#NeverTrumpers: They Never Learn

While Democrats have obviously spent the last week or so licking their chops at the prospect of removing President Trump from office, so too have the #NeverTrumpers.  Two of the most prominent opponents to Trump who claim to possess a higher loyalty to the conservative movement than the “deplorables” who support America’s 45^th President, Jeff Flake and Bill Kristol, have not surprisingly come out in favor of impeaching President Trump and/or “replacing” him with a candidate of their choice.  If Flake and Kristol had their way, the Republican Party would begin relying on “superdelegates” to pick their Presidential nominees to ensure that a candidate like President Trump would never end up winning a Republican primary ever again.

Perhaps Flake and Kristol have on obsession with taking out President Trump because he exposes their policy failures. Had previous Republican administrations (and Republican Congresses) actually solved all of the problems the nation had when it came to the issues of trade, immigration, and foreign policy, America would have had no need for a brash outsider like Donald Trump to take the reins at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  The Jeff Flake approach to immigration, also known as amnesty with a “promise” of border enforcement, has turned state after state blue. The Jeff Flake approach to trade has led to America losing an astronomical number of manufacturing jobs to China, which appears poised to become America’s number one geopolitical foe in the 21^st century.   

As for Bill Kristol, relying on his approach to foreign policy has caused the United States to spend trillions of dollars in the Middle East and has arguably done more to destabilize the Middle East; likely leading to the refugee crisis that has engulfed Europe. While Kristol wrote an op-ed this week arguing that “Republicans Don’t Have to Nominate Trump in 2020,” he had begun working to oust the President long before the Ukraine whistle-blower controversy began dominating national headlines. Over the summer, The Washington Examiner reported that Kristol “has spoken with former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci about finding a Republican candidate to succeed Trump as the GOP’s 2020 nominee.” Kristol even put together a nonprofit organization called “Defending Democracy Together” devoted to finding a Republican challenger to President Trump. If Kristol really gave a crap about democracy, then he would stop trying to undo the will of the people by installing one of his puppets in the place of the man who maintains an enormous amount of support among the Republican electorate: President Trump. Instead of “defending democracy,” Kristol seems more interested in preserving the oligarchy that has made America’s foreign policy decisions over the past few decades.

House Judiciary Committee chairman and anti-Trump pit bull Jerry Nadler had it right in 1998 when he described impeachment as “an undoing of a national election.” Nadler declared that “one of the reasons we all feel so angry about what they are doing is that ... they are ripping asunder our votes. They are telling us our votes don’t count and the election must be set aside.”  While Nadler might seem like a hypocrite now that he has come out in favor of President Trump’s impeachment, he actually still believes what he said in 1998.  Nadler and the #NeverTrumpers actually want to undo the 2016 Presidential Election and pretend that it never happened. At the very least, they want to make sure that President Obama’s signature phrase, “elections have consequences,” does not apply to the 2016 election.

Liberals’ attempts at a do-over may end up blowing in their faces; just like what happened in the do-over election in North Carolina’s 9^th Congressional District. The North Carolina Board of Elections called for a new election after credible allegations of fraud tainted the results of the election that took place there last year; where Republican Mark Harris ended up winning by a very narrow margin of 905 votes. Liberals hope that the stench of scandal that caused the do-over in the first place would dog the Republican candidate Dan Bishop in the do-over election, which took place just last month. Bishop ended up winning by an even larger margin than Harris. Hopefully, the 2020 Presidential Election will yield a similar result: President Trump winning by an even wider margin.

If Flake had such confidence in his principles, he would have run for re-election to his Senate seat.  Instead, he stepped aside; knowing that the voters of Arizona would send him a strong message either in the primary or general election: “Hit the road, Jeff, and don’t you come back no more.”

As he announced his decision to, Jeff Flake ripped off his fellow Arizonan Barry Goldwater by writing a book called Conscience of a Conservative. Flake’s choose to use that title to indicates that he seems to view himself as a visionary like Goldwater, whose book effectively served as a blueprint for the conservative movement that produced Ronald Reagan; along with a book written by Phyllis Schlafly: A Choice Not an Echo. Flake obviously does not realize this but unlike Goldwater, whose book looked forward, Flake continues to look backward. Thanks to the immigration policies supported by Flake, the “good old days” of Republicans winning California and even New Jersey and Maryland will never return.

