    Paul Rosenzweig
    Senior fellow at the R Street Institute and a principal at Red Branch Consulting

    Apparently, I’m human scum. Though that is normally a characterization that would cause me grave concern, in this case I wear it as a badge of honor.

    The other day, President Donald Trump tweeted: “The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!”

    That’s me. I’m a proud “Never Trumper Republican.” I’ve been a conservative Republican most of my adult life. I joined the Federalist Society in 1983, and remain a member to this day. I have worked at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and today I work at a center-right think tank, the R Street Institute. I served as the first deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, as a political appointee in the George W. Bush administration, where, I assure you, many activists did not view me as a raving liberal. And, perhaps most notable for our purposes today, I served as a senior counsel during the Whitewater/Lewinsky investigation of President Bill Clinton, which led to his impeachment in 1998.

    Read: A “Never Trumper” on serving in the Trump administration

    MORE BY PAUL ROSENZWEIG
    Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky
    The Whistle-Blower Passes the ‘Fanful Test’
    PAUL ROSENZWEIG
    Donald Trump
    Trump’s Defiance of the Rule of Law
    PAUL ROSENZWEIG
    Donald Trump
    Trump Fails the Betty Currie Test
    PAUL ROSENZWEIG
    Robert Mueller
    By Protecting the Presidency, Mueller Has Hurt the Country
    PAUL ROSENZWEIG
    Nevertheless, I have opposed Trump’s political ambitions almost from the beginning: I warned against his election in early 2016, I deregistered from the Republican Party in May 2016 when his nomination was guaranteed, and I declined a couple of opportunities to be considered for positions in his administration. In November 2018, I helped found a group called Checks and Balances that has called for conservative lawyers to defend the rule of law against presidential assault; I’ve signed a letter with more than 1,000 other former prosecutors arguing that Trump has committed criminal obstruction of justice; and I’ve publicly called for his impeachment and removal. Though I am sure that Trump does not know me from Adam, I am confident that when he speaks of Never Trumper Republicans who are human scum, he means me.

    What makes me human scum? Evidently, a belief in enduring American ideals, like the rule of law and the value of a free press. A belief in a system of governance that enshrines the principle of checks and balances in our Constitution—a system in which Congress and the judiciary serve as limits on authoritarian executive overreach.

    The rest of his post indicates that, despite waving his credentials, maybe he needs to get them renewed, because he obviously didn’t notice that the Democrats have not been operating by those beliefs for decades — and especially since 2008.

  27. I now regard the use of the phrase “NeverTrumper” on a conservative site as a red flag that the writer prefers name-calling and oversimplification to any actual discussion. Plenty of people who didn’t like Trump nevertheless preferred him greatly to Hillary Clinton, and they won him the election. The few votes that shift do matter, but they are always a small percentage in every election these days. I am planning on voting for Trump in 2020. I mostly like what he has done. But I do not think he is always right, nor that anyone who disagrees with him is no longer allowed to be considered conservative.

    This sort of demonization and 100%-0% thinking is reminiscent of liberals. If your brain immediately rejected that possibility as impossible, that is evidence for my point. 100-0 is the mark of the fanatic.

    Most of the justifications for not merely supporting Trump, but despising the others boil down to “the end justifies the means,” coupled with a certainty that no one but Trump could have made anything good happen over the last three years. Some of you do believe that, and are comfortable with a results-only evaluations, and are convinced that only Trump would get results. Not everyone agrees with that morality, and those who disagree sometimes have these cute little things called reasons. Also, the stories you make up in your head about what they are like and the parties they want to go to are just that – stories. What are you, NPR or CNN, pretending you know the motivations of other people and relying on anecdotes for truth?

    The world changes slowly, and despite the politically engaged assuring us that CATASTROPHE! is right around the corner, ACT NOW! their impressions are based largely on feelings, not fact. Again, this has ben a liberal hallmark. I have been distressed to see some (not all) conservatives who dislike Trump to react with this level of panic, and some (not all) conservatives who like Trump to go all paranoid and doom-o’er-all-the-earth as well. He’s fine. He’s not magic. Your health, your family, your job, and your town will not change much whether he stays or goes.

    As the responses to this are predictable, you might stop and think for a few minutes whether there is anything that hasn’t been said, and said loudly a thousand times before, that you can add to the conversation.

  28. “100-0 is the mark of the fanatic.”

    Dude, why do you think anyone is still talking/writing about NeverTrumpers in November 2019? BECAUSE THEY’RE STILL 100% AGAINST TRUMP.

