You’ve probably heard that sentiment expressed on #MAGA Twitter a lot of times, and here in the comments at The Right Scoop, too. The Trump-devoted say you can’t be a Republican if you don’t support Donald Trump. Scratch that, you don’t have to just support him or his administration, you have be on Team Trump. You have to defend him, avoid criticizing. You have to be a part of it.
Not everyone says it. But more than don’t. And vastly more than those who say the opposite – that you must criticize Trump to be a “true” conservative Republican.
But this isn’t any of that. This, MAGA will be happy to hear, is a NeverTrump agreeing.
Well … sort of.
Former Republican Congressman David Jolly wrote today that you can’t be Never Trump and be a Republican. And that is the reason, he says, that he’s not going to be one anymore.
You’ve heard that sentiment, too, from people like Tom Nichols, who you now see on MSNBC, and Max Boot, who you now see on CNN and MSNBC and Bill Maher and any other liberal outfit that will have him. You even heard it from Steve Schmidt, right before he became the most rabid anti-conservative Resistance liberal the world possesses. But they don’t say it quite in those words. Their gimmick is always “I can’t be a Republican” or “I can’t in good conscience blah blah fart”. But Jolly is directing his appeal right at other anti-Trumps on the right and center-right, and he’s using the same words MAGA uses. Again, to put it clearly, that “you can’t be never-Trump and be a Republican.”
Here’s an excerpt.
My reason is simple: Never-Trumpism must also be a rejection of today’s GOP orthodoxy, not just the president himself.
Three years into the cultural and political phenomenon that is Donald Trump, we each can recall in vivid and anxious detail clear moments of his personal and presidential failings. This is a man who is well known for his misogyny, his equivocation and manipulation on matters of race and racial justice, a man largely unable to tell the truth or accept accountability, a man of little intellect, conviction or ideology who is often willing, and at times seemingly longing, to display his lack of temperament and fitness on the world stage.
The verdict is in, and it is clear. You either support Trump or you oppose him. You either find valor in his no-nonsense, boorish approach, or you find weakness and shamefulness both in the man and in the image he projects on the nation.
But Trump did not, as many have suggested, merely hijack a political party in order to rise to the most powerful position in the world. He walked right through the front door into the welcoming arms of a coalition that was eagerly awaiting his leadership and his ascendency(sic), a coalition that had long since abandoned conservatism for the more satisfying ideology of angry populism.
It was a Faustian bargain. He used the GOP for his own purpose, and the GOP used him for its own agenda in return.
Obviously there’s a lot more, with the requisite Palin- and Hannity-bashing typical of such departure pieces. If you are looking for his explanation of reconciling his purported philosophical views with those of his new brethren on the left, let me cut to the chase for you. There isn’t any. He doesn’t reconcile it.
To my Republican friends who will doubtless respond to my criticism by pointing to shortcomings within the Democratic party, I would simply suggest you direct those complaints to Democratic party leaders. It is not a political affiliation I have ever had, and therefore not one with which I have sufficient authority to discuss.
And he says why he stuck around with the icky party so long, too.
To those on the left who ask why I did not leave sooner, I would say this: I’m glad that I fought for what I thought the Republican Party could be and should be. In the example set by the work of my wife and I within the GOP, I hope our daughter will see the importance of fighting for something you believe in. And from our decision to eventually leave the party, I hope she learns that there are fights from which wiser women and men walk away.
I might be talking a bit too much Texas for Mr. Jolly, but “I want to teach my kids how to walk away from a fight” doesn’t sound all that heroic to me, even though this article is written with the somber self-sacrificing tone of a tragic hero of old.
Look, man, here’s the deal. You can be a Republican and be anti-Trump. You may not be well-liked, but you can do it. It’s a simple matter of not voting for the abortion party. It’s the easy thing you can do like voting for Republicans who will confirm Kavanaugh or reject gun control or cut taxes. That kind of thing matters to people.
Votes ain’t gonna decide how anyone feels about racism or hate. You aren’t going to elect world peace or put global harmony in office. But you can get some good policy if you vote for Republicans you like, don’t vote for ones you don’t, and don’t act like this is a monarchy. Trump is just that one guy. He has that particular job. He doesn’t have all the jobs.
Maybe ease up on the drama and talk about policy rather than climbing on a fake cross that doubles as a bridge to liberal celebrity. That route is pretty clogged up with creeps already.