Now that Flake has left office, he has found a home in his only true constituency: the mainstream media. Following the expiration of his term as United States Senator, Flake joined CBS News. He recently wrote an op-ed for another anti-Trump mainstream media outlet, The Washington Post, arguing that President Trump “does not deserve re-election” and jumped on his high horse when urging his fellow Republicans to join #TheResistance: “My fellow Republicans, it is time to risk your careers in favor of your principles…Trust me when I say that you can go elsewhere for a job. But you cannot go elsewhere for a soul.”  As for Flake’s soul, he seemed all to happy to sacrifice it by bragging about writing a check for pro-choice Alabama Senate Democrat candidate Doug Jones with the memo “country over party.” If he hated Roy Moore that much, he could have simply withheld his endorsement; like many other Republicans in Washington did. Jones, Flake’s chosen candidate, ended up winning the election. As soon as he took office, he quickly found himself on the wrong side of the most important moral issue of our time; as demonstrated by his 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood.

#NeverTrumpers like Flake appear to believe that joining the mainstream media, they can make up for their past “sins.” In the case of Flake, he can now receive penance for his decision to support both of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominees.  As a frequent guest on cable news, Kristol can experience absolution for his advocacy on behalf of adding Sarah Palin to the 2008 Republican ticket and his decision to work as Chief of Staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle; who became an object of scorn in the mainstream media and Hollywood for daring suggest that the promotion of single motherhood might not have positive consequences for American society as a whole. Sadly, Kristol has decided to take up arms with the people who trashed his boss mercilessly as he unsuccessfully sought re-election as President George H.W. Bush’s running mate.

As an alumnus of the George H.W. Bush administration, Kristol should understand better than anybody the consequences of creating a fissure in the Republican Party. While President Bush’s primary challenger, Pat Buchanan, ended up winning zero states; the consequences of having a primary challenger bled into the general election and caused America’s 41^st President to become one of the three Presidents since World War II to come up short in his re-elction bid.

Four years ago, another #NeverTrumper, George Will, had a combative exchange with Bill O’Reilly on the number one cable news show for 16 years running. Prior to his appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Will had written a column for The Washington Post accusing the one-time king of cable news of “slandering” President Ronald Reagan. Will accused O’Reilly of “doing the work of the left” by including information about an effort to remove Reagan from office using the 25^th Amendment in his book Killing Reagan.  O’Reilly pushed back on Will’s assertion that his book served as a hit piece on America’s 40^th President; describing Killing Reagan as a “lauditory” book. 

Will has spent the entire Trump presidency doing exactly what he accused O’Reilly of doing in Killing Reagan: “doing the work of the left” by going on mainstream media outlets and calling on Americans to support Democrats in the 2018 mideterm elections. Apparently, Will forgot that the second they take control of all three branches of government, Democrats plan to take a sledgehammer to the legacy of Ronald Reagan; the man he supposedly cares so much about.  Prior to the 2016 Presidential Election, Will wrote a column for The Washington Post calling on conservatives to “help him lose 50 states.”  It must not have crossed Will’s mind that President Trump’s loss would have nullified one of President Reagan’s greatest achievements, the appointment of originalist icon Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court, by ensuring that his replacement would mirror the philosophy of “living Constitutionalists” such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Going back to Will’s outburst about O’Reilly, the brief discussion about the efforts to remove “the Gipper” from office in Killing Reagan in no way diminishes the legacy of Reagan; after all, these attempts bore absolutely no fruit. In fact, the American people liked Reagan so much that they effectively gave him a third term by electing his Vice President commander-in-chief in 1988. Keep in mind that any book written about President Trump 20-30 years from now will have to include a section about the efforts of the media, the left, and #NeverTrumpers to remove President Trump by any means necessary; including the 25^th Amendment. Like Killing Reagan, any book about President Trump will likely conclude that “he persisted,” despite all the efforts by the opposition to take him down.

While #NeverTrumpers have outsized influence in the mainstream media, they continue to shrink as a percentage of the American population. Many of the former #NeverTrumpers who contributed to the National Review piece entitled “Conservatives Against Trump” have come around to embracing the President. As the National Review piece demonstrates, many of those who initially opposed President Trump, had doubts about his allegiance to conservatism. The appointment of solid conservatives to the judicial branch and his support of policies that have led to record-low unemployment numbers have definitely assuaged their concerns. 

Flake, Kristol, and Will seem all too happy to throw all these accomplishments away because they refuse to swallow their pride. President Trump and his allies need not worry about trying to woo the most militant #NeverTrumpers. He won the 2016 Presidential Election without the #NeverTrumpers. In fact, he won more electoral votes than the most recent Republican President, George W. Bush, did in either of his White House bids. President Trump has built a new electoral coalition that has left the #NeverTrumpers behind. Most, if not all of the #NeverTrumpers claim to worship the idea of the free market yet they cannot seem to accept the fact that the free market (the American people) rejected their ideas in 2016 and will likely do the same in 2020.