GOPexit!! George Will quits the Republican party over Donald Trump

Conservative thinker George Will says he has switched parties and is no longer Republican – over el Trumpy.

From Reason.com:

At a Federalist Society lunch in Washington yesterday, conservative columnist and TV commentator George Will announced that he changed his Maryland voter registration this month from Republican to unaffiliated. “This is not my party,” he told the crowd, according to an account by PJ Media’s Nicholas Ballasy.

Will, who has arguably been the most biting and prolific member of the conservative anti-Trump club, reportedly cited House Speaker Paul Ryan’s endorsement of Trump as one of the last straws, and was noncommittal about whether he would support Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson. Asked by Ballasy to recommend what conservative anti-Trumpers should do now, Will said: “Make sure he loses.”

But what about that last-gasp reason, resonant among many of the legal thinkers at the libertarian/conservative Federalist Society, for backing even a revolting Republican—the Supreme Court? Will’s answer was revealing: “Sure, but I’m also concerned with the fact that I do not really believe Republicans think clearly enough about what they really want in judges,” he told Ballasy. “Having a Republican president is not an answer in itself.”

Well, shoot.

Will had just written a scathing attack on the Donald 3 days ago:

“Every republic,” writes Charles Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, “eventually faces what might be called the Weimar problem.” It arrives when a nation’s civic culture has become so debased that the nation no longer has “the virtues necessary to sustain republican government.” Do not dwell on what came after the Weimar Republic. But do consider the sufficiency of virtue that the Constitution’s framers presupposed.

Kesler recalls that James Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention contain this from the July 17, 1787, debate on the proposal to have presidents chosen by Congress: Rather than making the president a “creature of the legislature,” Gouverneur Morris favored election by the people. Rejecting the criticism that the people will be “uninformed,” he said: “They will never fail to prefer some man of distinguished character or services; some man . . . of continental reputation.”

In Trump, Republicans have someone whose reputation is continental only in being broadly known. He illustrates Daniel Boorstin’s definition of a celebrity as someone well-known for his well-knownness. It will be wonderful if Trump tries to translate notoriety into fulfillment of his vow — as carefully considered as anything else about his candidacy — to carry New York and California. He should be taunted into putting his meager campaign funds where his ample mouth is. Every dime or day he squanders on those states will contribute to a redemptive outcome, a defeat so humiliating — so continental — that even Republicans will be edified by it.

Clearly he is cheering for a Trump defeat – but is it just bitter malice, or does have a point about the violence Trump’s campaign is doing to our conservative principles? Who knows – words don’t really have meaning anymore.


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