    We’re not talking about people who were opposed to Trump in 2016 but are now critical of him when he deserves it and supportive of him when he deserves it. We’re talking about people, like George Will, who still want Trump to lose to a Democrat in 2020. We’re talking about people, like Allahpundit, who jump on every Democratic smear thrown at Trump and repeat it like it’s the gospel truth. We’re talking about people, like Bill Kristol, who heap scorn on not only Trump but Trump supporters every time they speak/write/tweet.

    It is a flat out lie to state or imply that NeverTrumpers are just these reasonable folks who don’t like Trump and are endlessly harassed for it.

    Mike

  29. Assistant Village Idiot:

    I wonder whether you know what the term “NeverTrumper” actually refers to.

    It is not someone who criticizes Trump sometimes. Plenty of people here do that

    It is someone who constantly criticizes Trump, who cannot credit him for anything, and – more importantly – who although a supposed Republican and/or conservative, supports the Democrats against him.

    The list of NeverTrumpers is actually rather short. The following is not meant to be inclusive, but the most well-known are George Will, David Frum, Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, Allahpundit, and Bill Kristol. Those are the ones who come to mind first for me, although there are others. They are almost all pundits rather than politicians, for some reason.

    It is they who exhibit the 100-0 thinking. And “NeverTrumper” is an excellent short-hand term for them. It is descriptive of what they are. It is not meant to refer to people who merely criticize Trump at times (or even often). For example, David French is not a NeverTrumper in my book, because although he often criticizes Trump he is also capable of supporting some of the things he does, and most importantly I do not believe that French has ever supported Hillary or other Democrats who run against Trump.

  30. Some additional ones from Art Deco, in the context of who they work for or how they pay the rent.
    I added Paul Rosenzweig above, by his own admission in a post at The Atlantic.
    David French’s Never-ness seems to be debatable, I don’t remember his stance on Hillary.
    There seems to be agreement that the necessary qualifications included (1) always criticizing Trump regardless of policies or even presentation (sometimes he gives really good speeches!); (2) preference for any Republican over Trump, although IIRC none of the named list was ecstatic over Cruz; (3) willing to vote Democrat rather than Trump, including for Hillary (although that might not be a total necessity, it seems to be common).

    Art Deco on November 6, 2019 at 6:21 am said:
    … NeverTrumpers are not numerous and have no objects other than maintaining themselves.

    Ross Douthat .. David Brooks.. Jennifer Rubin and George Will ..The Bulwark crew … David Frum. Joe Scarborough… Amanda Carpenter, Nicolle Wallace, and S.E. Cupp …They’re astroturf.

    Aside from these, you have the legacy beneficiaries. John Podhoretz ..Mona Charen .. David French … Kevin Williamson ..Richard Lowry and John Podhoretz ..Max Boot .

    Some of the foregoing (Frum, Will) don’t need the money, others have seen their income decline a great deal in the last four years (Erick Erickson), others are avocational and make their real living doing something else (Patrick Frey), and a few actually work for self-supporting starboard media (Ed Morrissey, Allaputz). However, the quantum of NeverTrump discourse is an order of magnitude larger than it would be because these people are being financed by liberals.

  31. Some advice for NeverTrumpers — it may not be palatable to everyone, but it must at least be recognized as where things are headed.
    Collegiality and civility may have to stay inside the party primaries, and jettisoned in the general elections, David French’s gentlemanly legal successes notwithstanding.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/11/kentuckys_real_lesson_for_conservatives.html

    November 7, 2019
    Kentucky’s Real Lesson for Conservatives
    By Sally Zelikovsky
    The lesson Republicans and conservatives should take from the Kentucky gubernatorial race is not whether Trump showing up is a net positive or negative or whether the GOP put enough money or effort into the race or whether Bevin should have been the candidate in the first place or whether he was likable. The true lesson lies in the overwhelming success of Kentucky’s down-ballot election results for attorney general, agriculture commissioner, auditor, secretary of state, and treasurer, where Republican candidates demolished Democrat candidates
    …
    If Bevin is certified the loser, it will come down to the fact that tens or hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians, who had no problem voting for other Republicans this year and Bevin four years ago, decided to stay home or cast their votes for Democrat Andy Beshear or the Libertarian candidate, John Hicks …

    They, not Matt Bevin, are the Kentuckians to blame for the election of Andy Beshear. He hasn’t changed. He is the same rough-around-the-edges, somewhat obnoxious carpetbagger he was when he ran four years ago and remained during his tenure as governor of Kentucky and when he was put on the ballot to be re-elected. He made enemies trying to fix the things he was elected to fix — things Republicans and conservatives find important like budgets and unfunded liabilities. Like him or not, he was their guy. As long as he was on the ballot and didn’t commit a crime or reveal himself to be a RINO, they owed him their vote. They owed it to the rest of the Republicans and conservatives in Kentucky. They owed it to the rest of us in the country.

  32. For example, David French is not a NeverTrumper in my book,

    Disagree. French has been busily promoting con jobs like the Russian collusion hoax, even as Andrew McCarthy dismantles his arguments in an adjacent column.

    He didn’t tell you to vote for Hillary. He told you to cast a ballot for a decoy named Evan McMullin.

    French writes an article for The Atlantic on gross and rude messages he and his wife received in regard to their adoption of an Ethiopian orphan. My regrets about that, but I’m not impressed with his inclination to extend culpability in such matters to an amorphous class of people who had nothing to do with sending him these messages (but with whom he is irritated at this time).

  33. What makes me human scum? Evidently, a belief in enduring American ideals, like the rule of law and the value of a free press. A belief in a system of governance that enshrines the principle of checks and balances in our Constitution—a system in which Congress and the judiciary serve as limits on authoritarian executive overreach.

    Mr. Rosenzweig, take some counsel from Pat Buchanan: “When the mob is coming to get the old man, you don’t having him sit down and write a list of his ‘mistakes’. You start firing from the upper floors”

    The self-centered attitudinizing of these people doesn’t make them scum. It makes them tools, and worthy of being ignored.

  34. @ Neo – I can easily grant the term applies to some people who write as conservatives, including the ones you mention, and I think you do make the correct distinction. If you felt I was criticizing you in this I hasten to correct that.

    However, I don’t think that is what most people are talking about. If we were only talking about a dozen people, the linked article would not be generalizing so much about a generation of heroes he now dislikes, he would specify, not only as examples, but in signaling limitations. Commenters here and elsewhere on conservative sites would not be using the term so frequently, and they would specify. They would not so easily resort to screaming in all-caps.

    Are there a lot of people unthinkingly and angrily overusing the term? I don’t know, we cannot easily measure such things. However, I am certain there are a lot of them in comment sections on conservative sites who work themselves into a lather daily, because I see them right there in front of me. Perhaps they are the few. There is some reason to think there are more than that.

  35. Assistant Village Idiot:

    Of course there are people who use the term for anyone who ever criticizes Trump. For example, there are some people who comment on other blogs and make sure to diss me as a NeverTrumper any time I am mentioned, even at this point.

    Obviously I’m not a NeverTrumper. So either they stopped reading me long long ago and are holding a grudge, or they are over-generalizing and using the term for anyone who has ever criticized Trump. But I don’t think they represent a very large portion of the Trump supporters, although they may represent a vocal and active portion online.

  36. “If we were only talking about a dozen people, the linked article would not be generalizing so much about a generation of heroes he now dislikes, he would specify, not only as examples, but in signaling limitations.”

    We’re not just talking about a dozen people. Did you miss the “Against Trump” issue of National Review? How about the Wiki page of “Republicans who opposed the 2016 election of Donald Trump?” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Republicans_who_opposed_the_2016_Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign

    Now, some of those on that Wiki page have…shall we say “adjusted” their views to accommodate a Trump Administration. But again, the issue isn’t really numbers and the issue isn’t that anyone was opposed to Donald Trump in 2016. The issue is the people who haven’t changed their view of Trump, despite his being the most successfully conservative President since Ronald Reagan and despite the unprecedented attacks waged against him by Democrats and the media.

    Donald Trump is pretty popular with the overwhelming majority of Republicans and conservatives. If you criticize him, you’re going to get some pushback. The more arrogant and condescending that criticism and the more you parrot liberal lies and slanders against Donald Trump and his supporters, the more vociferous that pushback will be.

    What is hard to understand about that? What is different about that than with any previous political leader?

    Mike

  37. However, I don’t think that is what most people are talking about. If we were only talking about a dozen people, the linked article would not be generalizing so much about a generation of heroes he now dislikes, he would specify, not only as examples, but in signaling limitations. Commenters here and elsewhere on conservative sites would not be using the term so frequently, and they would specify. They would not so easily resort to screaming in all-caps.

    We are only talking about a dozen people. However, those dozen have a high profile in the media. Their function is to be fodder for their employers’ gamesmanship and to provide emotional validation for those employers and for liberals in the audience. They have little constituency among starboard voters. The owners of The Weekly Standard pulled the plug on it because they were running out of readers. There are some admirers of Trump in broadcast media, but they’re all on Fox and that’s not a universal disposition at Fox.

    (The modal viewpoint at NR is take-it-case-by-case. Victor Davis Hanson is generally pro-Trump; David French and Jonah Goldberg are anti-Trump. The situation is much the same at Hot Air).

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